This," Giacomo said, "is Supervisor Riva. Newly transferred from central command. She'll be your escort today. Try not to die under her watch."
Riva looked about our age. Maybe a year or two older, Wifeable, brown skin, no nonsense face, silver eyes, not glowing, but unsettling enough to look like they were thinking for her.
"Any questions?" she asked.
Nobody answered.
Even Luan kept quiet.
Riva nodded. "Good. Then get dressed. We leave in twenty."
The sound of my boots echoed against the marble tiles as I walked past the eastern quad alone, hazard helmet tucked under my arm. The suit clung to me like second skin, standard issue, sleek black, lightweight, crest-suppressed, and hotter than sin under the Virelia sun.
The walk to the pickup zone was long enough to get lost in thought, and I did. Virelia Institute, crown jewel of rift academia. They called it the cradle of tomorrow's topplers.
But when you really looked, really looked, what you saw wasn't just grandeur or prestige. You saw a city-state hiding rot behind red-brick walls and biometric gates. A safehouse for secrets, stitched together by cafeteria gossip and student loans.
Three students gone in the last month. One hospitalized. Zero answers.
But hey—go Hawks.
Just as I turned the corner, I heard the clicking of heels. That voice hit before the sight did.
"Well, well. Look who finally decided to breathe outside his cave."
Alexa.
She was dressed in the same heat-flirting red mini skirt and white blouse from the dorms, blazer slung lazily over her shoulder. The smirk was still there too, same one I saw last week, right before she climbed on Calvin like he was furniture.
Trailing behind her were two of her friends, all manicured nails, thick lashes, and bottle-brazen laughter. Their eyes swept over me like I was a late-night snack wrapped in mystery.
Alexa stepped close, lips glossed like sin. "Didn't see you at the party."
"Had other things to investigate," I said dryly.
One of her friends giggled behind her. "Is that what you call it now?"
"I don't party with people I'm still gathering data on."
That got a snort from the taller friend. "Wow. Bro really said I'm the assignment."
As they passed, the short one slipped me something folded in a tissue. Her fingers lingered a little too long on mine before she winked and disappeared with the others.
I looked down. Phone number and a lipstick mark. Predictable.
I felt something crawling up my throat, just waiting to explode.
"Achew" I covered my nose, not even sneeze could catch me lacking
I wiped my nose with the tissue and tossed it in the bin.
The landing carrier sat at the edge of the courtyard, humming low, sleek and matte black with silver wings. The door was open. I stepped in.
Inside, the rest of the group was getting into their gear, gloves half-on, boots still unzipped, the usual last-minute scramble. Supervisor Riva stood with arms folded, watching everyone like she was calculating insurance premiums.
"Cross," she said as I stepped in.
And there she was.
Hermoine Cross. Firstborn of the Cross family. Doctor of Rift Biology. Virelia's youngest science prodigy in the last two decades.
Her dark skin gleamed under the carrier lights. She wore glasses, sharp-rimmed, short hair perfectly parted. Lab coat clean, pressed. The energy of someone who could politely explain how you were about to die from radiation exposure.
Riva nodded to her. "Students, this is Dr. Cross. She'll be guiding your collection procedure."
I felt eyes on me but kept quiet. No need for unnecessary connections.
Jonas muttered under his breath. "Damn, that's the doc? I need to switch majors."
Milo leaned over to Willy. "Tell me I'm not the only one thinking 'hot professor'…"
Willy just raised a brow. "...She taught us Bio 101, you know."
Milo blinked. "Oh that was her?! I was too busy failing the labs to notice."
Hermoine pretended not to hear. Professional, to the bone.
She activated the holographic map in the center of the cabin. The rift zone lit up in red markers.
"You'll be heading to a formerly active zone just outside Dorsa Point," she said. "Category One. Already cleared by our clean-up crew. Your job is to extract molecular residue from within the variant drop points and bring them back for analysis. You'll each be given a collector node calibrated to your unique crest signature"
"Question," Jonas raised a hand. "What if your crest isn't that 'signature'? You know what I'm sayin'."
Hermoine didn't even blink. "Then yours will be the control variable. Congratulations."
He slouched back, defeated.
She began handing out the compact chrome tools one by one, oval-shaped, warm to the touch, with a pulsing light in the center.
When she got to me, she paused slightly, eyes glinting behind her glasses.
"Yours," she said, then leaned in just a touch. "And if you sneak home for the weekend again without saying hi, I'll let Mom know about your browser history."
