Chương 40: Chapter 39

From the oblivion of a deep, dreamless sleep, Tiff bolted awake. Her eyes were wide, her heart was thumping in her chest, and her body was soaked with sweat. She glanced at her clock. Monday morning, 5: 57 am. Her alarm wasn't set to go off for another hour. Tiff rolled over, stumbled out of bed, and stealthily made her way to the bathroom to splash some water over her face. She stared at her face in the mirror and wondered what brought her to this point. With Melissa gone for work, the house was quiet.

Not that their mom was a particularly loud person when everyone else was asleep, but the house had a way of groaning wherever she moved. Rick was normally an early riser, too, but there wasn't light coming from the door to his office. Perhaps he had a rough night himself. Melissa did not want to leave. This wasn't a standard case of Monday grumpiness where she was feeling snug and lazy inside a warm bed and didn't want to get up.

She was guarding Tiff at the Pizza Factory, so she knew exactly what Tiff was planning on getting up to on Tuesday. Melissa spent the majority of Sunday forbidding Tiff from going. She didn't want to say anything on Saturday. Still, as soon as they were safe behind the comforting confines of their own home, with no interloping restaurant owners or curious partygoers sneaking up on them, she made her objections known. At breakfast, she outright banned Tiff from going.

There was no world, according to her, where a 16-year-old needed to be concerned with the affairs of a structured gang. Or a non-structured gang. Any gang, really, was off-limits. Amy was moody because now she was 15… and also because she wasn't aware that Tiff had a secret mob boss moment at her birthday party without letting her know. At first, Tiff wasn't too disturbed. What self-respecting parent unquestioningly allowed their child to walk into danger? Not hers.

Strangely, it was Victoria who seemed insistent that Tiff attend. The oldest VanDyne daughter made several compelling points. First… it was likely, given Tiff's track record with the System, there would be consequences if Tiff didn't show up. At the very least, they had verified proof from past instances where the System wanted something from Tiff, she refused or tried to ignore it, and the System escalated. Victoria only needed to point to Tiff's closet and the dungeon core sitting inside it for proof.

Second, John's Incredible Pizza Factory and the Trampoline Park were now part of Tiff's domain. They were in her influence and fell under her protection. Even if the "protection racket" she and Victoria were running was a little… scuffed, she still owed something to those people. And, again, knowing the System and how it liked to screw Tiff over, there was a non-zero chance that if she didn't show up to the meeting she arranged, backlash would come down on Mr. Bob, Marelli, and Bean.

If they got hurt, or had their jobs taken from them, Tiff would be upset. And finally, this was a real, live gang they were talking about. While that was the same reasoning Melissa used to keep Tiff away, Victoria pointed out that it was better to know what the bad guys were up to so they could do something about it rather than remain willfully ignorant. Melissa grumbled, but her resistance was crumbling.

Halfway through the day, Rick got the crazy idea of rigging up a bunch of nearly undetectable surveillance equipment to Victoria's armor so he could monitor the situation the entire time. Even though he technically couldn't order the [Troubleshooters] to do anything, since he was just the IT guy, having a hero team on standby put in work toward easing Melissa's concerns. To top it off, once he suggested that, Tiff got a quest.

[Do My Bidding] Get a Hero to defeat rival gangs for you. Reward: +50 Infamy Well, the System wouldn't let her be a good guy, but it apparently didn't see any problems with using them. Throughout the rest of the day, Victoria and Rick conspired to turn the "Unyielding Vanguard of the Dark Queen" into Robocop. Victoria's armor wasn't very adjustable, which was probably a good thing because it meant she was well protected, but in the end they managed to find several good places for small cameras and microphones.

They wouldn't stay attached when she transformed, so she'd need to either put on her armor before driving to the meet-up, or else stick the equipment on herself once she got there. And, once they explained her mysterious teleporting ability that kicked in if Tiff actually got attacked, Melissa was grudgingly won over. Melissa didn't go quietly, though, and proved to be rather clingy as she snuggled Tiff that night until she went to bed.

With the lights out and nothing to keep her company except the sounds of crickets chirping in the October heat, Tiff couldn't fall asleep immediately. One too many things had happened lately and her mind regurgitated each and every one back at her in slow motion. From the trip to the DMA to Haxus' late-night dealings, until they started bleeding together in her subconscious.

As her mind grew drowsy and her eyes finally stayed shut, Tiff drifted off to images of Candice arguing with Ryan behind the bleachers, not about dating scandals, but about which dress to wear while jumping into a trampoline mosh pit filled with soft serve.

