It, Switzernd, it was the early hours of the m. In a chalet ely gss walls, Marie Finnegan sipped at a mug of hot chocote. On the coffee table, her phone beeped a notification. She picked it up and saw a text message sisting of only the letter C. She sat down her phone and her drink, then pulled out a sed phone and dialled a number not saved in the tacts. Her call was answered, but the person oher hand said nothing.
“firmation,” Marie said. “You have a go to initiate the grid intervention.”
She ehe call without waiting for reply, then activated her lighting fist ability, ign the heat as the phone caught fire aed over her hand. Several mier, the remains of the phone were in the bin and she’d washed her hands. As she returned from the bathroom, the phoill oable rang. The caller was listed as the work unications offi Zurich.
“Finnegan,” she said, on answering the call.
“Director, there is an i in Pakistan we o brief you on.”
***
The work had fragmeself into four, well over a decade ago. The ese and US govers had absorbed, or been absorbed by, their respective brahe Global Defework was made up of many lower-rankiwork operatives, along with remnants of the Engineers of Assion and members of the Cabal who schismed off during the rise of the vampire lords. The st fa was the rgest, born from the leadership of branches everywhere but the US and a, and possessing most of the work’s old assets. This was the group that operated with the approval of the Australian gover, managing the local ses of the grid and intercepting monsters.
A rge ti from Asano Vilge was airlifted to the work’s Sydney office. This included Anna, Cire Davney and members of various intelligence agehey were all shuffled into an amphitheatre-style briefing room with a rge proje s. From there, they watched live footage from Pakistan, with multiple perspectives dispyed side by side.
“Whose drones are providing this footage?” Cire asked. “The Pakistanis?”
“The Pakistani military have refused to share their feeds, Madam Secretary,” said the work liaison, Bryce. “We’ve tapped other drones deployed to the area, by local civilians and fn media.”
“That was fast,” Anna observed.
“We are not able to disclose any assets we may or may not have in the area,” Bryce said.
Little was happening on the projes s so far. It showed the Indus River, with a mass of rainbow light swirling over it, but no other activity.
“The curreimate is full maion in twelve to seventeen minutes,” Brynounced. “Mrs Tilden, the operation room is requesting aA on the arrival of the Asano group.”
Anna checked the time on her phone.
“Any moment now,” she said.
Around a mier, a portal opened ons. A bck st, filled with swirling darkness, appeared in the air. It was aligned horizontally, high over the water, and was rge enough for a bus to pass through. What did drop from the portal was a massive tortoise shell. The top and bottom halves were separated, ected only at the ers while the sides were left open. The shell segments on top each had a colourful, glowing ruched into it.
Inside was a veritable crowd of adventurers, who immediately started flying out into the air. Some had wings, others flew on clouds that shrouded their feet. Some flew through no visible means at all, like superheroes. They were a wild and eclectic group, looking variously like wizards, or heroes and monsters of a myth. Or even modern myth, with a few that would have passed as Jedi or Sith. One man had armour and wings of rainbow scales, matg those of the rainbon on whose back he stood. Another man art bird, like an eagle version of a werewolf.
“Asano isn’t in and,” Cire observed quietly. “That woman on a flying carpet seems to be direg the others.”
“Jason is not the leader of his adventuring team,” Anna said. “The man standing on the dragon is Humphrey Geller. His mother is serving as strategiander for the rger group.”
“I was led to believe they would move at Asano’s and.”
“They will move at Jason’s request. He values ear friendship over political alliance, which is one of the reasons he has trouble with diplomacy. His friends are fiercely loyal, Madam Secretary. Fed in fire loyal. This group is strong, and united.”
“And rge. This is more people than was revealed on their arrival. All gold rankers?”
“Yes.”
“And they each possess the strength of Asano and his team?”
“There’s a rough parity there, yes.”
“Mrs Tilden, statements by you and Rufus Remarding the bat potential at Asano’s and have rgely been sidered hyperbolic. Are we about to see a demonstration that they were not?”
“I imagihat depends on what es out of that maion, but I doubt it. That mah gold rankers would make short work of one maio alohis group. Barring something very unusual, I don’t see it posing enough of a threat to draw out their full power.”
“Let’s not rule out the ued,” Cire said. “Have you noticed Bryervously toug his earpiece?”
“I have. He doesn’t seem to like what he’s hearing.”
Cire stood up and took out her phone.
“It might be time for a call to my owwork operatives, bae.”
***
Marie Finnegan had one of the bedrooms in her chalet rearranged for dedicated video fereng. Four monitors were set up, each dispying a different feed. Two were showing drone footage from Pakistan, one was showing a grid systems analyst in Zurid the st was showing data taken from the grid. The grid data showed the Sindh Provin Pakistan, with moving lihat ranged from purple to an arming red.
“To be clear,” the analyst said, “these are not anomalies detected by the grid, but within the grid itself.”
“Are you saying that someone is attempting to colpse the grid again? Weren’t failsafes put io prevent, or at least detect that?”
“That’s what we’re looking at, Director. We’re uain as to what this is, but the Engineers of Assion atta the grid was unsophisticated. A blunt force. This is more nuanced, showing a superior uanding of how the grid funs.”
“And what is it doing?”
“Our best guess thus far is that it is elling additional magito the Pakistan maion. We don’t know if the iion is to disable the grid, create a greater maion er a transformation zo, like those in 2020. Or something else entirely. To be ho, Director, we’re w off educated guesses at best.”
