With a soft, trilling squeak, Derecho leapt from the ground to land on Casper’s shoulder. He’d already shifted down into a tiny chipmunk form. As my sister led the way through that cave opening, the little guy produced a bright beam of light from his eyes to illuminate where we were going. Not that Casper needed that, obviously. She’d picked up night vision powers a long time ago. Derecho was doing this for me, so I could actually see properly. The thought gave me a new rush of appreciation for Rachel’s buddy. As if I didn’t already love the little guy enough as it was.

  With Shepard’s voice coming through both of our helmets, reminding us to be careful, we took the next few steps through that opening and found ourselves in a tunnel that sloped down and to the left gradually. It was almost perfectly round, with dirt on all sides. Dirt that had been packed in very tight. In the distance, we could hear the sound of some sort of very heavy machinery.

  I was nervous, my anxiety spiking as we started to move down through that tunnel. We had no idea what we were walking into, why that Intruder had left his mech to come this way. It could be a trap, there could be hundreds of enemies down there, a bomb, anything. Sure, my link with my sister gave some protection, made me as strong as a normal human could be. I wasn’t helpless. But I was nothing compared to an army of Intruders. Or even, like, four of them, honestly. Even with the Squire enhancements, even with the training I’d had over the past few months, I was still nothing compared to just a few of those guys. Going in there by myself would’ve been completely idiotic.

  But I wasn’t going in there by myself. I was going in there with Rachel-- Casper, and she was the one those guys were afraid of. She’d become one of the strongest Freestylers in the world in the short time she’d been one. If this was a trap, she was going to make them regret ever setting it.

  The tunnel started to get steeper as we went around that first bend. Rachel murmured a warning for me to watch myself so I wouldn’t slip, even as Derecho jumped down to land in front of us. He shifted into some form that was a mix between a crocodile and a lion, a scaled creature with a long, muscular tail. All while continuing to make twin beams of light with his eyes. It was bright enough for me to see the loose pebbles under our feet and adjust for them, sliding only a little before catching myself. The sound of that machinery, whatever it was, had only grown louder in that time. Something was going on. There was definitely a large-scale operation in this place.

  Even as that thought came, something happened to prove just how right I was about how very screwed I would’ve been if I was here by myself. Namely, the four dual-barreled turrets that abruptly popped out of the walls around us, two on each side. As a thick cloud of dirt filled the air, they started shooting, and the entire tunnel seemed to be taken up by bright red lasers.

  If I was alone, they would’ve cut me to pieces before I even knew what was happening. As it was, my first warning that something was going on was Casper’s hand grabbing my arm to yank me out of the way. She pivoted with me in her grip so those first few shots would pass through the air where my head had been a second earlier, her other hand snapping out to send a tiny metal shuriken thing into the two turrets on that side. They cut through the metal, embedding themselves in those turrets before going off in a contained explosion that reduced them to slag.

  Continuing her pivot, perfectly timed to make the twin shots from each of the other two turrets go right past either side of us, Casper’s foot rose and lashed out an instant later to kick one of those dual-barreled weapons hard enough to snap the whole thing sideways. Which meant that when it fired again, it actually hit its partner, doing enough damage to leave that thing a broken wreck. Then she let go of me, using both hands to grab either barrel of that one remaining turret. With a grunt, she bent the four-inch thick metal barrels sideways and twisted them until they were useless.

  All of it happened while I was still registering the fact that we were under attack.

  Then it was over. Or that part was, anyway. But in the distance, we could hear some sort of alarm going off. I could also hear the wince in Rachel’s voice as she muttered, “Well, so much for any element of surprise. Come on, let’s get down there.” She started moving at a light sprint, clearly going slowly enough for me to keep up. All while letting Alicia and Slater know what was going on, and that they should be ready for Intruder reinforcements to show up, just in case.

  Even though Casper was clearly giving me a chance to keep up, I could still barely keep her in sight. I was running full-out down that tunnel, and it was all I could do to maintain my footing as it grew steeper and had more of those loose pebbles along the ground. But there was no way in hell I would even think about asking her to slow down. We had to get there before the Eighty-Sevens did whatever horrible thing they were trying to do, now that they had to know we were coming.

