Chapter 8
Friday morning woke Tiff up with an alarm.
Not because she set one, since she was still on enforced house rest, and by this point, she begrudgingly admitted she needed every minute of it.
No, this was an emergency alert from the Department of Metahuman Affairs. Alongside mundane government entities, the DMA sometimes used the EAS to warn people of impending crises. But unlike an Amber Alert or a storm warning, the DMA usually issued alerts for only two reasons.
One: if multiple Powered individuals were duking it out in the middle of a populated area and their beef became everybody else’s problem.
Two: if a Rift appeared.
Today was the second, and it was Tiff’s first time seeing a Rift alert in person.
They’d learned about the various forms of EAS communications in school and they had to go over emergency responses for several types, just like they had fire drills and earthquake drills.
The response to a Rift opening was to lock the doors and shelter in place. The professionals and first responders would determine what type of Rift it was, and then the world could go back to normal.
Rifts came in all sorts of shapes, sizes, and intensities, but they could be classified into two types.
Stable or Unstable.
Or sometimes called Volatile.
Stable Rifts were pretty much exactly how they sounded: large portals or tears in reality that led to a parallel dimension or alternate reality. Some scholars believed the area the Rifts led to was the same exact place it came from, only how things would have been if history had been different. Sometimes vastly so. But more importantly, they opened…and nothing came out.
Nobody really understood how Rifts worked, despite entire fields of study being devoted to them. And to say “nothing” came out wasn’t entirely true…as Adventurers went in for two reasons. One was to drive back monsters threatening to spill out of Unstable Rifts, and the other was to bring goodies out.
Weird plants, strange metals, and all sorts of otherworldly things could be found inside the Rifts. Or so Tiff had been told, because nobody in their right mind would let a child anywhere near one. Tiff was surprised Victoria was allowed a Delver’s License at 18. People needed to be 21 to buy booze, but only 18 to throw their lives away in a Rift.
Not that Victoria was going to throw her life away, or so Tiff hoped. No matter how much she loved and trusted her big sister, Tiff would always worry whenever she thought of Victoria heading into a Rift. Victoria, however, had a job to do. Even with taking on Tiff as a private client, Victoria still had responsibilities to the guild if she didn’t want to break her contract.
She popped her head into Tiff’s room barely a minute after the EAS stopped ringing, frantically throwing on a jacket and adjusting some jeans.
“Are you going to be okay?!” Victoria nearly shouted. Tiff merely smiled in amusement as her sister tried stuffing two legs into the same side of her pants.
“Probably better than you,” Tiff joked. “Usually, it’s one leg per hole.”
“Ha ha,” Victoria said dryly. “I mean it, though. Don’t do anything silly. I can’t guard you if I’m in a Rift. Please don’t give me more to worry about.”
“Oh,” Tiff nodded. “You got it. Besides, it’s a lockdown day. We’re probably just going to bum around the house. Do we know what type of Rift it is?”
“Not yet,” Victoria shook her head. “So far, nothing has come out. That’s a good sign. Now come here, give me a hug.”
Tiff did as she was told, Victoria squeezing her extra tight. With one last pat on the head and a fond smile, Victoria was out the front door at a sprint.
What went unsaid was that nobody wanted it to be a Volatile Rift.
If a Stable Rift was like a portal to a different dimension, an Unstable Rift was like a raging tempest or all-consuming maelstrom. But instead of belching out thunder and lightning, hideous and grotesque monsters poured out in huge waves.
Sometimes, it was bad enough that Heroes and Villains worked together just to keep humanity alive.
It was also occasionally enough to secure pardons for past misdeeds.
If they survived.
Tiff didn’t want to think about the casualties incurred from Volatile Rifts when her sister was rushing headlong into one, but she knew they were deadly. As much as she and Amy compared them to video games, they were anything but. People died to Rifts, plain and simple.
“Wooooooooo hoooooooo!”
Speaking of Amy, she ran past Tiff’s door still wearing her pajamas.
“Nooooooo schooooool!”
Tiff rolled her eyes. At least Amy got her wish. Since Tiff was wide awake (as well as the rest of the house after Amy’s cheer), she figured it was time for breakfast.
