Coughing, hacking, and spitting to try to dislodge the taste of vomit and exertion-thickened saliva from his mouth, Rain pushed himself up to his feet and turned to check on the reason he was here in the first place.

  “Ar—” was all he managed to get out before his throat seized up and he had to spend a few moments swallowing hard and wishing dearly for a bottle of water. “Are you okay?” He finally managed.

  The lady and the kids just stared. Rain took a wobbly step forward, raising his hands to the sides. “Is anyone hurt? Can you walk? We shouldn’t stay here.” He leaned down to offer a hand, but then caught sight of the odd gloves. “Uh, that might not be safe,” he apologised, pulling the hand back.

  “Ons is— we’re okay,” the woman said, in a thick Afrikaans accent. “What is happening?”

  She stood shakily, hugging the kids to her sides — two boys, probably not older than nine or so.

  “He—hell if I know,” Rain coughed. “‘Scuse me, lady,” he called to nowhere in particular, raising his voice as best he could, “What’s going on? Is it safe?”

  The voice answered from nearly right behind him, making him jump. “Probably it is okay now. Mevrou, you should take the boys back to the farmhouse. We need to clean up out here.”

  The woman blinked, moving slowly. Then, as quickly as she could, she started to hurry the boys down the koppie. “Kom, kom, ons gaan nou huis toe. Thank you very much,” she said to Rain as she passed. “Really, thank you, thank you, boy.”

  Nonplussed, Rain forced a smile. “Any time,” he replied by rote. Then he muttered under his breath, “Within reason, and not again today.”

  While the woman fussed over the boys, Rain started looking around for the mysterious gunman — gunwoman, perhaps. “Uh, hello?” He tried.

  The voice sighed deeply and theatrically. “Down here,” she said. Rain looked down. Then he looked up, just so he could look down.

  “I suppose it’s deeply insensitive to assume I actually finally gave in and tried the drugs and you’re just a hallucination,” he asked the rabbit.

  She was, at least, an unusually large rabbit, coming up nearly to his hips sitting up. She was also wearing a khaki backpack-cross-tactical vest, with a gun of some kind slung over her back. Apart from those two things, and the remarkable feeling she gave him of having a violent glare instead of a vapid leporid gaze, she looked to him like an unremarkable mottled black-brown-tan rabbit. Or perhaps a hare? Rain wasn’t a zoologist.

  “I did save your life,” she pointed out. “Twice, if we count giving you weapon. So yes. Rude.”

  After a long moment of staring, Rain gave up. Sighing deeply himself, at least as far as he could while still horribly winded and feeling an acid burn in his throat, he let his legs fold forward and sat down semi-splayed on the grass. “Your lips even move when you speak. Incredible. I suppose this isn’t a dream?”

  “Your lips move when you speak,” she mocked. “And no, it is not a dream, idiot.”

  “I just spent ten minutes fighting for my life, and now I’m talking to a giant rabbit with a Russian accent,” Rain pointed out, quite reasonably he felt. “It would be stranger if I didn’t think I was dreaming. Now will you please just tell me what’s going on?”

  The rabbit scratched her head, which would have been quite a human gesture if she hadn’t done it by tipping her head backwards so she could reach it with her back leg to scratch behind her ears. “I am not Russian, or a rabbit, and it was only a few minutes. But introductions first. You are Mr. Rain Murray, no?”

  Rain groaned. “Yes, I am. And you?”

  “Avdotya.” She offered a paw and Rain shook it out of habit, only realising how strange it was after mostly enveloping her “hand” in his. Her toes, or fingers, or whatever they should properly called, were oddly long, he noticed. I suppose they have to be, to fire a gun and whatever else she does. “Actually, it’s way too hot out here. We’re going back to the house first. I can explain on the way.”

  “What about ‘cleaning up’?” Rain asked, gesturing vaguely at the surroundings. He could still smell blood and viscera heavy on the still air.

  “Ai, that will happen by itself.” Avdotya said dismissively. “Planar intruders don’t hang around after dying. You can have a look if you like.”

  Rain’s stomach found the energy to do another flip at that, and he swallowed drily. “No, I’m good, thanks. Planar… intruders?”

  The rabbit stood up and stretched before starting to lollop down the hill. “I’ll explain later. Actually probably I will make Dumi explain later. Come on.”

  With a groan, Rain shoved himself back up and started dragging his feet after her. He desperately wanted to ask what this had to do with the security job, but couldn’t bring himself to try to speak.

  “You should go get your jacket. I will meet you at the gate,” Avdotya added. “Also you should ask the woman for some water. You sound terrible.”

  “Gee, thanks,” Rain grumbled, following her down the path just before she accelerated, jinking off to the right and weaving through the grass like a minnow, vanishing from sight.