  They did try to stop us. Before we’d even reached the end of the tunnel, a group of the basic Intruder footsoldiers had come rushing up toward us from the other end. They were called Taken, for a pretty horrific reason. See, we didn’t call them Intruders just because they ‘intruded’ on physical worlds, they also intruded on people. First, they would beat a person down physically, doing as much damage as needed to make them surrender inside their minds. Once the victim was broken enough to give up like that, the Intruders would inject one of their crystals into them. Because that’s what the Intruders were: living crystals in various shapes and colors, many of them humanoid, and some very much not.

  Each of the Intruders was capable of injecting a catalyst crystal into a host. That catalyst crystal would grow and expand, taking on the form of the person it was injected into. But that didn’t mean the person was actually trapped inside after that. Because once the crystal had fully formed over them, the real person within was sent… elsewhere, into a new life in another world, leaving the crystal shell of the Taken empty, but still shaped like them.

  Yeah, it was complicated. But it was half the reason the Jaunts existed. Well, that and helping the Freestylers get even stronger. The Jaunts were something only people like Rachel could do.

  Those thoughts passed through my mind as the first few of those Taken appeared in our way. All five of them had clearly been grown over lumberjacks. They were big for a human, with broad shoulders and beefy biceps. Like all of the Intruders here on Earth, they kinda looked like very intricate, moving ice sculptures. Even the beards and flannel clothing had been copied in crystal form. Three of them were a dark red and black color, while the other two were kind of yellow and light blue. As far as I knew, no one had ever figured out what the different colors actually meant.

  And we sure weren't about to find out from these guys, considering how quickly Rachel managed to cut through them. She was a tornado of violence, moving too quickly for me to even keep track. One second those crystal guys had been rushing up the tunnel at us, and in the next, they were shattered and broken on the ground. Literally, she managed to hit them hard enough that they just broke apart. My sister never even slowed down. Hell, I slowed more than she did, reflexively hesitating until she called back to me to keep moving before they recovered. Derecho, who had dealt with one of those guys by lunging at him in that crocodile-lion form, echoed the call with a quick, encouraging roar.

  Right, the Taken weren't dead. It took a lot more than being left in scattered pieces across the ground to actually kill those things. It would just take them a bit of time to pull themselves together. Time that we could use to get down there and find out what was going on in this place.

  Snapping out of my hesitation, I stammered an apology while hurrying to keep up with my sister as we ran down the last bit of that tunnel. It opened up into a wide cavern at the end, and I was immediately afraid that there would be more Eighty-Seven mechs. It was a concern Rachel and Derecho shared, apparently, judging by the way they both looked around to check the ceiling and all the corners of this vast cavern. But no, unless they were invisible (which honestly wasn’t impossible), there weren’t any mechs down here. What there was, as it turned out, was a door. Yup, just a plain old wooden door sitting in the middle of the cavern. The only other thing we could see, besides the lights that were making it all visible, was a computer on an old desk. Not even a fancy computer. It looked like it was at least thirty years old, from the mid-nineties or so. There was a Solitaire game on the screen.

  Most people probably would’ve ignored the door, or at most thought it was a bit odd and kept looking around. Hell, they probably would’ve investigated that computer before even glancing at the door. After all, it was just a door. You could see on both sides of it. The thing was just sitting right in the middle of the cavern, illuminated by a spotlight overhead. Weird, sure, but hardly a thing to get all agitated about. Unless you knew what we did. Unless you knew about the Jaunts.

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  As it was, Rachel-- fuck, Casper and I stood there frozen for a long second. She finally turned a bit to look at me, a soft curse escaping her before she managed a reluctant, “You don’t think it--”

  “I think we better find out!” I blurted, surprising myself with my own voice as it came squeaking out of me. Not very heroic-sounding, but at least I got the words across. “Should you call it in?”

  “Not until we’re sure,” came the response, as Casper strode down the slight dirt incline to the main floor of the cavern and walked right up to that door without any hesitation. After taking a brief second to swallow hard, I followed after her. With every step, I watched for enemies to jump out. But there was nowhere for them to jump out from. The cavern was basically empty. And if this door was real, if it was what we were afraid of, then we knew why no one was here.

