the distorted wail of the breach klaxon pierces your skull, doppler all over the place like an air clown on a windy day.

–sigh “I JUST STARTED MY SHIFT!” there goes any hope of improving the design today.

methodically, you store all your gizmos. solder and wire tucked inside the folded remote-haptic, sliding under the desk. the prototype sensor swarm –the hope you had going for today– go in the wall safe. you’re proud of that one, how it mimics a wall display so well it even works as one. you finish by simply pushing the probes and analyzers back in their own little nooks. something to draw attention to, just in case. most stitchers don’t pay any, though. busy with tracking the breach and not losing consistency they just grab what’s needed from the locker dal is obliged –contractually– to keep constantly stashed and backtrack, frustrated at having hit an dead end.

while taking your time like this is not protocol, you’ve been stitching long enough to recognize by the breadth of the doppler fluctuations that only a class D breach happened. also, it’s just the skull-pounding klaxon. if the retina burning lights were also flashing, that would be scrap. but as it is, you have leeway to take a last look around the lab, making sure it’s all secured. it is indeed, so you don your suit and activate it’s link.

acknowledging wearer: dal.
acquiring credentials: associate researcher, grade B stitcher.
credentials reassessment: in two weeks 3 days.
wearer dal acknowledged.

powering up convergence system.

exo-consistency: 10 minutes.
auto-consistency: 92%.
stasis-link: 90% strength.

– did we hit a particularly convoluted but weak strata? weird.

you backtrack, grab the case with the sensor swarm from the safe and head back to the door. there should be some good science to be made at least, if that’s the case.

the door reacts to your suit’s approach, displaying a probability map of the possible translations from here.

–a 84 rate to conrad’s lab. “why… why conrad’s lab… “ sigh “i just hope he followed protocol and is sitting snugly inside his safe room.” it looks like i can bring the rate up to a 97. not bad at all.

you set the parameters to corridor c1-f3+3 and settle down. your body language screams mission mode all over, and you wish you could show that to others. it’s a great hero crouch, you like to think.

your suit glows the pearlescent rainbows of a transfer field forming, aligning itself to conrad’s estimated translation point, and when it’s just about done, the door’s sealing field bubbles in, enveloping you.

field aligned.
collapsing.

you blink out of space and time for a –subjective– little moment, then back.

exo-consistency: 8 minutes 20 seconds

– nice, lost less than two minutes. “LET’S GET THIS PARTY STARTED!”