THE LAST SHADOWBEAST

CH 6: Snaping Breach

ASIN 

I STARE AT NEITH, STUNNED.

there was that sudden change of course in her flow, ever so slight yet tangible, then it disappeared. Her gaze is just as ambiguous, unmatched by the cunning dripping from her tone, not as subtle as when she addresses me. 

Trofin's thick eyebrows shot upward, his eyes traveling back and forth between us. 

"Excuse me, do I know you? "

I step in. 

"Hunter Arenyas, Hunter Drystan here is-"

"You were with the temporary intervention squad in my town a decade ago", Neith interrupts, "I remember catching your name on the news, so no you don't know me, but I do. " She takes his hand and shakes it vigorously. 

He squintes, then offers her a proud-ass smile. 

"I see. "

This guy is attention starved dork who thinks too highly of himself, one of the scarce perks of suspension was not working with him as head of the Vigil Department, he screwed more missions in five years of Field service than an average Hunter would do in his whole carrier, but since he is a Sevior's Heir, they could only confine him to mildly prestigious bureaucratic work. 

There is one thing and only one this forty-year-old block of headless muscle does not brag about. 

And that is these scars. 

I'm not sure if Neith knew that, or knew why. What I know is that she wants to embarrass him either way. 

She frowns, innocently blinking at his fading laceration, a false inquisitiveness wrinkling her typically devoid face.

"But I certainly don't remember that scar. "She beams at him. 

I hold back a laugh, barely.  

She is playing this too well, it makes me wonder how much of our interactions were faked. 

He fidgetes, rubbing his neck. 

" It was an accident in the south, a Beast wolf caught me off guard when I was saving a little girl. "

"Oh? " she muses despite the flicker of anger in her eyes. I should probably end this here. 

I put my hand on his shoulder. 

"Well, That's the risk with our line of work but I still miss it and I can't wait to be on the convoy. So how about you tell us what we are up for this time? "

"I… "He mumbles, glancing warily at Neith. 

"She is with me. " I nod. 

His shoulders ease. 

"Follow me then. "

Arenyas leads us into the dark wide compartment that is the Vigil department, uniformed men and women lean over their monitors and run from one post to another, printing files while yelling into their headphones with the somewhat ordered agitation of a bee hive.

" This way." Trofin skips through the hurrying officers to a quiet corner where a holographic projector shows an intricate five-dimensional prototype of Pemos. Trofin double taps the seventh district and the model zooms in. 

"The Flow parallelism was intact and slowly narrowing until the moment of the Breach, you can see that the current wilted here, which drew in the Semiot Flow to fill in the gap, and burst into this world the way it did."

Trofin gestures at the hologram spinning before us, portraying the Flow junctions and movement, ours in blue and the Semiot's in red. I click on the glowing spire of heterochrom hreads; the Breach. It levels closer to my face and a label with its width, intensity, and age appears just above it. Its status catches my attention, and Neith's too.