"Huh?"

  "Forget it. Tapper!" Phanya leaned to the side with her hands cupped around her mouth and shouted, "You need to turn left now! Right now! Wait no that came out wr—" Tapper did exactly as commanded, whipping the steering wheel to the left and then the right, and then the entangled vehicles began to slide. This did put them out of direct contact with Belvidere, and luckily the grounds surrounding the open mine were mostly clear of obstacles.

  Roughly half a dozen vehicles were waiting to get into town when the off-kilter see-saw rolled into view. After a mad scramble to get out of their way, everyone enjoyed the show of the conjoined car and their screaming occupants spinning out of control through the crowd.

  Two more spins, and the mercenary managed to stabilize both cars by steering from the rear. "That's it, I give up!" He shouted, his voice amplified by both his and the jitney's speakers. "You're all psychotic, just let me stop and I'll leave!"

  "Yeah, that's more like it!" Ricky shouted, fists pumping in triumph.

  Then his celebration was cut off by an explosion next to them. He couldn't tell if it was a mortar shell or a really big gun, but someone had definitely missed them with an intentional attack. Ricky crouched to spread his balance and looked around as the vehicles fishtailed, and he noticed a half-dozen vehicles speeding to catch up. Why were the miners from Belvidere giving chase now? They hadn't hit anyone.

  "Uh, hey Tapper?"

  "Yes, Ricky?"

  "Are you still wearing your disguise?"

  "Indeed, I have not removed it once! Why do you ask?"

  "...No reason. Just drive faster, we have to lose them!"

  "Not to worry, everyone!" Tapper shouted, giving the runaway cars a more gentle turn towards a giant cloud. Somehow, a great bank had settled onto the ground off to the side. "We shall lose them in the foggy weather!"

  The mercenary was not in agreement with the plan, throwing out swears and oaths at random regarding the kids and their entire family lineage. His panic redoubled when the miner vehicles caught up and surrounded them, to the sides and behind and even on top. How did a flying vehicle manage to sneak up on them in the open air?

  Ricky pointed up at the open-topped hovercar and shouted, "Ahh, it's Fairbanks! He caught up already!" before he stopped and squinted at it. "Wait never mind, it's just one of the servants!"

  An anguished scream whispered faintly over the rushing wind, and then it swooped to attack. The other random miners swooped in as well, side-swiping the jitney while others shot air pistols or threw grenades in uncoordinated attacks.

  Through it all, the mercenary sharing this mishap with the jitney looked up, and realization sliced through his fear. "What are you doing?? Turn around, you're driving us right into a live shift storm!"

  "I said, not to worry!" Tapper shouted back into the comms. "I'm going to lose our pursuers in this thick fog! And... swirling lights?" The robot was so focused on keeping their vehicle stable that he only started to notice the strange weather once they were in the thick of it.

  Occasional wisps of multicolored light flashed briefly in the fog. Random colors in random spots, without any discernable patter. There was no source that Tapper could see, and despite the circumstances he felt curiosity tugging whenever one flashed across the windshield.

  "So these colored lights are dangerous, yes?" Tapper asked into the comms, excitement coloring his own words.

  Excitement which the mercenary did not share. "Those are specters, you useless pile of glitches! Yes, don't touch the specters!"

  Something in the folksy name for the phenomenon connected with Tapper on an emotional level, bolstering his emotions into something much more adventurous. "Specters, ey? Sounds like the perfect place to lose our pursuers!"

  "No you idiot, it's the perfect place for us to die! Hey, are you speeding up? Don't speed up!"

  "We must, or else we must fight these brigands! And you must help me steer, Mister Mercenary, then we all shall survive! ADVENTURE!"

  "I'm gonna diiiiiiiie!"

  Ricky, meanwhile, was too preoccupied to notice any lights. Fairbanks' servant was still taking swipes at them, leaning out of his sleek hovercar to reach for Phanya. She didn't even notice him, she was struggling to climb back up onto the pillbug vehicle for some reason. She was wide open, if Ricky didn't do something quickly.

  "I said, get away from her!" Ricky didn't expect the servant to hear him, but he just needed a second for Armaments to guide his aim again. The hovercar was a sharp arrowhead of fins, sleek and very expensive, but for all the advanced technology this one wasn't growing massive turrets. Maybe it wasn't designed to fight, so maybe even a plinker rifle could find a weak spot... like an exposed nerve.

  Glowing lines running along the craft's underside marked the anti-gravity rails and these ones were designed with aesthetics over practicality; all the grav rails converged at one point towards the front of the ship, forming a cluster of weak targets. But now that he identified it, he had to actually hit it. His first shot went wide and struck a single grav rail instead. The full rail went dark and the hovercar listed slightly to compensate, but it wasn't enough to force a landing.

  Except, the hovercar suddenly lurched from side-to-side. The driver was clearly struggling to maintain control, so Ricky braced himself and waited until it was within range for a melee attack. He swung the butt of his rifle in a wide upwards arc, hitting the rail junction like a blunt club. Which, according to the system, was the preferred damage type for smashing things, and a majority of the grav rails instantly winked out.

