Page 2 of The Inheritance (Breach Wars #1)

“Not bad,” London said.

“I can beat both of them,” Stella reported, nodding at me and Melissa.

“Talk to me after you’ve pushed three human beings through your hips and put on forty pounds from the stress of keeping them alive,” Melissa told her.

London turned to me. “Where do you dash, Ada?”

Why are you doing this? You know nothing will come of it. “Gate Park.”

All government gate divers ran - not for distance or endurance – but to survive.

A 100-meter sprint, a walking lap around the track, rinse and repeat for an hour, then go home, and take ibuprofen for the aching knees.

Three times a week. Five would be better, but three was what I usually managed.

The DDC had mandatory PT tests every six months to keep us in shape.

When a noncombatant faced a threat in the breach, running to the gate was the best and often the only way to stay alive.

“Maybe I’ll join you sometime,” London said.

Again, why? “You’re out of my league. It would be a waste of your time.”

“Never,” he told me.

“How fast do you dash, Escort Captain?” Stella asked London.

“Let me put it to you this way: I could pick Ada up and give you a three-second head start, and you still wouldn’t beat my time.”

London smiled at us and moved on.

“Is he lying?” Stella asked Melissa.

“No,” the mining foreman told her. “Combat Talents are on another level. We can’t keep up.”

London was sending out all sorts of interested signals.

He was nice to look at, charming, and he’d clearly been around the block enough to know what he was doing.

By now, he’d had enough experience not to fumble and enough patience to pay attention when it mattered.

If I agreed to go on a date, it would go smoothly and end well.

However, the DDC forbade fraternization with guild members.

I was supposed to stay neutral and refrain from forming any personal attachments.

Even the work-hours friendships like the one with Melissa were frowned upon.

Getting involved with a guild Talent would get me fired, and I had two kids and a mortgage.

As fun as London would be in bed – and he would be very fun – he wasn’t worth losing my job.

My phone vibrated. Hino Academy. Please don’t be a problem, please don’t be a problem…

“Yes?”

“Ms. Moore?”

Gina Murray, the assistant principal. That wasn’t good.

“We have a problem.”

Of course, we do.

A woman emerged from the gate and waved. A scout the assault team had left behind. An hour had passed without incident, and it was time to go in.

“Alright people!” London called out. “You know the drill. Last gear check. Move out in two minutes.”

“What happened?”

I needed to fix this fast. Phones didn’t work inside the gate.

There was no connection, and if you tried to take a picture or record audio, you only got static.

London had to stick to schedule and account for any delay.

If we went inside five minutes late and a disaster struck, even if it was completely unrelated, the Guild would drag him over hot coals for it.

“Tia left campus without permission.”

Melissa rolled her eyes.

“Okay.” What was that kid doing…

“Before she left, several students and a member of the faculty heard her make a self-harm threat.”

“What?”

“We are required to contact the police…”

“Please don’t do anything. Let me speak to her first. I’ll call you right back!”

I ended the call and stabbed Tia’s number in my contacts.

Beep.

She wouldn’t. Tia wouldn’t. Not in a million years.

Beep.

Beep.

I knew my kid. She would not.

“Yes, mom?”

“Are you going to hurt yourself?”

“What?”

The mining crew formed up in front of the gate. London gave me a pointed stare.

“Oh look, Stella’s dog is malfunctioning,” Melissa said too loudly.

Stella pretended to shake Bear’s leash. “Won’t turn on. Something broke.”

London headed for us.

“The Academy called. You told them you were going to hurt yourself and left campus.”

“Well, you know what, maybe I should kill myself because they just assigned us a fifth essay due next week…”

“Tia!” I couldn’t keep the pressure from vibrating in my voice. “This is really serious. I need you to be honest with me. Are you thinking of hurting yourself?”

London cleared the distance between us. “What’s the hold up?” he asked quietly.

“Give her a minute,” Melissa told him. “It’s her daughter.”

“ No . I was in the cafeteria, I failed Latin again, and then there was the fifth essay due…”

London met my gaze. “Three minutes.”

Thank you , I mouthed. Three minutes was a gift.

“…Mr. Walton made a snide comment about not applying myself and I said, ‘Just kill me, it will solve all my problems…’”

And…?

“…And then I went to get Starbucks! I always sneak out to get Starbucks. Everybody does it. Nobody cares!”

It wasn’t a real threat. Someone overreacted. The relief washed over me like an icy flood. Not a real threat.

“Mr. Walton hates me!”

