In ancient times cats were worshipped as gods; they have not forgotten this. Friday morning, Luke woke up as he did most mornings, with his cat’s butt in his face. Jinx insisted on a 6AM feeding and brooked no delay.

  Luke had found Jinx on the side of the road three years ago with two shattered back legs. The vet had to amputate them. Other cats may have gotten wheelchairs, but Luke had access to something most people didn't. Months earlier, he had improved his own prosthetic leg with magic runes. After Jinx’s surgery, he made her the world’s first set of magic cat prosthesis.

  Once she got used to them, she jumped and climbed all over the house. She got into everything and became a terror in the house. But at the same time, Jinx clearly appreciated what he had done for her. She often found time to snuggle in his lap and give affectionate headbutts. Luke suspected Jinx was only doing that to manipulate him, but he didn’t care. He loved his cat with all his heart.

  Luke pushed her off his head. He slipped on his stump sock and leg, making sure the runes were all powered before putting weight on it. He felt the familiar hum of the mana-infused components, a subtle thrumming against his residual limb that always felt like a second heartbeat.

  Once her royal highness was fed, Luke made a cup of coffee for himself. He had a quiet morning, scrolling mindlessly through his phone. Other days he might have tried to get more sleep, but not today. He was too nervous.

  Today was the first day of his new job, and although it didn’t start for another few hours, he couldn’t sleep. His anxiety slowly grew through the morning. There was frustration too, he had liked his old job.

  His old job was as a mechanic for power loaders, exoskeleton suits powered by technology and magic. They were a replacement for forklifts, since they wouldn’t work near the portal. Regular technology tended to go on the fritz with prolonged exposure to the mana surrounding the gateway between their two worlds.

  He had been their best rune repairman. Employee of the month for eighteen months running. There was something about runes that made sense to him in a way that was difficult for others to grasp. They had to be perfectly inscribed while in the correct mindset. It felt like music to him, the right notes in the right order, but played with feeling.

  A few days ago an orc in white leather armor and a red necktie had walked into his job. The tall greenskin had taken one look at the employee of the month wall and demanded his boss fire him. Mr. Kruger hadn’t even tried to fight for Luke, he had agreed in a heartbeat. The orcs and elves from Kalibutan always got what they wanted on Earth. No one asked Luke what he wanted.

  At first, Luke had refused to work for the orc. He wanted to defy the people that thought they could treat him like a serf. But the letter the orc had left behind changed his mind. It had promised a monster core every two weeks, and those sold for $22k on the open market.

  The other thing that convinced him to give the orc a chance was the new job itself. It was on the other side of the portal, as a rune repairman for suits of armor. He could still do a job he loved, just on the other side of the portal. The world of Kalibutan had their own inscribers, but apparently humans were cheaper than the natives.

  Eventually, Luke got tired of waiting and decided to head out. He would be early, but he was nervous about the job. He said goodbye to Jinx and hopped into his Nissan clunker.

  He drove north on the I-25, heading towards the Norfolk Complex built up around the portal between worlds. He ran into a traffic jam just after the Weld County exit. He sat there for a few minutes, completely stopped, only growing more confused as time went on. They were almost in the boonies at this point, well outside the Fort Collins metro traffic. The only people that should be on this road are the locals and those heading to work around the portal.

  Traffic started slowly moving a few minutes later. As Luke slowly inched forward, he pieced together what must have happened.

  There had been an accident. Two hover trucks had crashed into each other. The sight made Luke laugh. The commercials for those hover trucks showed how they could stop on a dime and were nigh invincible. Apparently this is what happened when two invincible transports crashed into each other. Then he realized that someone might have gotten hurt and he felt bad for laughing.

  The transports looked like they had collided head on, but it must not have been at too high of a speed. They were both on their side, blocking the intersection, but neither seemed too mangled. A glance over to the ambulance nearby showed two men wearing blankets and sipping coffee. Probably the drivers of the transports, and Luke felt a flood of relief at the sight. Now his laughter was justified, not gruesome.

  The police had blocked off the intersection, and there were a pair of heavy duty tow trucks parked nearby. Everyone was just standing around though. No one was working to clear the intersection, they were turning everyone around. Luke would have to hop back on the interstate and go the long way around to get to the portal complex.

  Luke impatiently waited for his own turn to make a U-turn. He briefly considered a bit of off-roading, but he knew his car couldn’t take it. As he made it towards the front of the line, he locked eyes with a paramedic he knew, Vanessa. She smiled and headed over.

  He couldn’t help the smile that spread on his own face. She had long red hair with freckles and generous curves. Exactly his type. If she didn’t already have a boyfriend, he would have pulled out of line just to flirt with her. Luke rolled down his passenger window and she leaned down to talk with him.

  “Luke! Great to see you. Just the man I was hoping to see,” she said and pulled a strand of hair behind her ears.

  He smiled and said, “Always happy to see you, Vanessa. How are you doing?”

  “I feel like I’m in a nightmare. We have a dangerous wreck over there and no one is taking me seriously about it,” she said and pointed at the hover trucks.

  “Dangerous how?” Luke said with a frown.