Heading into the kitchen, it seemed it was a ‘jama day for everybody. Tiff’s dad was wearing some flannel bottoms and a navy blue shirt that said: “old guys rule.” Despite being in his early 40s, he wore it quite well.
Tiff’s mom, on the other hand…was a choice. At least her sweatpants were normal.
Melissa was wearing a very tight, form-fitting muscle shirt, perfect for working out or impressing idiots. It also worked fine for loafing around the house, since nobody except their dad was going to stop and stare, and Tiff had a hunch that was part of the point.
But…her mom had no fashion sense.
It was a white t-shirt in the style of those “I heart NY” tourist souvenirs. Except, instead of a city, it said BRICKS in all caps (with the font stylized as cinderblocks), and instead of a cutesy heart, it had a smiling poop emoji.
Tiff stared at it, dumbfounded, as nobody else seemed to care or even notice what her mom was wearing. Melissa was busy sitting at the table, stirring about half a gallon of milk into a regular-sized cup of coffee with a sappy smile on her face.
Tiff took a seat next to her and squinted.
“Mom…,” she eventually ground out through her teeth. “What is your shirt even saying?”
“You know Mom’s call-sign is Brickhouse,” Amy said, taking a seat across the table and pouring herself some cereal. Melissa, thinking she was explaining things perfectly, merely flexed a bicep. While extremely impressive…not helpful.
But that does raise interesting questions, Tiff thought as she compared the width of that muscle to her dad’s waist.
“What’s on your mind, munchkin?” Melissa asked.
Technically, Tiff wasn’t compelled to answer. Her Quirk was somewhat dubious, but it didn’t force her to talk. However, she was curious, in a very morbid sort of way, and the honest words floating in the back of her mind spilled out before she could stop herself.
“Mom, how did you not break Dad? You know…when you guys had us.”
Melissa actually sputtered the coffee she was sipping as her head whipped toward Tiff. Meanwhile, her dad sort of puffed out his chest proudly, even as his cheeks took on a rosy glow.
“You know what?” Tiff hastily amended. “Never mind. I regret my decision. Please don’t tell me, I don’t want to know!”
Fortunately, she was saved from a grievously wounding recollection by her mother. Amy, lacking the attention span to care, was immediately drawn to the news playing on the tv in the background.
“Hey! I know that place! That’s the Walk in Uptown!”
Tiff turned behind her, only to feel her stomach sink. Uptown was actually part of Santa Ronda, an affluent part of town several miles to the north, on the other side of a hill. Some of Amy’s friends lived in Santa Ronda, and Amy often talked about how much nicer the stores were over there. The Walk was an attempt to beautify an otherwise aging section of the city by injecting it with cash and new blood. Several years ago, a developer bought out a dead Food 4 Less and turned it into a mini-mall. Tiff wasn’t much for shopping, but she had to admit, the area was very posh…with prices to match.
Sadly, it was getting a remodel of the worst kind.
Behind the news anchor, crouching behind a flipped-over minivan, a fifty-foot black, jagged tear in the sky loomed ominously as it cast the surrounding buildings into shadow. The streets were utter chaos as first responders jumped forward to corral panicking civilians, ushering them away from the gaping void. But all of that was secondary…because it looked like Tiff got her answer.
The Rift was Volatile.
A single, gigantic monster had crawled out of the gap in reality, evoking images of Godzilla or King Kong. But unlike those original documentaries and their many, many dramatized adaptations, this was present in Tiff’s own backyard, and it felt so much more real.
Not to mention revolting.
It resembled a cross between a pillbug and a centipede, in all the worst ways. It had to be close to 30 feet tall and skittered forward on thousands of hairy, twitchy legs; its hard, shell-like carapace expanding and contracting as it bent and contorted in skin-crawling ways.
Tiff was glad she hadn’t reached for any cereal yet, because she probably would have thrown up right into it.
She watched in horror as the massive bug inched up to a building, wiggled its forward feelers, and decided it wanted to climb onto the multi-story building to get a better view. Its back bent to a full 90 degrees as the front of its body started shimmying up the side of the building. But it must have weighed something astronomical, because it was only able to raise three-quarters of its body up before it crashed forward into the building, demolishing it. Screams echoed in the background even as the tv station tried to adjust its coverage.
