Char dragged the back of her hand against her face, barely wincing as her gloves’ adjustment tabs hit the brushburn at her temple.

“All you did was smear the blood,” Butler said, not bothering to look up the shadowed corner where he was checking his rifle. “Again. It’s not camouflage paint.”

“Nervous habits are not rational,” she reminded him. “This bolt hole won’t last long. Town’s not big enough.”

Rapid, distinctive clicks came from the shadows as he worked the action. “You need to lock down your reactions if you want to survive. Try channeling them into action.”

She swallowed at the quiet censure, even if Butler’s tone had been carefully neutral. “I’ll see if I can pick up the rest of the squad’s location signals, Corporal.”

“Good.”

She felt rather than heard his relief. Given his family’s generations of service to hers, outranking her must be as odd to him as it was to her — another intangible test, she was sure, though why the Space Corps preferred to see how they handled it rather than simply separating them into different units was beyond her ken.

“Jamming net’s still blocking comms, but there’s less interference. I’ve got three pings. Two on the move, Staff Sergeant Iniitji surrounded by heat signatures.” She studied the screen. “Pilot and shuttle remain secure, but the path is blocked.”

“I saw Jensen and Hip go down during the ambush.” Butler loomed suddenly from the shadows. “Murphy’s been riding with us this whole trip.”

She kept her reflexes locked down and wondered if he was testing her, too. “Assuming Iniitji gets captured, they’ll probably take him…here.” Char pointed at the lower lefthand corner of her screen. “Six klicks outside town. Closest secure location. That’s where they’ll take him for interrogation until a transport can get him.”

He made a noncommittal noise and headed to observe the street.

Char tucked the screen away. “Town hasn’t been pacified into a proper outpost yet. The Kardan won’t use local systems until they can verify control. So if we can link up with Gilping and Cortez, we can get to their temporary camp first.”

A long, skeptical pause as he studied the view through gauzy curtains. “You want us to head to where they have the most personnel?”

“And supplies,” she argued. “We already got what we came for. Destroying a field cache would be a bonus.”

Butler patted the chest pocket where the data file was secured. “And they’re after us for what we already stole, you may have noticed.”

“Think about what Iniitji carries in his head. We can’t leave him behind. Blaze a false trail, dead-drop a copy of the files for the pilot, break Sarge out of jail, blow up the supplies, and hightail it off planet.”

“Sounds complicated.” Butler faded back from the window. “Normal foot traffic’s just ceased. Time to move.”

“Complicated doesn’t mean it won’t work.” Char grabbed her gear and slung it over her shoulder.

“More to go wrong,” he said in a low voice. “I don’t have a better idea. We’ll work out the possibilities on the way to link up with Cortez and Gilping. Let’s move. Head for the roof.”

***

Leigh and I traded this week – with Murphy apocalypse training. Check out more over at MOTE!

“Time to start dinner,” Helen announced with a gentle smile from under her salt-and-pepper bob.

“Let me help you,” June said, rising from a surprisingly comfortable leather armchair in the Rideres’ rented house on the lake. For all its overt luxury made her acutely uncomfortable, the rental certainly lived up to its promised grandeur.

Peter broke off his conversation to stare at June with worry. His father – ever the diplomat, no matter his status – turned to see what had caused the sudden tension.

“I can cut vegetables and wash dishes,” she protested, and tried to look less defensive. “I’m sure there’s some way I can help in a kitchen.”

“Without cooking.”

She put her hands on her hips and glared.

Peter lifted his hands in surrender and rubbed his nose. “If you’re sure?”

At her nod, he attempted a faltering smile and turned back to George with a hearty apology. “Where were we, Dad?”

Helen had already disappeared by the time June passed through the hallway leading to the kitchen.

“How can I help?” She broke off, staring at the empty kitchen. “Oh. Helen?”

The sound of whirling air was her only warning.

Thunk!

A nine-inch butcher knife quavered from where it had embedded itself into the carved walnut trim surrounding the doorframe.

June threw herself sideways and let out a yelp. “Who threw that?”

An apple flew toward her nose, looming large and red. June snatched a decorative metal tray from the counter and held it up as a shield. The smashed against the platter hard enough to dent the copper as she craned her neck around to see what was next.

