[ World #E-391 – Earth, Vert City, Month-by-Month Apartment Rental ]
Getting to Earth had been, administratively speaking, a nightmare.
The Cosmic Assembly had protocols for dimensional travel to pre-Filter worlds – forms, clearances, the kind of tedious nit-picking bureaucracy that existed less to protect anything and more to justify the salaries of the people who had created it. Timesheets for the cosmos.
Orin had filled out fourteen separate documents. Three of them twice because he had used the wrong ink designation the first time – only blue, Absynthian blue, in particular. Which he had to buy at a mark-up, which apparently mattered, and what nobody had told him until after he had submitted them. Apparently, which he had learned later on, one of Planet Absynthia's long-horned beetle species produced blue dye that had truth-detection capabilities; the ink would turn red when the user signed documents with malintent.
He had been issued a dimensional transfer artifact for his return, a field monitoring unit considerably less sophisticated than his desk setup at home, an Earth currency allowance in physical bills that reminded him of his parent's antique dresser (and the loose coins and currency and trinkets they had stuffed in it during their retirement travels across the universe), a transceiver for communication, and finally, a couple human documents. A passport and birth certificate that his superior had handed to him along with a look that communicated several things simultaneously, chief among them: this is your fault, do not make it worse.
His superior's toupee had been slightly askew when he said it.
It was always slightly askew when things were bad.
They had arrived through a transfer point in a quiet industrial district's back-alley at four in the morning local time. Caelus stepped through the portal first with an unhurried ease that Orin found simultaneously surprising – given what he knew of young Ambassadors – and also accurate – given what he knew of Caelus Edenveil.
He was well aware that Planet Ratiora was a rather new addition to the Cosmic Assembly. Fourteen years post-Filter was like being freshly born, with most planets and their Ambassadors only finding their footing around the one-hundredth year. Previous Planetary Ambassadors would still find portal travel and the stiff interactions with the Cosmic Assembly anxiety-inducing and uncomfortable. But, Caelus Edenveil seemed like he had been doing this for ages – and had found nothing about it remarkable.
Senior Field Inspector Elliott, of the pre-Filter Divison, a brooding, moody fellow with dark hair and steel-blue eyes, entered the portal second, following Caelus with a stern, efficient demeanor.
And finally, Orin arrived last, stumbling slightly on the landing, catching himself on a grimy brick wall, and looked up to find both of them already walking toward the street.
He ran to catch up.
The apartment had three rooms and a persistent oniony smell of someone else's cooking from the apartment next door and a television Orin had turned on once and then turned off because the noise made everything feel worse. By pre-Filter Earth standards it was perfectly adequate. It had a kitchen with a table and four chairs and windows that looked out over a street that was always slightly too loud at the wrong hours. It had a bathroom with adequate water pressure and a bedroom for each of them and a sitting area where they spent most of the time not talking to each other.
They had been on Earth for around half a day. By any other standard it was the worst day of Orin Benidan's professional life, which was saying something given that the previous record holder had been the afternoon he called his superior to report his four-year classification error.
He already missed his gurgling baby Miriam. He already missed his gregariously charming and simultaneously nagging wife. He already missed his desk and his home work setup and his daily routine that did not involve sitting three feet away from a Planet Ambassador who was two-hundred and thirty-eight years old and had launched Planet Ratiora into post-Filter admission on the strength of his magic alone. Planet Ratiora had also become the planet in the entire recorded history of the Cosmic Assembly to clear the Filter the fastest. The second fastest filter clear had been 54 years. Caelus and Ratiora had beaten that by fifty-one years. The strength of the feat was not lost on Orin, and he regarded Caelus with a healthy and ample dose of caution.
Moreover, Caelus kept doing the thing.
The thing being: asking about his family.
Caelus had done it four times since they had arrived at their rental. Each time in the same incomprehensible tone – warm, genuinely curious, particular attentiveness.
How old is your daughter now?
Miriam – that's a lovely name.
And your wife, she's in the monitoring division too?
And Orin would answer, because what did you do when an Ambassador that had blown up a thousand of his colleagues in favor of his planet asked about your family, you answered, and Caelus would listen with the patient attention of someone receiving genuinely interesting information and then go quiet. Not coldly. Not dismissively. Just – done. The warmth presented one moment and then silence all-consuming the next, and Orin could not parse whether this was friendliness or something that looked like friendliness and was something else entirely.
