Author's Note: Story originally published August 10, 2009. Chapter 1 (parts 1-3) rewritten and posted December 30, 2015.

Rain.

Growing up as she did in London, the young woman had loved to stretch out on her bed and watch the afternoon showers through her window. Though now, trudging through it with little more than her coat to keep her warm, she was beginning to loath this part of her job. Rain or shine, it must be done. She much preferred shine at the moment as her toes squelched in her shoes with each step. It was a slight distraction, enough to be annoying at any rate, as she swept her torch light across the street. She shined the light from one side to the other and back again.

She hated patrol duty.

She wiped at her face, a futile attempt to dry it as the rain came down. Glancing ahead, she saw her partner. His head was down, but she knew the expression which must have been on his face. So long as he had his gadgets not even this monsoon could get him down.

"How much further to the checkpoint?" she called out to him. "I'm swimming in these boots!" She watched as his shoulders rolled up, then down. "Did you hear me?"

Her question was met with another shrug as he began to slow his pace, allowing her to gain on him before he came to a complete stop.

"I asked-"

"I heard you," he said, motioning to the device wrapped in cellophane in his hands. "I got caught up in checking the PRM. There's a significant energy spike nearby. I was considering the best way to approach you about it before your nagging broke my train of thought."

She rolled her eyes, giving him a playful punch on the shoulder. The action gave off a small slapping sound as wet skin met slick leather. "How much further? I'm soaked to the bone out here."

He nodded, then glanced at their surroundings. She noticed his shifting gaze and swept the torch over the empty street again. Nothing, as expected. As hoped for. "Eddie, mind if we huddle on a stoop for a bit?" she asked, looking hopeful. Once again he nodded, then indicated a nearby doorway in which they could seek refuge. He allowed her to go first, then joined her as he cradled the device in his hand. Instinctively she leaned closer, their shoulders touching in the small shelter of the overhang. "We should check this out," he said, holding up the device for her to see the LED screen. "The signal is getting stronger. It could present a problem. It we get to it now chance are we can nip it in the bud."

"Or, and this is just a suggestion," she said, wiping at her face again to brush the stray black locks off her forehead. "We can leave it be for now just in case whatever's causing it will rip out faces off and wear them as party masks."

His young face pulled into a grimace that made him look over ten years older. His disdain for the gory details was one this former Inspector enjoyed exploiting at every opportunity. Compared to the horrific scenes they usually came across during a sweep, it actually sounded like a bit of good natured fun. That is, if one enjoyed having their face forcefully removed and worn as a party mask. While the risk of dismemberment was a very real possibility, the promise of treasures to add to the collection back at the office was very persuasive. Even if just one of many reasons for the energy readings.

He looked down at her in a small pout, doing his best to make his big brown eyes seem even bigger and sadder than usual. She knew then she'd lost the argument before it had even begun. "Alright," she said at last with a sigh. "Send a call in to the office. Let the boys know we're going to be running late tonight."

If she was going to be dragged into another wild goose chase, she might as well make it seem like she was doing it under protest. Part of her swore and cursed the weather as she stepped back into the heavy downpour. But at the same time she could feel the chill of the night's rain retreating as the surge of adrenaline began to pound through her system. Her heartbeat was already in her ears as her partner joined her side, indicating the direction of the energy spike.

The pair of them broke into a light jog, but soon their feet slammed wet pavement and dirt as they ran full pelt against the rain. The anticipation of a possible sudden, but remarkable death awaited them at their destination.

o0o

It was a solid eight minutes before the duo managed to reach the area indicated on Eddie's personal rift monitor (PRM). It wasn't far off their normal sweep route, but still a bit of an inconvenience. They'd come to a stop at the fence of what had once been a bustling shopping centre. Now it was little more than a steel reinforced tomb. A sanctuary to the unwashed and inhuman alike.

Eddie sighed as he looked up from his device. "This is it. The signals still here. Pulsing from... It looks like the top floor." He changed the settings on his monitor, holding it up to scan the building on the opposite side of the fence. Quickly blueprints mapped themselves out on his screen. "Blueprints show it to be the food court." He pocketed the device and felt in his pocket for his sidearm.