"Respectfully," I muttered, "I'd rather die in the rift."
She smiled. "Same."
We touched down in a cloud of steam and silence. The carrier doors hissed open. Outside, the world was still.
Ruined terrain stretched out like scorched paper. The sky above it looked... thin. Almost like if you blinked too hard, it would peel.
Riva adjusted her gloves.
Hermoine's voice was lower now. "Something's off."
Riva didn't flinch. "Off how?"
Hermoine frowned. "The residue. It's too… dense like there's been activity there only recently. Who even filed this assignment?"
"Internal requisition," Riva said. "Even if there were some issue, I'm here now. What better protection could they need?"
We stepped out.
The wind didn't blow.
The dirt didn't move.
The silence... was breathing.
The sun was still out, yet it cast longer shadows here. Like time itself walked differently.
We had landed in a clear-out zone. Rift traces from a recent incident had saturated the rocks, forming glowing streaks in the cracks. Crimson embers flickered in the dirt like leftover fireflies from another dimension.
"Alright, kids," Riva said, stepping forward and addressing us with the energy of someone who'd done this a hundred times and never stopped being slightly annoyed. "This is a zero-to-one variant exposure zone. No living threat, but rift energy is still active, so don't start licking rocks."
Jonas raised his hand. "That's oddly specific."
"I have regrets," Riva replied flatly. "Now
your collector nodes are linked to your individual crest signatures. Insert your palm into the core and scan. Do not press both buttons at once, unless you want me to teleport you into a volcano."
As everyone activated their nodes, I kept mine off. Luan glanced at me. I could already see the question forming on her face, so I answered before she asked.
"I don't have a signature to sync it with."
She blinked. "Wait, what? I thought—" she lowered her voice, "ooohhh sorry I forgot."
"You think too much."
Without asking, she scanned her own node and pressed mine against her palm. Both lit up.
"You're lucky I'm sentimental," she said, smirking.
"And you're lucky I'm desperate," I muttered.
"Team up," Riva called. "Everyone moves in pairs. I'll be checking in through dimensional relay. If you hear my voice inside your head, don't freak out, it's just me abusing government technology."
I noticed her pupils shimmer faintly, her space crest active. A symbiont, no doubt. She could literally fold space around herself. I'd once read in a classified thread that she once disassembled a man by sending his limbs into four different portals. Probably just campus myth. Probably.
Khadija partnered with Milo, and the two immediately began a hushed debate about radiation exposure and contour-safe hazard suits. Jonas was forced to team up with Marlo, who greeted the assignment with all the warmth of an open palm slap.
"Don't slow me down," she said.
"Wouldn't dream of it," Jonas replied, adjusting his gloves with that confident-dumb-guy smile.
Willy was paired with his pet shard wheeler and instantly began explaining why Wheeler hadn't been seen in a while.
"He's in crest recalibration," Willy said, tapping the side of his gas mask. "Had a minor overload. Nothing serious. His core's stabilizing."
"Still felt weird not seeing him around your neck," Khadija said, adjusting her visor. "It's like watching a chef without their spice rack."
Willy just shrugged.
We all set off, moving out through the cracked plains. The terrain shimmered faintly, hot and dense with energy. Remnants of a rift echo, still pulsing weeks after the variant was neutralized.
Jonas crouched over a steaming crack in the earth, the glow beneath his collector node casting a warm light on his knuckles. "Okay, readings say minimal rift energy... though this rock is practically humming like a bad mixtape."
Marlo stood a few paces away, arms crossed over her hazard suit, eyes sharp beneath her visor. "That's not how science works."
"I think it is. You just don't like the remix," Jonas replied, flashing a crooked grin.
Marlo sighed. "Just scan the formation properly."
"You ever smile, Marlo?"
"Only when people like you shut up."
He chuckled, tapping his node. "Guess I'll die trying then."
Marlo crouched beside him. "Focus. We're already five minutes behind on our section sweep."
Jonas stole a glance her way. "You know, for a law minor, you've got serious main character energy."
Marlo turned, expression unreadable. "And you've got sidekick vibes with a death flag waving behind your head. Let's move."
Jonas was about to make another quip when
CRACK!
A burst of hot air seared past his cheek.
He blinked, then froze.
"Blood," he muttered, staring at the red trailing down Marlo's ear. "You're bleeding."
Marlo's breath hitched as she touched her ear, her fingers trembling. "What the—?"
Another shot tore through the rock behind them, blasting it into debris