“What’s – eep!” A container dumped a heavy pile of sea salt onto her scalp, each grain hitting like tiny bits of hail before the glass grazed her shoulder and shattered against the ceramic tile floor.

She threw up an arm to protect her eyes, only for a whizzing bag of flour to burst open against her formerly black shirt. A rolling pin loomed ready behind a floating spice rack, primed to send herbs and a wad of dried peppers flying like baseballs.

“Stop!” Helen stood in the doorway, one hand lifted in command.

A potato masher settled disgruntledly with a rattle back into a container of wooden spoons and soup ladles, and June could have sworn the stand mixer gave a threatening twirl of the attached beater before submitting.

“June, dear,” Helen began, and studied the formerly pristine room. “One does not simply walk into the kitchen.”

“Apparently,” she muttered, and wondered when the cocoa powder had attacked.

***

This week’s prompt was from Padre. “One does not simply walk into the kitchen.” It was a trade, and he also received mine: It was the greatest of mysteries and the simplest of answers, if only they were willing to admit it.

Check out more over at MOTE!

Tones echoed throughout the hall, a quiet trill of notes from nowhere in particular. It would have gone unnoticed – a frippery from the harpist, perhaps – had those particular notes not been awaited throughout the tedious evening by anxious parents and bored cadets.

A frisson of voices cascaded through the grand hall, and the mass of well-dressed

Lady Bessina joined the chorus. “It’s time!” she caroled gleefully, pressing a satin glove against the diamonds sparkling under ruinous amounts of magelights. “I must say, I look forward to this every year.”

“Do join us, Ambassador,” Lord Relevon offered from under a neat mustache. “Our box offers an exceptional view. The benefit of all the financing we funnel into the Academy every year, what?”

“I shall gladly accept.” Ambassador Zelon inclined his head with the precisely appropriate thirty-degree nod of gratitude. “I should like to observe with well-informed spectators. My country’s coming of age ceremony is quite different, and I find myself confused.”

“Of course,” Bessina said warmly, and sailed past Revelon’s extended hand. “This isn’t merely your first ceremony, is it?”

“Arrived on the Xanthar twelve units – excuse me, days – ago.” Zelon pressed his fingers together, a tell that long training had not alleviated. Was the Lady Bessina drunk from the odd aqua champagne the servers regularly floated, or were all Atlassians so indirect? It was exhausting, and no one had warned him that immersion was so much more terrible than his transitory studies.

“Difficult, isn’t it?” Revelon murmured as they transited the luxuriously wallpapered staircase. “I grew up on Engl, and that’s still part of the Atlassian Territories. Took me years to master the complexities of high society on the Island here to boot.”

Zelon gave a polite smile while he mentally cursed and began one of the Hundressian’s protocol exercises to better maintain his composure. He’d been a junior envoy long enough to know better than to sip on the bubbly after weeks of transit, even if this was his first post as the head Ambassador.

Still – Revelon could be an ally, as long as the information was good, and as long as Zelon himself maintained proper composure. He took a measured breath and followed the couple into their observation balcony. “Tell me about this ceremony, of your courtesy?”

Bessina beamed and gestured for the Ambassador to help himself from the tray of crudités. “How lovely that we get to be with you during your first Observation.”

“It’s really a coming of age ceremony,” Revelon added, studying a crostini covered in a soft white cheese and a sprinkle of black salt. “Each student desiring entrance to the Atlassian Mage Academy goes through this exam. In return for training, service to the state for so many years, and so on, and so forth.” He waved a hand and wobbled the crostini in emphasis. “Ten years after graduation, minimum. Opportunities to advance, and recruiters sniffing the second the obligation is done.”

Zelon cleared his throat and selected a thimbleful of pastry filled with yellow goo. “This selection – it is to be accepted into the academy?”

“Oh, no,” Bessina chimed in. “Their ability qualifies them. Every child is tested annually, for this and other traits. We chose to support the Mage Academy after our son’s selection. He’s serving across the sea, actually, now that Gabri’s graduated – why, he must have returned on your ship. How exciting.”

Below the balcony, blobs of satin and silk settled onto velvet-cushioned chairs set in a scarlet crescent that looked only slightly less sumptuous than the viewing box he sat in. “I’m afraid I don’t quite understand, then. What exactly do we observe?”

“Why, the potential, dear boy,” Revelon drawled. “This test is the manifestation that displays each cadet’s potential power.”

