Isabella's Ferrari idled in a strip mall parking lot, engine purring like a cat that knew it could kill you but hadn't decided if you were worth the effort. We'd been sitting here for forty minutes, watching the car’s board tablet. It showed a dark green orthographic map of about a hundred-mile radius around us, had waves that blurred through it, and nothing else.

  This was supposed to be the company’s rift detector. It didn’t seem to be detecting anything though.

  Since I lost the rock-paper-scissors for who would sit in the back, I sat cramped in the back seat. The Ferrari was cute, but it wasn’t built for three people, my knees jammed against both Isabella’s and Takezo’s seats. “Can’t we at least listen to music?”

  Isabella didn’t even look at me. “Need to hear the beep when the rift pops up.”

  “It doesn’t seem to be planning to do that.”

  “Shut up.” Isabella kept scrolling on her phone. From what I could see over her shoulder, she was skimming through some operations records, most likely of the other intervention departments scattered around the world.

  Takezo sat with both of his swords, the formerly reserve one and the new reserve one, on the passenger seat, staring ahead in almost a hypnotic trance. "At least we're not bleeding yet."

  "You also shut up," Isabella uttered.

  The delusion of Kallisto lounged across the hood of the car, visible only to me, examining her nails. "You know what would make this more interesting? If you asked Isabella about that tentacle dildo Cassandra mentioned. That has to have quite the story behind it. A perfect topic for a long wait.”

  I bit my tongue to keep from responding.

  The tablet beeped. Before the red dot even appeared on the tablet, Isabella stomped on the gas. The car bolted forward, throwing me back on the seats. I scrambled for the seat belt as she drifted through a turning, accelerating to way over a hundred already.

  Isabella slammed the pedal to the floor.

  The Ferrari accelerated so hard that it pinned my skull to the headrest. While swerving among other cars like crazy, often using the sidewalk or opposite lane, we reached one fifty miles per hour in spite of being in moderate traffic.

  "How far is it?" I shouted over the engine.

  "Close, but in the wrong direction." Isabella yanked the wheel hard right, drifting around a minivan. The Ferrari's backend swung out, tires smoking, and she corrected with the precision of someone who'd been doing this far too often.

  She drifted onto the highway entrance and then shifted into a higher gear. We burst on the highway, passing everything through the safety lane. A parked car with a smoking hood blocked the path ahead.

  Isabella jerked the wheel left, passing two lanes in an instant without slowing down. The path cleared a little, and we stopped accelerating, so I had the time to see the speed.

  Two hundred and ten miles per hour.

  Even the Ferrari probably couldn’t go much faster than this.

  In the rearview mirror, I spotted a car that wasn’t disappearing. A black mustang was approaching us from behind. The car swerved right, accelerating to pass us from the right.

  I caught a glimpse of the crew in the right-hand mirror. Two youngsters, about my age, held onto their dear lives on the passenger seat and the back seats. The man behind the wheel had it braced by his left knee while using both his hands to arrange a cowboy hat on himself.

  I didn’t need to ask to know that these were from the Secret Societies.

  Isabella shifted gears, pressing the gas even harder, as if it had a hidden extra speed mode underneath the floor. “Hold onto something.”

  Like what? I caught my hand on the door armrest, just like Takezo. That wasn’t going to do much though.

  We surged ahead of the mustang, and Isabella cut right to block them. The mustang swerved left, surging ahead.

  Isabella punched the wheel. “Move, you Italian piece of shit!”

  This tale has been unlawfully obtained from Royal Road. If you discover it on Amazon, kindly report it.

  It didn’t though, stuck at two-twenty miles per hour. The mustang passed us, cutting in front of us. Slowly, the car pulled away, swerving among the traffic ahead.

  Isabella punched the board, cursing in Spanish, barely dodging the cars ahead of us. The speed made everyone else look like they were stationary, as if we drove through a parking lot.

  The mustang headed to the exit.

  Isabella smirked, yanking the wheel to the right. We crossed two lanes and flew off the highway. My stomach jumped into my throat in the free flight, looking at the field ahead. We landed on the field covered by tall grass. Isabella instantly stabilized, flooring it once again. The Ferrari wasn't built for off-roading, but she didn't seem to care.

  We blasted across the field, a small hill in front of us. Isabella started pulling down the front windows, the wind blasting and deafening us.

  If only I had something more to catch myself by. We hit the hill dead on, which catapulted us into the air. We started spinning by the car’s long axis as we flew.

  Isabella’s hair shot out from the window, hitting the ground to stabilize us. We landed, Isabella immediately stabilized us, and floored the gas again.

