Chương 106: Antenna Across Worlds

I stayed at the gate. The soldiers didn't look happy, but I ignored them since most of my attention was on the thin thread connecting me to Pierre. Tala told one of the Moonbound who'd come with Pierre to set up for us on a patch of grass outside the military perimeter. I shrugged and went ahead and climbed up into the chair with Tala while she snuggled up against me. It was a little distracting, but I stayed focused, at least until a local news crew arrived. Actually, it wasn't much of a newscrew.

It was a man holding a large, expensive looking movie camera with a tripod along with a woman. Just looking at the woman made me want to roll my eyes. While I knew times had changed, some changes bothered me more than I would want to admit. First, when I thought of the news, I expected to see a distinguished looking gentleman and an attractive female in a dress. Neither of them fit that bill at all. The man was dressed sloppily. This wasn't too big of a deal for me, considering the fact that he wasn't on camera.

However, it did bother me that he was a representative of a news agency and should dress the part. Still, considering there was an apocalypse going on, I was willing to give him some slack. As for the woman on camera, I didn't even know where to begin. She was wearing blue jeans and a Razorback t-shirt. She looked like she had just woken up. Despite this, I was willing to give her a pass as well. However, two things bothered me. One was her appearance, and the other was that I was bothered by her appearance.

Am I really that shallow? I mean, she doesn't look old enough to be out of high school. While she was way overweight, at least she didn't have a lot of those stupid nose piercings. She did have blue-ish hair, though. It made me want to go up to her and ask, "How do you expect people to treat you seriously when you have piercings and blue hair?" I realized I was getting distracted and looked toward the gate again, the same gate the cameraman was now filming.

"You could go home," Tala said after a while.

"Use the Liminal Lands."

"Pierre drove me here," I said, not even bothering to come up with a good excuse. She gave me the look that meant she wasn't buying it. She was right not to. I could have teleported to the gate this morning and I hadn't. As long as there was a nearby shadow, I could go home right now and come back before anyone noticed and I wasn't doing that either. The real reason was harder to say out loud, which was that Pierre and the others were coming back through eventually and I wanted to be here when they did.

Before I died, I would have found a reason to be somewhere else. Now I was surrounded by armed strangers because my people were on the other side of a dimensional gate and I wasn't ready to be somewhere comfortable while that was true.

"I want to be here when they come back," I finally muttered. She deserved the truth. Tala bumped her shoulder against mine and didn't say anything else. I kept most of my attention on Pierre. He'd stayed inside the soldiers' forward camp the way he'd promised. Through the champion bond I saw the forward scouting station. I had to say I wasn't impressed. I hadn't expected much and I'd still been let down. What did surprise me was that fact that I could sense Marcus and his group.

Apparently, Pierre was acting like some sort of antenna. The threads connecting me to Marcus's group were faint on a good day. Across a dimensional barrier they should have been nearly nothing. Despite this, I could sense them. Love what you're reading? Discover and support the author on the platform they originally published on. I caught a flash of wonder from someone in Marcus's as they started exploring an alien world.

I even felt a spike of caution from Marcus when they found an abandoned ratkin tool half-buried in the dirt.

"I can feel them. Not clearly, but it's there."

"Pierre helping?" Tala asked.

"It looks like it. His presence makes it easier for me to sense others." Sandra came over mid-afternoon looking tired.

"Washington is still grumbling but they're not reversing the decision. The drones reported the ratkin have pulled back further. No contact."

"Good," I said.

"Let's keep it that way." She left us alone again after that. I soon discovered it took a lot of mana to monitor them continuously, so I switched to just checking on them occasionally. Because of this, I got disjointed points of their time. One moment I was watching a bird on the fence, the next I was catching Marcus's group find a cluster of small empty pens with things made from woven reeds and pieces of bone.

Repeatedly opening my thoughts to connect with my followers who had passed through the gate also caused a few from my side of the gate to slip through. I was seeing through the eyes of Kess as Bambi was telling Mort about what happened the night before. Mort looked spellbound as she spoke of "The Spanking of the Mate" and there is a divine lesson to be learned, such as "setting boundaries to ensure marital harmony." Not only that, she tied it to the Liminal Lands.

She said something about how the Great Trash Panda named his divine realm after "transitions, thresholds, and boundaries, where one thing changes to something different." Fudge me, I thought. I put my face in my paws. Fortunately, my thoughts were distracted when a spike of feeling from Marcus drew my attention. One of Marcus's group had spotted ratkin scouts watching from a ridge to the south. Neither side moved. They just stood there, observing each other. Marcus nodded to them.

Then slowly, he held out a backpack before setting it on the ground. I probably wouldn't have thought of doing it myself, but when Marcus proposed the idea to me the previous night, I thought it was a good idea. It was definitely worth a shot. In the backpack, he'd packed a lot of items, such as a candle lighter, one of those crank flashlights that didn't need batteries, some cooking utensils, a mirror, a blanket, and a Swiss army knife. After that, he pulled everyone back toward the military camp.

Nodding, I stopped concentrating when I realized there wasn't going to be a fight, at least not yet. Tala was doing her best to distract me. She'd started grooming the fur behind my ear, which was either affection or an attempt to distract me and I didn't particularly care which. I just let her do what she wanted to do and concentrated on Pierre instead. I could feel he wanted to tell me something.

"Everything's stable," he said, a walkie-talkie in his head. He knew I could hear through the bond.

"Marcus's people are following the rules. The soldiers are twitchy but professional. Marcus did what he wanted to do and is heading back. Although I was pretty sure I could say something back, I didn't. It wasn't worth the mana cost. Soon after that, the first of Marcus's group stepped through. Marcus and Pierre came through near the end and looked around until they found me. Then they walked over without any particular hurry.

"How was it?" I asked.

"Cold," Pierre said.

"It smells wrong too." He then smiled and continued, "I want to go back."

"Me too," Marcus said.

"Okay, I'm fine with it," I said to Pierre.

"Just make sure Shelly is fine with it too." Then I turned to Marcus.

"I'm okay with that too. We'll need to talk again before you do, though." Marcus seemed excited and did a fist pump. Then he walked back to join his comrades. Seeing that everyone had come through, I closed the gate behind them with a wave of the arm. I knew I could have done it with just a thought, but I liked the whole, "These are not the droids you are looking for," vibe. Unfortunately, this was caught on tape. I hadn't noticed before that the cameraman had been following Pierre and Marcus with his camera.

The whole thing was caught on tape. Great, just great. I can already see the news tonight. Actually, they could be live. Fudge me. Not wanting to deal with it and figuring the damage was done, I climbed out of the chair. Then I picked Tala up and disappeared into Pierre's shadow, carrying Tala with me. We waved to Lifna and then emerged from another shadow into our cabin. Tomorrow was going to be complicated. But everyone was back, and the ratkin hadn't attacked.

Pierre had just confirmed that the champion bond worked across planes. I just hoped the news thing wasn't going to turn around and bite me on the ass. Having two awakened animals was newsworthy, but actually getting a shot of the mythical raccoon trickster god opening a portal to another world, that was going to be a problem. However, that was tomorrow's problem. I had better things to do than worrying needlessly about what could be.

Instead, I concentrated on what was more important, sitting back and enjoying some quiet time with Tala watching cartoons and movies she's never seen.