“Not just strength,” Bessina remonstrated her husband. “Aptitude, as well.”

“Of course, darling.” He tilted his head back toward the ambassador. “Each candidate funnels through a particular type of channel to control the manifestation.”

Zelon wished for nothing more than to rub his temples at that exact moment. Why hadn’t anyone warned him how important the mages were? Here he was, stumbling on basics that pre-cadets handled with ease. He ventured a guess. “Ah – like a tool that ensures results are comparable?”

“Precisely.” Revelon clapped him on the back, peering over the balcony as his wife widened her eyes disapprovingly. “Look, the doors are opening.”

In front of the massed audience, an enormous set of doors slowly opened into the empty area in front of the waiting crowd, cutting off a murmur of conversation and filling the space with a glowing white fog.

“Society does love a good fundraiser,” Bessina said in a low voice approvingly. “Support national defense and what have you. The powerful families hold magic and are obligated to serve, so it’s in their interests.”

“Our coming of age ceremonies are quite different,” Zelon murmured. “We are all obligated to serve in some form, but our magicians do not interact with the public. It is a tightly held secret.”

“We don’t see much unless we have a mage in the family,” Bessina admitted, and picked up a fluted glass. “This is meant as a reassurance, that we hold the strength to protect the country.”

“In addition to our alliances, of course.” Revelon gave an odd half-salute.

The fog cleared to reveal a farmhouse, with a thatched roof and neat gardens. “How is this indoors?”

“Magic.” She leaned forward and sniffed amid the audience’s polite applause. “This must be that peasant child.”

Revelon leaned in at Zelon’s questioning glance and whispered the answer. “Illegitimate.”

“Power should be kept within the families.” She drained her glass, set it down sharply, and smoothed her blue skirts. “Well, we do need someone to keep the crops on track.”

“Does each manifestation look like a house?” The vision below was lost in fog again, and the doors swung closed as the new cadet saluted the crowd.

“In some form,” Revelon answered. “Earth shines through in this version, and the small house size indicates limited power. It’s an interpretation, really. Keeps those of us non-magic types gossiping like old hens for weeks.”

Bessina glanced at a program. “That northerner is next.”

“Speaking of gossip.” Revelon gave a laugh and settled into his armchair. “The Askirons haven’t manifested power in generations. They’ve been quite removed from society since – well. That’s not polite conversation, is it? And look, there go the doors again.”

Fog lifted, and Zelon noticed the hall had quieted. Bessina clutched her skirts, and even Revelon’s joviality had faded as he leaned on the bannister.

This time, the doors revealed a yawning cavern of sharp black rocks with no end in sight.

Bessina gasped. “The sheer power…!”

“This changes everything,” breathed Revelon.

Yes, thought Zelon. Whatever was happening with the tall, raven-haired cadet standing next to the doors, his own mission had just become more intriguing.

***

This week, Becky Jones prompted me with tones and time, while my prompt of a flickering staircase went to AC Young. Want to read more or play along? Take a meander over at MOTE!

Miranda curled up with a promising new book, reading glasses nestled on her crimson snout. Greystone sprawled in his snow leopard form before the glowing hearth, flattening his aged frame until he mimicked the rug he lay upon. It was a pose that never failed to bring a smile, no matter how often she saw it. No matter how odd others thought their pairing was, she could regret nothing.

“If anything, every magebond should link dragon and cat,” she said aloud. The fire popping was her only answer, although she didn’t doubt the gleam of emerald eye she’d glimpsed behind the leather binding.

She drew the heavy knit afghan across her lower limbs and settled into the enormous bag that served as her reading cushion, but Miranda didn’t get more than five words into the story before the patter of rapidly racing feet had her holding the book safely aloft before three blurs catapulted themselves into her lap.

“Grandma! Tell us a story! Grandma!”

The overlapping trio of voices echoed in a musical scale that made Greystone stretch and waltz aloft, ears flickering and tail high with quiet indignation at being driven from the fireside.

Miranda gave her best dragonic smile. She couldn’t wait to hear them sing properly. Who knew my sad genes could produce such diversely talented progeny, and now this trio of miracles?

“I don’t think this book is right for you,” she said slowly, and set it aside.

The librarian had praised the mystery with excited wing flutters, calling it “more gruesome than usual, but you won’t notice it until you have nightmares.” Miranda had snapped it up — as if her past exploits would allow for such petty nuisances that disturbed her sleep.