He had been trying to parse it for the past three hours.
He had not succeeded.
He also missed his soda.
Pre-Filter Earth had soda. This was technically fine. It was carbonated, it had flavoring, it had fizz. It did not have the tang – the sharp citrus-mineral bite of his homeworld brand that he had been drinking every single day for fifteen years and which apparently did not exist in this dimension. He had bought a generous arrangement of flavors from the convenience store and had already tried four different Earth flavors within the past six hours. None of them had the tang. He had the current one in front of him now and it was fine and it was still not the same and he was more upset about this than was probably rational given the circumstances.
He took a sip. No tang.
He put it down.
Across the table, Caelus lifted a glass teapot. Checked the color of the liquid against the window light – delicate attention of someone who considered steeping time non-negotiable. Replaced the lid. Thirty more seconds – apparently.
At the window, Elliott stood with his arms crossed looking out at the street below.
He said it every hour:
"Still nothing."
Orin nodded his head slowly in confirmation. He checked the monitoring unit. Surface readings clean. Wherever the entity was, it wasn't on Earth. The signature had disappeared – which was alarming because the aberration had been confirmed as on World #E-391 just three days ago.
But now it was gone. Orin worriedly wrung his hands, he wasn't sure if–
The equipment pinged.
Something came through. Not a full alert. A fragment – truncated quality of data that had started escalating and been cut off before it finished. Half a flag. The data came in a broken string. The kind of thing that happened when a System alert was manually suppressed mid-process.
Orin stared at it.
< System Alert >
Unauthorized Entity detected.
Unauthorized System action.
Evolutionary lock dismantled on Specimen #78a09d of World #E-391.
Gate #4213–
He read it twice. Three times.
"It's in a gate!" he shouted. He slapped his forehead with his palm.
Of course! His voice came out slightly higher than intended. He cleared his throat.
"That's why we haven't been able to find it," he looked excitedly towards Elliott. "It's been inside a gate the whole time and we've been looking for it on the surface and–"
"–and it just suppressed another System alert," Elliott said, cutting Orin off and already moving from the window. He looked at the monitoring unit. Professional flatness recalibrating with increased drive,
"Nobody is currently authorized for System suppression on World #E-391. This half-alert means the aberration definitely tampered with it," Orin added excitedly.
Elliott pinched the bridge of his nose and breathed out a long sigh through his nostrils. "Which gate?"
Orin checked the coordinates. Cross-referenced with the active gate registry.
"Couldn't get a full serial," he muttered, hands clacking furiously across the keyboard. He checked the timestamps. But based on the first few numbers, it's definitely a GO-3 or above gate.
"Pull up all the active gates and their locations," Elliott said, "we'll go search through them one by one."
"Yes, sir", Orin responded.
Elliott looked at Caelus.
Caelus picked up his tea.
The corner of his mouth arrived before the words did – a quiet, slightly amused look of someone who had been patient for three years – and was not going to stop being patient – now that the distance had closed to a planet and a few gates.
He took a sip. Put the cup down. Smiled broadly, a twinkle in his glimmering, golden eyes.
"Let's get the car."
✦ ♡ ✦
In the distance, Rian saw a small subset of the formation was already moving toward them.
Rena first – crossing the cavern floor with her flat, efficient stride. Ophelia behind her, gold shimmer already present at her hands. Emerson. Yoru.
Therain and Anna, the other two healers, focused on triaging the rest of the formation for now.
Rian rose slowly to his feet. Sera was still in his arms, her head against his chest, his palm flat against her mouth. Hibiscus was at his feet, breathing, alive, her destroyed shoulder at the wrong angle.
Rena and Ophelia reached Hibiscus first. Rena crouched without breaking stride – hands moving gently and swiftly across the destroyed shoulder, reading the damage with careful attention. Ophelia's gold shimmer spread outward immediately.
Rian backed away – moving an unusual distance, about twenty or more feet away from Hibiscus, Rena, and Ophelia.
Emerson and Yoru came up beside him.
Emerson's eyes went immediately to the fractured arm – the white bone through flesh, the mangled skin and muscle, dripping blood – damage of something used well past its structural limit. His hands moved to it, assessing.