  Probably more than he should have knocked out, Ricky quickly realized. It didn't crash, exactly, but it also wasn't exactly hovering either, instead bouncing and skipping on the tarmac until it veered off and the swirling mists obscured them. It was probably just a trick of the fog, but Ricky thought he saw a long trail of hair bouncing on top of the hovercar.

  The cars recovered from their spin, and in the moment of relative peace Ricky noticed what really caused the hovercar to start flying erratically — the wind. The wind shifted directions constantly, tugging at Ricky and jerking him every direction against the straps of his exosuit. If it wasn't weighing him down, Ricky feared the wind would've blown him off by now. No wonder Phanya's having so much trouble keeping her balance!

  But not just the wind, flashes of light and cracks of thunder taunted Ricky from just beyond view. Nervous laughter bubbled in his chest as Ricky realized what was happening. Did Tapper drive them into a shift storm? On purpose? One of the miner vehicles swerved out of the mist and bumped into the jitney, sending them into another spin, and Ricky hastened to reload his rifle.

  Maybe he should've stayed in the library, after all.

  Phanya, stuck in the middle of the spin, watched the two vehicles bend and fishtail. The pillbug's forward turret never stopped firing into the tarmac, but it got a little bit closer to hitting the jitney whenever the two cars bent and swerved. Whether because the mercenary forgot to turn it off or intentionally didn't forget, Phanya knew it was only a matter of time before a stray blast hit Ricky. She waved and shouted but he didn't notice, he was too distracted by the chaos and swinging his rifle through the air.

  Unauthorized tale usage: if you spot this story on Amazon, report the violation.

  She planted her hands and flipped around on the roof of the pillbug, hoping that the extra panache would help her with the "trick" of pulling a stick really hard. She braced her heel against the base of the turret for leverage and grabbed the barrel with both hands, hauling back with all her might. Phanya expected it to be difficult, but she didn't realize how much residual heat that sustained fire can build in laser weapons. Her hands sizzled, her voice screamed, and with a pop the turret came loose in its housing.

  [Wounds: ????]

  [Injury: Burn

  You suffer -1 Dexterity checks when using burned limbs.]

  [Adrenaline Rush

  Fight or flight? Whenever you're hit with a wound you will instead receive a buff that numbs the effects of your wounds for (1 minute). Furthermore, you also receive a bonus on your next maneuver attempts equal to the number of wounds you are currently suffering. Usable once per combat encounter.]

  Thank you system, helpful as always, Phanya thought. Her hands stopped hurting the instant her perk activated, but she could see the burn marks and dreaded the pain they'll bring in the next minute. But she took advantage of the bonus and pivoted, turning her hips into a fulcrum so she could throw the turret like a big club. It spun end over end and lodged itself in the exposed wheel well of an approaching miner vehicle, sending them careening into a garbage mound.

  Even in the chaos, Phanya found it odd that the system took away her ability to use weapons but let her throw a stick like a marksman.

  Between the frantic screaming, expletives, and close calls, Tapper and the mercenary never quite learned how to drive as one unit. One of them would turn, the other would counter it on reflex, and they would pirouette around again. All the while dodging trash heaps, evading specters, and batting aside any miner that got too close. Ricky shot out a few tires to thin the herd, any miner that managed to jump onto their barge was kicked off by Phanya just as quickly, and experience flowed in.

  The life-or-death struggle was going well, until a tiny mote of light floated down and attached itself to the spot where jitney ramp joined with pillbug hood. The comms crackled and the mercenary shouted, "Kids, get away from that light! The bubble's going to pop, we're so completely screwed!"

  Kakisi fwapped his tentacles against Tapper's faceplate and, after the robot recoiled, noticed that his familiar was pointing backwards. Tapper snapped his head around and watched as a pea-sized point of light swelled into a sphere the size of a fist.

  "Ricky, Phanya! Retreat NOW!" Tapper shouted in his most authoritative voice, not waiting to see their reaction before his head ratcheted forwards. "What do we do about the bubble, Mister Mercenary?" Phanya and Ricky rolled down the angled floor and crashed into the dashboard as one tangled mess, sending the vehicles into another spin.

  The mercenary stopped yelling and the speakers crackled with a heavy sigh. "No point, it's anchored now. Just pray that we don't get demons." Blinding light filled the cabin as the bubble swelled, multiple vehicles swerved inwards as a coordinated attack, and the mercenary gave one last defiant yell. "OH GOD DAMNI—" A crack of thunder cut off his voice, cut off all sound, and chaos was all that remained.

  [Miner Mercenary Horde defeated! +25 XP for participation]

  DING!

  "Ugh, what happened?"

  "Your hyut ish in my mouh"

  "What? You're all muffled — oh sorry."

  "Are any organic systems damaged?"

  "Eee-seee..."

  Various limbs untangled themselves while the bodies worked through their disorientation, all of it to much groaning. But once the bellyaching passed, the group found few new wounds amongst them; Phanya's hands were burned, Ricky jammed a leg strut on his exosuit, and Tapper had to reset one arm before it would bend the correct direction. Also, the jitney's cabin was mostly sideways.