  Neither of us wanted to believe this was real, not considering the implications. But we couldn't just ignore it either. This was too dangerous. So, we moved closer to the door, albeit reluctantly. Casper stopped at that computer and closed the solitaire game. She clicked around a bit before finding an icon on the desktop. Opening it brought up some long list of code in what looked like alien symbols. I saw her wince, and knew what she was going to say before the words even came. “I don't understand all of this, but it looks pretty much like the right thing.”

  Great, that was even more evidence that this was real, just what we wanted to see. As a string of silent and very enthusiastic curses went through my mind, I found myself stepping closer to that door. My hand reached out to it, but Casper caught my arm to stop me. She gave me a long look before telling me to stand back. Then she paced around the thing. I could tell she was scanning it with everything she had in that helmet of hers. Derecho was doing the same, pacing in the other direction. Both of them went over the door as intently as possible while I stood back and tried to pretend I was contributing by watching for any enemies who might try to ambush us right then. But no, of course they weren't here. They had used the door to escape. Because of course they had. This was all just so bad right now. How could this actually be real? They weren't supposed to have any access to this sort of thing. They weren't supposed to be able to use the Jaunt system, damn it. That was the whole point of it. They had to do things the long way, the slow way, while the Freestylers could Jaunt. If the Eighty-Sevens had that technology…

  Finally, Casper stopped in front of the door and dropped her head a bit while muttering her own set of curses that were actually audible. She took a moment to call it in to Shepard, letting the other girl know what we were seeing. That prompted all new set of curses from both Shepard and Bellboy. They were just as aware of how bad this was as we were. Casper told them to call it in to the station, and get more reinforcements here. Then she said we were going to check it out and see if it actually worked. There was some debate then between the two Freestylers, but my sister was the leader. She had final say, and she wanted to know if this thing actually worked. Telling her partner to bring reinforcements down as soon as they came to secure this area, she looked at me and asked if I was ready.

  Swallowing hard, I offered a weak shrug. “Not really, but let's do it anyway. I've got your back.”

  I could hear the wince in my sister's voice. “If I could do this by myself, I would. You know that, right?”

  Dammit, the last thing I wanted to do was make Rachel feel guilty about all this. Straightening up to my full height, I made myself sound as confident as possible. “We can do this. Come on, let's find out what this thing really is and where it goes before they all escape. We need answers from them, right? I’m here, I’m with you. This is what the Squires are for.”

  With a nod, Rachel hit a couple more keys on the computer. As she did so, the door briefly glowed a bit before going back to looking completely normal. But I didn't believe that for a second. As absurd as it seemed, as terrible as it felt to consider, it was obvious this was real. The Eighty-Sevens had access to Jaunt technology. And now, we had to find out just how bad it really was.

  The only way to do that was to go in. So, my sister touched the door knob, took a visible breath, then turned it and pulled the door open. Anyone who didn't know about this stuff obviously would have assumed that all we would see through it was The other side of this cavern. But no, we were looking at a thick vegetable garden, one that was ready to be harvested, from the look of things. Leaning closer, I could see a low stone wall surrounding the garden, some sort of thatched roof cottage at the far end, and another fenced in place with some horses milling around.

  Instinctively, I leaned the other way to look around the side of the doorway. All I could see there was the rest of the tavern, as expected. Looking through the open doorway showed that vegetable garden. This was real. It was a Jaunt, dammit.

  Now that we were completely certain this wasn't fake, I was even more nervous. But I clamped down on that as much as possible. I wasn't going to make my sister feel even worse about this. We had to check it out. We had to find the Eighty-Sevens who had fled through this door if we were going to get any answers about how they managed to access this technology. The options were all bad.

  As usual, Rachel went first. We had done this before, several times over these past months since we were brought into this. But this would be our first time doing it without immediate back up. It would be our first time doing it out in the middle of a potential battlefield, in the middle of an Intruder base. This was all really dangerous, maybe even stupid. But getting in there and finding those monsters was the only way we were going to get any answers.

