Blind|Fold

So.

This was the team he was supposed to save the world with, this time.

Zahir Torven was not impressed. He was choosing to be unimpressed in the same way as his mother, who would have said nothing. This was, perhaps, better than being unimpressed in the same way as his quite formidable grandmother, who would have given them a scathing lecture in Punjabi until they felt even smaller than her four-eleven. Understanding of the language was not at all required, the meaning carried over.

He sometimes wondered what she would have made of all of this. She'd known more about things than she let on, he knew, but that was probably the case for many tiny elderly ladies.

His gaze meandered over his team. Dahlia, Search. Probably the team medic, there to lend a hand to anyone who needed it, exact nature of the hand somewhat questionable. Never good to have an unquantified anomaly as your best emergency response, but it was what it was.

Next up, Emil, Search. Zahir had scanned his files looking for a reasonable appellation for the kid, and kept returning to the phrase local idiot. From the paperwork, Zahir assumed if he survived, he would get along great with Harry. That was not a compliment.

Last in Search, Astrid. The diva. Zahir figured she'd seen just enough to figure out that she wasn't as special as she wanted to be, but that wasn't going to stop her. She'd be the one jumping into things headfirst, trying to set up negotiations with whoever they found there. If she had a soul, it was probably going to get eaten in the first ten minutes.

For their Sever group, because staffing couldn't send a proper search team through, because this was apparently the best they could come up with and they wanted to get it all over with at once, apparently: Rene, short range fighter, maybe. She said she had a knife; Zahir wanted to know if it was the other way around, but that was the sort of thing that always got figured out at the worst possible moment, so he'd have to wait.

Also, Vex - improv, if Zahir had to assign him a role. That wasn't too bad - Zahir appreciated people who were good at improv, because plans always got destroyed the instant they made contact. It was just a question of whether or not the guy knew when to improv, which... well, he'd find that out at the worst possible moment too, wouldn't he?

And lastly, of course, himself. Survivor of a dozen-plus portals, and therefore promoted to management. Zahir did not want to be management. He did not have any command experience; he did not want any command experience. He much preferred to be the person backing up whoever was in charge. He had let management know this, emphatically. They had informed him where to stick this opinion, anatomically.

He did not think he deserved it, but maybe the Colonel had been in one of her moods. Probably because she did want the command, and she was stuck in the Center unable to leave since her Weird had gotten to its current level - no pun intended. Actually, no, pun fully intended. The cables grounding her to the building were collected neatly behind her, trailing under her shirt collar to attach to the sticky pads adhered to her skin.

She was leading the meeting, in the informational sense, fielding whatever questions the team had before they sent them out. The Township kid from admin was there, too, sitting on a desk next to the Emergency Shutdown Protocol. That, at least, made sense. He was good with her. She had to be what, now, seven? She looked like she always did: little kid in a bland navy blue school uniform with a book open on her lap. This one was about wildflowers, and Zahir knew at a glance it was going to be one with words like phloem instead of words like wow.

She was there, officially, just in case. She was there, unofficially, because the Colonel liked to see how people reacted to her without prompting. Zahir always thought it somewhat an unfair test - anyone who watched any anime knew that the tiny child was always more terrifying than anything else in the room.

He withdrew his gaze before it made her uncomfortable, and focused in on the meeting.


So, again.

The fold was opening in somewhere called Westbrook, map details provided but largely irrelevant. Nice little suburban area, so a prime candidate for all the little yappy dogs to get turned into horrifying amalgamations of flesh and chaos if it got out of hand. He'd seen that once - it had been cows, not dogs, but there were some images that didn't leave you. He was thankful he didn't eat beef, and fully planned to keep it that way.

They'd gotten a quick survey team in, just enough to know the very basics. Standard three dimensional movement system, gravity functioning similarly. Ambient audioflora - meaning the sounds were alive, always a fun one to deal with. Malleable time force, that was interesting. That was - they were sending him in to a malleable time fold with these idiots?

Zahir gave the Colonel a what the actual hell, are you serious? look at this, which she pretended she hadn't seen. He supposed she didn't have a choice. They had to go in, and they were who was available. He did not sigh in an aggrieved manner, even though he really quite wanted to.

There, leadership already.

And, of course, they didn't know much else about what else they would find, because the initial team had noped out quick as soon as they'd found out about the time-distortion. That was, admittedly, standard protocol: going against it was how you got stuck in an alternate dimension for ten minutes and came out two decades later.

Zahir knew a guy. The bits that were left of him, anyway.

Objectives: Explore, secure, extract. Find out what was there and if they wanted any of it, lock it down for later, and get out of there, preferably all with a minimum of screaming, from either themselves or any local denizens or fauna.

They'd be taking the zION gate to get there, which made travel instantaneous, worked on fold-based particle physics that no one but the Colonel understood, and required enough energy to power a city block on a holiday. He supposed that at least explained why she was so touchy, if she was storing power for transit.

The standard "Any questions" concluded the briefing, emphasis brief, and Zahir sat back to see what everyone else would say, and if they had questions about where they were going or who everyone else was or what they were doing. Theoretically, they had access to the same dossiers he did, but it was always a crapshoot whether or not they'd read them.

And some questions, Zahir knew all too well, didn't have answers. That, or they had answers, and the answers just made you wish you'd never known.

He folded his hands under his chin, privately wondered what the temporal disjunctions were going to do to his beard this time, and waited to see who was going to be the first one to start off the discussion.

Astrid hated awkward moments. Wait, hated wasn’t the right word. Was loathed good enough? No, but her brain wasn’t braining and she couldn’t think of the word. That naturally irritated her and she wound up chewing on the inside of her cheek, nose scrunched up in deep thought. Was she thinking about the mission? No. She was trying to figure out what word would fit to express how she was feeling at the moment. Huffing, Astrid crossed her arms against her chest and finally started to focus on the information being thrown at them.

ABHOR

That’s it!

Happy with that choice of word, Astrid stopped biting her inner cheek and relaxed her face. Ah, so words were being said. Important words and the slight spazz did her best to focus on them, though she was quickly sidetracked by the actual appearance of the female talking to them. Was that her cool weirdness? Mentally smacking herself, the dark-haired woman went back to focusing on the words and nothing else. That was until she spotted the kid.

WHAT THE HELL?! A KID?! Her inner thoughts screamed and she was happy that she had been able to keep that inside of her brain and that it didn’t slip out of her mouth. THAT would have been embarrassing! Hopefully, no one can read minds or she was fucked and not in a happy ending way.

Right, focusing. She sighed deeply and ran her fingers through her hair and leaned her head back against the wall she was currently leaning against. Finally actually taking in the data, she peered at the map details and hummed softly to herself while wondering just what a malleable time force was. Would they explain that? She hoped so because she didn’t want to look like an idiot by asking. What if no one asked though? Astrid frowned at that and instead of marinating on the what-ifs, resumed her attentive listening. She was looking forward to exploring and bounced a bit on her heels, growing tired of standing up. Hopefully, the meeting will be over soon. When it concluded and that dreaded ‘any questions’ was asked, she wrinkled her nose and hesitantly raised her hand.

“What’s a malleable time force?” Fuck. Why did she speak?! Embarrassed by her stupidity, the twenty-one-year-old female blushed brightly and looked down at her feet.

There were six of them.