She nodded towards the building, holding open the chain-link fence she'd managed to cut with her multi-tool. It had been slow going, but the hole in the fence was just big enough for the pair of them to squeeze through. "Ready?"

"Whatever is in there, it's weak. The PRM started picking up a lower reading before I stowed it," he said. "Usual suspects might be skulking about inside. Be ready for anything."

She gave her best reassuring smile. He had seen that look so many times before on similar nights like this, and not once did it bode well for either of them. She clapped a hand on his leather clad shoulder. "Come on then. Time to save the world," she said, adding sarcastically, "Again." Eddie followed her through the gap in the fence as they crept in the dark of night towards their possible certain doom... or potential large score.

Torch in one hand, she led the way towards the hellhole that had once easily pried the hard earned money from unsuspecting shoppers. Twenty years ago it had been a thriving centre of commerce. But as they entered the condemned shopping mall a sense of dread began to take hold on her. Despite this, she pressed on, ignoring her instincts and chalking it up to the usual anticipation of the unknown.

Out of the wet, she reached into her coat and pulled her sidearm. A bulky antique weapon that had served her well over the years. Her partner Eddie grasped one end of what she considered a laser peashooter compared to the modified Beretta M9 in her own hand. A solid, sturdy and reliable weapon that didn't rely on fuel cells. As she disengaged the safety, she appreciated the simplicity of antique savagery over the high-brow advancements of technology.

And if whatever lay waiting for them chose to make for her jugular, a bullet was more likely to put the bastard down for good than a short laser pulse ever would.

"I can hardly see in here," Eddie hissed behind her.

She rolled her eyes. "Didn't you bring your specs?" she asked.

"Well, no. It's not like I have bottomless pockets," he replied as they passed a broken window display. The mannequin cracked and broken, hanging halfway out of the space where glass should have held it back. He reached into his pocket and removed the PRM again, checking the blueprints. He searched for the shortest route between them and their goal, the flashing dot one floor above.

o0o

They had wandered in the dark for the better part of the night. Searching shop by shop and nook by nook for signs of life. Instead they found only the stench of mold and decay. Eddie had taken the lead, using his device to map out a safe route to what the blueprints called the food court. They had already been forced to retrace their steps and circle around obstacles that looked as if they were freshly made, with passages so narrow neither agent could fit through.

Eventually Eddie stopped and put his arm out to stop his partner. She cast the torch around, trying to catch her bearings before shining it on what lay ahead. "Is this the only way up?"

"The only way closest to where we're going."

"How close?" she asked as she turned to stand with her back pressed against his, sweeping the beam over the path they had come down. Broken tile made what was once a pristine and smooth floor look like a rocky and twisted terrain. She was thankful she hadn't worn her good shoes for this shift after all.

He bit his lip, a nervous tick he could never break himself of. "I'm updating the map now," he replied.

She paused the torch beam a moment before casting it back to the left. She swore she had seen something move. Something pale, but she could not be certain. "You might want to hurry up," she said. "We're not alone."

He nodded, tapping something out. "It looks like we're just below the Victoria Secret."

"Great," she said, trying to keep her voice even. Sarcasm, even if badly timed, had always helped to keep her wits about her. "Don't you go sauntering off to have a look in the changing rooms."

She heard a nervous laugh from behind her, but felt his shoulders shake as he tried to suppress it. "Got any idea for an escape plan?" she asked as he started up the broken escalator before them.

He chewed his lip again and nodded, not that she could see it. "It's not the best plan, but for a quick run..."

She knew where he was going. She had been thinking the same as they had explored the dark caverns of the shopping centre. They wouldn't have time, she knew, to backtrack the way they had come. They would need the most direct, most simple route possible. "If we have to jump," she said. "I'm shoving you out first"

"Just try to aim for the ground and not me when you follow," he said back dryly as she backed up the escalator behind him. Slowly they progressed to the landing above. He felt a hand on his forearm once they were at the top, and he pocketed the device. His voice was low when he spoke next. "Twenty paces left, then turn right and it should be, barring debris, a straight shot along the side of the eatery."

