The Dauntless slipped through the closing shimmer of the portal with little more than a whisper, the rippling edge of blue light quickly fading behind her.
Suddenly—Vermont sky overhead. Familiar mountains. Lake Champlain reflecting the pale orange blush of morning.
Wayne yanked the tether with mock ceremony. “Still here. Still in one piece. Still waiting for screaming customs agents.”
Vanessa traced a fingertip across the artifact’s surface. Its glow was softer now, but alive. “I keep seeing roadmaps in my dreams,” she murmured. “Not highways—doorways. Paths across the bottom of the world.”
Spyder, already back at helm, scowled at his coffee like it owed him rent. “Whatever these things are—they're not just puddles to dream monsters through. They're systems. Bigger than lakes. Bigger than Nessie. We’ve got the tech. We’ve got the relic. Universe thinks we’re the right flavor of reckless to map it.”
Athena: "Portal analysis mode engaged, Captain. Now fetching all available anomaly data, planetary alignments, and log entries marked ‘concerning.’ Please hold all existential crises until I finish plotting potential exits.”
Wayne (squinting at upgraded FRED display): “If I'm seeing this right… there are dozens—hundreds—of these things across the planet. Not just lakes either—rivers, estuaries, weird fog-covered Bermuda stuff.”
Vanessa (quietly, as a truth settling in): “Bermuda Triangle?”
Athena: “Signature consistency across areas of longstanding anomalous reputation: 89.3%. Also flagging ‘high probability of mullet sightings’ in that area.”
Spyder: “Well, crew—we might not need passports… But it looks like Florida really was the next frontier. Just not for gator hunting.”
They’d come back a little different. The artifact now pulsed in time with Earth’s rotation. The boat’s enhanced sonar could hum lullabies to legends.
They’d towed a robot to Scotland. Then returned with a family of cryptids through a shimmer of melody and math. Resolved a cosmic birth. Named a legend. Repelled a shadow. Not bad for a crew originally tasked with canal hinge inspections and boat festivals.
Some sailors chase storms. Some map new islands. The crew of the Dauntless had found something else entirely: A library of doors—open just a crack, left ajar by accident and intuition.
Their next quest? Learn to read it. Catalog it. Because someone has to know where these ripple-roads lead. And someone has to be the one that comes back with the story.
...One shimmer at a time.