Chapter 118: Just Taze Yourself
Morning felt like the camp had been set to "almost."
Almost heavy. Almost normal. Almost quiet.
Snow fell slower than eyesight. Steam hovered above cups like it didn’t want to commit to rising.
Hikari half-rolled, half-slid off her cot and only didn’t faceplant because the blanket followed her at arm’s length like an obedient pet. She blinked at her own hand, which hung a finger above the mattress before it bothered to touch.
"Good morning" Raizen said from the crate beside her. He passed a cup - careful, fingers under the rim so the weird layer between skin and world would let it transfer. "Sip. Slowly."
She did. The water took an extra heartbeat to arrive in her mouth, like even liquids were negotiating contracts now. "Is it... over?"
"For you?" He glanced at the tiny dial clipped to the cot frame, and let out a tiny smile. "Mostly. You’ll bump into invisible things for a short while. Even I have it sometimes"
A thump hit the tent wall. A muffled clatter. Then: "I hate physics!" Feris’s voice, aggrieved and triumphant at once.
Raizen stood and parted the flap.
Feris arrived sideways.
She still floated off the floor, boots useless, legs bicycling at nothing. Every attempt to grab a pole met a polite cushion that pushed her away again. A rolling tray chimed as she drifted through it, forceps lifting, skittering, settling.
"It’s like the ground is a suggestion" she announced. "And I declined."
"Stop moving" Raizen said, moving to meet her. Déjà vu.
"I am trying!!" She rotated anyway, hair haloing, armor still cracked from yesterday.
Hikari would’ve laughed if her head didn’t protest with invoices. She flexed her fingers; the invisible spring gave, then put her hand back where it wanted it.
A shadow crossed the tent roof. A supply drone settled outside with theatrical delicacy, cables whispering. A crate dropped on the pad with a sigh and a little bounce. Someone dragged it inside.
It had a pink bow.
Obi, hair even more catastrophic than usual, squinted at the ribbon like it had insulted his family. "Alteea sent us a present. Pray for us."
The tag, crisp in handwriting:
TEMPORARY - DO NOT LICK.
Underneath, in smaller letters:
Interference unstable at 0.9. Just taze yourself. It should get better. - Alteea
Feris cackled. "She put a bow on a threat."
Raizen lifted the lid. Nestled in foam: a compact device with copper prongs and a grip wrapped in something textured. Not Luminite-powered. No glow. Just a faint purr like a cat that was considering whether it liked you.
"Absolutely not" Kori said over comms without saying hello. "No one points anything with prongs at themselves in my camp."
"Ignore that" Alteea said immediately, overlapping. "Short pulse only. It should reset your drift. It’s temporary. It’ll keep the numbers from climbing."
"Define reset" Hikari said.
"There’s only one way to find out!" Alteea replied. "Side effects include looking ridiculous for ten minutes. Try not to be dramatic - the field loves drama."
Feris reached for the device. The field refused her hand like a picky gate. "I can’t even hold my own salvation" she groaned. "Lynea?"
Lynea, who did everything like she was teaching the act to someone else, stepped forward and took the tazer.
"Hold still" she said, which was funny under the circumstances.
"Wait" Raizen started.
Lynea touched the prongs to Feris’s forearm and squeezed the trigger.
White.
Lightning crawled across the air with the manic excitement of a dog let off the leash. It found Feris like she was a lightning rod. She arched, hair shooting skyward, and let out a noise that was fifty percent pain, fifty percent righteous offense.
Lynea flew backward, landed on her back, gasped out something rude, and then coughed because that was the only way the situation made sense. The kettle hummed, lifted a thumb’s width, decided to respect gravity again. A spoon drifted an inch above the table, thought about landing, and decided to try again later.
Silence landed hard.
Feris blinked, blinking smoking a little. "Okay" she whispered, voice hoarse. "That definitely did something."
"You became a thundercloud" Raizen said, deadpan.
"Hot" Obi added. "In a terrifying way."
Hikari tested her palm against her clothes. It almost sank into actual fabric. She exhaled, surprised by how much the simple contact meant. "It’s better" she murmured, then groaned, because... It just made sense
Outside, snowflakes drifted up for a moment, reconsidered, and settled on down. A Warden walked past like he was pushing through pool water, umbrella floating behind him, trying to decide which way was down.
Alteea came back on comms. "Good. Good. That flash? Normal. Do not touch anything metal for two hours."
Raizen looked at the tent. Every useful thing was metal. "We’ll just... think thoughts."
"Exactly" Alteea said. Keys clicked. She was everywhere at once again. "Raizen, send me a line when Feris’s numbers dip. Hikari, stay horizontal. Drink. Kori –"
"Seal the shaft" Kori said. "Now."
Alteea, cool as steel: "We need one more pass."
Kori: "You’ll risk a collapse."
Raizen cut in before their voices could sharpen more. "I’ll go" he said. "I’ll take... Lynea and Arashi, they’re free... In and out. If it’s stable, we seal. If it isn’t, we seal anyway."