  As he walked, he stripped off the strange gloves. The strap loosened easily when he pulled at it, even though it hadn’t shifted at all while he was wearing it. They also slipped free without sticking, much to his surprise. With how much he’d been sweating, he’d expected to have to painfully tug them off, probably turning them inside out in the process.

  By the time he reached the farmhouse again, which felt simultaneously much closer than when he was running and also still torturously far, his original coat of sweat had half-evapourated, but been mostly replenished. His jacket and tie were still where he left them, so he slung them over his arm. After vacillating for a moment over whether or not to follow Avdotya’s advice and get some water, his thirst won out and he cautiously knocked at the — open — door.

  “Hallo?” The lady greeted him almost immediately, coming around a corner down the passage.

  “Um, hi,” Rain said. “Ekskuus, but could I ask for a glass of water?”

  “Hm?” She look surprised, but nodded anyway. “Okay, of course. Just stay right there for now.”

  When she reappeared, she had a massive beer glass full of water with some ice cubes floating in it. “Here you are, boytjie,” she said, handing it over. “Are you a hiker?”

  Rain paused halfway downing the entire glass, striving desperately not to choke and spew out a whole mouthful of water over himself and/or his benefactor.

  This narrative has been purloined without the author's approval. Report any appearances on Amazon.

  “Oo, sorry, sorry!” She exclaimed, waving her hands frantically. Halfway doubled over, Rain waved down, trying to convey that he was fine.

  Inwardly, he thought we were talking, like, five minutes ago, lady. But something tickled the back of his mind about what Avdotya had said about planar whatevers, and he decided skirting the truth might be the easiest way out here.

  “Ja, something like that,” he agreed once he had regained his composure. Not by intention, but by outcomes, it was hard to argue. Unless he was a trail runner, of course.

  “Are you lost? Do you want me to borrow you the landline? We don’t have much cellphone signal out here,” the lady apologised.

  “No, no, it’s fine,” Rain replied, forcing a smile and returning the now-empty mug. “I actually managed to contact someone who’s waiting for me at the gate. Thanks very much for the water. Have a great day!”

  “Do you know the way out?” The woman called after him as he left. “Do you need me to show you?”

  “Ja, no, I know, no problem,” he replied over his shoulder. “But thank you!” He picked up his pace a bit, ignoring the burning in his legs in favour of the burning in his face.

  Freaking giant rabbit, he thought. Could have warned me that it would be… weird. She probably thinks I was casing the joint for a burglary now or something. Besides this whole thing being screwed up from the start. Internally stewing and externally sweltering, he reached the uninspiring Promised Land of the smallholding’s gate.

  A plain white bakkie was parked outside, a lanky black guy leaning on the bonnet and smoking a cigarette while chatting to Avdotya. When Rain came through the rickety gate, he tossed the butt down and ground it out with his heel before offering his hand.

  “Hey, man,” he said. “I’m Dumisani. Or just Dumi.”

  “Hi,” Rain said, shaking his hand. “Rain.”

  “You mind riding on the back? I think ‘Dotya got to explain some things to you, and there’s not room for three in the cab. And she’s banned from it in summer,” he added with a wink. “Car wash charge me extra because of all the hair.”

  Avdotya rolled her eyes, but turned to make a fluid, cat-like leap up into the bed of the bakkie anyway. “Uh, ja, sure,” Rain replied. “How far are we going?”

  “Eh, just close nje. Five minutes away. Don’t worry, I’ve never been in an accident in this car.” Dumi grinned, springing up into the driver’s seat. “And the air con is broken so you won’t miss out on that either,” he added.

  With an internal sigh, Rain stepped off the wheel well and hoisted himself over the lip of the loadbed, slumping down with his back against the cab. Avdotya stretched out on the other side, nearly as tall as him all stretched out.

  “I was hoping I wouldn’t have to do this part,” she started promisingly, while the bakkie’s engine roared to life and Dumi pulled off in a small cloud of dust. “How much was in the job advert?”

  Rain side-eyed her dubiously. “Shouldn’t you know that already? Didn’t you guys put out the ad?”

  “Yes, but also no.” Her ears flicked back and forth. “So this was the practical part of the interview. You passed, by the way. Good job. Planar Security is a bit of a front company. Actually what we do is similar to what happened here. Some kind of planar intrusion happens, a bunch of weird critters spill out and sometimes the area gets all fucked up too, and we send in a team to kill off critters and seal the area until the planes move apart again. Usually it doesn’t take too long. With me so far?”

  Rain was staring with his eyebrows at about the level of his hairline. “Let’s go with ‘sure’, why not.”

  “Very good. So this plane is very ordered, which is a good thing because it means generally stuff here makes sense. What is less good is that less ordered planes get mixed up with it sometimes and then we have the planar intrusion. But because this plane is ordered, it tries its to go back to its original state, before it got a hole punched in it. What that means is that people forget what just happened, or make up a reasonable explanation for that.”