Tiff splashed more water on her face and shuddered. She could hear the phantom baseline of the energetic music the trampoline park blasted throughout the warehouse. Now that she was awake, she wondered if she could actually go back to sleep for another hour or if it would even be worth her time to try.

Surely she could simply lay back down and let her mind wander again, but there was no telling if she'd wake up just as suddenly right before her alarm was supposed to go off and end up more tired than she was right now. She didn't really want to be a slug all day at school. Tiff shut the bathroom door silently behind her and tiptoed back to her room. Amy was a heavy sleeper and there wasn't much of a chance that Tiff would wake her up, but as the saying went, better safe than sorry.

Before climbing back into bed and huddling under her covers, Tiff glanced at the clock again—5: 59 am. Time seemed to be moving at a crawl, and then it finally hit Tiff why she was feeling so anxious: the Rift. It hit her like a punch to the gut, but fortunately, existential crisis and panic attacks didn't trigger Victoria's summon ability. The last time Tiff checked, the Rift had several hours to go before appearing, which was supposed to happen at 6 o'clock on Monday morning.

Tiff frantically pulled up her Status. Nothing. A sigh of relief escaped her lips. She really didn't need the anxiety of a freshly opened Rift weighing down on her… but since she already knew about it…. She looked at the clock again. The boxy, digital numbers on the simple LED screen winked out as the hour ticked over. 6 am. Tiff held her breath. Still nothing. No new notifications, no System Quests. No indication that a Rift was active at all.

Tiff started wondering if she imagined the whole thing (which was impossible) or if she'd blown it waaaay out of proportion in her head. As the time adjusted to 6: 01, Tiff realized she'd been staring at the clock and wrenched her eyes away. They landed on her soft, welcoming bed and her spirit wavered. Her eyes kept moving as she turned around to look at her desk. There, the computer housing her TAS was still.

She didn't expect it to turn on of its own accord and start blaring alarms or churning out data, but seeing it remain a lifeless hunk of plastic and metal (as it should) was slightly off-putting. Tiff took a step closer to her bed, bit her lip… and wavered. One quick look wouldn't hurt, right? She shuffled over to her computer and perched on her swivel chair. It only took a few moments for the TAS to boot up, and when it did, she went straight for the map.

It wasn't hard to locate the new Rift, since they were large, obvious portals in an otherwise sterile environment. The only difference was that the stable Rifts were all white and this one was red. Tiff frowned; that most likely meant it was volatile. She got up, crept back to her nightstand, and glanced at her phone. No emergency alert. Maybe this was too far away to be part of her "local area"? It was almost 16 miles away. The Santa Ronda Rift was much closer than that.

Curiosity got the better of her and Tiff clicked on the Rift. To Tiff's surprise, she got a pop-up. It didn't tell her much, but it was more than nothing, which was exactly what the other Rifts gave her.

[Active Rift] Status: Volatile Biome: Parallel Urban Spawn Type: Terror Wraiths Resource: Marble Deposits Special Attributes: None Core: Uncontested Performance /\ Tiff stared at the Rift, transfixed, wondering if anybody else in the world had ever seen the System categorize one like this before. As far as she knew, Rifts were a highly debated and poorly understood topic.

Sure, some of these terms were familiar, such as Volatile, and she knew that people talked about Rift Biomes like they were their own unique habitats. In fact, she wondered if that's where popular video games like Minecraft got the term from.

But what wasn't public knowledge, and Tiff would stake her inability to lie on this, was that the System gave Rifts a Performance score. She was almost afraid to click on it… but in the end, her curiosity won out. She hit the funny little icon and it opened a dropdown menu.

[Performance \/] Time Since Manifestation: 7: 05. 73 Total Prime Spawns: 200 Prime Spawns Remaining: 182 Entrants: 0 Deaths: 0 Injuries: 0 Infamy Gained: 0 Tiff instantly went pale. As soon as her eyes fell on the death counter, her heart leaped into her throat and her stomach plummeted. She felt queasy, as if the slightest movement might upset her and she'd start heaving. The only thing that stopped her from immediately being violently ill was the fact that nobody had entered it yet.

But that didn't mean the world was safe.

Looking at the numbers, Tiff inferred that at least 18 monsters had escaped the confines of the Rift and were now wandering down the streets of Pomona. Tiff's whole body clenched. This was definitely a case of wishing she could put the genie back in the bottle: her curiosity was a mistake! Now she was doomed with incomplete knowledge. She had no idea what a "Terror Wraith" was, only that it sounded suitably horrifying.