Doll rolled the number under her tongue. Six. Seis. It didn’t sit quite right, no matter the language. Tradition would be three, but she could see how the coordinators might kick up a fuss with three; too few bodies, not enough eyes and hands to do anything useful. So not three, not a triangle - the strongest shape, one and one and one watching each other’s backs - but then why not five?

Five was a solid number, dependable - a band of five, the leader, the lancer, the other three too - but their band wasn’t five. It was six. That was no good.

She scratched at the spot where her wooden arm fused with her shoulder, but the itch was deeper than the skin. She didn’t like the shape of this; six didn’t have storybook rules, and in her mind that made it dangerous. Six wasn’t stable; it could break down to five and spare, or three and three split too soon, and neither would make her job easy.

But she kept her peace, as much of it as she still had left, through the briefing, fidgeting quiet-wise in her seat. Her eyes skittered across the group, trying to spot the cracks in the relative safety of before-the-mission. Which of them would break first, during-the-mission? Where would they break, and would Doll be able to put them together again? She wasn’t sure. They were all too new.

She was new too, and still putting herself back together. Mistakes would happen. But maybe information could help some, with the mistakes already starting to gather silent and in the background.

She directed her gaze forward, flighty thing that it was - and noticed that the little girl was still sitting off to the side, on a desk instead of behind it, beside a man she hadn’t fully been introduced to. Her mouth was forming the question before her brain caught up. It sat on her tongue until she finished processing, and then she asked it anyways. “What’s the failure case? What do we do if we reach it?”

She was sure she had heard something about an Emergency Shutdown Protocol, but she wasn’t so sure she remembered what it would shut down, or what qualified as an emergency. That seemed important to know.

She wasn’t the first to ask a question, thanks to her pause, and she turned briefly to the proper first. That was a good question too, though one Doll had dismissed as explained by the wording. Organizations like the one they were in liked to say a lot with their wording. Though perhaps it wasn't enough. It would be good to know, if anyone did know, what kind of malleable time they were facing; whether it ran backwards or slow or too fast, each would need their own approach.

Seeing the woman’s distress, she offered her a nod and then turned her eyes away again. Embarrassment would fade with less eye contact and attention. This, she knew, though she couldn’t say where she had learned it.

Oh Shit! I’m late, I’m late, I’m late!

Jessie ran to the building she was told was the meeting place. She didn’t run too fast, because she would end up falling and break something. Then that something wouldn’t work properly, and she’d not be able to participate. She skidded to a stop at the door of the building, double-checking the address to make sure she was at the right place. She flung her hair back over her shoulder as her rushing caused her hair to tangle wildly around her face. Her face was flushed deep red. She could feel the heat on her cheeks and took a moment to take a deep breath before knocking quietly on the door. She didn’t want to alarm anyone that was there, and she didn’t want to barge in when she was obviously late for the meeting. She smoothed down the red blouse she wore and checked her waistband to make sure that it was tucked securely in her jeans. She huffed a little as her breathing came back to normal.

Jessie waited a moment more, feeling her heart hammering in her chest in her agitation. After waiting for a whole minute, she turned the knob to see that it was not locked. She cracked the door open, her green eyes wide with curiosity as she called out a timid, “Hello?” She opened the door wider, wondering if she had the right place, if the team was there, if she would get in trouble, if she should have eaten more than a piece of toast and a cup of coffee that morning, before she came through the door entry.

She quietly entered the room, hearing the end of someone’s sentence, though she was unsure what they were saying. She tried not to look out of place, or interrupt something important. Wow, talk about bad first impressions. Everyone else seemed to have found a place to situate themselves, and Jessie looked around. There was only a small part of the wall close to the door that she could lean against. She felt her cheeks flare up more as she felt eyes on her. She looked around the room blindly, not focusing on any one person in her unease. Her chin went up stubbornly, as she waited. She might be told to get out. She might be ignored altogether. She hoped it was the latter. Her eyes fell on a child, and her face fell slightly. Why was there a child here? Was she in the right place?

Emil was certainly there—not only had he arrived on time, but earlier than expected. He wasn't sure if this bothered the others, nor did he dwell on it. It wasn't like he was up to speaking to his new coworkers, especially in front of their very creepy-as-hell boss.

He looked around the room until he noticed the girl like most of the crew had already noticed too, but as much as it was a curious sight in a setting as serious as this, he didn't think it was strange. His "weird" eyes saw nothing that prompted him to question her presence. He guessed she must be important if she was allowed to be there with them. Besides, it wasn't like at his ancient 19 years of age he was a wise old man to be judging the presence of a kid.


Being stuck in another reality for two weeks—or was it four? Truth be told, it felt like a whole year. His boss from the local convenience store mentioned that he had disappeared for like, three weeks and was pronounced dead by the entire town. Or at least missing, even though no one really cared enough to look for him during that time. He was missing the main point again. The POINT was, that sort of thing could do a number on your brain, not to mention the bug currently latching onto his nervous system that for one, was making his brain itchy, and second, forced him to see all sorts of weird and messed-up things, constantly, so a kid just sitting down without bothering anyone should be the least of his worries.

There went his brain again.

No matter. When they were all asked if there were any questions, he simply shook his head lightly and listened to the rest. He tried to catch anything odd-sounding or looking with the help of his little friend, invader, whatever. He hoped the team would give that thing a name because it was difficult to treat it as anything other than a parasite, which it was, but it did not like Emil even thinking about that.

The mission briefings were not as terrible as he thought, even if he wasn't particularly eager to get back into any sort of nightmare dimension again, it was the best he could get nowdays, considering everyone back in town thought he was consuming- Way too many substances.

As they waited for further orders, Emil found himself softly tapping his fingers on his thigh to let the minutes pass by.

Three Hours To Go

The day started with a work out routine. Was in sweatpants and shirt she had worn to bed. Six laps around the apartment complex the entire area to be circled half speed first two laps top speed the rest. Returning home fifteen minutes stretching, working out any kinks or weary joints. Thirty minutes into the day thirty more would go to weight lifting. Ten minutes on legs fifteen for arms, rest on her core. Content with the results she moved to a punching bag in her living room. This was her favorite part of her routine.

She looked to her left arm a steely black and iron colored bump on her forarm ran down the skin. Forming in her hand a knife, she thought on it for a second and it's edge dulled. She flowed between moves, hammer or ice pick grip she turned the weapon in hand with ease. Skill was clearly there but it was more then that the weapon was apart of her almost like it knew. Eventually her hand went flat, no grip at all yet it remained in hand. Sliving like motions of her palm were backed by her blade in hand. H a nds crossed over and only then did the knife switch hands. Flowed from palm to palm like water almost rather then a weapon.

A timer went off and she moved on to a shower. Washing away the sweat of the morning routine. Her uniform set just outside the restroom but ready to go. She took her time with a shower and putting on her clothes. She wanted to come off professional. Her time was in military nothing like CIA or anything but she felt she should treat the job as if it was adjacent to such rank. Her suit was clean and well ironed. Hair done up in a pony tail that wouldn't obstruct work. She took a moment with her belt and sidearm, then thought where the knife should go. The weapon went to the apparent sheath her shirt lightly covered the handle. A close eye might see it was attached to her hip by the skin. A light brown jacket was thrown on over the suit and then she was off.

Her breakfast on the drive over, a bottle of orange juice and a pop tart. Her pony tail bobbing side to side as she listened to music on the drive. Most of it rap or rock she pulled in to the driveway with ten minutes to spare. Enough to dust off crumbs and make her way into the briefing room early. Had been around the same time Emil had, she offered to get the door for him but otherwise kept to herself. He seemed a loner type so she figured give him space while he was allowed such a privilege.