  “I think one of the mana cores is going to breach. It was damaged in the wreck and it’s sparking. I think it’s going to blow, but they won’t evacuate.”

  Luke’s heart started beating faster. A mana core explosion could be devastating. The amount of energy in a core was more than enough to level the buildings around the wreck. That was normally impossible, the cores were well protected and wouldn’t explode even if damaged. However, she said it was sparking. One of the runes drawing power from the core must have been damaged. That could be bad. “What about the Inscriber’s Guild? This is their job, right?”

  Vanessa nodded, “I called the Norfolk Complex to come up and clear the wreck ‘cus they are only five minutes away. But the girl that answered the phone said they usually get into work at 10AM. I’m worried the core’s going to blow before their lazy asses get to work. Please, can you help?” She leaned forward over his car window.

  Luke wasn’t sure if she was intentionally showing off her cleavage or not, but either way, it was working. She was hitting on his two main weaknesses, beautiful women and sticking it to bureaucrats.

  Luke took a deep breath. “I hate that damn guild. Bunch of lazy pricks. I’ll help, I have my tools with me and I can clear the wreck. Just make sure no one rats me out. If the guild found out I did their job for them, I could lose my certifications.”

  She jumped up and clapped her hands once, “Perfect, I’ll go tell the Fire Chief.”

  Luke pulled off onto the shoulder and popped his trunk. He hadn’t ever worked on the hover trucks, but he wasn’t worried about it. He worked with mana cores all day in his old job. They were dangerous, but he understood them. The elves had taught humans everything they needed to know.

  He headed towards the wreck, giving the Fire Chief a nod as he went. The chief nodded and then turned away, pretending not to see him.

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  The man grumbled to himself as Luke walked on. “Goddamn aliens, bringing their freaky damn..”

  Luke never thought of them as aliens, but technically the Fire Chief was right. They looked like elves and orcs and dwarves, but really, they were people that evolved on planets far from Earth. They called themselves Thubanian, Galaxian, and Grunka. They looked similar to their fantasy counterparts, but there were small differences in their appearances and culture. Relying on Earth stories to interact with them had caused a few incidents.

  Not that it really mattered to Luke. He planned on minimizing his contact with them, particularly the orcs. He had been part of the defense force during their failed invasion, and had lost his right leg above the knee. He still woke up screaming some nights despite the fact it had been five years. Working near the portal to their world every day had been a constant rebellion against his fears. And now he was going to visit their world every day.

  He pushed the worry out of his mind and focused on what was in front of him. He knelt in front of the more mangled hover truck and got to work. The underside of the truck was covered in palm sized runes, with a central mana core powering them. This one had a partially exposed mana core, but it was still well protected. The reason the transports were rated as nearly indestructible was that they were made of higher tier materials. A jackhammer from Earth wouldn't be able to dent it. Without his mana torch and vibro wrench, he wouldn’t be able to release the casings. Without his inscriber, he couldn’t disconnect the runes powering the transports.

  He was a bit nervous that he wouldn't be able to get the core out. After all, he was used to working with an entirely different size core, marble sized instead of palm sized. But he didn’t have to dismantle it correctly, the casing was ruined anyway. When he got stuck he just cut through the problem.

  In less than five minutes he had the first mana core out. Once it was fully disconnected, it stopped glowing and sparking. He moved over to the next hover truck and popped off the bent cover over the runes and core. He paused for a second and took a quick picture of the runes. He knew he wasn’t supposed to, the Inscriber’s Guild had very clear rules against it, but he hated following stupid rules.

  He tucked away his phone and got to work again. Using what he learned from the first transport, he quickly removed the casing and exposed the core. A few minutes later he cut the last power rune.

  He tried to hand over the core to the fire chief, but the man backed up with his hands up and said, “Don’t hand me that damn thing.” The chief took two more steps back and said, “I am not certified to touch it anyway.”

  “Right, right. You don’t want to get mixed up in alien stuff,” Luke said. After a moment’s thought he brought both cores over to the nearest sidewalk. Then he said to the fire chief, “Look at that. The accident just so happened to bounce both of those mana cores to the sidewalk. What are the chances?”

  The chief’s mouth twitched up a bit and said, “What are the chances?” Then he shouted over to the tow truck drivers, “Scene is clear, get these wrecks out of here.”

  Luke packed up his tools and headed back to his car. Vanessa met him there.

  “Thanks Luke. Even though you were never here, you’re a literal lifesaver. I’ll have to pay you back one of these days. I’ll give you a call when I am back on day shifts and we can get together.” She stood up on her tiptoes and gave him a quick kiss.

  Luke smiled, then made an exaggerated shocked expression. “What would your boyfriend say?”

  “Nothing. I kicked that bastard to the curb a few weeks ago.”

  “Glad to hear it,” Luke said and wiggled his eyebrows. The instant he did it, he regretted it. He felt so cringe but tried not to show it.

  She laughed and pushed him away, “Don’t you have to get to work?”

  “I do, sadly. It was good seeing you. Talk to you soon,” he said, hoping that he was reading into things correctly.