  Through the car's front windshield was only darkness. Behind the jitney, ambient light floated slowly through the open ramp, carried along foggy tendrils. The strange mist moved in lazy arcs as it filled the cabin, leaving no moisture but instead a sapping chill upon everything it touched. It reached Ricky first and he shivered, his frosty breath adding to the fog.

  "G-guys? What's happening?"

  "I think we're still inside of a shift storm," Phanya answered. She didn't feel uncomfortably cold yet, probably as another invisible bonus from the system strengthening her body. Or because she just hit Level 3, Phanya remembered how overconfident Tapper acted right after he hit the same threshold. Yet a chill still crawled up her spine as the mist surrounded them, pressed into them. Everything felt still as death, and in that moment the two humans knew precisely why their ancestors cowered in caves.

  Outside, there be monsters.

  Tapper lacked that context, even in the primal recesses of his emotions. Instead, he noticed a thin layer of small objects littering the floor that he didn't recognize. They were all soft rubbery plastic and uniform in size, fitting into the palm of his hand with an off-center knob on top. Tapper picked one up, observed its bulbous silhouette in the faint mistlight, and squeezed.

  The rubber duck's quack hit the tense silence like a hand grenade and scared the humans just as much. Once everyone calmed down again Tapper took a long look towards the open end of the jitney, the mist drinking long and deep from his earlier bravado. Even his circuitry wasn't immune to the strange effects. "What are shift storms? Why is everyone so scared? Why am I scared?"

  Ricky smacked some feeling back into his lips and answered, "They're phase shift events. The real big ones, where anything can phase out of or into existence."

  Phanya hugged herself. "I heard that these storms can summon demons, or ghosts from beyond the grave."

  "That's just PSI cultists talking," Ricky responded, a slight snap sharpening his words.

  "Actually, the mercenary did mention both demons and ghostly specters by name."

  "Anyways, nothing is safe inside of a shift storm. They usually burn out in a few minutes to an hour, and when the storm breaks there's usually good stuff to scavenge. That's probably where these rubber duckies came from, see how they're brand new? They just didn't exist, and now they do. Actually that might explain why all those miners were waiting around outside, they were waiting for the storm to pass and get first dibs —"

  "Ricky. You're rambling."

  "Right, sorry. Best we can do is wait here until everything clears up and hope we don't have to fight anyone. Or anything."

  Silence blanketed the cabin once again, until Phanya just had to break it. "Hey, Ricky? Remember how I said not to worry about picking a good subclass? Sorry about that, you should get to picking."

  "Waaay ahead of you," Ricky murmured, staring intently at the wall.

  Tapper suddenly snapped to attention. He was really starting to grate on Phanya's nerves with all the startling and sudden movements. "Wait! If we're in danger, then so is the mercenary! I must ensure that he is unharmed!"

  "Tapper, wait..." Phanya held out a plaintive hand, but the robot was already walking towards the open door. He slid down the angled floor, but with determination and a sideways crabwalk Tapper made it up the incline.

  "Don't worry, you stay here where it's safe and I'll return with our friend — oop!" Tapper toppled and vanished from sight, followed right after by a crash. "I am undamaged!" His tinny voice was clear but quiet, as if Tapper was suddenly shouting from a great distance away.

  Phanya scooted forward with appropriate caution, so she spied what caused Tapper's downfall: The ramp he sidestepped onto didn't exist. Neither did the sloped roof that formed the rear wedge of the jitney. Phanya stuck her head out into the open and slowly spun around to trace the hole and confirm her fears, that the entire rear section of their vehicle was simply gone.

  The lip was perfectly smooth throughout the entire length around, with a slight curve that bent inwards. As if a precision laser had carefully lopped off the rear end of the jitney. Or maybe a giant toothless mouth. She looked back down to see Tapper picking himself up from his tumble, and to her relief he had only dropped down about three meters. Phanya couldn't see the front of the jitney, but it looked like they had crashed into a giant garbage mound with enough force to lift the entire vehicle into the air.

  Phanya cupped her hands over her mouth so she could whisper-shout without anything else out there hearing her. "Tapper, this is suicide! Get back up here!"

  The dumb little robot just looked up and smiled with his dumb little eyebrows. "Your concern is appreciated! But I must find ways to help!" Then he waved to her and turned around, blindly looking for the pillbug car. Phanya groaned and reminded herself not to act rashly. First, she needed to confirm whether Tapper intended to guilt trip her with one of Uxral's favorite lines, and then she'd throttle him for it.

  "Can't let him go alone, he'll get shredded. Ricky, you... are still completely spaced out, right. What about you, Kakisi?" The baby octolusk zipped around Ricky and hid behind one of his legs, the tip of their conical shell quaking in fear. "Go figure, the squid's the sanest one here. Okay boy, you look after Ricky and I'll fetch your, uh, poppa. Go team." Phanya knew she was just delaying herself now, so she hopped out of the jitney before Tapper could manage to lose himself forever.