Not everybody was focused on their own survival or on ensuring the survival of those around them. Some people, clearly not the police or the fire department or anybody else trying to pull wounded and panicking Citizens away from the rubble, were not idle. Several small teams, wearing armor and carrying huge weapons, were setting up, getting ready to take the monster down. Tiff didn’t recognize any of them and wondered whether some were her sister’s coworkers. One question stuck out to Tiff.
Where were the Heroes?
Even some small-time wannabes would be better than nothing…though, Tiff realized, that might be exactly who those people with the armor were. In the grand scheme of things, Tiff was familiar with a handful of A-list Heroes, but none of them were based out of Setma Heights or Santa Ronda. For all Tiff knew, this might be the only monster to come out of the Rift, and it was deemed too small a threat to call in the big guns.
Not to say that the current team’s weapons were small. The cameraman had abandoned the reporter in favor of getting the best shot possible of the budding heroes. Two men and a woman were creating a barricade of overturned vehicles, while a dozen yards away, four more were attempting to distract the thing by redirecting the intense geyser from a broken fire hydrant. They successfully got its attention…which also meant it was really, really mad.
Tiff thought those people were more deserving of Indomitable than she was, because all of them stood their ground as the huge bug charged forward…right into their trap. Behind the barricade, two engineers had rigged up a massive bolt launcher using a downed telephone pole. The pole itself was possibly longer than the bug was…but the problem was they really only had one shot and it didn’t look very accurate. That meant luring the thing until it was right on top of them. It reared up, revealing a gaping maw of countless razor-sharp teeth and let out a mighty screech. Tiff could see a shockwave on the screen as several people, including the cameraman, were blown over. The view quickly lurched as the man fell backward, pointed at the sky, with only the gruesome sounds of screams and screeching to fill the imagination. Then, suddenly, static. Tiff stared at the screen in shock, but after only a second or two, the feed resumed, but from a distance. Somebody else, either a syndicated station or maybe a backup, had finally arrived. And they weren’t the only ones. A fresh reporter in a windswept coat was holding a microphone up to a tall, smiling man in a navy blue bodysuit.
“This is Lance Palmer, of Channel 5 Eyewitness News, reporting in from Uptown Santa Ronda! With me is Touchdown from hero network, [Glory Days]. Touchdown, what can you tell us about the Santa Ronda Rift? How were you able to destroy the monster and eliminate the threat?!”
Tiff narrowed her eyes. Granted, she wasn’t there in person, but she hadn’t seen this guy running around at all. In fact, his face was clean, clear, and smudge-free, something that couldn’t be said for anybody lingering in the background. Not a single strand of his slicked-back hair was out of place, and he seemed to know exactly where to look for the camera to catch his perfect, jaunty smile as he flashed his pearly whites.
Noticeably absent were any of the other fighters who’d struggled to set up that barricade and skewer that bug like a pig. In the background, the bug was clearly dead, part of its body caved in by large chunks of concrete, but the telephone pole could be seen, running from what had once been its mouth and exiting out the back.
“Turn it off, that guy’s a prick.”
The tv instantly went black as somebody flicked the remote. Tiff and Amy both turned to face their mom, who was no longer smiling.
“Don’t get me wrong. Touchdown probably contributed to the fight, but only after he knew the cameras were rolling and got him on tape. Well,” Melissa sighed heavily, knocking back her coffee mug and draining its contents in one go. “So much for home time. I’m sure the lockdown will remain for a quarantine zone, but I’d wager the EAS- yup. There we go.”
Before she could finish her thought, every phone in the room blared with the same grating, piercing siren. Tiff glanced at Amy’s phone, since she was standing next to her sister, and saw that, just as their mom was about to say, the crisis was deemed “over.”
“Awww,” Amy pouted. “But wait, school’s already canceled?! We don’t have to go back, right?!”
“No,” Melissa chuckled. “Lazy time might be over, but not necessarily family time. Rick, I’m going to head in and see if the relief effort needs an extra set of hands.”
