They called it a monitoring phase. Ris called it medical voyeurism with a clipboard.
After surviving a Riftzone collapse, you'd think they'd hand them medals or at least a beer. Instead after a few days, TRY decided to lock them down in a decontamination ward again with white walls, bright lights, and Garn.
Garn, Doctor, specialist, TRU liaison, and certified pervert in a lab coat was the kind of guy who didn't blink when you told him your blood was glowing. He just scribbled notes and asked if it tingled.
He was also now in charge of Cyma.
That meant every day started with bloodwork, scans, and standing naked under a scanner while Garn muttered things like "fascinating density increase" or "neurological coherence remains stable, though he still talks like a sarcastic idiot."
Rus spent hours in that sterile hell. Sitting. Standing. Running on a treadmill with wires glued to places that wires have no right to be glued. Garn asked him to sneeze into a collector tube once. He considered sneezing in his face but that would just make it longer.
"Just relax," Garn said, scribbling on his tablet.
"I'm standing in a freezing room with my balls shriveled into raisins while you poke me with a pen," Rus said. "I'm the picture of serenity."
He didn't even flinch. Just muttered something about "baseline aggression maintained."
Lovely.
The rest of Cyma wasn't faring much better. Dan threatened to break out twice. Foster was flirting with a nurse who might've been a robot. Gino tried to fake a seizure so they'd let him sleep.
Berta was fine. Of course she was. Stripped down, flung her shirt at the wall, and said, "You want a sample? You're welcome to my fluids, doc."
Garn needed a moment after that. He was quite a professional, but Berta was the kind of woman who could make even sociopaths like him bothered.
Amiel didn't complain. She just stared at the wall during her tests like she was planning its demise.
It went on like that for days. Tests, more tests, and the kind of awkward silence that can only come from being constantly monitored by someone who says "interesting" every time your heart rate spikes.
And every night, they asked the same thing.
Any changes? Hallucinations? Voices? Unusual impulses?
To which Rus always replied. "No, unless you count the urge to strangle Garn with his own lab coat."
They didn't write that one down.
***
They kept them in that sterile hell for eight days.
On the ninth, Garn showed up with his usual stack of datapads, sipping some unholy green smoothie that probably had crushed Rift spores in it. He looked like a man who'd had too much fun cataloging their bodily fluids.
"Good news," he said without looking up. "Most of you are still human… well, superhuman, but you get my point."
Rus blinked. "That implies some of us aren't."
"No abnormalities in organ function, neuroplasticity is stable, and despite your general attitude, your mutation hasn't worsened."
"How comforting."
He turned to Berta. "Your cellular regeneration is elevated, but that's likely due to increased adrenaline."
"That, or my pussy's adapting to keep pace," Berta said with a grin, legs kicked up on a chair, gown barely covering the essentials.
Garn flinched. "Fascinating. Please don't elaborate."
"I could draw a diagram."
"Please don't."
Amiel, in her corner, muttered, "End me."
They let them out in staggered shifts, like they were leaking radiation. First was Gino, mostly because he wouldn't stop pretending he had four kidneys. Then Dan, who'd spent half the tests trying to make friends with the medical drone. Foster walked out muttering something about probable rift-borne parasites making his dick bigger.
Kate and Stacy were still recovering from the retinal damage. They'd be in the medical bay for another week at least. Rus visited once. They tried to joke, but it was forced. Stacy kept missing her cup with the straw. Kate winced every time someone turned on the light.
The Rift left marks.
Even if the body healed, the silence stuck.
Rus was the last out, because of course he was. He was the one who who got inside the Rift.
"Congratulations," Garn said, handing him a final clearance chip. "You're mentally stable."
"I'm deeply disappointed."
"So am I," he said. "I had money on you going full Riftborne."
"Didn't bet on me going full insufferable?"
"You were already there."
Rus thought it was a fair assessment.
The sun outside the med bay hurt. It was real again. Heat, dirt, and the overwhelming stench of chemical disinfectant and recycled sweat. The sounds hit Rus. boots on gravel, someone shouting at a drone, laughter from the barracks.