She had no idea if 200 was a lot or a little, and whether those 18 that had escaped would be easily manageable, or if they were building-sized monstrosities like that pillbug. And worst of all… Tiff really didn't like the fact that the Performance tab specifically listed Infamy gained! Tiff stared at the screen, unable to move and barely able to breathe, watching in painful silence as the time slowly ticked up. 7 minutes turned to 8 minutes; 8 turned to 10.

10 minutes eventually turned to 15 minutes, even though to Tiff it almost felt like an entire year. This novel is published on a different platform. Support the original author by finding the official source. Not much else had changed, either, which only worsened Tiff's anxiety. The total spawns never increased, and once 180 spawns remained, the number didn't drop any further. Perhaps this Rift would only let 20 of its monsters escape?

Tiff was fairly certain they didn't die, though she had to admit she didn't know if monsters could kill themselves, because the entrants, thankfully, remained at 0. For a brief moment, Tiff wondered if the System actively chose a benign word like "entrants" to describe people entering a Rift instead of something more hostile, like invaders. But then, at 18: 47. 12 on the dot, the number changed. Tiff's chest constricted so tightly she couldn't breathe.

Her ears started ringing with a high-pitched whine and the edges of her vision started getting blurry. Her heart hammered a million miles a minute and she felt like her entire body was being compressed. Entrants: 2. Then 3. 4. 8. 13. 24. The number skyrocketed and Tiff's body violently shook as it lurched back into motion. She coughed, wheezed, and nearly doubled over as her mind warred over emotions. What should she even feel? Relief? Stress? Even greater panic?

Hopefully, those people who entered were professionals. Delvers who cleared Rifts like this regularly. People like her sister. Tiff nearly fell off her chair. Tori! Was she safe?! But Victoria didn't receive an emergency summons, or else she'd have woken up the entire house in her rush to leave. So she had to be safe! But Tiff's relief was short-lived. She watched the numbers react in real time. The total spawns never changed, but the "Prime Spawns Remaining" quickly dwindled. At first. And then…

the unthinkable happened. Somebody died.

Deaths: 1 Injuries: 5 Infamy Gained: 100 Tiff… reacted poorly. Her eyes, glued open in terror and disgust, stopped seeing. Her mouth slowly inched open… as a wave of dawning horror and vomit rushed forth. She crumpled in on herself, listed to the left, and fell off her chair, locked in the fetal position. A pained, tormented wail screeched from her soul like a banshee unchained, but Tiff couldn't help herself.

She didn't hear a loud swear coming from her sister's room, or the door to her parents' room slam open in the hall.

She couldn't recognize her family's frantic, concerned voices as they called out to her, banged on her door, and eventually shoved their way in. All Tiff could see was the accompanying Notification the System finally gave her, as if she should thank it and be grateful.

[Due to actions in your Rift, you have gained 100 Infamy!] Needless to say, Tiff did not go to school that morning. Unlike when she Awakened, Tiff didn't pass out when she got this System Notification, no matter how much it rattled her. She was trapped like a prisoner in her own mind for several minutes, unable to address the family members around her growing increasingly more concerned the longer she lay convulsing on the floor. But thankfully, after only a minute or two, she snapped out of it.

It stopped her dad from calling an ambulance, and instead got her rushed to the emergency room in person. Amy, for once, was not jealous that Tiff got "special treatment" and got to avoid going to school, and complied without complaint when Rick put Victoria in charge as he rushed Tiff out the door. Halfway through the drive to the hospital, Tiff tried to explain what was going on, but Rick was in full crisis mode. He made her conserve her energy, as if she was a frail little thing about to break…

which, to be fair, she really was. Tiff did as she was told, even if she didn't think doctors would be able to do much good. Tiff was immediately taken to a room and after a surprisingly short time, a doctor came to check on her. They went through all the standard motions: what are the symptoms, what were you doing, on a scale of 1-10, how much does it hurt? Tiff wanted to laugh at that last one. She always felt it was a bit silly, trying to rank pain…

even if she could understand why a doctor would want somebody to try. But wouldn't somebody who wanted all the feel-good drugs simply say "10" every time? But that was also why people said not to lie to your doctor, because they always find out the truth in the end. Not that it mattered, because the only thing Tiff could feel was numb. She did the ahhh with the tongue depressor and hardly moved at all when she had the bright light shined in her eye.