“Tia, I’m about to go into the gate. The school wants to call the cops.”

“What? Why?!”

“If this happens, things will get very complicated, and I can’t help, because I’ll be inside the breach. I need you to return to school and fix this.”

“I was already on my way! I’m almost there.”

I started toward the gate.

“I’m walking into the school building right now.”

“Kiss their ass, do whatever you need to, but make sure you fix it. I love you.”

“I love you too. Mom…”

The gate loomed.

“Here we go,” Melissa muttered.

“I have to go, Tia.”

“Mom!”

“Yes?”

“Don’t die!”

“I won’t,” I promised. I hung up, powered the phone off, and slipped it into the zippered pocket of my coveralls.

“Remember,” London called out. “We go in together as one, we come out together as one. Nobody gets left behind.”

The mist swirled in front of us, held back by an invisible boundary. I took a deep breath and stepped into the dark.

* * *

Stepping through the gate felt like trying to push your way through dense, rubber-thick Jello.

I blinked, trying to adjust to the low light.

A stone passage stretched in front of me, illuminated by patches of bioluminescent lichens, moss, and fungi. They climbed up the walls, glowing with turquoise, green, and lavender, some curling like fern sprouts, others spreading in a net like bridal veil stinkhorn mushrooms.

The otherness slapped you in the face. It didn’t look familiar, it didn’t smell right, and it didn’t feel like home.

The hair on the back of my neck rose. Fear dashed down my arms like hot electric needles.

I wanted out of this gate. The urge to turn around and run back to the familiar blue sky was overwhelming.

This burst of panic used to happen every time I entered a breach.

I’d tried everything in the beginning: counseling, breathing, counting, cataloging random things I saw.

.. My primary prescribed some Xanax, which I couldn’t take because it was strictly off limits for gate divers. Slowed the reaction time down too much.

Medication wouldn’t have worked anyway. Nothing had worked until one week we got a cluster breach.

Four gates opened simultaneously in close proximity, and I was the only DebrA in range.

I went through four breaches in forty-eight hours, and by the middle of the third my panic switch got permanently broken.

This anxiety was an unwelcome blast from the past, and it needed to go away right now.

It was probably residual stress from the school call.

“Alright,” Melissa called out. “We have a limestone cave biome. The assault team found a large chamber with promising mineral deposits, so we have a nice short hike ahead of us. Watch your step. Do you remember how Sanders fell into a crevice and got stuck, and we spent ten minutes pulling him out while he was farting up a storm and giggling? Don’t be Sanders. ”

Sanders, a tall bear of a man in his mid-thirties, chuckled into his reddish beard. “I didn’t have chili this time, I swear!”

A light laughter rippled through the crew. Melissa was going right down her playbook: item one, put everyone at ease the moment the crew stepped into the breach; item two, reach the mining site; item three, profit.

“We have Adaline Moore with us this morning. She is the strongest DebrA in the region, which means if there is good pay in this hellhole, she will find it for us,” Melissa announced. “Another day, another dollar. Isn’t that right, Assessor Moore?”

“That’s right.” I matched her tone. “Living the dream.”

Another ripple of laughter.

“Once more…” one of the miners called out.

“Don’t you say it!” Melissa growled. “You know better!”

“…into the breach!”

“Damn it, Hotchkins!”

The actual quote was “unto the breach,” but it had mutated long ago. Guild superstition held that if you said the line just as you entered the breach, you would come out alive, but you would kiss the chance of a big score goodbye. It didn’t matter. Someone always said the line.

“I swear if you jinxed us, I will fire you myself…” Melissa carried on.

Aaron looked at London. The blade warden nodded, and the massive tank started down the passageway, moving fast. Time was money. The mining crew followed, keeping the four equipment carts in the middle, the strikers guarding the flanks like border collies obsessed with their herd.

I joined the flow of people. Melissa and Stella walked behind me and London on my right. Elena, the assault team’s scout who’d come back to escort the miners, fell in step next to London. Lean, with a harsh face and blond hair pulled into a tight ponytail, Elena didn’t walk, she glided.

In theory, being on the mining crew was the safest part of the gate dive. Safe was a relative term. Walking across a narrow beam over molten lava was also safe, as long as you didn’t fall.

“Doing okay?” London murmured.

“Yes,” I lied.

“Is Tia alright?”

“Yes. She’s a smart kid. She will handle it. Thank you for the three minutes.”

“You’re welcome.” He glanced at me, his eyes concerned. “Not feeling this one?”

“No.”