Chương 4: Obsession

Malachi was hunched over his new laptop, second cup of coffee growing cold, watching another portal video. This one was taken from a hobbyist's drone. The quality was better than average. It was a classic yellow portal, complete with a sandstorm blowing out of the rift and dromedarian riders. Malachi kept pausing the video to look for new details. The riders appeared human and wore silk padded armor with glowing glyphs on it that came from some sort of giant domesticated trapdoor spider.

A few in the front carried long cavalry sabers, while the rest wielded staffs that could channel powerful magic. The video showed them riding down a group of soldiers wielding assault rifles. Stupid, Malachi thought. Most of the bullets struck magic shields or hit the enchanted armor, and once the riders were on top of the soldiers, it was all over. Best practices were to include armored spearmen as a front line. There were just too many things that came out of a portal that bullets couldn't properly deal with.

He counted the number of attackers, listed the kinds of spells they used in the video, then cross-checked his notes from the newspaper articles he'd dug up. Then he added it all to the PortalWiki page he'd been working on. In the category of attacker, he changed "type: human (mounted)" to "type: humanoid rift worlder (mounted)."

User hanniBalls69 would no doubt revert the change, but Malachi felt strongly they needed to differentiate between the humans of Earth and the bloodthirsty shitheads that came out of those rifts, even if the reports were saying they were biologically indistinguishable. He and hanniBalls69 had been waging an edit war against each other for several months now. His phone alarm going off startled him.

Even after two years since that first portal had opened up next to his apartment, he was still jumpy about stuff like that. He turned off the alarm and peered down at his notifications. Rob had, apparently, made another burner account and was messaging him again. He quickly blocked the new account. He'd told the idiot he was done with video games, and he sure as shit didn't care about the stupid drama that had spun up when Reydee had rebroadcast the stream of him killing Sunbreaker.

When Rob had first heard that Malachi's apartment had burned down, he'd said, "Oh man, that sucks. Your computer, too?" That was what he had cared most about. It just went to show what Malachi had always said: you can't rely on other people. The first thing he did was check to see if there was any new discussion on the giant lights and symbols that had crossed the sky that first night of portals. There wasn't much: a few more arguments about whether it was a mass hallucination, the Mandela Effect, or real.

No one had yet produced any device that had a recording of it, but people on the other side of the world had seen it and posted about it. The wiki page still listed it as a "controversy" despite Malachi's extensive documentation of evidence. His favorite streamer, Reydee, had put together a video of people reacting to something in the sky that the cameras weren't picking up, splicing together videos from all over the world, with time stamps that matched. Apparently that wasn't enough for user x-Firetruck_Victory-x.

Malachi was trying to get him de-modded through the back channels. Thinking of Reydee, Malachi put on her stream again. It wasn't live, but she'd put out another commentary video where she discussed the highlights of the newest portal videos that had come out. For all that Rob had screamed about it, Reydee had basically ditched MMOs a few days after Malachi had. Really wish I could meet her, Malachi thought, admiring her fiery red hair and cute outfit.

She liked to theme her outfits to whatever color portal she was discussing. Today it was green, which was a good fit. He wanted to tell her how much he appreciated her videos and how high quality her commentary was, but he also realized that as a streamer, she had hundreds of morons bombing her with compliments so they could get in her pants, so he never did. She was talking about how enchanted clothes and objects stopped working once separated from a portal invader, which everyone knew.

He perked up when she focused in on a new monster that had been spotted. He was in a dozen Discords and had chat groups with hundreds of people who were constantly combing the internet for new sightings. By now, it was much less common for him to see something genuinely new. This was some sort of giant turtle creature. His fingers twitched because he wanted to be the one to add it to the wiki, but his alarm had been for work, and he really needed to get going.

It's the apocalypse, and I still have to go to fucking work, he grumbled. He closed his laptop, opened his gun safe and checked his. 357 Magnum revolver, then added it to his holster. Then he threw on his jacket, grabbed his lunch off the counter, then headed for the bus stop.

'Thanks sis,' he texted Malia. He'd told her to stop making lunches for him, but she was as relentless as he was, in her own way.

'no prob:),' she replied as he locked up the apartment. He still hadn't moved out. He kept talking about finding his own place again, and it kept not happening. The leaves on the trees had started to turn, so the streets were full of bright reds, oranges, and yellows. A few leaves blew by on the sidewalk, accompanied by a fast food bag and a burger wrapper. The glint of broken glass on the sidewalk made Malachi stop. He muttered some choice swear words and stepped around it.

The bus was late, because of course the bus was late. He glanced around, checking for otherworldly glows or any sort of danger, then pulled out his phone. FeNyx had messaged him. FeNyx: yo FeNyx: how r u? MalFeSense: Alright. MalFeSense: Got some new entries up on the wiki. MalFeSense: Been thinking about the portals FeNyx: u? thinking about portals? lol MalFeSense: Yeah, yeah. Anyways, the color of the portal obviously has to do with the ecology of the point of origin. But why?