The tests didn't stop there, though, and soon she was lying on the bed in one of those drafty hospital gowns with many little sticky-circles connected to thin wires plastered over her chest. They hooked her up to a machine and ran tests. All things told, Tiff was in the emergency room for over 2 hours. When the doctor finally came back, it was with bleak news: nothing seemed wrong. While that might seem great, and on one hand it was, that meant they didn't know what caused it in the first place.

Tiff didn't mind that so much since she knew exactly what caused her stress, and she was more than happy to spill all the beans to her dad as soon as they were somewhere a little more private. As for what Tiff actually suffered, the doctor classified it as something close to an Acute Stress Reaction. She experienced…" psychogenic vomiting" due to "Somatization." Tiff didn't really understand half of the explanation, only that she was prescribed "plenty of rest" and "a removal from stressful situations."

She rolled her eyes at that one, but accepted a medication that would settle her stomach and hopefully keep her from losing her lunch if she tried eating some. On the way home, she broke it to her dad.

"I…I'm a monster," she said shakily. Rick narrowed his eyes but remained silent. He wanted to let Tiff have her say before he stepped in.

"A Rift opened up in my territory and…somebody died. I killed somebody. Somebody died because of me." While Tiff wasn't starting to hyperventilate or shut down like she had in her room, she was starting to wall herself off. She kept repeating similar versions of the same line over and over, like her brain was trying to rationalize to the world what her heart was feeling. Rick let her melt down for several moments before he held up a hand.

"Tiff," he said firmly but kindly, in a very soft voice.

"We've talked about this. The System might call you a Supervillain, but you're not evil. And I want to be unmistakably clear: you didn't kill anybody. Nobody died because of you. This isn't your fault, no matter what the System says."

"But that's the thing, Dad!" Tiff wailed.

"I got a Notification! It's my Rift! And because of actions in my Rift, somebody died! And I got Infamy for it!"

"Tiff, listen to me," Rick said in a strong, soothing voice.

"That's not true. You didn't place that Rift there. You didn't make people respond. You didn't kill anybody."

"Yeah, maybe not this time," Tiff wrung her hands, "But what about next time? This isn't the only Rift that's going to spawn, Dad, and the System wants me more involved!" During her wait in the emergency room, the System was unrelenting with its updates. While it didn't give her the specifics of how many people died or got injured, Tiff could make a guess.

Perhaps the only silver lining was the fact that no other reward of Infamy was even close to that original sum, so she had to assume (for her own sanity) that the kill count was low. And, while it never gave her a play-by-play account of how many monsters her Rift had left, it did tell her when it eventually got cleared. And, again, the System had the gall to act like it had done a good thing.

[Rift: Stabilized!] New Core Function Unlocked! [Rift Customization]. You may now edit the parameters of any upcoming Rift when interacting with the TAS. This includes difficulty, resource generation, Spawn types, and physical location inside your Territory.

Tiff found it hard to be excited about Rift customization when all she saw at first was another death attributed to her name. Once they got back home, Tiff showed her "reward" to her dad, and he sat for a long time, staring at it. Tiff grew bored and stared into space when he finally spoke up.

"Tiff," he said slowly, "I want you to listen to me." Tiff waved some imaginary butterflies out of her vision and focused on the man sitting on her bed next to her.

"What you have is a gift. Something many people, no, entire governments would kill to possess. It's amazing, unheard of, and most likely unique. It's also quite beautiful, if you can see it for what it really is." Tiff was about to open her mouth to complain, but he placed a hand gently on her knee.

"That doesn't mean it's not scary. It also doesn't mean it's not dangerous. You know as well as I do that some of the greatest heroes our world has ever seen have powers that could level a city block or vaporize an opponent with a blink of an eye. But we don't run from them in fear. Well," he chuckled, "Some people probably do, but that's not the point. We don't fear them because we trust them. But that trust isn't given just because they've got a shiny title from the System calling them a Hero.

It's a long, rocky road full of hardships and adversity, letdowns and setbacks. And sometimes, all that trust? That takes a lifetime to build up? It can get blown away in a heartbeat. Now! I know what you're thinking! It only takes one time to mess everything up! And, sadly, you're right!

"The world out there is a big, scary place. There's going to be people who find out what you can do and hate you for it. They'll be afraid, just because you have power and they don't. There's going to be some people who look at your Skills and say, yes. You are at fault. You placed a rift somewhere, and as a direct result of your actions, somebody's loved ones perished. They will hate you and despise you and demand that you be locked up for the rest of your life.

"There's no reasoning with those people, Tiff. It doesn't matter what you say, what you do, or how good or bad you are. It doesn't matter that, by placing a Rift here instead of there, you saved a million lives. It doesn't matter that, because you chose to put a Rift full of water in the middle of a desert, people can live, because somebody died securing it." Rick took a deep breath and drew Tiff close for a hug.