A beat. You could hear Alteea rerouting three plans at once. "Fine" she said. "Minimum exposure. And try not to electrocute friendship again."
Kori: "Report every turn."
"Copy" Raizen said.
"Take me, I wanna go!" Feris said immediately.
"No" three voices answered in chorus.
She pouted, rotated an inch, and declared, "I hate science and science hates me. Scratch my nose. If I try, I will headbutt the sky."
"We don’t have sky" Obi said. "We have bad lights, clouds and optimism."
Lynea stood, winced, and tested her own weight. Gravity liked her again, if grudgingly. "I can go."
Arashi stuck his head through the flap, breath fogging. "Someone say field trip?"
Raizen grabbed his pack. "Field trip. No souvenirs."
They stepped outside into the almost-gravity. Every step had a little slow float to it, boots kissing snow and then taking too long to commit to leaving. It would’ve been beautiful if it didn’t carry the memory of a room exploding.
The path to the shaft felt shorter in daylight. The sign they’d laughed at - TURN BACK - lay half buried, snapped clean, letters still legible in the broken halves. The grid they’d bent and bowed last night was gone. Not removed - scattered. Thick steel lay in scraps like torn cloth, edges smooth as if kissed by heat and then frozen.
Lynea crouched by a twisted link and laid a glove on it. "No tool marks" she said. "No bite. This wasn’t cut."
"Then what did it?" Arashi asked.
Raizen didn’t answer. He wedged himself sideways through the mouth and felt the tunnel breathe cool across his face. His lamp turned the dark into a narrower dark.
Inside, the charms chalked on the first brace had blackened around the edges, as if a candle had been held close but not close enough to catch. The scrap of ribbon left on the nail drooped, longer than it had been yesterday, like the air had stretched it.
"Feels... light" Arashi said softly.
Lynea tested a little hop. She rose higher than she should and landed with a surprised sound, then adjusted. "Gravity’s still weird."
"Numbers?" Raizen asked.
Lynea checked the slate. The lines crawled up and down like nervous eels. "Off, but stable."
They passed the marks, the hedge of symbols that had once looked like superstition and now looked like caution. The hum that had lived behind the walls last night was different - deeper, almost below hearing, more pressure than sound. Raizen had the sudden, stupid image of the mountain holding its breath.
"Alteea" he said into comms, keeping his voice level. "We’re in. The outer gate is -"
"Destroyed" Alteea finished. Her voice was thinner down here. "Copy. I see little flutters on my end. Keep talking."
"Turn ahead" Kori said on another channel. "Say it."
"Turning" Raizen went on. "Left."
The slab they’d pried back last night was not where they’d left it. It lay ten feet away, folded like a book closed wrong. The foam they’d peeled away had hardened into ripples. The messages, the chalk, the scratches - gone, as if the air had licked the letters clean.
They squeezed past the frame and walked into the gentle bowl of the chamber approach.
The geode entrance should have been there.
It wasn’t.
Not collapsed. Not choked. Not jammed with rubble.
A wall closed the opening. Seamless. The faint lines of mineral upgrowth ran like frozen water down its face. It didn’t look like a new thing; it looked like it had always been there.
Lynea put both hands on it and pushed, because you always try. "This is not a fall" she said. "This is... work."
Arashi set his lamp down and leaned in. His breath fogged and made a tiny star that clung to the stone and refused to fade. "Who seals rock from the inside?"
Raizen laid his palm flat.
Warmth.
Not heat, not human. The kind of warmth you get from a stone that’s held sunlight all day. The geode had been deeper than sunlight. He pulled his hand away. The warmth lingered a second too long against his skin.
Lynea frowned at the floor. Dust had settled in tidy drifts in a pattern that didn’t match their footsteps from last night. Something like a sweep, then a stop, then nothing.
"Alteea" Raizen said quietly. "It’s... gone."
Static. Then Alteea, lower than he’d ever heard her, her voice interrupting. "Def- Deffffine go- gone."
"Not broken. Not buried" he said. "It looks like the mountain... closed its eyes."
A thin hum threaded the air under his words, barely there. For a second, he could almost hear the note from last night - the one that had sat under his ribs and made his breath behave. It wasn’t in the rock. It was behind it. Or not.
Kori: "Seal and leave."
Arashi touched the wall again. "It’s warm" he said, surprised, like a child admitted into a secret and not sure he wanted it.
Lynea tilted her head, listening the way she listened to people when they lied without meaning to. "Do you hear that?"
Raizen held his breath. The hum flattened into the silence. Nothing but his own heartbeat. He felt stupid, and then angry at himself for feeling stupid, and then angrier because that meant fear had gotten a hand in him.
He forced his voice steady. "Copy, Kori. We’re coming out."
He took one step back.
The comm cracked and peeled into a hissing. Through it, Alteea’s voice cut like a wire pulled tight. "Raizen - get out of there. Now."