From those portal teams that managed to make it back, the portal is the same color on the other side too, so it's not like it's a warning signal. FeNyx: maybe it has to do w/ how magic works? MalFeSense: Maybe. The other thing I'm wondering is, how much control do these raiders have on where a portal appears? Me and a couple wiki guys started looking into the statistics. At first, portal distribution was essentially random.

Now, they're starting to concentrate in major cities, and a high damage event is more likely to be followed by more portals in the same region. MalFeSense: sec. bus pulling up. MalFeSense: Back. So, that means, despite what our government has said, the summoners are learning. It's not just that the number or raids are increasing, they're going to get more targeted. They can target where a portal goes. These raids are going to get worse. FeNyx: makes sense.

if we can develop a map of the rift world, they can map earth. the ones that take prisoners are probably just doing what raiders did for most of history: selling slaves. no1 there needs to take econ 101 to figure out they should raid the most profitable places. would explain why that big factory in china got hit 2x in the same week MalFeSense: Been thinking about joining a Portal Response Team. FeNyx: u got a death wish? lol FeNyx: don't recommend. if they decide to send u thru a portal, 50% chance ur just dead.

if ur just doing emergency response, like, 2-5% chance u die each time. very bad odds. MalFeSense: Yeah. But I feel like I have to do something. MalFeSense: How are you doing? FeNyx: ah. new day. same old shit. thinking about quitting my job MalFeSense: Yeah? You have a back up plan? All I can say is stay out of corporate. Every day I lose a bit more of my soul. This story originates from a different website. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.

FeNyx: was thinking of going corporate. got a contact who might hook me up as a social media manager. MalFeSense: That sounds like a special hell to me. That's better than what you're doing? FeNyx: dunno. maybe. just… well you know. don't really want to talk about it. MalFeSense: Fair. Anyways, my stop coming up. Stay safe. FeNyx: u2 FeNyx had told him early on they didn't want to discuss their work, and Malachi hadn't pushed them on it. Everyone had stuff they didn't want to talk about. Malachi sure as shit did.

He got off the bus. Three men from one of the local volunteer militias walked by, each carrying assault rifles. Just another strange thing that had become normal. Security at his workplace had gotten more serious. These days, at least one person with an actual gun was working in the lobby. Like Malachi's. 357, it wouldn't do much. Human or humanoid raiders usually came through the portal with magic protection. Most monsters that came through portals wouldn't be stopped by a few bullets either.

If a portal did pop up, they were relying on a lot of locked doors to slow down an incursion until a Portal Response team could arrive. A few dozen people with guns, shields, and spears, backed by a machine gun and sometimes a tank, could handle most things that came out of a portal. Then, they'd send a remote controlled robot to detonate itself on the other side. If it was a summoner holding open the portal, that usually did the trick.

Sometimes, though, the summoner wasn't right next to the portal, and if the summoner didn't willingly close the portal, they had to send a team through to figure out where they were. Ideally, they could then direct hunter-killer drones towards the target, then hop back through the portal before the summoner died. More often than not, though, the team walked into an ambush. Other times, they killed the summoner before everyone was back through and people got stranded. FeNyx was right.

The casualty rate for a team entering a portal wasn't actually 50%, but it was appalling. It wasn't a sure thing that the teams stranded in the rift world died when a portal closed on them, it was just that no one had ever heard back from any of them. Ever. Other times, there didn't seem to be a summoner. All across the country now were lingering portals that had, for one reason or another, been stuck open. The strange ecosystems on the other side began to gradually warp the world around the portal.

A few brave explorers had gone through to study the world on the other side of the rifts. Again, they died at an extremely high rate. Malachi had pored over their notes and studies, learning as much as he could about the new worlds. The weirdest thing they'd learned about the riftworld was that its night sky was weird. An astronomer had noted the stars weren't moving in parallax as they should. Also, something there was screwing with the electromagnetic spectrum in a way that had physicists pulling out their hair.

The biggest impediment to their understanding, though, was this: the creatures in the rift world had magic. People on Earth didn't. There were dozens of international efforts as people and governments around the world raced to understand the portals and the strange world beyond them. They'd learned all sorts of things, but still knew next to nothing about how the magic worked.

Rarely, a Portal Response team would kill some mage or magical warrior, but no matter what they did, they couldn't get the magic or their magic items to work. In the meantime, Malachi continued to get paid to babysit grown adults who somehow still didn't understand how computers worked. As soon as he clocked in, he opened up his laptop and saw the list of tech tickets. Goddamnit, he thought. He stuck his gun and his phone inside his personal locker, tossed his lunch in the fridge, then got to work.

The first ticket involved a man losing a file.

"Where did you save the file?" Malachi asked, standing over his shoulder.

"In the usual place."

"Which is…?" The man stared at him blankly. You're a grown man. You went to college. How the fuck…?

"Did you save the file?"