A hum of reality returning.
Cyma had set up around the corner of the south bunker. Their little patch of base.
Berta was doing pull-ups on a bent piece of scaffolding, her gear slung loose. Amiel was sitting under the shade of a tarp, goggles on, and a drone disassembled in front of her.
"Surprised you didn't die in there," Berta called, hanging upside down like a demonic bat. "Was kinda hoping to inherit your stash, Boss"
Rus waved. "Sorry to disappoint. You'll have to rob my corpse some other day."
"Can I rob your bed at least?"
"Only if you enjoy cold sheets and self-loathing."
Berta grinned, dropped to the dirt, and dusted her hands. "How about another hug?"
"You already got one."
"I meant without the trauma."
Rus sighed. "Fine. But keep your hands above waist level."
She saluted mockingly. "Scouts honor."
Rus turned to Amiel, crouched beside her. "Drone still breathing?"
"It's fine," she said, short and sharp, like usual. "You're late, Sir."
"Had to make sure I wasn't growing tentacles."
"Disappointing."
Rus smiled. She didn't, but she nodded slightly.
Later that night, Rus sat alone outside the barracks, watching the lights flicker across the base. It was alive again. The hum of vehicles, the bark of sergeants, even the obnoxious yells of Foster playing cards with Gino and Dan near the motor pool. Everything was back to normal.
But in the quiet moments, when it got too still, Rus could still hear it.
That silence.
That absolute nothing.
It wasn't gone. Just… quieter. Tucked into the corner of his mind like a scar.
I'd stepped through a tear in the world and came back. Mostly intact.
But some part of Rus knew that the Rift never really lets go once you step on it.
***
It was around the fourth night after their release that things started to feel almost like routine again. The base was loud with convoys rolling through, and even the TRU had stopped hovering around them like they were radioactive relics.
But the damage wasn't gone. Not really.
Foster still slept with a knife in his hand, even though he couldn't remember grabbing it. Gino flinched every time a drone passed overhead. Dan stopped cracking jokes during meals. He just ate like a man chewing through duty.
Rus too long walks along the outer walls of Damasa. Rifle slung over one shoulder, boots dragging through dust, watching the sentry drones blink red in the twilight. Rus told himself it was patrol. It wasn't. It was breathing space. Noise. Anything to keep the memory of that silence buried.
Berta came with him once. Didn't talk much. Just walked, arms folded, eyes watching the ridgeline beyond Damasa like it might come alive again. She didn't flirt. Didn't touch. Just walked.
That scared Rus more than anything.
Later, while having a coffee. Reed walked in with that mission giving look.
"Command says we're on soft-standby," Reed told him.
"What's that supposed to mean?"
"Means they haven't got a job for us yet. But they will."
"They always do."
He looked tired. Not his usual controlled fatigue, but the kind where you know he remembered it all. Even if he didn't speak of it.
"You know they're marking the Ridge off," he said, tapping a finger on the edge of his mug. "No new deployments for now. Blackout zone."
"Because we nuked it?"
"Because it bit back," he said, voice low. "And they don't like things that bite."
Cyma then fell into a kind of temporary peace. They ran drills, checked gear, did the bullshit maintenance UH always loved shoving down the ranks during quiet periods.
Kate was walking again, though her eyes hadn't fully adjusted. She wore a pair of tactical goggles that kept her from getting migraines. Stacy could mostly see outlines, but she still missed chairs by half a meter.
Still. They were alive. And bitching. Which meant normal.
That afternoon, Berta found Rus near the gun range, disassembling his rifle just to keep his hands busy.
"Are you still tense?"
"No. This relaxes me," Rus replied, giving her a deadpan look. "Can't you tell by the way I'm clenching my jaw?"
She snorted. "You need to get laid. Preferably with me. I saw you naked, you know? A shame to be carrying that thigh-long warmer and not use it."
"I'd rather be set on fire."
