Book 2 The Gods of Light and Liars

Chapter Four: Going Down

The Rift was, indeed, plugged off by a bulk of crystal. Hawk was pretty sure that it was the real, true, honest stone. It certainly wasn't frail ash. She stepped down off the rope ladder the military had set up, onto plastic sheeting that protected her feet from the crystal points. "Sharp?" She asked the captain, who was following her down.

"Like a son of a bitch. Captain Matthew Specter." He offered a hand as both a steady and an introduction.

"Doctor Hawk West, entomologist. I'm the one who knows how the ants work. Behind you somewhere are Doctors Emile Yong and Henry Dyson."

"Dyson I remember. He's going to be our liaison with Ararat Project. Emile, she—"

"They," Hawk corrected.

"They?" This got a raised eyebrow.

"Emile Yung was a first responder at the Bronx zoo. They're running on about as much sleep as I've gotten in the last few days, and they're one of the few people I'd trust right now. So Yes. They. Is that a problem?"

"No, ma'am. I got a non-binary cousin. How much sleep are you running on?"

"It's my husband down there, somewhere. He's one of the few people I have any hope for in this. Would you sleep?"

"Right now? Yes, ma'am. Or else get out of the pocket completely. If I'm groking this right—" And suddenly Hawk was upgrading her expectations with this kid, as they knew their Heinlein, at least,  "—time's running faster in here than out there, a week down here is a couple hours—"

"Less than, it looks like." Hawk said.

A nod. "—so if you're going to get some sleep, it won't matter if you sleep down here. You won't lose any time. And I'm going to warn you, it's been hard going through this crystal shit. Every day at about noon, it gets some kind of pulse and we get a lot of regrowth."

"Huh," Hawk said.

"Any idea why?" The Captain asked.

"No. I'll be honest with you, Captain. We are just as lost as you are."

"Kaiser Willheim, ma'am, seems to think you lot have it all together." The Captain said, guardedly. He'd leaned back to the edge of the plastic, probably would have leaned on an outcropping of crystal, had the one behind him been just a little bit taller, and less sharp on its uppermost end.

She looked at him, measuring tone and stance and a thousand small other things that, she hoped, added up to trustworthy. "Kaiser Wilheim, sir, is mostly worried about his stock price, and how many patents he can get out of this disaster."

Captain Spectre seemed to relax like a spring uncoiling. "He struck me pretty much the same way."

"Don't get me wrong, Captain. A lot of people owe him loyalty. Dyson, for example, is an employee of Ararat Project first, and a member of this expedition second. Kaiser has expectations of him that he won't of the rest of us."

"And Yung?" Spectre asked.

Hawk measured her words, trying to plumb out the best warning she could manage. "You ever been face first over a Roman Candle?" She said.

"Oh." A grin. "One of those."

"Just call them 'them' and let the small stuff go. They're pretty good about getting the difference between a hard boundary and something they can fuck with, but they're also civilian and deserve a little slack."

"Way I see it, ma'am, you good people could be at home, safe in your bed, and you're here to carry some of the load. Just don't make our job harder, and we'll get along great." A pause. "Ma'am, I gotta ask you...those kids. We're not getting them back, are we?"