Rene had taken in the colonel probably the most while waiting. She didn't stair at the woman but eyes couldn't help as much look to the cables apart of her. It made the agent wonder a bout her own weird. Would the knife grow? She felt like it would, but to what extent was an anoma.ly to her. She often described it as a cancerous growth it seemed the simplest answer. She didn't fully know though if it really was a cancer or more symbiotic. Questions soon came, about a time force and the fail case. Good questions Rene figured how travel worked was important especially in need of bugging out, and it was good to know when to bug out.

The redhead took a moment before moving to lean next to the kid. "Bosses don't like to tell us how fucked we are, so what's your take what kind of danger are we in?" Bad language, treat the young woman like an equal, put her opinion in high regard an effort to earn some trust and honesty in return. Way Rene saw it they were dealing in the weird, the adult mind was to matter of fact at times, abrasive to the strange. She figured a kid might know something more, even if more instinctual then fact. She had a question though for the colonel as well. "Morning colonel, Rene, or W. R. Lock was wondering what arms and or protection do we have? Know supplies are limited but the more I know we have, better the odds of keeping the rest safe."

It was also meant for the team. She wanted to give them her name and make it clear she was going to look out for them. Sure her role was sever, but she had asked for the rank so she could safeguard others. She had enough nightmares over previous units.

Government types—always obsessed with meetings. Even the smallest divisions felt the need to drone on about mission importance, meticulously planning every detail down to the last inch. As if any of it ever went according to plan. In the end, the job was simple: get in, retrieve the target, get out. Close the damn thing if possible.

But protocol was protocol. The LCDs in their mask kept their "eyes" wide open, forcing them to watch every painstaking minute of the briefing, whether they cared to or not. Vex let out a slow sigh as Zahir wrapped up, leaning back in their chair, arms stretched behind their head.

Then came the questions. Vex rolled their eyes as Doll voiced the inevitable concerns.

"Failure?" They scoffed. "You end up like me—faceless. Or worse, I suppose." They shrugged, then added with a smirk, "But hey, I’ve got a spare mask. You can borrow it if you want."

Someone asked about the malleable time force situation, and Zahir shook his head with a somewhat good-natured scowl. He'd bet Township five bucks that no one would have the guts to ask about it. Well, Zahir supposed he could spot the kid a coffee, especially if he was stuck on Protocol for the day.

"Good question." That was the Colonel, with a nod of approval. "Where we are, f-of-t is a constant linear progression for all standardly perceptible observation points. In a malleable time fold, f-of-t maintains inertia but does not exist outside the conceivable influence of - Zahir."

"Ma'am." He blinked, and raised his eyebrows. She countered, meeting him halfway by arching only one eyebrow, in an unflinching arc. It was a look that said leadership, and was strongly suggesting that it would be a good idea for him to be the one to explain this to his team. Zahir gave her a look back, which said that he didn't want to and she was leading the meeting anyway. Hers didn't waver.

Zahir did not sigh. That was two leadership points now. Also, if the Colonel explained any further, she was going to bust out the integrals and words like mathematical transformation matrix, and no one was going to know what she was on about. He half-turned in his seat, so Astrid could see him, and picked up a pencil.

"Time."

He made sure she was watching, then set it back on his desk, with a sarcastically grand there it is gesture. "Time here."

He reached down, retrieved the pencil, and threw it at her in a slow arc. "Time there." He shrugged, nonplussed. "You can move it around."

"Somewhat oversimplified. But, in essence - yes." It seemed to pain her to admit this, probably because he hadn't used any integration techniques or mathematical variables or referenced any dead scientists. There was another moment, where they stared at each other, broken by an audible sigh.

"Look, it's like watching cat videos on your phone." Apparently the Township kid was going to take the plunge at explaining. Harry shrugged, giving them both a look that said they were making this too difficult. "And while you're here it's like you're in the movie theater and it just plays straight forward all the time, but when you're over there you can pause it or move forward or backward or something. If you're careful."

"Being careful is important," Zahir added, deciding he could abandon his pissing match with the Colonel, if the kid was getting involved. "It's entirely possble you'll still age - or maybe even age more - so hopping back and forth too much gets complicated. We'll also need to set an exit time and make sure everyone is back then in case we get split up - but I would prefer to stay together if possible."

"You'll have what you bring with you," the Colonel added, with a nod, moving on to one of the other questions. She'd skipped the one about failure, Zahir noted. Probably saving it for later, when she knew everyone was listening. "I can hold the zION gate for about forty seconds, so it'll have to be whatever you can bring through in that time to get to the fold. Once you get there, you go in with what you have, there's no resupply near the entry point. We have standard kits set up with first aid, water, nonperishable food - though you'll need to be careful with that if you're moving time around. Dahlia, there's a more advanced medical kit for you as well. Zahir is in charge of armament."

He translated that as I'm giving you the final say on whether you're willing to let any of these people have a gun, and gave her a nod of thanks for it. The last thing he needed was someone who thought he was an action hero. "I don't want anyone with anything they're uncertified with. Better not to take too much weight if you have the choice. Search can take any research supplies they want, but be aware that if we're moving time, samples might be contaminated."

"Run it by him before I open the gate, then." That would give everyone a chance to pack up whatever they couldn't live without, ideally out of their own supply, because chasing it down out of supply would take longer than they had. She paused once more, maybe waiting for other questions, or different questions - but Vex was already taking on Dahlia's inquiry, so Zahir figured she'd probably just get on with it soon. He was right. "Failure case has the potential to be... very bad. If a malleable time fold starts leaking into ours, it can start wreaking havoc with our own temporal stability. A small leak can cause an evolutionary condensation spike. One of the fastest things to evolve is viruses. That's how we get plagues, outbreaks. In a nice little suburban town like this, we've got a hotbed already set up, and that's if nothing weird from the other side gets involved. You could easily be looking at an Andromeda Strain situation."

Hey, Zahir had even read that book. It wasn't completely obscure. He nodded a little. "That's why if we can't close it in the time we're allotted, Township will be on the other side to activate the Emergency Shutdown Protocol."

They knew what that meant. At least... Zahir did. The Colonel did. Harry did. Did the others? Some of them did. He caught the Colonel's eye, hoping maybe she'd want to explain, but she waited him out, because, apparently, leadership. Zahir made himself take another breath, because that way he wasn't sighing at her, which really wasn't appropriate given the situation.

"That will close the fold and kick out anything that doesn't belong, within about a five mile radius." It didn't sound bad. It never sounded bad. He needed them to know it was bad. "That means if we're over there, we're trapped. And if we're over here - that means anything from over there, or any other fold, it's gone. Dahlia over there would lose her arm." It was pretty obvious that her arm was weird, so he wasn't really telling anyone anything about her that they didn't know. "Rene would lose her knife. And probably her skin. Vex would lose whatever it is that keeps him functioning without a face. If you've got a weird, it's gone - and so is whatever attaches it to you. It does not discriminate, and it does not care if you survive the process. Triggering that is a second-worst-case scenario, pre-empted only by whatever happens if we don't trigger it."

Whatever that would be, management thought it would be worse. That was why they had her here, sitting there on a desk, ready to go through the zION gate and sit on the other side of the fold for the six hours they were allotting for this one, so that if his team failed to close it properly, it would get done, one way or another. Zahir watched her turn a page, the rustle of paper somehow ominous in the moment of silence.

