Angel Estrada had been fascinated with the climate all his life. The power of it. The inherent randomness. When he was a child, he came across an ancient novel about some geneticists creating dinosaurs. That wasn’t the part of the book that stuck with him though. It was the fractals, the predictable unpredictability of the chaos theory injected throughout the story. It got him into mathematics, and then meteorology, and then one day he found himself as a Minister of Meteorology in charge of the south-eastern section of the Storm Barrier that made up one portion of the nation’s Climate Control Initiative. He had reached the heights of his profession and now was broiled in the mundanity of administration.

  Today was Tuesday. Inspection day. His favorite. Every Tuesday he would fly out to one of the Storm Barriers in his segment and check in with the staff and personnel, verifying routine maintenance was being kept up with and checking the infrastructure was up to code. It was generally uneventful, the people under him knew their jobs and did them well, and there had not been an incident in over twenty years. Still, routine inspections were part of what made that reality possible, so Angel didn’t complain (out loud) and did his duty with as much tenacity as he could muster.

  He was riding in one of the long-distance transport VTOL’s that his Ministry had constructed specifically for these types of trips to reach the astounding altitudes required to do a proper inspection. The Storm Barriers were a series of massive, segmented walls whose curved surfaces and massive turbines induced a boundary-layer disruption, diffusing and rerouting gale-force winds before they could strike populated areas. Combined with the weather satellites in geosynchronous orbit that used focused pulses to disperse or redirect stormfronts, the citizens of InnerCity and its outlying districts generally never had to deal with anything more than a light drizzle. Though Climate Engineering did tend to create an almost constant drizzle in most regions, the harsher realities of climate change had been curtailed. Angel sat in a lush cabin, the dimmed hum of the engines provided a constant background noise, his assistant Crystal going over the agenda on her tablet, when the pilot’s voice cut in through the overhead speakers.

  “We are now approaching Storm Barrier East J29,” the somewhat muffled voice said. “As per usually we’ll do a pass over the peak of the wall before doing a slow descent down the side. There is a large stormfront on the outer segment so we will not be examining that part of the wall today.”

  “Darn it,” Angel said. “We’ll have to do another follow-up after the storm passes. Crystal, can you get me an analysis on that storm? And make sure to schedule a follow-up inspection for when it is expected to clear.

  “Yes, Minister,” his aid replied, tapping on her tablet, then frowned. “There seems to be an issue with one of our satellites. This was a category 3 hurricane twelve hours ago and had been predicted to be deflected out to sea. It is now category five and is brushing up against the Storm Barrier. The wind diffusion will become ineffective if the storm grows any larger.”

  “That is not ideal,” Angel stated the obvious. “What’s going on with the satellite?”

  “It has not reported any issues. I’m running a diagnostic now.” Crystal kept working intently on her tablet. “The satellite is reporting operational. There must be an issue with the diagnostic software. I don’t think the beam emitters are functioning. Moving one of the other satellites in place to take over. It will take several hours to get into the correct orbit.”

  Angel nodded absently as he had pulled up the satellite images of the massive storm that had sprung up seemingly overnight. It looked like it was spawning two smaller systems and flinging them off in different directions. He hadn’t seen a storm like this since he was in college. It got his heart racing.

  “Sir, would you come to the cockpit?” the co-pilot had poked himself halfway into the cabin. He had a very serious look on his face. Angel nodded, unbuckled, and followed the man into the cockpit. He held out a headset for Angel to put on, which he did, coming in halfway through a report.

  “—eactor number three is starting to show the same symptoms as reactor one. Not sure if there is a containment breach, but the temperature is rising fast. If this continues we’ll need to bring it offline—” Angel cupped his hand over the mic on his handset.

  “Is this coming from J29?”

  “Yes, sir. They took reactor one offline earlier this morning due to some anomalous readings. They started reporting issues with the barrier’s turbines, and when they brought up the other reactors having issues we thought you should hear this first hand.” Angel nodded and took his hand off the mic.

  “J29 this is Minister Estrada, what's the bottom line?”

  “Minister, this is lead Kirkson, we are essentially down to one reactor, the turbines cannot keep up with the gale force winds with our current output. Any more stress and the whole thing is likely to--"

  A momentary burst of light blinded the three men in the cockpit, the trained pilot didn't miss a beat, switching over to the emergency AI assist while his vision recovered. The craft’s AI detected a blast wave approaching and immediately banked away from it. Angel was pressed down, luckily into the available seat behind the pilots, and managed to strap in before they were buffeted by the turbulent shock wave. As his vision recovered, he witnessed large chunks of metal whipping past them as the sound of heavy rain began spattering against the craft.