"And to get back out?" she whispered back.

"The plans show an emergency exit near the loo, midway down our route. A wall of windows at the far side."

She nodded and gave his forearm a light squeeze to indicate her understanding. Then, she took the first cautious step. Her heart was beating miles a minute. Her senses heightened from the overload of adrenaline pumping through her blood. She was aware of the quickness of her own breaths, and the weight of the acrid air on her face and neck. She turned right after approximately twenty paces and cast the torch light along the wall of their chosen path.

As she took the next step, a large body shoved her against the dust caked counter of a former eatery. When her side connected with the wood she dropped the light. It rolled, spinning out of control as Eddie wrestled in the moving beams of light with the snarling beast that had assailed them. Regaining her bearings she planted her feet firmly, her trigger finger poised to pull back and pump a round into the monster. However, she didn't know if she would have a clear enough shot. Not with the light strobbing the way it was.

The light at last came to a stop as she heard a wail before the scent of burning flesh assaulted her senses. The hairs on the back of her neck stood on end as electricity pulsed through the air. A hard thud followed by a hand on her shoulder, squeezing as her partner gasped for breath.

She froze.

"It's me," Eddie wheezed, "You alright?"

She nodded slowly. "Just a bruise. You?"

He drew in a ragged breath. "Same," he replied.

"Was that-"

"Just the usual. One nasty weevil," he said. His hazel eyes cut to the beam of light. It had come to rest through a narrow passage. Boxes, chairs, tables. Anything that could be moved had been, and constructed into some sort of makeshift wall. It looked to him as if something had torn through, widening a passage that seemed to have been meticulously shaped. Beyond, he could see creatures. Snarling and gnashing at the air as they grappled with the same sort that had attacked them.

It would only be a matter of time before they noticed the human intruders "But something came through here. Looks like we're not the first to notice"

He left her side to retrieve the torch, but stopped at the sound of his partner's voice. "Leave it," she hissed. "Bring any Flashers with you?"

Nodding, he reached into his coat pocket, pulling a small egg shaped item and a pair of goggles out. The goggles he pulled on over his head as she searched her own pockets for a pair. After she had them secured to her eyes, she gripped her Beretta with both hands. "Toss it and run like hell across. We didn't come this far to go back home empty handed. What else have you got on you?"

"Two standard flashers, and a UV flare."

"Good. Save the UVF for last, just in case." Then, she gave a nod he could barely make out through the goggles. Together the pair of them edged up to the opening in the passage, their backs pressed against the makeshift wall.

Eddie brought the egg shaped object to his lips, giving it a light kiss before smashing his thumb against a button at the top. A flashing band of red lit up, pulsing slowly before picking up speed and becoming a steady light. "On three," he said softly.

She nodded back to him with a smile before he pivoted into the passageway, throwing the egg into the chaos. Panic overtook him for a few seconds as he thought the flasher may not go off. He may have just tossed in a dud. But his fears were proven premature as bright, blinding light exploded up from the floor, scattering the monsters in shock and surprise.

The weevils howled, cowering back in sudden shock as the others, the pale creatures screamed. Their wails so high a pitch it shook the walls that had been built up of debris. The woman pushed past her partner, firing her sidearm at any creature, weevil or otherwise, that came across her path. "Come on!" she shouted. "Not much time!" Eddie followed, his pulsar pistol clutched tightly in his hand as he fished the PRM from his pocket.

"Straight ahead!" he shouted over the sound of semi-automatic gunfire.

The light began to subside as they came to a stop at the far end, closer now to the wall of glass. "Shit!" she snapped angrily. "Where is it?!" She spun around to look at her partner as he fumbled with the device, then reached out and shoved him down, barking an order for him to duck. He crouched low as she moved to stand between him and a creature that had come far too close for her liking. Eddie swept the immediate area with the PRM before tugging on her pant leg. "There!" he shouted, pointing to a stack of tables and chairs. There was a small opening. "It's in there!"