“No,” Jer said with an undulating hiss and bobbed his azure head to match.

Sal mimicked his movement with her golden scales gleaming in the firelight. “We want a different story.”

“We want a you story,” added Aster, her violet darkened to the deep iris color that she’d likely grow into as she aged in the dimly lit reading room.

“A you story,” the trio repeated, swaying, and began a crescendo of rounds. “A you – a you – story story – a you story, a you story, a —”

“Settle, settle,” Miranda said mildly. “Hmm.”

This was a new request, and one she took seriously. The dragonets should learn history. That lack was how her father had gotten himself and the country into the whole mess to begin with.

And as her daughter Pilik poked an apologetic snout into the room, Miranda knew the story she had to tell.

She crooked a shining scarlet claw at her daughter, who eased onto a cushion quietly, and took a deep breath.

“In the way of dragons, once there was, and once there was not. Some tales have never been spoken aloud before, and this is one of them — a tale not told, a song left unsung.”

She glanced again toward the entry, meeting Greystone’s watchful eyes for a lengthy pause. He nodded sharply, and returned to curl by the fireplace.

“Too few remember,” he said softly, then winced with flattened ears as the terrible trio crooned their violent agreement.

“Before the Minor Wars, before the house feuds began with my father the murdered king, before the night witch returned from the mountain,” Miranda began, and felt her voice break. She coughed, and settled her hands on her grandchildren’s scales.

“Before all these events comes the tale of how the night witch was trapped within the fires of the mountain to prevent a war, and the story of a crimson dragon, a princess trained as a spy to save the kingdom when the king could not.”

***

Thanks to nother Mike for this week’s prompt: The dragon curled up with a good book, its reading glasses nestled on its snout…

Mine went to Becky Jones: He was falling, falling, until the precipice was out of view, and still he had not landed…

Check out more or play along over at More Odds Than Ends!

The airlock sealed with a clunk that nearly drowned his wife’s cheerful warning. “That’s not vodka.”

Erik froze with his hand on the glass before lifting it awkwardly toward his nose for an awkward sniff of the clear liquid. “Vinegar?”

Bev waved a colorful oval. “The kids dyed too many eggs this year.” She walked across the kitchen, gave him a peck on the cheek, and plopped the egg into the glass.

He eased fully into the kitchen and set his lunchbox on the granite countertop, giving a second hopeful sniff. Bev’s legendary cooking had only improved since he’d built the basement lab for her three years earlier, and he didn’t want to know why. “Dinner’s recipe called for dissolving the eggshells as a first step?”

Bev slapped his fingers before they met through acidic liquid. “No poking. And no dinner. Science in progress, mister. I’m testing a new nano shield idea.”

“With eggs?”

Her eyes danced. “Nano-injected eggs.”

“The one for atmospheric reentry?”

Her lips twitched.

“The same shield problem that’s holding up bulk supply deliveries supporting planetwide colony expansion?”

At her nod, he waved his hands frantically at the basement stairs. “To the lab with you! Go, woman! Science faster!”

As she descended, he pulled out his comm unit and dialed the only pizza shop in town.

***

I have no idea where this is going, so let me know if you’re interested in exploring this extremely vague colony, and thanks to Cedar for the prompt trade this week!

At first, I thought the noise was thunder. Now that I was out of tornado land, I could enjoy storms again, and I did. The gentle, soaking rains, the kind the Irish called soft, those were my favorites. But every thunderstorm found me in my beloved padded window seat, breathing in the fresh sharp scent of new growth and watching the flickers of lightning above the mountains. I might have vowed against using my powers, but every flash had me wondering what wild message they sent from the gods, feeling the sizzling pressure of being so humanly alive.

Hell, I enjoyed the rains so much, I even named the German Shepherd pups — currently cowering in the corner and chewing nervously on a resigned-looking stuffed hedgehog with one ear missing, respectively — Dark and Stormy.

That night was different. Dark didn’t normally mind the storms, but had spent the last hour pacing before huddling onto his pillow. Stormy was the first of us to notice the real change, not that we knew what her alerting to a trespasser meant at the time.

I made my way to the security monitors and the stashed .40, wondering who’d be out in this weather, or this far out into the middle of nowhere. My storms were best enjoyed with privacy, and I liked it that way.