Berta raised a brow. "Kinky."
"Go. Away."
She didn't. Instead, she dropped down beside Rus, back against the crate, and stared at the clouds.
"We'll get sent out again," she said after a while.
Rus nodded.
"And the next Rift's not gonna be cleaner."
"Never is."
She reached over, poked Rus's leg with her boot. "When we go, don't try to carry it all alone again."
Rus looked at her, surprised.
"I mean it," she said, voice serious. "You keep acting like it's your job to hold the line for all of us. But we're here. We're still standing. Even I know when to lean on someone."
Rus let out a long breath. "You didn't say that when you were trying to dry-hump me in the front for emotional assurance."
"That was grief humping," she said, raising a finger. "Totally different."
The two sat in silence for a few moments before she added, "Offer's still on the table. Just, you know. Without the grief this time."
Rus shook his head. "You're relentless."
"I respect your trauma, not your libido."
"That's reassuring."
***
The next week brought rain. Thick, greasy rain that slicked the base and made everything smell like rust and fuel. Amiel didn't seem to mind. She perched under the comms tower, cleaning her rifle for the fourth time that day, headset plugged into the drone's uplink as if the static kept her calm.
"You good?" Rus asked, leaning beside her.
"Fine."
"You keep running diagnostics on that drone like it's going to confess something."
"It might."
Rus blinked. "Is it haunted now?"
She didn't smile, but the edge of her mouth twitched. "Just making sure."
That was Amiel-speak for she's coping, so piss off nicely.
Then, a ping.
Not from the comms tent. From Command. Libertalia. The kind of encrypted ping that meant new orders, fresh intel, and probably a fresh task somewhere that needed bodies on the ground.
Reed came into the barracks ten minutes later with the look of a man who knew he was about to ruin our peace.
"Briefing in thirty."
And just like that, peace ended.
***
The skies near Libertalia were overcast, but not the rain kind. The cloud cover looked thin, almost painted on, like the world forgot to render properly. The air carried that faint buzz again. Not noise just pressure. Like the Ridge, but distant. Dormant. Garn, ever the fucking creep, was practically vibrating with excitement.
"It's forming," he said, running his gloved fingers across the scanner screen like it was porn. "Not mature yet. We're seeing the early bloom. Pre-Rift strain. Like a sinkhole, but metaphysical."
"Glad to know hell has geology," Rus muttered.
He didn't even blink. "Think of it as an unborn cancer. Spatial distortion is rising, but it's not mature enough to collapse fully. But it will. You've seen what happens when it does."
Yes. Yes, he had.
"You think it's stable?" IRus asked.
"No," Garn said, almost delighted. "But that's why we want to pop the sac early. Controlled rupture. Small-scale ADR deployment. Surgical."
"Right," Rus said, deadpan. "So a lobotomy with a warhead."
"Exactly!"
Reed wasn't even subtle when he called Rus in. "You've done it once," he said, arms crossed, eyes like stone. "We'd rather not lose another drone crew. And TRU doesn't want to wait for the Rift to become a full anomaly."
"You're really underselling the horror of walking into a physics blender," Rus told him.
Reed shrugged. "And yet, you're alive."
"Just barely."
They briefed Cyma again, this time, inside Libertalia proper. First time in months they got to breathe clean air and stand on actual pavement without wondering if something was living under it. Still didn't make Rus feel safe. The moment he saw Garn pacing near the convoy rig with his blueprints and greasy smile, he knew peace was temporary.
"Preliminary rupture's about twenty clicks north of Libertalia perimeter," Garn explained as they loaded the gear. "Early shimmer detection, minor atmospheric distortion, field temps five degrees lower than the surrounding region. Classic early Rift. ADR device will be this beautiful low-yield, destabilizer variant. No permanent sterilization, just enough to collapse the rift heart."
Rus looked at the 'beauty' he mentioned.
It looked like a lunchbox that mated with a briefcase and drank battery acid. Humming softly, glowing a faint pink because apparently magenta was too subtle a color for something that nukes dimensions.