The Protocol scanned a few sentences on the new page and added, disjointedly, in a small, soft voice:

"I like cat videos."

Rene paused for a moment at the answers given. A breath, a second yet which felt like it lasted an eternity. The mention of what the falesafe was terrified her. The knife on her hip was apart of her. Sense the incident it was always there. She was weirded out at first but had grown to love it in a way. It was like being told she was always safe. It reminded her of her dad in a way, a time she could be soft because she had someone in her corner. Before passing he had been a army vet,like her now. He had always seemed a wall of iron, a knife was no wall but it filled that same purpose in some way. The thoughts also went to just the physical the knife was her, if removed it'd take skin with it. She had to wonder though if it'd take even more?

When she moved it from skin to hand that skin wasn't gone. She didn't feel weaker in muscle or bone for it. That didn't make her think loss safer though just more concerning. If it felt so natural what would its loss equate to? Her mind then went to the others and their weird. They were all new faces she shouldn't be that invested in them she tried to tell herself. Yet she was. She was good at fighting and shooting but she didn't answer those as her dominant use. She answered loyalty, because even now in a room of strangers her fear for herself bled away some to fearing for them. A mask and an arm, conceptually easy to grasp now. Thought of losing them terrified her though. She'd seen friends take head wounds or lose a limb...

So she takes a second to move to the miserable looking shelf of inventory. Reaching up for a box to grab a magazine. One in her pistol didn't feel enough for her. There was no going back home for something like her old service rifle though or dad's hunting rifle. So a bit more bullets for a sidearm it was. That made nineteen bullets she reminded herself. A mental note in case things got intense. Course the folds seemed so abstract, who knew if a gun would amount to anything. She felt better for it though. A pistol and a knife hopefully would make her a wall of iron for her team. She would put the magazine back if directed of course but one could see it in her grip she was certainly reluctant to do so. She was a soldier she didn't feel right going in so under equipped.

Maybe if Rene knew more about her weird she would have more faith in it alone. Right now though it was just a sticky knife. She trusted it but it didnt feel enough. Looking to the others she sighed, as she went fot one of the packs wwith provisions."Good chance if not weird might end up that way. I'll try to make sure everyone gets home in one piece. Be it still you or a weirder you." Eyes eventually turning to the trio informing them of the details. She looked more though to the kid, the kid explained things in a way that made the most sense to her.

"And if we need to rewind, how? Additionally when there are we the cat moving in time or just more able to fast forward and rewind?" It all sounded risky to use but all the more reason Rene thought to inquire how it worked. Also the role they played in the example. Being able to set a bad scenario back a few steps was one thing. Being able to set someonr back to before they were shot was another thing,

Oh my god! MY HAND IS STILL RAISED!! If possible, her face turned even redder and she dropped her arm down and stared harder at the ground. Her embarrassment was at its highest and she bit on the inside of her cheek to keep from making any noises. Looking around quickly to see if anyone was staring at her, she hoped that they were too focused on the commander to realize how stupid she had been. Or maybe they were looking at the girl who came in super late. They needed to look at anyone but her! OOh! Someone else was asking a question! She wasn’t the only curious person in the room. Thank goodness.

Failure case? That seemed like something they needed to know and she hoped both of their questions would be answered by the boss people! Spotting the nod, she quickly returned it, not wanting to piss off her soon-to-be teammate. The last thing she wanted to do was get on the wrong side of the people she was going to have to trust her back and front! All sides! Could she trust any of them though? Hopefully, or she would probably wind up dead or worse! Yes, there were things out there worse than death! Shifting from one foot to the other out of boredom and nervousness, Astrid found herself staring in disbelief at one of the words spoken by the one wearing a mask. The words were a bit harsh in her eyes, but she kept her big mouth shut.

Movement out of the corner of her eye sidetracked her and she blinked when a redheaded woman had moved over to the kid. Was that a relative or something? Unable to catch what was being said, Astrid let her attention slowly return back to the boss people and she sighed softly, brow arching when her question was answered. Too bad it was incredibly confusing and she blinked a few times and brought up a hand to rub her forehead while her face somehow managed to remain stoic. She didn’t want to look as stupid as she felt, though maybe if she did show she didn’t understand they would explain it better. Even Zahir tried and she still didn’t get it. When the pencil was thrown at her, she managed to catch it and wiggled it around, momentarily amused by the inanimate object. She looked over at the kid at the sigh, realizing the kiddo was also taking a shot at trying to describe what she was so desperately trying to understand.

“Err…” Starting, Astrid paused when the redhead also asked a question. It too was a great question! “Okay…” She finally shrugged and figured she would ask for more clarification later. Though, the cat video example did make her understand it a little better, but the thought of potentially aging made her frown. Would they also potentially go back in age? She hoped not, though it wouldn’t be terrible if she lost a few ages, would it? Nope!

“Eh, what if you didn’t bring anything? I don’t really have any weapons and was just expecting y’all to give me something.” Her mouth opened and words escaped once again before she realized just what was happening. Damn it, Astrid. Seriously.

Listening silently while the failure case was discussed, Astrid went back to leaning against the wall. Damn, she should’ve sat down instead of deciding to stand. While she had no idea what an Andromeda Strain was, she managed to keep her mouth shut and didn’t ask for clarification. Instead, she continued to listen to what was being said. She didn’t like the idea of the Emergency Shutdown Protocol. Especially when she found out it meant they could be trapped over there or if they were here, all the weird would just disappear. That sounded very bad, very, very bad.

“Cat video’s are rad.” Astrid spoke just as softly, wanting them to know they weren’t alone in that prospect.

Losing the weird. That couldn't be that bad, he thought. Finally getting rid of the parasite would be a relief after hosting it for so long. Then he reconsidered his possibilities. Hearing about missing faces and skin among the other members made him realize he didn't really know how deeply that thing had embedded itself into his nervous system. A slight shiver ran down his spine.

What if it was like those creatures in the alien movies that cling to faces but provide oxygen to the victim? Would he simply stiffen and drop dead the moment the intruder was removed? Perhaps avoiding that was the best course of action.

Emil nodded at the mention of cat videos. Yeah, that was a good visual, a comforting one on some level. His first thought was to respond to the comment. He knew it wasn't required for any of them to get along with each other. Heck, he already had his doubts about the leaders handling this operation. Then again, it couldn't be worse than working for that absolute jerk Tobias, or Jeffrey, or Manfred. Truth be told, he didn't have very positive opinions about any of his previous bosses, but that didn't really matter now.


"Cat videos are pretty neat—I remember when I was little I—" He paused immediately, realizing he was already letting himself talk too much. He would earn another disapproving look from the rest, like the one he got back in the interview, so he looked down and decided that maybe it was a good idea to keep his mouth shut for once.

"Yeah... Cats, cats..." He cleared his throat and slid his hands into his pockets as if searching for something. There was only lint and a penny, but he wanted to appear busy to avoid further embarrassing himself.

His equipment for this operation was truly nothing special: a notebook, a decent camera, a pen sharpener, and several pens and pencils. One never knew when more than one would be needed. He was not a fighter, nor was he skilled in any sort of martial art, usage of weapons or having some sort of alien weapon attached to his body. In all honesty, he was terribly physically frail. The best he could do was write down anything he saw or heard. The interviewer had agreed to that, at least. He wasn't sure why any sort of ancient, horrible, nightmare-inducing scribbles or words would have any value for the goverment, but hey, they must have some if he was exclusively there to gather those things.