Only a few knew where I’d gone, and most of them you didn’t turn away.

It was a reluctant meander down the hallway to let in the cloaked stranger. The wind was howling and rain was pounding down by the time I finally heard the knock at my door.

In the six months I’d been at peace here, I’d not had a single visitor, but suspected only this one would knock with such a ringing, hollow boom. Well, if I could call the lightning, stands to reason someone else could call thunder. Though I’d not thought to guard against such powers when I’d laid the salt and built my defenses.

Stormy whined, and bolted for wherever Dark had hidden. If I lived the night, some retraining was in order, but I couldn’t blame her. Not with this particular guest.

My hand moved with aching slowness to grasp the cold doorknob and wrench the door open.

A hooded figure greeted me under the dripping shelter of a porch designed for storms, shadowed against clouded mountain and wisps of fog, highlighted not with breath but flickering lightning that made my blood sing with the urge to strike first.

“Hello.” I didn’t step back from the entrance. Superstition, of course, as this guest didn’t need an invitation, nor would the allium in the kitchen save any of us from his penetrating gaze.

“Hello, Coruscatio,” Death greeted me, and deep within the depths of the fortified farmhouse, I heard Dark howl in response to the crackling tones. “It’s been a long time.”

I nodded, filtering a trickle of forbidden power that made my palms itch.

“I’ve come to barter for your aid.”

***

This week’s prompt was inspired by Becky Jones: The wind was howling and rain was pounding down when I finally heard the knock at my door.

My prompt went to Cedar Sanderson- and I wound up with a tarot-themed art style!

Check out more over at MOTE!

“Two tablespoons of newt scales,” Liza read.

Mikhail held the scoop a bare millimeter away from the layer of pale orange powder. “Are you sure? Aren’t we supposed to eat this pie?”

She shrugged and tossed the recipe card toward him. “I trust Chef.”

“But the tetrodotoxins…” He dropped the scoop into the jar of dust and felt his hands stick damply to the leather gloves as his fingers flexed. “We just covered this in magical zoology. I want to check.”

“Non,” Chef said in response to Liza’s frantically waving hand and Mikhail’s stuttered explanation. His eyebrows waggled as he talked, nearly obscuring his eyes. “You have the proper ingredients, oui?”

“The ones that were on the list,” Mikhail answered hesitantly. “The shop clerk fulfilled the order. Mom said she checked it before accepting the order.”

“And you checked as well?” The beaky nose pointed directly at his own from inches above his forehead.

He kicked a stray claw that had fallen onto the kitchen’s stone floor with a sneaker that continued to fight its laces, feeling his face heat at the admonition. “It was pretty overwhelming. I didn’t know anyone sold newts then. Maybe pet stores. Not types of newts.”

“But you would have noticed this. The shop gave you space lizards, oui?” Chef paused for dramatic effect, then twisted his lips into a frown when the partners failed to reach. “The lizards taken into space? By the Americans? Are space lizards no longer worthy of adolescent attention?”

The mumbled French that followed made Liza gasp, but all Mikhail followed were a few words of the rolling flow. Something about video games, the next generation, and — petri dishes of fun? Did Chef mean an arcade?

“Chef, look,” Liza said urgently. She pointed a long finger at the ingredient card. “The recipe for gravity pie doesn’t call for space lizards. Just regular newts.”

“Mais non. C’est impossible.” Chef took off his white hat to reveal a mass of salt and pepper curls, digging among the tufts until a clear pair of reading glasses emerged. “Let me see that.”

Mikhail watched Chef’s eyes flicker back and forth, paling with every line of the recipe.

“Mais non,” Chef whispered. “Without space lizards, this is not anti-gravity pie.”

Mikhail twitched. Magical life skills class had been pretty boring so far…

“Out!” Chef shouted. “Everyone out! Drop everything and get out!”

A girl across the room giggled and reached for her bag. “Chef’s in a temper again,” she informed her partner snidely and at full volume. “Time for some real magic instead.”

“Out! Now!” Red lights flashed into view as sirens followed Chef’s words, bursting with ruby sparks above each kitchen station before screaming wildly around the room to chase the students into the hallway.