"Then go get it before you get us both killed!"

He made his way towards the pile, keeping low. She crept along beside him, providing cover fire as the weevils began to close in on them. One of the other, stranger creatures came closer before being swept down by a snarling dung eating beast. Eddie slipped out of sight into the cover of the furniture pile. Another egg rolled out of the darkness inside, and within seconds another flash bomb went off.

She moved quickly, putting her back to the opening at the pile and reloaded. "Well?!"

"You're gonna kill me!" her partner shouted back at her.

"No, the monsters will kill you. I'll be scraping your guys up off the floor! Now get it so we can get the hell out of here!" She picked off another creature.

"I can't move it!"

"Why the bloody hell not?!"

"It's a man!"

She picked off a few more before acknowledging what she'd just heard. Or, what she thought she'd just heard. "What?!"

"He's injured. We can't just leave him!"

"For Christ's sake!" she shouted, squeezing off a few more rounds before crouching down to get a good look inside the pile. There Eddie knelt beside the prone, and very naked figure, of a man. "Fuck." She reached up and tapped an earpiece. "Calling base, we've got a situation here!"

"I know," came a surprised American voice. "I've been monitoring since Eddie checked in. The reading's off the scale. What did you and-"

"We're pinned, Quin, we need backup!" She fired another round. The weevil spun, falling to the floor before the body was quickly dragged beneath a table and out of sight. "NOW!" she shouted.

"Can you abandon the artifact?"

"Speak up, it's a real party out here!"

"Can you abandon the artifact?"

"No, it's-" She was knocked off her feet, landing on her back with a crack. Her trusty Beretta skidding across the floor into the shadows, into the unknown where the vicious pale creatures lurked. The force of the fall pushed the air from her lungs, causing her to take in a large breath of putrid smelling air. She covered her face in futility fully expecting to have one of the weevils, or the other creatures, upon her. But the attack never came. They were far too interesting in one another to pay her much mind. Not with so much blood already scenting the air.

The second flasher was fading.

"In here! Quick!" she heard her partner shout as Quin's sharp voice called desperately in her ear. Rolling over she crawled on her stomach to the pseudo-safety of the furniture pile.

"Mattie? Mattie are you there?!"

She pressed her back against the wall, her chest heaving as she tried to control her breathing. She tried not to choke on the mixture of blood and feces in the air.

"Matilda!"

"I'm here," she managed to choke out. "Situation from bad to worse. Lost my sidearm. Down to one flasher. We've got a John Doe down." She felt Eddie's hand on her arm as she tried not to choke.

"How's it look out there?"

She shook her head. "No way out. It's a slaughterhouse out there."

"I've run the blueprints again. I can't be a hundred percent sure, but the structural integrity of this level may be compromised by a combination of water erosion and-"

"Lot of good that does us. We've got no charges, no guns, and a dead fish," she said, her breathing slowing for a moment. But her heartbeat was a constant drum in her head. "Cut our losses and run for it. Let 'em have the bloke."

"Eddie, see if you can send me the data you've collected. I may be able to triangulate your coordinates and jump you to a nearby location."

"Too risky," Eddie replied over the coms link, and his partner could hear the doubt in his voice. "We could end up stuck in a wall. Or sticking out of the street. Without a proper checkpoint, we can't be sure where we'll end up. And with the spike source..."

"It's the only chance we've got," she said, though she would rather follow her plan of cutting losses. "If we're going to do this, we need to do it soon before we're put on the menu. Those things out there are eating the weevils."

Eddie worked quickly. "Data packet on it's way. Hang on." She could tell by his tone he was worried. If it had been him making the suggestion she wouldn't think twice about agreeing to it. He was, after all, the resident genius. Whereas Quin, though good with computes, was far better with the mundane office appliances.

"No, seriously. Hang on. If we separate he might scramble us beyond recognition," he said.