  “My God,” the co-pilot whispered as he looked at the view from the aft camera. Angel pulled it up on a display set into the bulkhead near him and then echoed the exclamation. A jagged gash spread up the length of the barrier wall, exposing the storm beyond. The force of the wind had scattered the debris and was now beginning to stretch its arm through the gap.

  “Get me an emergency channel to the Prime Minister,” he said, watching as the whole wall segment started to come apart.

  ***

  The halls were completely empty as Ryan headed towards his locker, the squelching sound of his sneakers reverberating off the walls made him feel less than stealthy. He had to pass by the Janitor’s closet on his way, and noticed a sign had been placed on the door reading “Under Maintenance.” He felt that same sensation from the orb in his pocket as he had when being scanned by the device earlier, as if it was drawing in some kind of energy. He hoped that wasn’t evidence that the fissure wasn’t completely sealed and picked up the pace to get to his PerSpectives.

  His device vibrated and when he checked it he saw a message from Helios suggesting he use his Eye-in-the-Sky done instead of taking the risk of exposing his goggles. Ryan gave an admonishing shake of the head at himself for not thinking about it first, then exchanged his device for the smooth rectangular object in his pocket. He snapped it open with a press of the button and lightly tossed it into the air. The drone, under guidance from the PerSpectives silently drifted towards the Janitors closet.

  Ryan pulled his device back out and the Sifting app must have intuited what he would want to see as it had already opened a view from the drone’s camera. It showed an almost x-ray view right through the walls as it approached the closet, like the base outlines of inanimate objects as well as various heat signatures in the shape of people, indicating that not everyone had gone to the cafeteria. Based on their size he guessed most of them were faculty members. What the drone displayed once it arrived at its destination was quite different from what he had expected. The cleaning supplies seemed to have been removed, and what looked like three conical objects were pointed at where the tear had been. They were emitting some sort of pulse that periodically caused the view to ripple. The display highlighted them and then displayed extra information.

  If you spot this narrative on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.

  Reality Stabilizer

  Ministry of Integrity device designed to reinforce a focal point of reality that has become destabilized.

  A golden light flashed around the edges of his device and a new message popped up.

  Event Quest: Close the Gate

  Task Complete

  Don PerSpectives to receive reward.

  Ryan let out a deep sigh of relief, tension he hadn’t realized he’d been carrying melting from his neck and shoulders. He had been quite uncomfortable with how things had ended the previous night, and the lack of a completion message from the PerSpectives had him doubly worried that he’d messed things up. He was still nervous with the Ministry people being around, but at least the most important thing had been handled. He figured he still had a bit more than an hour and a half before the movie would finish and decided he couldn’t wait to look at what kind of items a Gold Store Token might get him. He again verified that the hall was empty and extracted his backpack from the locker, heading towards the restroom. He let the Eye-in-the-Sky drone continue to do its thing as a form of early warning system, in case anyone came his way, and ducked into a stall, latching the door closed.

  After hanging his backpack on a hook in the door he pulled out the perspectives and slid them over his head.

  “Welcome back, Aitherios,” the calm dispassionate voice of Helios said as new system messages popped up.

  System Notice – Major Event Complete

  Congratulations on completing your first major Event Quest.

  Task: Locus Restructuring & Proto-Gate Stabilization

  Result: Successful prevention of full Incursion

  Reward Unlocked: 1 Gold Store Token

  Would you like to access the Store now?

  |Yes. | No.|

  Ryan eagerly selected “yes" and the familiar animation of the shopping cart tipped over at him before opening the store and automatically navigating to the Gold-Tier section. Every item in the store was grayed out save one.

  Attention:

  PerSpective 3.2 Firmware upgrade required to unlock Gold-Tier Inventory

  Upgrade includes:

  Enhanced Neural Interface

  Reverse Projection HUD (PerSpectives UI available during Astral Projection)

  WILD Binaural & Visual Assist (Wake-Induced Lucid Dreaming)

  Astral Peripheral Communication (Retains device link while projecting)

  Cost: 18,000 CP or 1 Gold Token

  “Well, it’s not like I have a choice,” Ryan muttered as he selected the upgrade.

  System Message

  Beginning Firmware Upgrade

  WARNING: Do not Power off or Remove Perspectives during the upgraded.