  “I haven’t,” Rain pointed out. “Assuming this isn’t just an elaborate hoax.”

  “Ai, you got me, I’m a midget in a hare suit. No, idiot, is not a hoax. You are just not as ordered as the rest of the plane.”

  “Hey!” He protested. “I’m perfectly stable.”

  “Your first response to unexpectedly smelling blood was to go running to find where it came from without a plan,” Avdotya replied blandly. “You have to be at least slightly fucked in the head to do that.”

  “I had a plan!”

  “Oh? What was it?” The rabbit raised an eyebrow. Or perhaps both her eyebrows, but she had her head turned so one eye had a good look at Rain, and he couldn’t see the other.

  He slumped lower against the cab. “I would have figured something out.”

  “Mhm, I’m sure.” Avdotya said, tone as dry as Rain’s throat had been earlier. “Anyway it is not relevant, since you got the advert and you can still remember what happened confirms it anyway.”

  “So what happens now?” Rain asked. “I have to take the job, or else?”

  “Oh, no, we are much to ethical for that. It’s like in that movie, The Matrix, you know?” She pulled her legs under herself to sit up, balancing over her haunches to lift both front paws, swaying gracefully with the motions of the truck. “You take blue pill, Dumi drops you off at home, we keep the gloves, you go about your life. But instead of forgetting everything you remember sometimes the planes crash into each other and everything goes to shit and that you could have done magic.”

  Rain cocked an eyebrow at Avdotya in return. “And I suppose if I take the red pill, you show me how deep the rabbit hole goes?”

  The rabbit in question dropped back to all fours, mumbling some presumably unflattering things in a language Rain didn’t understand. But, since she’d said she wasn’t Russian, he supposed it wasn’t Russian.

  “I walked into that one,” she admitted. “But yes, you take the red pill, you join Planar Security. Pay is not amazing, but we have free room and board for you, and benefits are to die for. Hopefully not literally, though it does happen sometimes.”

  “Come again?” Rain asked.

  “Usually only when things go really bad,” Avdotya defended. “Which is not often. Probably only once every couple of years. Is mostly quite calm here in South Africa, is far from the really dense places. Big cities do something to the planar fabric that makes it thinner, or something. I don’t really know.”

  Rain let his head bang back against the cab. “So what are these benefits that make up for the fact that the pay ‘isn’t amazing’ and I might actually bloody die?”

  “Have you ever wanted to be a god?” She shot back nonchalantly.

  “Not actually,” Rain replied.

  “Probably that is a good thing. But you have opportunity to do magic, to see other planes, to travel to different worlds in this plane. The fact that the pay is not so good is less of a problem when you don’t have to pay rent, no? You must have some ambition. And if you want proof…” Her ears flipped forward. “Well, you’re talking to a hare. Probably you haven’t done that before. Or if you have, probably it didn’t answer back.” She paused again. “If it did, probably we can find a pharmacist willing to give you anti-psychotics.”

  Rain pinched the bridge of his nose, thinking about it. On the one hand, this afternoon had been something out of a nightmare. On the other hand… magic. Interplanar travel, whatever that actually meant. Travel to different worlds. Adventure. Isn’t that why you left the farm in the first place, Rain? He asked himself. With a sigh, he conceded.

  “Alright, I’m in. How deep does the hare-hole go?”

  Avdotya sniffed. “Hares don’t dig holes. Welcome aboard, recruit. Your timing is very good, too. We’re here.”

  Over the course of the five-minute conversation that had cemented Rain’s life in its new up-side-down position, the scenery around them had gradually transitioned from open veld to more hills and trees, to the point where now as they passed through a gate it was almost like an extremely sparse forest. Dumi parked on the edge of a dusty lot near a cluster of wooden cabins.

  “We have arrived at our destination, Base Camp,” he called through the open back window in a nasally imitation British accent. “You may now unfasten your seatbelts and disembark in an orderly fashion. Thank you for flying Air Dumi.”

  “I think I would rather walk than get in a plane you are flying,” Avdotya said as she leaped out of the bakkie. “It might take longer but at least probably I would arrive at a speed I would survive.”

  “Oh you of little faith,” Dumi said in mock dismay, shaking his head. “You know I can drive anything and is only dangerous to the people I want it to be. And I would never hurt you, ‘Dotya!” He leaned on the side of the bakkie to offer Rain a hand down, which he gratefully accepted. “Anyway, welcome to base camp, man. Gonna be your new home for a while. Let’s get you set up.”

  no idea what I'm doing but I'll try to make it fun. We're still getting set up a bit here, but I'm sure we'll get to actual magic and some pseudo litRPG like mechanics soon. Soon??. Also I'll try to avoid using too much South African slang and languages, but, you know, local flavour :p