Mikhail managed to snag his satchel on as the class hurried toward the lawn. He and Liza had been in the corner furthest from the door, so they pulled up the rear of the small herd. A faded pale pink spark wheezed gently at him before dissipating as the massive doors came into sight over the shoulders of their classmates.

“Wonder what’ll happen?” He murmured to Liza, before realizing one of her floating fire extinguishers was missing. “Hey, where’s Lefty?”

“He stayed behind to help Chef clean up,” she said brusquely, reaching for the open door.

BOOM!

The explosion shook the castle floor and sent Mikhail tumbling onto the sun-warmed stone steps. He peeked up at Liza from where he lay sprawled.

“Well, that was unexpected.”

***

This week’s prompt was from Leigh Kimmel, exploring the unexpected, while my challenge to Cedar Sanderson suggested a travel system gone wrong. Check out more or play along over at MOTE!

“I don’t get it,” Jan said with a grunt. He slammed his booted foot onto the shovel until it scraped past whatever rock he’d hit this time. “Mars was first inhabited by robots.”

Sonny snagged the rag out of his back pocket and wiped his forehead. It left a dirt-streaked path of mud across his bald pate before he tucked the bandana carefully away. He leaned on his own shovel, taking a deep breath of the bubble’s UV-sanitized air that never stopped smelling like hospitals. “So?”

Jan kicked his shovel again, but this time left it stuck in the dirt. “So why’re we doing the hard work? We have borer machines. My secondary on the trip here was manifest master. They broke already, when my crew’s barely here a year? All dozen? A dozen borers, gone missing? Didn’t the first two crews bring any?”

He received shrewd concern in reply. “You just came here from engineering late last week. You know why we’re tunneling?”

“‘Course.” Jan looked away from his partner’s gaze. “Cancer rays. We stay underground, it eases the burden on the bubble. Good habits when the electric’s good enough we don’t need to worry.”

“Mmm.” Sonny sliced through some dirt with the ease of long practice. “Used to do this back on Earth, you know. Gardening. Thought I’d be part of the gardens, selling Mars-grown veggies at the weekly market.”

“All hydroponics now,” Jan mumbled.

“Mostly cared for by ‘bots,” Sonny agreed. “You know what use humans have on Mars?”

Jan waited for the answer in shadowed light flickering with the buzz of fluorescents. It didn’t come.

“First colonizers,” he ventured. “I guess we set things ready for the next crews. Test the path. Might make things seem worth it when Bubble Two’s open and we can talk to some new faces. When’s the next shuttle get here again?”

“Preparing the way,” Sonny said, and smacked his fist on top of the shovel. “Guinea pigs.” His smile grew grotesque. “Canaries in the tunnel, you could say.”

Pushing his shovel away, Jan spun in a dusty circle. “We’re more use dead?”

“As long as the scientists learn from our deaths.” Sonny contemplated the path that was marked out for them, even though it led into darkness. “Thing is, they did use borers for a while. And before that, they built an overland path between Bubbles One and Two overland.”

Jan dropped his shovel. “What?”

“I came with the first crew,” the balding man said. “The very first. Last left, too.” He tilted the blade, carefully letting the loose grains trickle into the container on the floater that held similar discards, piled high with reddish powder and hard-cracked dirt. “We laid track, even. Two lanes, enough for a rover each way.”

The shovel lay abandoned, Jan ignoring Sonny’s outreached finger. “Why’re we bothering then? We didn’t sign up for this.”

“Didn’t we?” Sonny leaned down and picked up Jan’s shovel, pressing it into the man’s unwilling gloves. “We signed up to colonize Mars, whatever that meant would come.”

“I don’t get it.” Jan leaned the shovel against his chest and shoved his hands into his overall pockets. “What happened?”

“Wrath,” Sonny said. “Havoc marked its path, no matter where we laid track. We tried five times. Radiation bursts, dust storms, the commander gone mad and stabbed his second. We stopped after we lost the doctor when he hallucinated he was inside the bubble and detached his helmet.”

Jan swallowed, then tucked his shovel into its nook on the floater and ran a hand through the containerized dirt piles. “That’s horrible. I saw the graves, but no one would talk about what happened. I didn’t want to pry.”

“We tunneled after that,” Sonny continued, as if he hadn’t heard the other man. He clicked his own shovel into place. “Got the basics with the borers, or mostly, but we’re left to clean up the loose debris and set the path for tracks. We’ll leave the rovers topside. A tram gives more protection.”