“Good call, Mel,” their dad said, also getting up. “I’ll check in with the home office, see if they’re joining in.”
“Girls,” Melissa turned to her two daughters and crouched down low, looking them both in the eyes. “You wanna see your mom at work?”
Tiff glanced at Amy, and the two shared a look. Instantly, both of their faces lit up with smiles. Together, they yelled as one: “Yes!!”
Tiff and Amy both raced back to their rooms to get dressed in more presentable wear…even though they knew they wouldn’t actually be doing anything to help out. They’d never been allowed to ride along with their mom before when she was on the job…either for mundane trucking or hero work. They also knew this could very easily be a one-time deal they never got to do again if they annoyed their mom or got in her way, so they were prepared to follow any instruction, down to the tiniest punctuation mark. But that didn’t stop them from getting antsy as they bounced around in the living room, waiting for Melissa to return.
“Geeze, what’s taking Mom so long?” Amy impatiently complained. She already had her shoes on and was so eager to set out that she was practically doing jumping jacks. Tiff was slower and much less exuberant, but equally excited. Melissa VanDyne was a registered Sidekick on the Greyscale, and Heroing did not often allow for “bring your daughter to work” days.
Though saying Melissa was a Sidekick was a touch misleading and belittling. But the System didn’t seem to have nearly as many good descriptors for heroic Affinities as it did villainous ones. Villains had Henchmen, Underlings, and more than one variation of Thug. On the heroic side…it pretty much went: Neutral, Sidekick, Hero.
In Tiff’s brain, Sidekicks were spindly, reedy little turds that hung behind their larger counterparts and ran their mouths. Young Justice didn’t exactly dispel those images, as the largest center for aspiring do-gooders who finally managed to get a heroic class was filled with drama queens and attention seekers.
Melissa was anything but small.
When she finally returned to the living room, Tiff and Amy both stared at her in open-mouthed shock. The reason she took so long to change was that she needed to get into her uniform, and it was quite the number.
Her “super suit,” as some people called a hero’s ensemble, closely resembled a construction worker's. She wore thick khaki pants with a multitude of pockets, a long-sleeved shirt rolled up past her elbows, and steel-toed boots. In her hand was a yellow hard hat, and covering everything was a blindingly reflective, yellow hi-viz safety jacket.
At least that was the comparison.
In reality, her pants were armored. Tiff could see the metallic braces woven into the fabric and reinforcing the lining. She had huge, black kneepads that matched inch-thick ovals strapped to her thighs. Her boots weren’t just steel-toed. She had to carefully watch where she walked because they had retractable spikes that served as traction and stability enhancers, which she could activate with a subtle motion.
All in all, she looked like she was ready to head to war.
…if that war was a construction site.
“Ready, girls?” She smiled down at them, and Tiff was glad she wasn’t the only one feeling out of sorts at the sight of their geared-up mom. Next to her, Amy actually jumped, as if she hadn’t realized she was staring, lost in thought.
“Shotgun!!!” She yelled as she bolted out the door.
Tiff merely rolled her eyes. Melissa’s truck only had a single row of seats in the cab, so calling shotgun was kind of pointless. Especially since Tiff needed less legroom and would most likely take the middle seat anyway.
By the time Tiff followed her mom out the door, Amy was already hanging from the handrail attached to the truck frame like a monkey swinging from some trees.
“Alright, you little gremlin, get inside.”
Melissa pulled her daughter off the truck, opened the door, and flung her in. Amy simply squealed with glee as Melissa turned to her smaller daughter.
“Need a lift?”
Tiff eyed the triple-rung ladder she’d need to use to pull herself up to the seat.
“I can manage,” she said, quickly climbing in. After a quick and somewhat awkward shuffle, she switched places with Amy just as her mom climbed into the driver’s seat. Amy wasted no time reaching for the handheld microphone attached to the radio.
“Breaker breaker, this is Hamhock Charlie-“
“Don’t play with the CB,” Melissa sighed, reaching over and snatching the coil of the cord away from her daughter.
“It wasn’t even on,” Amy pouted, but she couldn’t stay upset for long. She started bouncing up and down in her seat, excitedly.