  So, pushing down my nerves once more, I followed my sister right through that doorway. And as soon as I did, the moment I stepped through the door and into that vegetable garden, the Jaunt began.

  A wave of energy crashed over both of us, physically making me recoil. It would've sent me back through the doorway, but there wasn't a doorway anymore. Of course not, we were through it. We were on the Jaunt now. There was no going back.

  As the energy faded, I looked down at myself. My skin was tanned, but definitely white. And judging by my chest, I wasn't physically female either. I was some Caucasian guy wearing very old and heavily-patched clothes. Nothing modern, just simple cloth pants and a shirt stained with sweat and dirt. My face itched, and when I touched it, I found a thick beard there.

  Honestly, being trans, this sort of thing would've freaked me out a hell of a lot more if I didn't know exactly what it happened. As it was, it wasn't my favorite thing in the world. But at least I knew what was going on. And I knew this wasn't the universe making a sick joke at my expense. It wasn't making some sort of transphobic statement. I have been on a few different Jaunts, some of which put me in a male body, others in a female. Or in between. Everyone went through that.

  Looking over at Rachel, I saw that she wasn't in her suit anymore either. And she didn't look more like herself than I did. At least she was still a girl. She looked like a soldier, an old fantasy soldier anyway. She had leather pants, a shirt made of what looked like special chainmail, and there was a sword hanging from her hip. And hey, she was white too. She had light blonde hair, a scar across one cheek, and deep green eyes.

  Then there was Derecho. This Jaunt had put him in the form of an old beagle. And unlike when we were back in our world, he couldn't just shift around into any shape. That was what he would be for the duration of this whole thing. Nor could he turn into his mecha form. Just like how neither Rachel or I could shift back into our suits. Those didn't work when you were on a Jaunt. You had to stick with the body you were put in.

  This was what a Jaunt was. When people were infected by the Intruders, when the crystal grew over them and sent their bodies away, they were transported into other worlds. Some of which were very different than ours. And some of which were incredibly similar. There were super-advanced sci-fi worlds that were actually entire universes full of spaceships and aliens. There were historical worlds that seemed to take place at various parts of Earth’s past timeline (but apparently weren't actually the past of our real world), alternate timeline worlds where major things had changed, steampunk worlds like the first one Rachel and I had gone to, and fantasy worlds like this one clearly was.

  People who were Taken by the Intruders and sent to these other worlds became what were known as Seeds. Seeds forgot everything about the world they came from. Their minds, their memories were overwritten with new versions, where they had always lived in that new world. And as they lived in that world, as they spread through it, the Eighty-Sevens began to get a foothold in it. The more Seeds they had in that world, the stronger their foothold. And when it was strong enough, they could invade.

  That was a slow process. But Jaunts were a way of letting Freestylers immediately enter those other worlds. Yeah, it was pretty wild. Going on a Jaunt meant going through one of those doors and ending up in another world entirely, one that seemed to be pulled right out of a story or a movie. You were put in a new body, one that actually looked like it fit in that world, and you had to solve some sort of problem. That was how this stuff worked. There would be a big problem somewhere nearby, and you were supposed to fix it. When you did, it would lead you to a group of those people from our world who were Taken, so you could save them.

  Once you'd settled whatever problem there was and found those missing humans, you’d be sent back to the regular world. You couldn’t leave before then, so when you went on a Jaunt, you were stuck there until you finished it.

  This was also how Freestylers got stronger. Every time they finished one of these, it gave them more power. I really wasn't sure exactly how that worked, but there it was. You went on a Jaunt, played the role in that other world until you solved the problem and found the missing humans, then went back to our world with a power upgrade.

  And the most important part of that was that the Eighty-Sevens couldn’t do it. If that changed, if they could use the Jaunt technology, and spread through these worlds instantly like that… It would be bad. Very, very bad. That was why we had to catch these Eighty-Sevens who had escaped through the door before they finished the Jaunt and went back to Earth, or we’d never be able to track them down. We had to find them and get some answers.

  Checking her sword after taking in her new, temporary body, Rachel gave me a nod before starting to walk out of the vegetable garden. Her voice was calm. “Well, no sense standing around.

  “Let's do this.”

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