  She seemed like she was into him, but he wasn’t sure if she was actually into him or if she was just being grateful that he saved the day. He felt like he had a chance with her, he had a good personality and a decent physique. He was just under six feet and had an average face with short brown hair. He worked out regularly and had lean muscle. Time would tell if she was really into him.

  He hopped into his car and headed down the road as soon as it was clear. The Norfolk Complex came into view shortly afterwards, a sprawling group of warehouses and an airfield abutted a large concrete building. Luke knew that there was a portal inside that ugly building, slowly spreading mana to the surrounding area. Unless you had a mana core, just about everything magical needed to be near a portal to work. It was one of fifty-two portals spread out around the world. The elves had planned on taking over the world in a one day blitzkrieg, but only the portal in Bolivia was successful. The other fifty-one portals were a center of commerce, steady trade passed through the portal under the careful watch of various armed forces.

  Getting through security was much faster today. Usually there was a line of cars at the entrance gate, but the wreck had messed with everyone’s schedule. Luke showed his badge and breezed on through. There were more than a dozen different companies within the complex, each with a warehouse or two on the property.

  Normally, he would be heading towards the farthest building, the repair shop for ManaTek. Now he was going to go work for the orc that got him fired. He wouldn’t miss his cowardly boss, but he would miss Allen, his best friend. They used to work next to each other and shoot the shit all day.

  They still kept in touch and went out drinking the day he got fired, but Luke missed hanging out with his friend. Allen did tell Luke that they were already falling behind quota without him there. That brought him a bit of schadenfreude.

  All too soon, Luke found himself in front of massive bunker doors. This was the entrance to the portal building. When the elves had first cast the portal spell, this area had been suburbs on the edge of the city. In the years after the treaty, the government had built up a massive concrete building with layers of redundant security. If one of the native Kalibutan monsters got loose in the countryside, it would mean another massacre until it died of mana starvation.

  The smart thing would be to close off the portal completely, or at least severely limit the access. But the corporations that were making billions from portal trade would never allow that. Instead, they invested in a multi-layer defense system that still allowed power loaders to walk in and out without pause.

  Luke followed a group of five power loaders through the large metal doors. They clomped down the wide hallway, metal footsteps slightly muffled by rubber shoes. Where they went left, Luke had to turn right and talk to the man in the security booth.

  “Looking for a day pass through the portal,” Luke said as if he did this all the time.

  The guard held out his hand and said, “Complex ID and Corporation Pass.”

  He handed over his Norfolk Complex ID and the letter. “I have a letter from Cormac Gobnait, he asked me to meet him at the portal today.”

  “Seneschal Cormac sent you a letter? Oh, you are one of those. You’re like an hour early,” the guard said with sudden understanding. He waved away the letter and scanned Luke’s ID. He handed it back and said, “The meeting place is just across the way from the shrines on their side of the portal. Good luck. Try not to die too quickly. It’s starting to give us humans a bad rap.”

  “Die? I’m not supposed to be doing anything dangerous, just an armor repair job.”

  “Alright, whatever. Be back by 8pm today and be prepared for inspection. If you bring more than 10k in valuables back home, you have to declare and pay taxes right away. The Revenue Agent can make change if needed.”

  “Ok, sure. But what was that about dying? Who’s dying?”

  The guard shrugged and firmly waved him away.

  Slightly unnerved, Luke walked through the winding corridors towards the portal room. Half of the complex was dedicated to this long path. It was one of the many defensive measures the army had installed. They said it was to protect against rogue monsters, but he knew it was partly to prevent another invasion attempt by the orcs and dwarves. For some reason, everyone liked the Elves, even though they were the ones nominally in charge on the planet Kalibutan.

  Eventually, the corridor opened up into a large room. The portal room. Off to the left were a group of people in power loaders, lining up and preparing to rush through the portal. To the right were a line of power loaders leaving the room, all fully laden with crates of supplies. In the back two corners of the room were soldiers manning heavy machine gun emplacements.

  In the center of the room was the portal. It was a large rectangular portal, about twenty feet tall and twelve wide. Currently, there was a red light above and below the portal. Luke knew that it would turn green when it was their turn to head through.

  The portal was a transparent purple, like a thin film of liquid stretched across the entrance. As the power loaders walked through, the film stretched and bent around them slightly before they passed through with a ripple.

  It reminded Luke of the Stargate TV show, except it wasn’t under a mountain. And they didn’t have those cool iris things to block off the portal. At least, they didn’t have any visible defenses like that. He would be shocked if the military hadn’t built a dozen less obvious ways to disable the portal should that be needed.

  Luke almost felt naked as he stood there. His fingers itched to hold the comforting weight of a M4 carbine rifle. Not that it had done him any good the last time he was up against the orcs. The marines in the corners held the newer XM7, with mana infused bullets. Each round was said to cost over a thousand dollars.

  The line of power loaders ended and a group of scientists followed them out. A woman in a black suit was watching them leave and checking a device in her hands. A minute later, the light around the portal turned green. The magic exosuits near him picked up their cargo and headed through the shimmering field.

  Luke’s heart started beating faster and he lurched into action. He joined the line of people heading through, absentmindedly showing the guard at the portal his day pass.