And that brings us to where I am now.
"How are you holding up back there?!" Jessie asks as Victoria violently drives over a fallen tree trunk she somehow doesn't see despite it being directly in the middle of the trail we're driving on.
"My head is rattling from the drive. I'm going to be sick."
"If you throw up in the car you're paying to clean it up!" Victoria yells back from the driver's seat.
"Why is Victoria even here!? She works in finances!"
"With Levi resting up we'll need some extra support for this mission. And Victoria is a very skilled Curator."
"Skilled, smart, rich." Victoria lists.
"There seriously wasn't anyone else that could have taken her spot!? And you're injured! There were a ton of Curators walking around on my first day. None of them could have taken your spot?" I ask Jessie.
"A hero can't shy away from something as minor as a shoulder! Plus, this is a rank 4 Antique, and the few other rank 4 Curators are preoccupied!"
"What do you mean rank 4?"
"The ranking of an Antique indicates how powerful they are with rank 1 being relatively harmless and rank 5 being something with the potential of leveling a city. Then we assign Curators their ranks based on how skilled they are. This makes it easier to assign Curators for missions they are capable of taking and loan them Antiques they can use effectively. The ties on our uniform indicated what rank a Curator is at."
"And having a green tie means you're the highest rank." She says, taking a hand off the wheel to proudly wave her tie around. Just as she does the car bobs and swerves uncontrollably along the road.
"The wheel Victoria! Both hands on the wheel!" I order.
She casually places her palms back on the wheel, "I've got it. Yeesh, no need to yell."
"The order from strongest to weakest actually goes black, white, blue, green, red." They correct.
"You're such a buzzkill. You couldn't even play along for five seconds?"
"If you want to claim to be the strongest Victoria, you have to earn it. How about we do some group training!"
"Why the hell would I do that?"
"You'll improve your physical body and your Antique proficiency so you can save people on missions easier!"
"And doing that makes collecting Antiques easier! And the more Antiques I get, the more money I make! I'm a genius!"
"Your heart might not be in the best place, but I love the enthusiasm! How about you Ren? You're welcome to join!" Jessie invites.
"I think I'll pass for now." I spar with Victoria every morning and can't catch her. And Jessie singlehandedly took on Levi while he was possessed by Astahe. Trying to keep up with both of them would be futile.
"Fine Ren, but don't be mad at me when you're begging me for help collecting Antiques!" Victoria laughs.
I think I'd rather die than beg for her help. But she's right about one thing. Catherine told me to find my purpose through being a Curator, but I can't do that if I'm still getting winded chasing Victoria. I'll need to toughen up. "Never mind. I'm in."
"Excellent! If we can get Levi in on this too that'll make 4 of us working out together! Just thinking about it is getting me pum-" The car bucks in the air against another spruce hurdle, forcing Jessie's head into the car roof and clamping their jaw shut mid-sentence. "Ack! I bith mah thongue!" They cry.
"Can we please get Victoria away from the wheel!?" I call while rubbing my head from the same impact. "She doesn't know how to drive!"
"The state of Washington D.C. gave me a license fair and square, so I'm allowed to use it." She clarifies.
"To be fair, you got it after you harassed the driving instructors for 45 days straight until they gave you it without a test." They say through an injured tongue.
"Either way they let me have it and no one is ever taking it away from me."
Victoria sporadically drives over mounds of brittle white snow putting our lives in danger with each bounce. For 15 minutes I cling to the car door wondering if this is how I'd die. At the hands of Victoria's atrocious driving skills. It seemed like it for a moment when a deer meanders out of the woods and almost collides with the car's hood. Luckily for us, the deer has more sense than Victoria, and jumps out of the way before someone lost their life. The car sprints over the trail a little longer until halting when Victoria slams on the break. The car skirts along the slick earth a few inches before it nearly knocks into an unassuming tree ahead of us.
The sudden stop jerks my head into the back of the driver's seat and that, combined with the near miss pushes me over the edge. "That's it Victoria! Give me the keys!"
"Too late now. Look." Jessie points out the front window towards a view so conspicuous I'm surprised how I almost missed it because of Victoria's reckless driving. A milky azure veil in the shape of a dome rose above the lofty trunks and shielded the world behind it from view.
"Does this have to do with our mission?"
"You bet! Inside there is our assignment for today."
"And what is that?"
"Didn't you get a debrief from Ghislain?"
"He told me a little bit, but if you mean the bat, I'm not letting him near me with it again."
"I'll gladly fill you in for a small fee." Victoria offeres.
"You're an integral part of our team. The more you know the more you can help us and everyone else." As Jessie continues, Victoria sulks at losing out on stealing more of my money. "Behind this cloak is an Antique called,
Antique #3: Time Sink
A clock tower capable of emanating an aura that speeds up time inside it
"We have to bring back an entire clock tower? Is it miniature sized or does it shrink?" Ghislain got Victoria's entire car to us with Waypoint, maybe we'll do the same for the tower.
"No, we're here to destroy it."
"Isn't that the opposite of what Curators are supposed to do?"
"We can't contain every Antique; some are too big and others are too dangerous. The ones we can't keep we have to restrain, so every 5 years a group of Curators has to go in and disarm Time Sink before it swallows anyone or anything important."
"Why every 5 years? If you destroyed it why doesn't it stay destroyed?"
"Don't explain it too fast Whitey. He's a bit of a slow learner."
"Don't call me slow for asking a reasonable question Victoria!"