He didn't comment further on anything else shifting his weight from side to side pretending he was not ready to blabber on about his thoughts on everything. Like, wow, you don't have a face? That sucks. Or cool knife, can I get one? Or wow, you totally look like a character from a game I liked when I was younger with that marionette arm of yours. OR WOW, you are... Completely normal. That's also cool!

Magically, he managed to hold back from saying all of that.

Another member joined the party, and Doll hummed quietly under her breath, reconsidering things. Seven actually sat a bit better with her, somehow. If they were going to break precedent, they might as well get as far from it as possible so that it didn’t trip them up.

She was drawn out of her thoughts by someone addressing her, and she raised an eyebrow at the masked man. Or the mask-who-was-a-man, as seemed to be the case. “No thank you. I don’t believe that’s how it works, and I wouldn’t want to get stuck with your face instead of one of my own, besides.”

That would be one to watch, she mentally noted, adding it to her growing collection of files. But was it truly a preference for antagonism, or perhaps just psychological trauma, not given the time to heal? He seemed to think that losing a face was one of the worst things that could happen to someone, which spoke volumes considering his current state. She kept her eyes on him for several minutes even as the conversation continued around her, until she was satisfied with what she had glimpsed, and only then did she turn back to the front again.

She had missed something about time, but that wasn’t too strange. She often missed time, when her brain crossed the wrong wires and her focus became glued to the wrong thing. At least most everyone also seemed confused, so she was in good company.

Doll considered the movie theater analogy - the only one she had heard - with the gravity it deserved, and found that her mind wrapped easily around the concept. Ah, was that strange? Perhaps, perhaps not. They were here to learn, and she had learned.

A natural predilection- her mind began. Shush, she told it, and focused again. They were talking supplies. Ah, good, they had prepared a medical kit. She nodded, murmuring a word of thanks, and made a note to grab some duct tape as well. Med kit for the organics, duct tape and superglue for the non-organics. She could do a lot with duct tape.

She was smiling. It would be nice to test her skills on the field instead of in simulations. Her smile faded, though, when they actually addressed her question, turning instead to consideration. Alright, so they had to shut the fold down before it started leaking. Or before it started leaking too badly, perhaps, but she wouldn’t place any bets on that thin sliver between just starting and too late.

She thought of duct tape, again, and when she looked at the little girl who was the last barrier they put in place to stop the horrors spilling over, it was with a kind of understanding.

Doll wasn’t afraid of losing her arm. It would be nice, actually, to get a normal prosthetic, and whatever it tore out alongside she would probably live. But how many of them had something that twisted its roots a little deeper, that would kill them on its way out? Too many, she thought, and if that happened she wouldn’t have the hands to save all of them, even if she could. No, she didn’t blame the girl, and she didn’t regret asking, but it wasn’t comforting to know that that was their only safety net.

“What about medical evac?” she asked, before they could get too far away from the topic. “If someone gets badly hurt, do we have a relay system? Is it possible to get everyone with an oddity far enough away that they aren’t affected, if things are looking dire?”

Even if someone - or a few someones - needed to hold the line long enough to get the highest-risk folks out, it seemed like an acceptable compromise. Hell, it seemed like it should be standard procedure. Sure, there were times where things took a sudden turn for the worse and everyone was blindsided, but surely there were times where the writing was on the wall, too. They just needed someone to read it.

She glanced at Zahir, their assigned leader. How much did she trust his eyes? They would find that answer soon, she supposed.

Henry was quiet. She usually was during meetings. She didn’t like all the squawking and squabbling that went on when you threw a bunch of weird people together in a room and asked them to act normal. Why did they have to act normal? Acting weird was much more fun! Like now, for instance. Henry kept one ear on the actual mission objectives, which usually boiled down to ‘explore the place, don’t die, get out if we tell you’, and focused both wide black eyes on the others in the room. They made quick, jerky movements as they watched and observed.

The one dressed in wizardy robes was shy, lacked confidence. She asked good questions though, that was important. Maybe not the best questions, but interesting ones, assuredly. The wooden one was fun. She looked fun, talked fun, and had fun eyes! They would have to make sure to let her know that despite their avian appearance, they had no desire to peck wood. That should make her arm more comfortable. Conversely, the masked man was quite rude! While he was one of their fellow Weirds, he seemed to loathe that fact. Curious, curious indeed.

The red-haired one was very professional, and Henry stared at her for several long seconds. He could feel his feathers fluffing slightly along his arms. Red was the natural enemy of blue and many red things had tried to kill him, most recently a fire extinguisher he’d been messing with for experimentation. He’d have to be extra cautious around her. He looked at the last person in the room, who looked normal. Henry tilted her head, trying to figure out exactly what it was that was wrong with him. He rambled, that was true, she wondered if his rambling was part of his weird. She was under the impression that most people here would be weird, and so far she hadn’t been quite as disappointed as she’d thought!

And that was all of them, excluding the boring child, boring commander, and boring person who was probably in charge of the meeting. Or so they thought. A timid little mouse squeaked her way in, and Henry’s hungry gaze snapped towards her. Metaphorically, of course. They’d never eat a person, regardless of how rodentlike they were. They dug into their pocket and pulled out several sunflower seeds, popping them into their mouth with a crunch. They enjoyed the shell.

Henry raised a hand, stretching a little to have it linger over the rest of the assembled.

“I get to bring my bow, yes? Arrows too? If fish swim in the time stream, maybe I can shoot them forwards and backwards.” She smiled, a look that was at best of times mildly disconcerting. “Makes perfect sense. In, out. If we’re in when bad happens, we stay forever! If we’re out, we get ripped apart!” She spoke in an oddly chipper tone, as though the idea of getting potentially ripped to shreds by a child was amusing rather than horrifying. “It’ll be fun!”

Zahir reminded himself that this was not actually the worst group he had taken through a Fold, though that said more about the state of the past than the state of the present. He'd have liked some different options, but this was what he was going to have, and that meant working with it. He knew that as well as anyone.

The Township kid was pretty good with them. He was pretty good with everyone, which was why he did intake and worked with the Protocol. Zahir wouldn't have minded seeing him in a leadership position - in about ten years - but management was trying to limit the kid's exposure as much as possible, keep him a normie. Someone had to be a normie. Protocol insisted upon it.

"We'll have a communications relay," he answered. Unfortunately. "I'll explain it when we get in the Fold." Medical evacuation, well, it would be an at your best discretion thing, and he and Dahlia were going to be the ones with the discretion. The standard operating procedure was that if you could keep going, you did, and sort out whatever happened to you once it was over, if you lived that long, because otherwise no one lived that long. Sometimes the medics had a problem with that, but sometimes they understood. He'd just have to see how that worked out, with this particular medic.

"And Henry, you can take your bow and arrows, but no chromatic-based targeting without authorization." Zahir knew how that was likely to end up. Henry would spot a red rose and decide it was an agent of the enemy. They weren't stable... but then again, plenty of the rest of them weren't stable, either.

"All right. If you people are on to cat videos, you're done saying anything useful. We'll stop by the armory, you can get what you want from there, and we'll meet down at the Gate Room in fifteen."

That was a dismissal, and he made sure people filed out. The Colonel hadn't had anything to add, so he supposed his current level of leadership was sufficient, good for him. He didn't bother her about it, though. Now was definitely not the time to bother her, if she was going to open the gate in fifteen.