"I shut down my computer, and when I booted it up again, the file was gone. Usually, the file is still there." Malachi clenched his teeth so he wouldn't sigh.

"Okay, go to the 'File' tab. No, that's not the file tab. The file tab. Go to the—that one. Now click 'Manage Document.' Now click 'Recover Unsaved Documents.'""Oh my god, there it is!" He clicked on 'Document232.' Malachi winced.

"You'll want to save it. Save button is the little square up on the left. Save it to the cloud so IT can access it over the network and I can help you recover it remotely next time."

"Why don't I just save it to the desktop?" Malachi blinked several times.

"Well, I'm going to mark this ticket as resolved." The rest of the tickets went something like that. Only two people had problems that required him to think. When he got back to the breakroom for lunch, though, he did so in triumph.

"I have a new record. Five hundred," Malachi said. His coworker, Adam, said, "Bullshit. There's no way." Malachi grinned, taking his lunch out of the fridge. He then opened his laptop to show Adam the screenshot.

"Read it and weep it. Two monitors, 25 by 10 grid. Every. Single. Space. Filled. She thought because she'd filled up the desktop with files and shortcuts that her computer was full and couldn't save any more files." Adam looked at the screenshot, counting the rows and columns.

"Dammit!" He handed Malachi the shitty bowling trophy back, the one he'd had for a solid year at this point. Malachi set the trophy atop his personal locker.

"Oh, I think your phone went off in there." Malachi hated the policy of 'no personal devices out,' but on the other hand, if they let people use them at work, they'd probably have another security incident within the hour. Malachi reached into his locker and pulled out his phone. He had several missed messages from Malia. The first one read, ' Mal. The portal opened up right by the entrance. It's lizard slavers. They've got the building surrounded. It all happened really fast.' His heart started pounding.

His mouth went dry.

'We called PRT. Don't think they're going to get here in time.'

'They're not gonna get here in time.'

'They're breaking down the door.'

'Sorry Mal.'

'Promise me you'll stay safe.'

'I love you little bro.'

'Forever and'"Mal? Dude, you alright?" Adam asked. Malachi stared at the screen. The last message had come an hour ago. His hands had started trembling. He grabbed his gun and sprinted out the door. After his apartment had burned down, Malachi had finished his physical therapy, then resolved never to skip a day at the gym ever again. He now went down the office hallway at a dead sprint. The security guy said something as he passed through the lobby, but Malachi didn't hear him.

Once outside, he fumbled for a rideshare app. The closest one was ten minutes away.

"Fuck!" he shouted, startling a man walking by. Too long. Malia's office building was eleven blocks away. He started running. Four times, he ran through traffic, ignoring the honking horns and squealing brakes. People stumbled out of the way as he ran, and a few people cursed him. All he could think was that they were slowing him down. Three blocks away, the sidewalk was mostly clear. People were only just starting to leave the emergency shelters.

One block away, he saw the Portal Response team set up, a dozen guys with rifles and spears next to their APCs.

"Back! Get back!" one of the men called, shouldering his assault rifle.

"The portal. They took my sister. Is it…?" He was panting, barely able to breathe. The man looked at him, and lowered the rifle.

"I'm sorry," he said.

"The summoner closed it a half-hour ago. It was a fast raid. We're still trying to figure out how many people they took." Malachi fell to his knees. No, he thought. Not Malia. That was all the family he had left. He stared at the spot beyond an APC where the pavement was charred and pocked with bullet holes. The man was saying something, but he couldn't hear him. Something small and fragile inside Malachi had broken, a delicate little glass bauble that he hadn't even realized he was still protecting.

What happened next, Malachi didn't remember well. There were a lot of people talking at him. He let some investigator look at his phone so they had timestamps for events during the raid. Some medical person put a blanket on him, and he took the blanket off and let it fall to the pavement. His phone rang. Work. He looked at the screen, then put it back in his pocket. Eventually, he wandered home. Home. His sister's apartment. The one she wouldn't be coming back to. He walked around the apartment in a daze.

Just this morning, it had felt complete. Now it was like everything inside it was made of shadows scraped from a half-remembered dream. There was this terrible lump in his throat that wouldn't go away. Malachi didn't make any noise, but he felt the tears rolling down his cheeks. He sat down at the edge of her bed. There was this stuffy, this stupid stuffy, that Malia had kept from their childhood. He held it in his hands. It was a little stuffed dog.

By now, it was missing an eye, and she'd had to sew closed three holes in it. On her dresser was this pristine tea set she'd asked for last Christmas. She'd squealed for joy when she got it, but she'd never actually opened it and used it. On the nightstand, there was a lava lamp. She'd had one as a kid, but their mom had said it was too dangerous to have one and thrown it out. This one had globs of white, pink and purple when it was lit up, but right now, it was dark. Malachi realized that it would be dark forever.

Eventually, his grief became exhaustion, and he slept.

The next day, Malachi went straight to a recruiter's office.

"I'm here to join Portal Response," he said.