  I wasn’t even sure if we were on a road, only that I saw the rift ahead, and the black mustang drifting into a turning behind us. The rift looked like a scar upon the face of reality, a rimless, purple portal.

  The mustang surged forward, catching up to us, passing us from the right.

  Isabella yanked the wheel and pulled the hand brake. The car drifted sideways towards the portal. The moment it turned, Isabella’s hair shot out.

  The mustang passed us, drifting sideways to stop in front of the portal.

  Isabella’s hair shot over the mustang and into the portal. The purple light turned into violet and started slightly pulsing.

  We stopped, and I caught my mouth to hold in any vomit. None came, though my stomach felt like it wanted to evacuate itself.

  Takezo slid a bit on the seat, exhaling.

  Isabella clapped her hands. “Got him!” She kicked the door open and burst out of the car.

  I opened my seat belt and started getting out, careful to not deposit my breakfast.

  From the other car, the man in the cowboy hat got out. He had a very rough shave, the top half of the face covered by the hat, wore the company suit, but also had a leather coat over it, and two guns holstered at his waist.

  Two more people got out of the car, a man and a woman, about my age, both wobbly on their legs, clearly struggling to not vomit, just like Takezo and I.

  Isabella strolled towards them, a wicked smile on her lips. “A fighter jet engine in a car, and still too slow. You drive like an old man, Mihael.”

  He sported a rogue smile. “You’ve gotten better, Izzie. You only flew out of the road once.”

  I activated the level scanner. System windows popped around the other trio:

  Name: ‘Mihael’ Jean-Noel de Lyon

  Age: 674

  Level: 99

  Name: Jaden Martinez

  Age: 24

  Level: 36

  Name: Lana Anderson

  Age: 23

  Level: 35

  Six-hundred and seventy-four? I stared at the pop-up, even as it vanished. The other two looked normal though, both in the company-standard black suit, white shirt, and a black tie, with no visible weapons. He was handsome, shaved, with a broad chin, and a very un-straight nose, clearly broken a few times. She had her hair arranged in a tight bun held by two long needles, eyes narrow and glaring at us.

  “But anyway,” Mihael said. “Rifts are our business, so what’s up?”

  Isabella's hair rearranged to normal, except for the one strand that still stuck into the rift. "This one’s mine now. But I’ll be generous enough to allow you three good-for-nothings to enter. I just need to talk, in very private." She motioned with her hand over us. “But let’s not skip the introductions just because we’ve already scanned each other. These are Peter and Takezo, my apprentice and my latest minion, both from the interventions department.”

  Right, everyone had the level scanner.

  Mihael snorted. “Jaden and Lana, my apprentices from the rift-sealing department.”

  We all awkwardly waved at each other.

  “Anyways,” Isabella said, and stepped towards the rift. “I’ve got actual work to do today, too, so move it.” She walked into the rift, the violet light swallowing her.

  Takezo and I exchanged a glance and walked towards the portal. Mihael and his pupils instead turned towards their car, Jaden opening the trunk.

  We walked through. The violet light swallowed us.

  This wasn’t like walking through the portal to the future Tokyo. The violet light swirled, squished us, and then spat us out after about fifteen seconds.

  We landed in a meadow. A sharp mountain cliff towered behind us, and a tall tree forest spread in a semi-circle ahead. Three paths led from here, on to the right that turned into a mountain path, one straight ahead, and the last one into the forest to the left, with foliage a lot thicker around that one.

  Isabella looked over me and Takezo. “Where are the others?”

  “I’m sure they’ll come,” I said. “Should I go take a look?”

  “The moment you exit, you won’t be able to return to the rift, so don’t.”

  After a few minutes, Mihael and his crew walked through. He was dressed the same, just carrying a long rifle over his shoulder. But Jaden wore a futuristic, full-body steel armor and had a massive hammer strapped over his back.

  Lana now wore narrow glasses and a metallic backpack, which had two drones attached to it. She also carried a long staff, which looked downright medieval, decorated with steel ornaments.

  Suddenly, I felt undergeared, at best.

  “All right,” Mihael said, as if he were naturally in charge. “Three paths, so we split into three groups. Isabella and I need to talk intensely, so we go together. We will go that way,” he motioned with his head towards the mountain path. “Because if there’s a hot spring in here, it is that way.”

  Isabella shrugged. “Sure.”

  “Next,” Mihael continued. “Junior and Lana are in desperate need of getting laid, so they’ll go together. And finally, someone needs to clear the rift, so Jaden and Takezo will go straight to do that.” He stepped towards the mountain path as if that settled it.

  Takezo glanced at Jaden. “Try to not get in my way.” He stepped forward.

  “Says the low-level scrub.” Jaden caught up in an instant, and within a moment, they almost raced on the forest path.