The armory was insufficient, like it always was, and calling it an armory was an insult to the word, but someone had started calling it that and it had stuck. There was ammunition, but no guns this round, unless people had brought their own. The promised medical pack was there at least, and Zahir handed it over to Dahlia so that she could check it over. Everyone else, well, they'd just have to pick up one of the base food-and-water-and-emergencies kits, and find whatever else they could. Zahir grabbed a pocket-sized notebook and a couple pencils, because there always seemed to be a need for the basics. He'd have liked a shotgun, but the place was entirely bereft of shotguns.

What else? Audioflora, as he'd told the people - Zahir grabbed a portable tape recorder and some spare tapes. Sure, there were higher tech ways of doing that, but one never knew how that was going to work or how long charge would last given the time situation. They'd never had that problem back when the Colonel was active... but that had been a long time, and he was probably the only one who'd been around long enough to do field work with her. The rest, it would just be stories, and half of them would be wrong.

He shoved his stuff in a drawstring bag - at least there were plenty of those - and added a couple pocketknives and a flashlight before pulling the bag closed and slinging it over his shoulder. Hopefully by now everyone else would have made their own decisions, because time was ticking, and he wanted to get them down to the Gate before too much more time had elapsed. It wouldn't do to keep the Colonel waiting, after all.


The Gate Room, Zahir had always thought, looked like someone had tried to build a sci-fi prop setup in the basement of an abandoned building. Since that was a relatively fair assessment of pretty much exactly what had happened, he couldn't complain too much, he supposed. The Colonel was always reconfiguring things, so he never knew quite exactly what it would look like, but the base design was always the same.

The room was big and empty and mostly made of cement. Two huge metal arcs, each about six feet tall themselves and floating about two feet above the floor by magnetic repulsion. They would form a circle twelve feet in diameter if the arc lines were continued, part of which would go down into a groove cut into the floor. The Colonel said it was big enough to drive a tank through, not that their organization actually had any tanks. They had driven vehicles through it, before, when they'd needed them. This time they weren't - vehicles and time differentials didn't mix, so they'd be walking. The less complications, the better.

Server racks and the occasional standby light lined the wall behind the gate. There was one terminal, Zahir knew, but it was folded up inside a box and currently inaccessible. The Colonel didn't bother with such mundane things as human-style interfaces any more; Zahir knew that had been a sacrifice. Humanity for practicality and getting things done. A success, by most accounts, but it was also why she was stuck here and not going through the Folds any more.

He was all too aware that some day, that could end up being him - not that he actually had anything useful for this side of the veils.

The room hummed with static, the weird feeling that people got when they walked under a power line extremely prominent. He was used to it, but he'd noticed that people who weren't tended to look up, as if they'd spot a wire running overhead causing all that weirdness. The wires weren't up, though - they ran from the Gate arcs out to the little dais on the opposite side from them. The Colonel was seated on it, cross-legged, stripped down to athletic shorts and a cropped tank top, leaving as much skin exposed without overly sacrificing decency. The wires were connected to her with little squares of medical adhesive, spread out over her like the grasping tentacles of some deep-sea horror before being twisted and tied into neat cabling leading off to the machine. Her hair was tied back in a ponytail, the strands separated from one another by static as if they didn't want to get too close to her, either.

Zahir gave her a nod, and was unsurprised when she didn't return it. She'd be buried now, deep in the machinery, surfaced just enough now and then to check and see if they were ready, and then she'd dive down once again into the binary waters, sightless and guided only by the pulse of electrons.

That was why he had to be the leader, he knew, he just didn't like it.

Township was there with the Protocol already, arguing softly with her about the possession of a child's backpack, pale yellow and decorated with flower designs. Stylized and inaccurate, Zahir heard her term it, refusing it entirely. Harry attempted a little more good-natured convincing, but eventually relented and shouldered it himself, on top of the more uninteresting dark gray pack that was presumably his own.

People were looking at him. Fine. Leadership moment.

"Once the Colonel triggers the gate, we have forty seconds to get through. Miss out and you're not coming. I expect all of you through in thirty - don't cut it close. Township is taking the Emergency Shutdown Protocol through first; the rest of us will follow after. We'll take a couple minutes to reconvene on the other side, then break the fold and head in. I'll pass out relays once we're inside. Any last questions before we do this?"

Now was the time, after all - because once they stepped through that gate, the clock started ticking down, and if they hadn't sorted out the answer in the next six hours, half of them wouldn't be coming back - and that fraction was going to be piecewise and not individual. That wasn't something Zahir wanted - and hopefully, the rest of them didn't, either.

So they did have some method of communication while they were in the Fold. That was good to know. Doll filed that away, then filed herself out of the room without complaint.

She really should re-read the manual at some point, she mused as she wandered to the equipment room, somehow at the head of the pack without really trying to be. It was a tricky manual to focus on, with many rambling detours and too many in-depth explanations on things that were outside of her field, but perhaps someone had slapped it into better shape since the last time she had checked. Or perhaps she could be the one to shape it, if she survived this mission. She’d have to try, to see if she was any good at it. She didn’t honestly know.

Had she liked writing, before the Fold? She didn’t remember. The only things that seemed to stick in her mind these days were stories, so maybe she had been involved in writing them, or maybe she’d just read a lot. Equal odds, she decided, digging an over-the-shoulder bag out from behind a pile of drawstring ones, where she’d stashed it earlier. She remembered to grab her duct tape, then added the medical pack and a couple of extra scalpels, some hand sanitizer, and rags to complete the set. Medical work could get messy, and there never seemed to be enough mini-towelettes to go around once things got started.

And things were getting started, as they always seemed to be around here. It was all frantic starts and races against the clock, with just enough paperwork thrown on top to make it seem organized. That was the impression she got.

She stared openly at the large room that Zahir led them to next, eyes darting between cement walls and large curved sheets of metal and wires running along the floor. Sci-fi, something in her hummed approvingly. It was fitting. Her hand twitched at her side, and she glanced down to see the little hairs on her arm rising. Oh, that was a lot of electricity, wasn’t it? They were lucky that there wasn’t any water on the ground, or they might just have a storm.

“Ready when you are, captain,” someone called, voice chipper. It took Doll a moment to realize that the voice was her own, and that her smile had returned. Her fingers tightened around the strap of her bag, and she barely resisted the urge to bounce on the balls of her feet. Something in the charged air - tense, electric, energizing - had settled in her, and it sang with a buzzing note high in her chest.

She didn’t think the others could hear it, but she still did her best to tame her grin into something halfway sane for their sake. She was the medic, the calm in the storm. She couldn’t also be the storm. That would be irresponsible. “No questions here.”

Henry’s feathers ruffled as she let out a chirrup. Whether she was excited to bring her bow and arrows or upset that she couldn’t shoot things based on their colors was anyone’s guess. It was both. She loved her arrows, and she knew that one of these days, Zahir would be grateful that she saved his life by preemptively taking out a red target. He would see. Still. He didn’t say who the authorization could come from. That meant it could come from Henry! Yes yes, she thought that was an excellent idea! So good, in fact, that she knew Zahir had thought of it himself. That must have been what he was trying to tell her. He was a sneaky-sneaky one. Henry was glad he was on her side.

What was also on Henry’s side? His bow! Yes once they were all dismissed he immediately ran to get his bow. It was an odd thing to see, a gangly mess of feathers and claws trying desperately to keep his wings pulled back while also moving as fast as possible in order to get back to his beloved bow. Only once he had it properly strung and mounted on his hip and counted his arrows (all with blue fletching, of course. Couldn’t give his targets any advantages) did Henry make his way down to the Gate Room.