"In a way, all Antiques are indestructible." Jessie continues. "If they're taken apart or destroyed, they'll piece themselves back together. It's the reason my revolver will never rust, or Victoria's card stays in perfect shiny condition. And with Time Sink, the range of its effect grows the bigger it gets and the longer it stands. If we let it get too big it will swallow the town we left and hurt those civilians."
"So that's why they were so excited to see us."
"If you think about it, if they age it's their own fault. Who had the bright idea to build a town near an Antique anyway?" Victoria comments.
"A piece of Curator trivia Levi told me is that the town used to be a base for Curators monitoring Time Sink. Originally the tower was teleported with Waypoint to this remote area so it wouldn't hurt anyone and so past Curators could break it down whenever it grew too big. But eventually, those Curators found love, had kids, those kids had kids and it became more of a town than a base. And that's why we as Curators need to stand up and protect this town! So those kind people can live their lives without fear!"
Jessie's electric words spark something in their soul because they slip out of the passenger seat so fast I can barely feel a breeze from outside before they hastily slam the door shut.
"Congratulations Ren, you're as informed as a 7th grader!" Victoria follows Jessie out in the endless white, inviting the biting cold through her opened door to nip at my uncovered hands and face.
The snow lets out a wet crunch as my feet sink ankle-deep inside and freezing water leaks through my shoes and soaks my socks. With a cold chill running down my unguarded neck and the mild gale wafting in my hair, I freeze like a peach popsicle. The biting cold doesn't seem to bother Jessie though, as they stand on the roof of the car, their face fixated on the unnatural barrier ahead.
"What are you doing?" Just moving my hands is becoming a chore.
"Perfect cape flapping weather."
"Well wrap it up so I can drive us to the Antique. It's cold out here!"
"We won't be driving."
"Why!?"
"Machines malfunction inside Time Sink's field of effect; so leave your phone here too."
"Seriously." I reluctantly leave my phone in the backseat. "How far is the tower?"
"A few miles."
"Miles!?" I'll freeze over if I have to take that walk!
"Ren" Behind me, Victoria who appears to be buried neck deep in a patch of snow muffled to me. "Ren... come here."
Oh no. That's never something I want to hear from her. "Why?"
"I'm stuck Ren."
"Can't you dig yourself out? It doesn't look that deep."
"Maybe... for you!" She struggles and squirms under the icy blanket. "Although I may be... perfect in almost every possible way, I'm lacking in height. Life has to be fair somehow. So I need... you to... trust me this once... and pull me out." Her bottom lip pushes out and her helpless eyes beg me for help.
"Fine, Victoria." I take a step to grab her before a white flash darts by my field of view. Looking back at her, Jessie's already lifting her out of the snow.
"I'll save you!" Jessie announces, holding Victoria under her armpits like a child to keep her from falling back into the snow. "Are you alright?"
"This... is why... I hate... Canada!" She chatters.
"Alaska is in the U.S." I correct.
"It's... close enough!" Victoria pulls her Command Card from her pocket, shakes the snow off it and herself, and sends a worrying smile my way. "Phantom, can you bring me closer to Ren please?"
"Victoria, what are you about to do?" I say, stepping away.
"Just gonna return the favor after you left me buried in that hole."
"I was about to help but-"
"Don't care! Phantom, please help me repay Ren in full."
"No problem!" With a smile, Jessie tosses Victoria's pint-sized body my way producing probably the most horrifying image I've ever seen.
Like a mosquito, Victoria flies at me and locks her arms and legs around me. "Thank you very much Phantom!" My frozen arms panic, trying to pry her arms off but before I can, I feel a quick swipe along my frigid arm and all motion, even my shivering ceases to be. "Why do you make things so difficult Ren? Oh, I forgot you can't talk. You can speak freely."
"I'm not being difficult, you're being an ass! Now let me go!"
"Don't be so prickly, I'm about to do you a favor. From now until I say so, Ren Lu will be unable to feel cold temperatures."
Her words cover me in an invisible blanket of warmth shielding me from the cold gnawing at my skin. "Whoa, my body's heating up!" The frigid weather doesn't phase me anymore and the snow leaking through my shoes feels no different than regular rainwater on my feet.
"I know, I'm amazing! And in return, I'll have you carry me the rest of the way through!"
"Wait, I appreciate you keeping me warm but-"
"Ren, haven't you ever heard the saying that nothing is free? I can't use the card on myself, and I won't be walking through the cold, so in exchange for making you warm, you'll be my horse today! Now march, let's get this mission done and over with!" Victoria scurries her way onto my back, holding onto me like a child getting a piggyback ride while my legs advance towards the mystic veil ahead.
"I couldn't agree more Victoria!" Jessie steps up to keep pace with me. "We'll jump into the jaws of danger and walk out accomplished heroes!" Jessie sprints headfirst into the Antique's range and disappears inside. The threshold ripples as if they had dove into a lake full of water, leaving me and Victoria at the precipice of the Antique's range.
"You too Ren!" Victoria smacks my head like I'm an animal. I would love to slam her onto the frosty canvas if I could move my arms. But still being under her control, I step closer to the veil.
My right foot is the first to go in and disappears from my sight just like Jessie had. The crunch of snow under my shoe I should hear doesn't reach me through the barrier, worrying me even more than I already am. It feels like being trapped on a ride with no way out, as my body advances toward the unknown no matter what my mind tells it.
But I need to calm down. This has been done before by countless Curators. If Jessie is confident we can do it, I believe them. And Victoria… is like a cockroach, whatever is in there sadly won't kill her. We'll be fine.
I take my final step in and the Antique devours us both, leaving us vulnerable to whatever lay on the other side.