“Protection?”

Sonny hauled himself into the floater’s seat and flicked the switch three times, then pressed the orange button twice. The floater hummed to life, and the bald man turned to look at Jan.

“Why, from whatever ate the borers, of course.”

***

Inspired by this week’s havoc-filled prompt from Cedar Sanderson and this image. My prompt went to Leigh Kimmel – check it out over at MOTE!

Madge let out a slow whistle. “Big group this time.”

Emon rolled his eyes and hitched his uniform pants up before slapping his hat on, and never mind that they were still indoors. “All five, boss?”

“New recruits are new recruits,” she said firmly, and tucked her graying braid back over her shoulder before marching through the door, hat properly in hand. “You. Come with me.”

The brunette with spiked hair stared blankly at Madge’s pointed finger, then swiveled her head around the dusty room with its empty desks and industrial tile floors. “Who? Are you? Why?”

“Hmm.” Lips pressed firmly together, she reconsidered briefly. “Nope. You’ll do. I’m Madge, I’m your mentor, and this is the last time you come along unquestioningly, because normally I want you to ask.”

“Ask what?”

“What’d I say about questions?” Madge tossed over her shoulder, already heading out of the stifling stale air and back into the real world.

Only her own boots squeaked on the linoleum.

“Brianna. Come on. You’ll see the others when we get back.”

“As long as we come back,” came a sullen mutter.

Madge increased her patter to match her pace. “Bathroom over there, you sure? We’ll be gone a while, okay, water bottle full? Hat? Good.”

She wrenched the door open past the sticky lock. Arizona air, hotter than Dante’d ever dreamed, blasted them in the face.

They were the only visible creatures on the hike up sandy scrub.

“I’m not used to this,” Brianna said quietly. “I’m not from around here.”

“So say we all,” Madge quipped, but the other woman didn’t get the joke. She let herself take a moment for a purely internal sigh. “We all start somewhere. You get used to it eventually.” She glanced down at the dust on her boots. “Sort of.”

The clank of a water bottle cap unscrewing carried. “Why do I get a mentor and the others don’t?”

Early questions were a good indicator. “The others get Emon. And Greg, when he’s back from leave.”

“And the extra pin on your uniform? Because you’re the boss?”

Observation was another indicator. Still, she dared not hope, not after all this time.

Instead she changed the subject. “Why’d you join? Border patrol’s a tough gig these days. Everybody hates us, no matter what side they’re on, politics or wall.”

She let the silence draw out.

“Stability,” Brianna finally offered. “I needed money. A job that won’t vanish overnight. And I heard it’s easier to transfer when you’re in the system already.”

“Wait until you hear about interdepartmental rivalry and unreasonable levels of bureaucracy,” Madge said as dryly as the dirt beneath her boots. “It’s kept me here for a blissful eighteen years. Two more, and it’ll be time to move on.”

“To what?” Brianna asked.

Madge stopped just before they crested the slope. “That’s what I’m about to show you. Come on. It’s a beautiful view.”

The final two steps brought a dazzling desert vista into sight, with hints of ochre streaking amongst more common browns and subtle yellows, shadowed by stone and pebble and sage.

And in the middle, a glowing violet portal. Madge felt her core tense as she studied Brianna with peripheral vision.

“What the…what is that thing?”

Tears sprang into her eyes. “That, apprentice, is what I hoped you could see that the others couldn’t.” Madge tapped her extra badge, a capital letter M. “This stands for magic, because the government is boring. You’re not hallucinating.”

“I’m not sure that answered my question.”

“It’s the portal,” she said softly. “The real reason we’re here. And in two more years, when you’re ready, I go through it and back home.”

“Aliens?” The word was hesitant. “Like that movie?”

Madge gestured toward a rock, half shaded by a scraggly dead tree. “I suppose, though it’s more like fantasy that sci-fi…let me tell you properly.”

The women found semi-comfortable seats on the overly warmed boulder and stared toward the portal with its spinning edges, where threads of red flickered.

“It all started when border patrol recruited its first witch…”

***

Thanks for the inspiration, nother Mike! When they started recruiting witches for the border patrol, things got magical…

My prompt went to Padre – “Have you ever heard the adage, ‘suffer in silence’? It applies to this situation, my friend.”

Check out more over at MOTE!