I watched whoever it was that went into the impossible place

  They walked around the space, then stopped in the middle and said, “Hello.”

  I was unable to make out who it was through my bug's alien ears.

  Then there was a second voice coming from an unknown source, “Do you have anything that can help me?”

  “No, and there hasn’t been any progress.”

  “Not even with the incident?”

  “No, sorry. But I have gained this, I hope this helps.”

  The person put something on the ground, and I recognised the energy. It was one of the crystals I filled up every day.

  ‘What?!’

  There was a sigh from the bodyless voice, “Thank you, but I can’t hold this much longer, so I suppose this is goodbye, love you.”

  “Love you too.”

  Then they walked out, and I followed them, finding them going towards a familiar spot, the lab. Then they walked into an office filled to the brim with detritus, and lay down in a corner with an air mattress and promptly started snoring. I had my bugs find the placard on the outside of the door and encircle it so I could make out the shape of the words. My brow creasing when I read.

  “Dr. Isebella Bekert”

  O O O

  After discovering that Bekert was the one who entered the box, I kept a close eye on her. I watched her during the nights, hoping I would find her going to the box again, but there was nothing. I had my bugs search around the lab for anything, I even snuck a bird in there to read stuff, but again, nothing.

  I also tried to stop giving my MP incase because of the crystal Bekert had given to the bodyless voice, but I couldn’t come up with a good reason. The scientists were studying them and needed a constant supply, and I hadn’t yet gotten the hang of not killing my team members without the depleted MP.

  So I gave up on that and tried figuring out stuff about her through other people, but none of the Marines knew anything about her or just ignored me. The scientists were the same, apparently she had been put on the team as the head after the last one got killed in a previous expedition so they didn’t know her, and she wasn’t the talkative type.

  The only odd thing I found was that she would always keep an eye on anybody who went near where the impossible place was when training. Otherwise, nothing, for the entire week left in training, and I didn’t have any more time to figure out what she knew, since it was time to go into the Gate.

  O O O

  On the way towards the gate, I was placed inside another van with some of the marines in the back, in uniform but unarmed. They talked among each other, but quite blatantly left me out, well, except for Caleb, but I didn’t like him, so I just ignored anything he said. The guy taking a painfully long time to catch the hint.

  Enjoying this book? Seek out the original to ensure the author gets credit.

  But we got to the Gate before my urge to punch him got too bad, the sky gloomy and drizzling rain, but that didn’t stop Lieutenant Gray from giving orders out in the open air. I watched as the other Marines tried not to shiver with schadenfreude, while I was unaffected, and half paid attention to the orders being given out.

  Us three Gifted were assigned who went into their party, Kalani and Charlotte got firing squads while I was assigned the scientists (the same ones at the compound) since we could share a portion of our power with our parties. And invisibility sounded great to give to soldiers, until you realized their allies couldn’t see them, which led to more than one accident in training.

  Then we were given something called NBC suits, which were essential Hazmat suits meant to be worn for extended periods of time, giving us half an hour to put them on before we would go into the Gate. I was having a little trouble with mine before one of the scientists walked over to me and asked.

  “Do you want help?”

  I turned, widening my eyes when I saw it was Dr. Bekert.

  She raised an eyebrow and reiterated, “Do you want my help?”

  “Uh, sure.”

  They got closer to me, helping me shimmy my way through the back of the one piece suite, and getting my face through the hole despite the clunky mask they had given me. Then I put my hand on the mask's respirator and sucked in, creating a seal.

  Bekert looked at me and said, “I believe that is all,” there was a pause before she said, “I must confess, I didn’t come to you ot of the goodness of my heart.”

  I looked at her and thought, ‘Oh, really,’ but said, “Then why’re you here?”

  She bit her lip in thought, then said “My brother… he was a part of one of the previous expeditions as a Marine, and he died. If you find his remains, can you bring something back, anything back… not a body part to be clear.”

  “How would I identify him?”

  “His name should be on his stuff, and he looks like me, but taller, and he has blue eyes instead of gray.”

  I nodded, looking at her cooly, after a moment I said, “If this isn’t rude, why not ask anybody else, i’m sure the Marines would be up for it, brotherhood and all.”

  “You’re a Marine.”

  I waved my hand back and forth, “Eh, debatably. My question still stands, though.”

  She met my gaze, “Because there’s a standing order to leave anything from previous expeditions behind, and you have a history of,” she took a moment to find a polite wording, “Being a free spirit.”

  I nodded.

  ‘Yeah, that was BS. She wants me specifically for some reason. Is it connected to the impossible place?’

  I was brought out of my thoughts by Kalani, the CO for this mission, calling everyone over. After waving goodbye to Bekert, I went to group up with the Squad. Then we went inside, the sharp cold and wetness of the rain turning into the pleasant cool humidity of the pine forest. A sea of emerald needles waving in the crisp wind above us, showering us with yellowed and dead needles.

  Then I felt the Domain of the system surge, a thread connecting from the portal to everyone that entered firing a pulse of information at them. And I saw when the other got their notification, stopping in their tracks looking into the air like there was something there. While I got the manual removal by operator notification, like last time, but was caught off guard by the title of the quest.

  “Didn’t think you would come back, Jacob.”

  Then Kalani called out, “Squad two and Scientist, what are the missions you got

  I felt a spike of adrenaline as I tried to come up with a lie, but I was too late, as one of the scientists said.

  “Um, we don’t have one?”

  “What?” Kalani looked at them, “The hell do you mean?”

  “It said we were ‘Manually Removed By Administrator’, and it also…”

  “Spit it out.”

  I felt my heart hammering.

  “It mentioned Jacob by name.”

  As those words left the scientists lips I felt everyone's eyes fall onto me like a cascade.