"Can you set her down?" Emerson asked, calmly analyzing Sera's destroyed limb.
Rian hesitated for a moment, hands stiffening a little tighter around Sera's unconscious body. Then, in acquiescence, he lowered to one knee – and began to set her down carefully and gently.
Yoru raised an eyebrow at this action – unusual, he thought, but his answer came quickly after.
In the motion of setting her down, in the shifting of weight and the repositioning of arms, Rian's palm slipped from her mouth. Sharp and small white fangs glimmered in the light.
Emerson was looking at the mangled arm – hadn't noticed the shiny points.
Ah.
Yoru reached out his hand in an instant, it landed with a light slap. Flat against Sera's mouth. No gap between the slip and the landing – Rian's hand absent and then Yoru's present, the motion so immediate it had no visible beginning.
Emerson looked up.
Yoru's hand was flat against Sera's mouth. Emerson's eyes moved to it. Then to Yoru.
"What are you doing?"
"Checking for breath," Yoru lied.
Emerson chuckled. "Don't worry, your beloved is alive." He looked back at the arm. "But she'll need a proper set." Emerson continued, a gentle green shimmer hovering above Sera's body and her arm.
Yoru looked at Rian.
Rian looked at Yoru.
No words.
Yoru had wondered why Rian was being so weirdly…cagey…about setting down a guide, why his hand was around Sera's mouth when it had no business being there. And then, in that slip, he had seen it.
Instinctively, he covered it as well.
They looked at each other, calm steel-grey eyes locked on moody violet ones. Both of their faces set in a flat line.
Whatever Sera was – or more accurately, whatever she was not – they both knew.
And they were both, for whatever reasons, hiding it.
Certainly, a discussion would be had, but not now. Yoru's eyes moved sideways, glancing quickly toward the hunched Ophelia, still bent over Hibiscus, gold shimmer present, her attention completely on the guide in front of her. He flicked his head towards her, a single nudge of his head and then looked back at Rian.
Rian got the message. He straightened.
"Ophelia. Emerson. Switch," he barked.
Rena's voice came from beside Hibiscus. "What, there's no–"
"Switch," he interrupted. He looked directly at Rena's brown eyes, unrelenting, but refused to justify.
Rena closed her mouth slowly, keeping her gaze quietly on Rian. Then, with a slight nod of her head and a wave of her hand, allowed it.
Emerson and Ophelia looked at each other. Then Ophelia stood and moved to Sera. Emerson moved to Hibiscus without comment. Yoru's hand was still flat against Sera's mouth – steady like a fly to sticky-paper. Ophelia crouched beside him and her eyes moved across Sera's form with the same professional assessment she had given Hibiscus.
The fractured arm. The dried blood. Her hands moved to the forearm, reading the break. Her eyes moved upward.
Yoru's hand was still there – on Sera's face.
She began her analysis. Hands moving carefully across the arm, the body, cataloguing the rest of the damage. Her face was professional and calm. Thorough.
"Ophelia," Rian said.
She looked up and flinched in surprise.
Commander Thern was crouched across from her, amethyst eyes level with hers. Suddenly closer than where he was before. His voice low and hushed, an edge of threat to it – the specific register of something not meant to carry past the three of them.
"Are you…a friend of Sera's?" he asked quietly.
Ophelia furrowed her brow, cocking her head to the side in confusion. This was…a strange question for a Commander to ask, especially given the situation. Her eyes moved sideways towards Yoru.
But Yoru was also looking at her with a similarly solemn expression.
He was still. Abnormally still. His grey eyes no longer contained the usual easiness and humor that had endured through fights and brawls and near-death instances. His hand was pressed firmly against Sera's mouth. Yoru gave her a slight somber nod.
She looked back at Rian.
"Yes, sir," Ophelia responded. "She's one of my regular guides and we're–" another pause, something cautious moving through her voice " –friends."
Rian held her gaze.
"Good," he said. The same low hushed tone. Turbulent, purple boring grimly into hers – she shivered internally.
"Then," he said low, the edge to his voice still present and threatening, "you will not speak a word of what you're going to see."
Ophelia swallowed, looked cautiously and quietly between Yoru and Rian once more, before nodding.
"Yes, Commander Thern."
Yoru lifted his palm.