"And I know it's not what you want to hear, because you want me to tell you it's going to be alright. Well, I'm your dad, so I'm telling you it's going to be alright. But you're old enough now to know that it won't be easy. That you're going to have enemies. You're going to have people fighting against you. But there's something else you already know, but you might not have considered: you find that scenario on both sides of the equation! Heroes have people who hate them! Who fight against them on a daily basis!

Who want to see them broken and brought low! There's even people in the public who complain loudly about heroes! And I'm talking the good heroes, like the heroes who wouldn't hurt a fly, do no wrong, and spend 7 days a week rescuing kitties out of trees!" An impulsive laugh chuffed its way out of Tiff, despite her numbness. Rick took that as a good sign.

"So let me ask you this. Who cares what the System calls you? I mean, for those of us who really know you and care? It sucks, yeah, and life's not fair, whatever, and I get it. But we know you. Your family knows you. We care, and we love you, and we know you're not evil. We know, if you're forced to put a Rift somewhere in the middle of Los Angeles, you aren't doing it to kill millions of people. You aren't doing it to hold humanity ransom. In fact, if what I'm reading is right, you can do a lot of good!

I suppose we'd have to do some testing, but could you imagine? A fully controlled Rift, giving the world whatever we need? Tiff, no matter how the System swings it, there's nothing villainous about that." Tiff sniffled in a great, shuddering breath, but she wasn't feeling nearly as bad as she was a few minutes ago. She glanced up at her dad, who was trying to give her a warm, tender smile, but was only managing to look goofy. Tiff smiled despite herself and shook her head.

"Yeah, but what about when the System keeps giving me Infamy?" Tiff asked.

"And that drives me further as a Supervillain?"

"Tell it to the judge," Rick immediately scoffed. Tiff looked at him funny and he elaborated.

"Sorry, old saying. But also, now that I've said it, that's good advice. Look, 'the System made me do it' is not a valid excuse, but if you ever find yourself in a court of law, [Judges] are fair. They are just about the most Neutral you can get on the Greyscale, and they consider everything. Besides, we'd obviously get you a great lawyer…and I'm getting off track. You haven't done anything that makes you a villain."

"Except for, you know, being the supreme overlord of a Territory, usurping all authority," Tiff sighed dramatically.

"And, let's see, I'm responsible for Rifts now, so there's that. And, also, what about mine and Tori's protection racket?"

"The first two die on a technicality," Rick grinned, "But I admit, you've got me on the last one. But hey! We can work this out. Just think of yourself as…a dark Vigilante. You know some of those! People love a good Caped Crusader. And you're just…taking your city into your own hands. A bit of… in-person directive."

"Dad," Tiff chuckled weakly, "You'd make a lousy lawyer."

"Eh," he shrugged smugly.

"I'm the tech guy. You call me when you want somebody to tell you what to do, not how you can get out of a parking ticket." Tiff found herself smiling, genuinely smiling. She glanced over at her computer, and unlike this morning, the sight of it didn't fill her with immediate dread. It didn't make her stomach flip and turn like a washing machine set to agitate. She wasn't exactly keen on looking at it any time soon, but her dad was right. The possibilities were there. If only she could learn how to use them.

Which brought up a good question.

"Hey Dad," Tiff frowned.

"You and Mom…you guys said you'd tell people about the Rift. Did you? How'd that go?"

"It wasn't easy," Rick smiled sardonically.

"And it was about as effective as I'm thinking you're imagining. Which is to say, not at all. I mentioned it to some higher-ups at HQ, and they laughed. One of the bosses asked me if I had any [Seer] blood. I didn't want to push it, because we don't want to risk it coming back to you. Not yet, and hopefully not for a long time. Same with your mom, no dice. Rifts aren't exactly something people are known to predict, so it doesn't surprise me that people didn't take it seriously."

"Yeah, but what about now?" Tiff mumbled.

"Do you think they'll start asking questions? Maybe get suspicious?"

"Probably not," Rick shook his head.

"Believe it or not, I'm good at this sort of thing. I need to ask people, 'Are you sure it's plugged in?' in the most inoffensive manner daily. I know how to phrase a question and I'm not so bad with tact."

"Well," Tiff grumped, "That makes one of us." She glanced at her closet where her huge, poofy dress was hanging in its bag.

"Now I just have to learn a skill you've mastered over a lifetime so I can use it by tomorrow."