“I always forget how huge Mom’s truck is! I feel like such a kid in here!”
“Amy, we are kids,” Tiff rolled her eyes. Amy merely stuck out her tongue.
Melissa cranked the ignition and the engine roared to life with a deep, guttural chug. She stared at the dash briefly before shaking her head.
“Gonna need an oil change soon.”
Pulling out of the driveway, Tiff joined her sister in attempting to plaster herself to the window. They didn’t often get to ride in the truck, so it always felt like an adventure. But today, unlike any other day, they really were headed out for something exciting. Melissa turned the radio on and listened for updates on the rift situation, so they even had a running commentary in the background. Every station she stopped on painted a bleak picture.
*zzzzsh…toll is continuing to rise as bodies are being pulled from the rubble, with 7 dead and 34 injured…*
*zzzzsh…catastrophic. Property damage alone is estimated in the high $250 million range and those numbers are only going to continue to climb…*
zzzzsh…leaving hundreds of people jobless, homeless, and without basic necessities like running water…
Tiff and Amy both stilled. Melissa noticed their excitement dimming and gave a weak chuckle.
“Don’t worry, girls. There are programs in place for things like this. The news tends to sensationalize their stories. Those people will be back on their feet in no time.”
“Except the ones that died,” Amy replied sadly. Melissa shook her head.
“We can’t save everybody. I wish we could, but we can’t. We can only do what we can do.”
She sighed heavily as she turned a corner and was immediately met by a row of cars and bumper-to-bumper traffic. From their elevated position, Tiff could see a barricade up ahead, and police were turning people away. And yet, people were still trying to get through; either they had the worst case of rubbernecking syndrome, or they hadn’t heard the news. If that was the case, they had to be living under a rock, which might be worse, in Tiff’s opinion.
Slowly, their giant truck crept forward until they were at the front of the line, where the cops were turning people around. Amusingly, as they pulled up next to the man directing traffic, he disappeared under the window where Tiff couldn’t see. Melissa had to open her door to look down at the man, who was clearly unnerved by the size of the truck.
And, as soon as the door was open, the woman driving it, herself.
“You a Meta?” he asked without preamble. The man sounded tired and Tiff guessed everybody was running a bit stressed.
“Sure am,” Melissa replied plainly. Normally, it was obvious just by looking at her, and she might respond with a witty crack or sarcastic retort. But again, Tiff supposed this was the time to be serious.
“You, uh, you here to help?”
“Yup.”
“Fantastic,” the man sighed. “We’ll move the barricade. Just, uh, be mindful of what you drive on. There’s a ton of debris.”
“Don’t worry, this old girl can take it,” Melissa grinned, slapping the truck door as she closed it. The man backed off and signaled for two other officers to move some of the obstructions. The man himself stepped back, but just as Melissa was pulling away, he held up a hand.
“Oh! The DMA first responders have set up a command tent over by the Urban Outfitters. Err, I guess what used to be the Urban Outfitters. Hope they had good insurance.”
Melissa gave him a wave and slowly pulled forward. Tiff and Amy both leaned forward, a sense of fascinated curiosity growing despite the somber air.
The aftermath of a sudden Rift was stark, drastic, and impossible to miss. Not even a block away, on the other side of the intersection, a busy, urban street bustled with people going about their lives. Here, at the epicenter, the surroundings were devastated. The truck’s tires began crunching loudly as they transitioned from smooth asphalt onto something closer to rough gravel. Not only was the street filled with large chunks of broken buildings and other fallen debris, but the ground itself had become more like tilled earth as the monster’s many sharp legs churned wherever they passed.
Eventually, Melissa could drive no further and had to park next to the top two stories of a building that had toppled into the middle of the street. She parked, adjusted the hard hat on top of her head, and sighed.
“I know it might look like it’s too much,” she told the girls, “But don’t worry. We’ll have The Walk out back together before you know it. This time next week, people will already be forgetting that a Rift appeared.”
Amy and Tiff both instinctively looked up, where the vortex still floated above the shopping center like a tear in reality.
“Eh, you get what I mean.”