It was big. Not as big as the outside was, but big enough that a small child might think it was. Henry eyed the floating metal pieces with suspicion. While not as bad as red, things that flew without wings were dangerous and to be treated as though they could attack at any moment. For a moment they were under attack, a squawk escaping from their lips as Henry’s wings flew out. In a moment they unclipped their bow and drew an arrow. Where was it who was it why was it oh.

Henry caught a glimpse of the arm connected to the hand connected to the nocked arrow. Their feathers were puffed up, standing on end. It was a moment before they sheepishly tucked the arrow back in their quiver and holstered their bow. Shame on them, making themselves jump like that! No, wait. It was this hum in the air, an unseen force that made their fingers itch and their teeth ache. Henry glanced at their companions, seeing how it affected them. The wooden one, the one they liked, seemed energetic, happy! Henry trusted her judgement, and so they settled a little. Their feathers refused.

She nodded at Zahir’s statement, ensuring her bow was securely back in place. She half-paid attention to what he was saying. The other half was busy grabbing a handful of sunflower seeds and as discreetly as possible dumping them into the wooden one’s bag. Couldn’t let her go hungry, after all. Henry let out an affirmative chirp in response and waited excitedly, shifting her weight from foot to foot.

Well. At least one of them was enthusiastic. Dahlia's comment seemed out of place - she did know where they were going, right? What was likely to happen? But of course she did - Zahir shrugged off the discomfort, and let it slide. She knew, just as well as he did, and people had different ways of dealing with what might happened, or with what had already happened. Some of them were easier than others, some of them were better than others, but people had to figure out something, and it wasn't like there was a perfect protocol for that.

Henry seemed more appropriately freaked out, though Zahir was going to have to have a word with her later about pointing arrows at people indoors, or at least about pointing arrows at people in the room full of delicate equipment. He didn't want the Colonel to have to deal with it. That would get... messy.

From the corner of his eye, he noticed the smallest motion of the smallest team member, a little girl opening her mouth, very briefly, before Township sidestepped and put a hand over it, firmly. Her eyes roved, gray-brown above his hand, and Zahir caught a whisper of conversation: "They belong with the organization-"

The eyes seemed to disagree, but the tension drained out, and there was a little motion that might have been an adjucated nod, and Township withdrew his hand once more, breathing a sigh of relief. He looked over at Zahir, in something like wonder that he hadn't gotten squished that time. Zahir nodded back, understanding. Township was only human, after all.

The Protocol insisted on it - but people who were only human around here didn't last all too long. Some of them died. Sometimes, they were the lucky ones.

They needed to get going.

"Counting down, begin." It had been his voice that had interjected those words, firm and precise, load-bearing. The static in the room hummed, amplifying, and Zahir knew the timer to count it. "Gate in four... three... two... one-"

A noise reverberated, like a thunderclap - not a drawn out rumble, but a single instantaneous shout of electricity arcing from one place to another. The static aura vanished from the room, drawn into the Gate as it opened the portal and held it. He could see the other side, the back-alley behind a strip mall they'd chosen for coordinates, as if viewed through some sort of filter that made things too sharp rather than too blurry. Zahir's eyes wanted to water; he blinked to clear them.

"Township, go."

Protocol and handler always went through first, just in case. They stepped through, electricity crackling at the permeation, and onto the other side, another pair of too-sharp forms that he couldn't quite focus on.

Through, and good enough. Thirty-six seconds remaining. Zahir held up a hand, counting down fifteen of them - enough time for the Protocol to do her thing, if her thing needed doing and they were scrapping the whole mission, which no one hoped for, because the reverberations were going to be atrocious. Nothing on that end, though, so once the seconds ticked down, he steeled himself, and nodded to the rest of the team.

"Twenty seconds. Get through and get clear of the Gate. As soon as the Gate goes down again, we hit the Fold."

He took the first step, striding through the Gate at a pace that said he knew what he was doing, because it was important to have confidence in leadership or at least important to have confidence in faking it convincingly. The crackle hit his skin, the vague feeling of tingling along his scalp and up his spine, a full-body shiver of that just isn't right at the transference, and he was through.

He kept walking until he was good and out of the way, watching the Gate for the rest of the group, keeping an eye on the perimeter, though the organization said they'd cordoned the place off with reports of a gas leak, there was always the potential of some idiot.

This time, the only idiots here were the ones they'd brought along. Zahir - very emphatically - included himself in that number. How had they persuaded him to go along with this?

Well, better not to get into all of that. The team - such as it was - made it through. There were always a few changes between the briefing room and the fold, today was no different. A few would stay back, as well, keeping an eye on things from this end. They weren't his problem.

No, his problem - as the timer reached zero and the too-sharp image of the Gate room vanished behind them - was the place in the alley, nestled up into one wall, a place where the bricks didn't quite match up on either side. It could have passed for a bad repair job, some Folds were insidious like that. Indeed, some of the bricks seemed newer than the others, until you took another look and the ones that you thought were newere actually seemed older... he could stare at it all day and get nowhen.

"Let's go. Stay close to the entry point." He looked over his shoulder, to where a young man was standing with a little girl, her eyes fixed on the wall. "We good?"

She nodded, quite solemnly. "It's open."

Of course it was. Zahir put his shoulder to the wall-that-wasn't, and shoved his way through.

The first thing he noticed was the sound. He'd expected it, of course, but it was still something to draw the attention. It was something tonal, like tinnitus, only lower down in pitch. Occasionally a harmonic pitch joined it, or a harmony left and that was the first indication that it had been there at all.

The place was filled with low scrubby orangish bushes, which would be the source of the sound. It was only tonal, for now, but he knew it could become more melodic, or if they were here too long, he might start hearing things in it. They only had six hours, sure, but with being able to walk back and forth through time, that could end up being a very long six hours, objectively speaking.

Well. The team was through, and it was time to get the next part of this over with. Zahir let his eyes drift closed, and opened The Other One, a ruddy dot that started in the center of his forehead and then opened into an iris, ocular, and then unfolded again into an iris, floral. The oculus would still be at the center, shot through with a stamen instead of a pupil.

He felt the root-runners creep down under his sleeves, pale sprouts at the wrist that he twisted together as they sprouted tiny leaves, braiding with a practiced hand into little bracelets, one per person.

"Put it on." That was a Leadership Voice right there, because he was the only authority left out here and he couldn't hope anyone else took it over. "With that I'll be able to track your wherabouts and whenabouts. If you talk into it I'll hear. If it constricts, get back to this point in space-time immediately."

At least some of them were probably going to complain, but Zahir - well, he did have to listen, because that was how the stupid thing worked, but he could at least ignore it.

"You all know this, but once again: We're trying to find out what's causing the rift to our place, and get it shut down. That might mean tearing something down or digging a hole or rewriting history. The sooner we figure out what caused it, the sooner we can fix it."

Once he stepped through, a sense of unease crept over him, something he had felt before but couldn’t quite place.

This spot was new to him, but somehow, it still felt oddly familiar. What unsettled him more was the thing in his head. It wriggled, squirming around in his skull like it was excited about this place, like it had returned home. It made him very, very uncomfortable, but at least it wasn’t chewing through his brain this time. He’d take what he could get.