The pile above them began to shake. From the corner of her eye she could see the last sputtering bursts of the flasher fading into darkness. Feeling around in the dark she found a hand. Cold and rough. If she weren't so afraid for her life, she'd swear it was the hand of a dead man.

Quin's voice buzzed in her ear again. He was rattling off readings. Numbers and large words she didn't feel the need to understand. Not that she didn't, mind, but her head was killing her now. A combination of the night's action and the possibility of death no matter if it was friendly accident or weevil attack was not a good prospect. The commentary in her ear was arbitrary, meant only to distract her and her partner from the sensations that began running through their bodies.

She felt the nausea first, then tasted the bile. Jumping at a checkpoint was never a pleasant experience under normal circumstances, but at least then it was safe. There were programs and procedures in place to protect her. This.. this was beyond unpleasant. This was the epitome of absolute misery. Given her history, she should know. She had plenty to use for comparison.

Clenching her eyes shut as the makeshift shelter began to fall around them she clutched to the cold hand in her own. She heard Eddie's voice as he groaned. She'd once had her eyes open during this. They were testing out the jumpers before linking them to the checkpoints. She didn't like what she'd seen.

It was nothing like the transporter beams on Star Trek, no matter how many times Eddie and Quin had tried to reassure her.

After a few moments, what felt like an eternity, she felt the sickness in her gut recede. There was nothing beneath her. Nothing around her. Sound was little more than a whisper on the wind. She did, however, still feel the hand in hers. But it was different somehow. Warmer than before. It was only a slight temperature change, she realized, and most likely a side effect of the transporter jump.

Just when she felt at peace, in perfect harmony in the non-space, the sickness rushed upon her again. She fell with a thud on the hard, flat ground. A splash, no longer a whisper of sound was a cacophony of noise. She let go of the hand she clung to and leaned to her right. One hand pressed against the wet cement at the base of the puddle, the other holding her stomach as her mouth opened and a vile, mostly liquid substance forced it's way out.

She heard Eddie yelp as an unfamiliar sound came to her ears. It was a gasp, followed by a long groan. But she ignored it as she continued to suffer the after effects of a jump without a proper landing point. Eddie, on the other hand, was holding his side beneath his coat as he staggered to his feet.

"Matilda? Edward? Do you read me?"

Neither gave a response. Not at first. Wiping her mouth with the back of her hand, she finally opened her eyes and stared down at the diluted mess circling around her wrist. She was able to identify the Chinese take-away she'd eaten for dinner before hitting the streets for patrol with Eddie. Making a mental note to never order shrimp fried rice again, she drew in a deep breath. The air stung her throat, having been coated in stomach acid from her vomiting. A slow exhale, then another deep breath, hoping to clear both her lungs and her head. "That was a close one," she said, her voice hoarse and raw.

Eddie nodded, looking down at their third wheel who had stopped groaning and fallen into a deep sleep. "One thing's for sure," he said, trying to find a bit of humor. "Jack's going to have a field day with this one. He'll never let us forget the naked man what came from the Rift."

She laughed as she stood, wincing. That was one hard landing. Now that the action was over her body was feeling ever knock and blow. "It was your idea," she replied, rubbing her throat as she looked down at the sleeping man. She studied him, looking over as if he were merely another piece of exotic driftwood from he far reaches of the universe.

"Where are we, anyway?" Eddie asked as he finally took a look at their surroundings. "This doesn't look like our usual sweep area."

"It's not. You're in Splott."

"...Splott?..." She looked away from the naked man laying on the wet pavement to look around. It was indeed Splott. A very familiar little patch of it, too. "Quin, why is it ALWAYS Splott with these things?! Every time they malfunction we end up in the arse end of nowhere!"

"It's not my fault. Eddie programmed them... Speaking of, we may have burned out the power cells."

"Great.. That's all we need. More broken toys and a Rift streaker," Matilda mumbled as she crossed her arms over her chest with a groan. "You ARE coming to get us, right?"