  The HUD blinked off. Then the world went black.

  “Uh,” Ryan intoned, glancing up. The bathroom lights had gone out, plunging him into darkness. A progress bar appeared on his view screen with the words “Firmware update in progress, please stand by.” Ryan pulled the device out of his pocket and turned on its flashlight. He left his backpack on the door hook and slowly poked his head out of the stall. The bathroom was still empty and dark, so he headed to the hallway. There were no overhead lights on out there either, but he could hear tense murmurs in the hallway and spotted a few lights flashing from other classroom doorways. There must have been a power outage. Ryan ducked back into the bathroom. He didn’t want to get caught wandering the hallway with his PerSpectives and the update was only at 3%, so he sat back down in the stall and waited for the power to come back on.

  ***

  Henry Clark grumbled to himself as he headed down the hallway, flashlight in hand. The power had gone out suddenly, and he wasn’t about to lose a brand-new switch to a surge of dirty power when it came back on. He hadn’t replaced Uninterrupted Power Supply, figuring he could get to it next week. In all the years he’d worked in this job, he’d never experienced a power outage, and he had, admittedly, allowed himself to get a little lazy about that particular aspect of his network. He got to the Janitor’s Closet and could hear the repetitive beeping sound that he had expected from a dead UPS. He frowned at the maintenance sign that was on the door but unlocked it anyway and headed inside. He came upon three strange, conical devices set in a triangle on the ground. Curiously all the cleaning supplies had been removed, except for, thankfully, the ladder. The devices all had cables running up into the ceiling tile where his network stack was located.

  Henry set up the ladder and climbed to the ceiling, removing the tile, and found they were indeed plugged into his UPS, which was flashing 0% on the battery. Perfect, someone had hooked up unauthorized equipment and helped drain the battery even faster. There were policies for a reason.

  He pressed the button to silence the incessant alarm and started unplugging everything. A strange sensation tickled his thigh, he looked down, but didn’t see anything. He stretched his leg out and got a good pop! out of his knee and went back to work. He started to unscrew the UPS from the rack when the tickle turned into an electrical shock. He jerked back, lost his footing and fell down the ladder, hitting his chin on one of the steps. Sitting up against the door he rubbed his sore chin, letting out a mild string of curses as he looked up at the traitorous ladder. That’s when he noticed the top steps of the ladder begin to twist and warp.

  ***

  The creature Manus had been contemplating the stalagnate that made up the fused locus within the astral. It was in its child form, legs curled up against its chest, tapping its digits together rhythmically. It had inscribed the rune of Thagirion upon the throne before they fused the locus, so it expected to be able to pierce back through where the veil was weakest, but every time it reached out to the corruption something repelled it. Weaver told it to trust in Synchronicity, so Manus bided its time, poking at the Locus when it felt like it.

  The stone pillar bothered Manus. It was too smooth, lacking the irregularities it once had, as if the fusion had been too simplistic. It was reminiscent of the early days when Manus had been brought into being, when the early Travelers had little to no grasp of how to reconfigure a disrupted Locus. Who was this new player, and what was that energy it felt within their tether.

  That energy. Manus knew what it was instinctively the moment it felt the connection. A fundament of all realities, the energy of the barrier that encapsulated and imprisoned chaos. What it could do with such power. Unshackle itself from Weaver. Open paths to the wider cosmos. Become a truly manifested being. That energy. It felt it now, but faintly, emanating from the Locus. Manus followed the trail through the structure, found it lingering upon the symbol embedded in the center, and pushed.

  Like it was made of a fragile plaster the stalagnate shattered, pieces falling away and crumbling to dust at its base. Manus stood, sensing a fissure form, and a broad inhuman smile spread across its face. Its back ruptured and hands crawled down and out towards the crumbled pile, reconfiguring the shape of the Locus. The cave started to warp around it, the ceiling coming down its texture morphing into a white popcorned plaster, the floor smoothing into a beige carpet, wallpapered hallways stretching out around it.

  Manus walked down one of the hallways, taking a turn, until it found the old bedroom. It looked up and there was the faintest of distortions there. It reached out its arm, hand upon hand crawling out upon themselves until one could reach out, tentatively poking at the hole, before crawling through into reality and falling to the floor. A human male was sitting slumped against a door rubbing his chin. His eyes widened in horror, but before he could scream Manus sent the hand into his mouth, insinuating itself into his brain.