“What do you reend?”
“At this point? Hope the people from the other world know what to do. Should we warn them?”
“No. If they are our best ce, we ’t risk them deg to pull out. We hem to face it, whatever it is?”
“And if it blows up and kills them?”
“Then at least the new problem will have solved the old one.”
***
Anna followed Courtney out of the briefing room to where Cire was waiting in the hallway.
“ you reach your people in Pakistan?” Cire asked without preamble.
Anna tapped a broo her jacket and the air shimmered around them.
“Privacy magi the other world,” she expined. “Shade, are you here?”
“I am, Mrs Tilden,” Shade’s voice came from her shadow.
“Then anything you say here will reach Asano,” Anna told Cire.
“Someone is sabotaging the grid. Feeding magito the Pakistan maion. We don’t know why, how, what they want, or how likely they are to get it. Anything more than that is going to take time we don’t have to figure out.”
“Thank you, Madam Secretary,” Jason’s voice came from Anna’s shadow. “We’ll do our best to keep a lid on things.”
***
Most of the gold rankers were moving into position around the maion, taking formation team by team. Jason’s team were the furthest aositioo protect the Sukkar Barrage as Clive, Farrah and Belinda pced it under a prote ritual. Jason floated over to the trio.
“ you spare Farrah?” Jason asked. “There may be an issue with the grid, and she’s the closest thing we have to an expert.”
“’t it wait?” Farrah asked. “We’re in the middle of something here.”
“The grid is feedira magito the maion,” Jason told her.
“Oh,” Farrah said. “Clive, do you have it from here?”
“We’ve got it,” Clive said.
“Do you have a dimensional verge spectrum analyser?” Farrah asked him.
Clive took a device from his ste space that looked like a cluster of crystals ected by straws for a school sce project, and tossed it to Farrah. She and Jason then shot towards the main group, Farrah’s fiery wings bzing on her back. They reached Danielle, Jason expining the situation while Farrah used the device to take readings of the maion.
“Thoughts?” Jason asked.
“Depends. If this is inteo detonate like one of Travis’ big bombs, we should leave. A gold-rank explosion on that scale isn’t something all of us could survive.”
“I don’t think that’s what we’re looking at,” Farrah said, peering at a mess of light swirling over the device. “Ba the day, when the grid was taken offline, ued proto-spaces broke down and turned into monster waves. I think we’re looking at that process being artificially forced and accelerated.”
“You’re saying that thousands of monsters are going to pour out of this?” Jason asked.
“Even with this group, we ’t hahousands of gold-rank monsters,” Danielle said.
“They would mostly be silver rank,” Jason said. “There would still be enough golds to make it a rough day, though. Maybe we’ll get lucky and it’ll spawn a really big essenstead of monsters.”
“That would be nice,” Danielle said, “but I find things like this don’t often go nicely.”
“Jason,” Farrah asked. “Do you still have that instinctive sense for dimensional forces? The one Clive says is cheating?”
“I do. I don’t know how much I’ll be able to tell you, but I’ll have a rummage.”
He drifted onto Danielle’s flying carpet, so he didn’t have to trate on keeping himself aloft. He tapped his foot on the carpet.
“Is this new?”
“I have a lot of flying devices,” Danielle told him.
He closed his eyes and projected his seowards the maion.
“I’m kind of getting a proto-space feel off of this,” he said. “ly, though; I have to squint to see it. There’s a definite sense of energy p in, though. I’m not sure this maion hold it together. It feels like it’s being overloaded.”
“I’m seeing a lot of instability as well,” Farrah said. “It might be time to run for the hills.”
Jason opened his eyes to look at the device Farrah was still using. The light shining over it was roiling like water in a washing mae.
“Let my try something,” Jason said. “I’ve been trying to limit my influen the reality around me because it’s kind of rude, but it might be time to go the other way.”
Jason floated into the air, up and over the maion. A portal of white stone, appeared high above his head, filled with gold, silver and blue transdent light. The portal was ft, like a halo over the maion, and wide enough to fit a house through. Jason floated between the portal and the maion, arms held out to his sides. The light of the portal grew brighter and brighter, until it was hard to look at.
An aura emerged from the portal, swift as a tsunami but heavy as treacle, weighing down on everyo was domineering and otherworldly, g dominion over everything it touched. It kept p out, spreading over the whion. After a mi had goen kilometres, with no sign of stopping. Everywhere it went, every person of age to accept essences received a message.
System Alert: Unstable Reality
Physical reality in the local area has been promised, potentially triggering a transformation zohe Hegemon has desded, expanding his influeo stabilise reality.The source of the instability will ma a monster wave te accumuted magiielle and Farrah watched as Jason vanished in a pilr of transdent light. It desded from the portal like a divine visitation, inundating the maion until it was barely visible.
“Did Jasoion anything to you about being fshy?” Farrah asked.
“He did say something,” Danielle said. “I prefer things and effit, but he cimed it was Anna Tilden’s idea.”
“She’s normally quite sensible. Are you sure it wasn’t Jason wanting to show off?”
“No, but I suppose it doesn’t really matter, at this stage.”
“No, I suppose not.”
While Jason’s enhanced aura was a hammering cacophony to supernatural sehe area was eerily quiet to normal hearing. That ged with a ripping sound that filled the air like thunder. It was an alien, nails-on-chalkboard screech, somewhere between shearial and shattering stone. As the excruciating noise ti out, the first monsters emerged from the light.