"Only need to get within thirty meters of the boundary," Garn added, patting it lovingly. "Remote release will do the rest."
"And who's carrying it?" Dan asked.
Everyone looked at Rus.
"Of course."
The terrain was all thornbush and low trees. They moved in quiet formation. Berta and her fireteam flanked the left ridge, Dan and Foster kept overwatch right, and Rus carried the device. It sat in a harness on his back, humming like a sleeping cat made of radiation and promises of nuclear dismemberment.
"There's that smell again," Gino muttered.
"Which one?" Rus asked.
"The Rift smell. Like ozone and rotten paper."
"Thanks for the imagery."
They arrived at the zone by dusk. It wasn't a Ridge this time. just a flat clearing surrounded by trees bent inward. No shimmer yet. No pulse. But the static was in the air.
And that meant it was growing.
Amiel scanned with her drone. "Boundary soft. No breach yet. Signs of flux."
"Confirm it," Rus said.
She nodded and relayed to Garn, who was sitting nice and cozy in the command truck with a latte, probably. Bastard.
TRU gave them the green light. "Approach with payload. Five-minute stabilization prep. Detonate at 30 meters," came the voice over comms.
"Copy."
Rus took one last breath, unlatched the case, and hoisted the ADR unit onto his shoulder. The others fanned out. No one made jokes. Not even Berta. Her mouth twitched like she wanted to. But the silence around them pressed too tight.
Rus stepped forward.
Each step felt like walking into a nightmare he hadn't dreamt yet. The sky warped subtly above, colors shifting at the edges. No shimmer, no creatures, but the trees vibrated with a low-frequency hum he could feel in his teeth.
"Thirty meters," Amiel whispered. "Hold."
The ADR vibrated once. The status readout blinked:
Ready.
"Detonating in T-minus!"
The sky bent.
That's the only way he can describe it. Like someone took a spoon to reality and stirred it sideways.
And then...
Pop.
A clean, soundless rupture like a balloon whispering its last breath. The air folded once, then snapped back.
The rift didn't open.
It never got the chance.
The ADR had done its job.
Garn whooped in the comms like he'd won a bet.
"Containment confirmed," TRU reported. "Spatial integrity stabilizing. No fallout. No residual bleed."
Rus dropped to a crouch, the weight finally hitting ho,.
Mission success.
Nobody clapped.
Cyma just stood in silence, looking around, waiting for the next horror.
They returned to Damasa that night with no fanfare. No welcome committee. Just the faint sound of automated defense turrets whirring along the walls and the distant hiss of maintenance drones refueling.
Rus filed the report. Garn tried to offer a handshake. He walked past him.
Reed gave him a curt nod. "Good work."
Rus, tired as hell and not thinking straight, told him to politely fuck himself.
He chuckled, as if that was expected.
Later that night, Berta sat beside him outside the barracks. She had a smoke in hand, her eyes distant.
"You ever think," she said, "this is all just prep for something worse?"
"Yes," Rus replied. "It's still far, Sergeant."
She grinned. "Good. Thought I was going soft."
"You're soft in the head, not the gut."
"I'll take that as a compliment."
They sat in silence for a while.
"You know," she said, "you did good out there. Clean work."
"I didn't die. That's my bar."
"Low bar."
"Yeah. Welcome to our life."
Amiel passed by them, drone floating behind her.
She didn't stop. Just said, "Another day survived."
"Yup," Rus said.
They watched her go.
Then Berta leaned her head on his shoulder.
"Don't worry," she said. "Not trying to start anything. Just… fuck. I'm tired."
"Aren't we all."
She didn't move for a while.
And for once, Rus let it be.
Because after two Riftzones, silence, madness, and carrying dimensional bombs into places that shouldn't exist. He figured a few minutes of not being alone wasn't the worst thing.
Even if it was Berta.
Even if she'd probably punch him for saying something sentimental.
"Don't get used to this," Rus said.
"I won't," she murmured.