He quickly pulled out his notebook and jotted down details of the area—the strange colors of the "vegetation," if you could call it that, and the sounds that seemed to hang in the air. Emil always heard things that others didn’t at first. It wasn’t always a blessing. Beneath the usual hums and creaks, he picked out a rhythm, something that almost sounded like words. When he focused harder, the message became clear:

"Mah abaj, lin arec, igna la luh."

He bit his lip, trying to figure out where they were coming from. It was close—just out of view. The sound pulled at him, like a siren call. This was why he was here. The thing in his head agreed, urging him forward. With a deep breath, he walked over to their current leader.

Zahir was intimidating... Well, truth be told, Emil was intimidated by anyone and everyone.

He waited awkwardly, watching as everyone finished preparing, then took a shaky step forward.

"Uh, boss. Can I talk to you?" Emil said, his voice quieter than he intended. He did not wait for Zahir to answer. "I heard something- instructions, I think. Further down the road. I know it’s not... the most trustworthy source, but I think we should check it out. Just to be thorough. Could I get some backup? One person is fine. I swear I’ll call for help if anything goes wrong or I find something important."

He winced at how childish he sounded, like a kid begging to stay out late. It didn’t help that, compared to the rest of the team, he was basically still a kid.

Trying to make his case, Emil showed Zahir his notebook. He had written down the words he heard. They were nonsense. The thing in his head had shown him how to write them down, but that was not, too useful for now. Somehow, phonetically, they made sense, but the shapes of the symbols didn’t match anything he knew, and he suspected no one else did either.

After clearing his throat, Emil added, "It said to go further down, to keep going in a straight line and ignore the lights... That’s what I heard, at least."

He stood there, hoping Zahir would understand. Whatever lay ahead, Emil thought would be important. Whether its importance was for it being useful or dangerous, he did not know, but he felt compelled to check it out regardless.

Henry wasn’t very subtle. Doll watched out of the corner of her eye as the blue-feathered person sidled up beside her, her head turning belatedly to glance at them, then down at their hand, tugging at one of the outside pockets of her bag. Were those… seeds? They were definitely putting something into that pocket, something that rattled faintly. She spared a moment to think of what she had put into that pocket, but couldn’t remember. It was probably nothing important. She kept her medical supplies deeper in the bag, after all.

She dipped a hand into the pocket after Henry had retracted his, pulling one of the foreign objects out and turning it between her fingers. Indeed, that was a shelled sunflower seed she was holding. Her eyes flicked to Henry again, and she gave him a smile, popping the seed into her mouth with a small shrug. It was delightfully crunchy, with a light dusting of salt to compliment the flavor. In other words, tasty.

There wasn’t much time to dwell on why she might’ve been offered a snack - did she look hungry? She didn’t feel hungry, but sometimes those sorts of feelings slipped away from her - as the countdown for crossing the gate began. Doll watched the process with rapt attention, taking a half-step forward as all the buzzing, electric energy in the room was swept in that direction, but quickly stopped herself, waiting with strictly contained patience until they were given the all-clear to cross.

And cross she did, following close-but-not-too-close behind Zahir. The energy of the gate shivered over her form, and she found a wild grin breaking onto her face again at the sensation, which she likened to passing through an electrified waterfall. Only much less lethal, she imagined, but even with that filed-down edge it still sang with wrongness. Still, it was a feeling that was delightfully new, and wasn’t that lovely all on its own?

She allowed the pleasant drift of her thoughts to linger until it was time to cross into the Fold, and only then did she shake her mind back into gear. Her gaze sharpened again as she took in the strangely colored plants, the ringing in the air, and the bracelet she was offered. It took some creative hand contortions, but she slipped it over her single hand and onto her wrist. She wouldn’t feel it with the wooden arm, she already knew, and it seemed like the kind of summons she wouldn’t want to ignore.

Dahlia sidled closer to Zahir while she got situated, just in case he had something to impart to her in particular. Nobody had started bleeding immediately, though, and that seemed a pretty good sign that her skills weren’t necessary just yet. She took a moment to double check that the med kit was still secure within her bag, regardless, and was reassured to find that everything was just as she’d left it.

“I can go with Emil,” she offered, upon setting the flap of her bag back in place. She didn’t even make a token effort to pretend she hadn’t been listening, only adjusting her wooden arm so that it sat in a slightly different manner and then smiling at the pair. “Unless you want to take Henry,” she added, unoffended by the suggestion. She knew her skills, and defending other people from things was not one of them.

“Or we could all go together. Maybe we’ll run into something interesting.” Even as she spoke, though, something was tugging at the back of her mind. Something about one of the notes that hummed in the air, maybe? She hummed, quietly, trying to match the pitch. What was that, a G? She wasn’t sure if she’d know where to draw it on a scale, but it felt like it could be a G.

Henry kept one eye on Doll as she rummaged through her bag. He nodded approvingly as she accepted his gift of friendship, popping one of the seeds in her mouth and crunching on it. Good, good. It was important to have friends, and Henry would like to keep the one responsible for healing as a good one. Wings were tricky things, and while he knew that, he did not know how to repair them in case they broke.

But enough worrying about breaking, they were about to enter the Fold! Well, enter the Gate that would take them to the Place they could enter the Fold. So many capitalizations, and she only added one! Energy streaked through the air with a loud bang, and Henry felt her feathers settle slightly. Thank goodness, they were starting to get annoyed with it. Of course, as soon as their gaze properly settled on the site beyond the Gate. Their head cocked to the side as they tried to make sense of the too-sharp angles, the too-bright and yet still too-dim colors. Henry took a step toward the gate before Zahir’s voice snapped them out of it. Right, yes. Protocol, they were supposed to do things by the rules here. Which wasn’t as fun as it could have been, but they supposed that it was better than the alternative of… well whatever the alternative could have been.

Then it was finally her chance to go through and Henry eagerly stepped through the portal. A faint noise escaped her as her whole body shuddered, her wings snapping out as a wave of sheer wrong passed through her, crawled along her scalp and claws and wing tips. Henry’s gung-ho attitude left her for a moment as she pulled her wings around herself once free of the Gate. She tried to pass it off as preening, ruffling her feathers before letting her wings settle back into their normal spot. Then they pushed through the wall and were truly in the Fold.

It was clearly not the same as her Fold, as that annoying noise was not present when she’d last been in a place as odd as this. Maybe all Folds had a sound, and she could only hear it this time because of the transformation. Almost like adding a new color to the rainbow if only you had the shrimp eyes to see it, a new sound to hear if you’d been touched by the Fold in a way that left you Weird.

Henry liked capitals. They let things make more sense.

They already had their bow out, as they had been warned that Folds could be dangerous. But their hand was on an arrow the second Zahir closed his eyes. Part of them was incredibly fascinated that he not only had another eye, but the eye had a flower, and the flower itself had an eye! They knew he was one of them, weird through and through.

Unfortunately the rest of them was teetering on a knife’s edge because their supposed leader was a host to massive amounts of red! There was no mistaking the brilliant crimson for it was. His words echoed in their head, though, and hesitantly they removed their hand from their quiver when the flower eyes did not immediately seek to devour them. They took a plant-bracelet less hesitantly, as it in no way resembled the color of its parent.

Henry piped up when they were discussing where to go. He liked going places! Mainly up. He wondered if he could fly now.

“I can stay, or I can go.” Henry had drawn an arrow by this point and was using it as a pointer to emphasize their words. “Personally, I prefer the air. I can watch, see you like little ants, see if there is anything further down, in a straight line, ignoring the lights.”