First Contact
Copyright© 2026 by Charlie Foxtrot
Chapter 5
Harko was breathing steadily.
That was the good news. The bubble had held while he rested. Maybe ten minutes had passed since I’d dismissed the overlay. Maybe more. Time felt different inside.
Nev was sitting beside Harko, her hand on his shoulder. Her outline cycled magenta and yellow with the pulses, the way mine did. Harko’s was still overbright. Less than before, but only a little.
The bubble began to shrink.
I felt it before I saw it. The walls of stability that had been holding around us drew inward. The pressure that had been at the edges started reaching me where I stood. Outside the bubble, smaller bubbles were forming and dissolving in the field. Not drifting like before. Frothing. The teal pattern was breaking up against itself.
I moved closer to my friends.
Another pulse. The bubble took less of it this time. Nev’s outline went hard yellow before it cleared. Harko’s didn’t clear at all. It dimmed.
[Flux anomaly: Class 5. Critical.]
[Resonance output: 4.2 TFU. Surge imminent.]
[Emergency protocol active. Three personnel in proximity zone.]
[Concordance merge architecture at risk beyond 8km radius.]
[Immediate evacuation required.]
Class five.
My breath caught. Suddenly, I was out of synch with the waves in the rift.
Eight klicks wasn’t far enough.
“Did you see that, Nev?”
“Yeah.” Her voice was tight. “We need to move.”
“I’ve got the way. I don’t know how long the windows will hold.”
“What’s a Concordance merge?”
“A blast.” Harko, through gritted teeth, eyes still closed. “Not the good party kind. Eight klicks isn’t far enough. It would flatten everything we know.”
Nev was already moving. She got Harko’s arm across her shoulders and lifted him to standing. He swayed but held. I moved to his other side and slipped my arm under him.
“Lead the way,” Nev said.
The bubble we’d been resting in was already breaking apart behind us. I stepped out before it took us with it.
Nev came with me, Harko between us. His feet bore little weight. He was running on her steadiness, my arm, and whatever the rift’s pressure didn’t take from him.
Maybe we were giving him more than support. The pressure on him seemed less when we were pressed close.
The next wave came before we made it to the next bubble.
“Brace,” I said, and we stopped. We pressed against each other, three points of pressure becoming one shape. Nev’s outline hard yellow. Mine hard yellow. Harko’s still dimmed, like the system was losing his signal.
The wave passed. The pressure eased. It wasn’t gone this time, just lighter. Harko’s outline was a darker shade of gray. Nev’s was yellow. I couldn’t see my own.
[Proximity exit: 40 m.]
The Integration was announcing what I’d already felt in the passing of the wave. The surface boundary of the rift the bubbles were flowing toward was close. But the bubbles were more like froth now. The froth could show me the path.
We moved between waves. Three steps, then brace. Three steps. Brace. The cycle was shorter each time. I counted thirty-one seconds, then twenty-three.
Individual bubbles disappeared, flowing past faster than I could follow. Some lasted seconds. Others flashed and dissolved in a flourish of teal-turning-cyan. The cascade of colors echoing the static I had seen in my overlay hours ago.
Harko stumbled twice. We caught him both times. His breath was shallow now. Each pulse left him visibly weaker. His darkening silhouette in my overlay agreed with my assessment.
I felt it before I saw it, deep within my chest. A build up of pressure that had no visible source. I sensed a giant bubble hurtling our direction, but saw nothing. I turned, trying to track the approach. Three seconds, maybe.
“Wall,” I said.
Nev’s eyes met mine. She didn’t ask what kind.
She turned inward, bracing her hands around Harko’s shoulders. That’s when I saw it. A wave of pressure visibly forcing the froth of bubbles at us, denser than anything we’d weathered, pushing from one direction only. The cyan and teal foam shivered with the vibration ringing my jaw, forming into a wall, charging us at speed. Two seconds.
It would pummel Nev’s back. She would take the brunt of the force. I could brace her over Harko’s shoulders, possibly saving him, but doing nothing to help her. The geometry of the rift ignored our wants. One second.
I moved before it became a choice. I’d chosen before I had to.
“Kes!”
I was facing the wall when it hit. My arms braced, willing the wave to break against them. It was pressure greater than any we’d faced. More than pressure. The scream of static pounded my ears. The vibrations of its passage made my muscles twitch and my legs shift unsteadily.
The wave broke, not on me, but in me. The static at the back of my jaw was a crash of cymbals ringing in my skull. The vibration ran through my bones. My arms, braced before me, slammed back and inward, drawn rather than pressed. The wave passed through me, thinning my thoughts, buffeting consciousness.
My overlay flared white. Numbers and lines flashed disjointedly. Another flare of white. Screaming pain in my ears. Eyes unreliable. Arms numb.
I was still standing.
Standing.
The second fact took longer to realize. I was holding the place still. Not standing inside it, holding it. Being it. The wave was passing, not breaking and sweeping Nev and Harko away in turbulence. I had met it and beaten it.
The ache in the back of my jaw eased. The clash and fury in my ears subsided. Feeling returned to my fingers and arms. The overlay cleared, resuming its placid cyan visage.
[HP: 94% — SP: 89%]
[Signal: 5. Degraded.]
[Frame: 5. Degraded.]
[Drive: 6. Degraded.]
Even as I watched, as the image settled, Drive 7 flashed.
It should have been worse than this. Flux 14 inside a Class 5 rift should have been beyond survivable.
[Flux: 14 → 16. Class 5 surge absorption recorded.]
[Profile reclassified: high affinity.]
[Signal, Frame, Drive, Echo: reduced. Functional. Recovery advised.]
I’d absorbed it.
The system had named me. High affinity. Quite a jump from flagged.
Had it known? Was it just waiting to see what I did with it?
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