‘Oh, nice effect. You've turned the lake a glowing green. Hang on... yep, they're rowing towards you.’
My buoyancy was a perfect counterbalance, about three feet below the surface. I hung in the water and waited for instructions. It’s fair to say that waiting for instructions isn't a particular speciality of mine. In fact, it’s one of the reasons I was constantly passed over for promotion. It was felt that I wouldn't bring a positive influence to the key functions of the senior management structure. Which suited me just fine. But sometimes you had to rely on others, and if there was one person into whose hands I would willingly entrust my life, it was Clio. Unlike me, she had regularly been offered promotion. Although obviously not in personnel. That wasn’t her skill set, which is why I was team leader. Other than that, the girl was a wunderkind. But she too loved being out in the field, so we’d stuck together. Most retrieval units worked in pairs, though sometimes a couple of pairs would work together if it was a complicated extraction. Occasionally, there'd be a solo worker. One who no one else could work with. They did well enough, but they could be total pains in the arse as well. They were usually long in the tooth, and spent all their time telling us that back in their day blah blah blah. I have no time for lone wolf bravado.
‘Okay, they’re almost with you. Start your accent now.’
Very carefully, I began kicking upwards. I knew the folklore for this event. It was essential that only my forearm broke the surface. Cold air blew across my fingers and I opened my palm. I was tempted to beckon with my finger, but I thought that might be too silly.
‘Oh wow. They are freaking out. Stay still, they’re turning towards you. Get ready.’
The next moment I felt a hard pommel in my hand and I wrapped my fingers around it. The second they released it, both me and the sword plunged to the bottom of the lake.
‘That wasn't very graceful. You okay?’
No, I was not okay. My arm had nearly been wrenched from its socket and I had to drag the wretched thing out of the soft mud that lined the bottom of the lake. This was how it was lost, simple silt and evaporation. Within only a few years this land would begin to dry up, old lake pits would be filled in and levelled up, and eventually Excalibur would sit under many metres of earth and tarmac, never to be seen again. Cue me.
I began walking along the lakebed, dragging the stupid noble sword behind me and swearing at every step. At only five foot, I wasn’t much taller than the sword itself. I'd had to switch my torch off and now I was stubbing my bare feet on every branch and rock that littered the floor. At one point an eel slithered past my leg and I almost spat my lungs out. Pausing to regain my wits, I continued to trudge to the water’s edge.
‘Hold your position. They’re tying up the boat and heading towards their cart. I'll let you know when they're over the brow of the hill. I'm heading your way now.’
I stood there, head still beneath the icy surface, shivering and cursing. This was one of my most tedious extractions ever. Where were the ropes, the guns, the fights, the chases? That was the sort of extraction I enjoyed, grabbing the item from the flame, out running a volcano, snatching it from gangsters. It was not shivering in a dark bog of a lake, waiting for some wafty priestess, with a proclivity for dumping precious artefacts into lakes, to slowly trundle away.
‘Out you come.’
A few more steps and I emerged from the water, removing the breathers from my mouth. ‘Next time let's factor in the weight of the retrieval item, shall we?’
Clio laughed at me. ‘Holy cow, Neith. Wait ‘til you see yourself on the replay. You look like the creature from the black lagoon.’
She untangled me from the pond weed that I’d accumulated and took the sword from me. No slacker at the bench press, she also grunted in surprise at the sheer weight of it.
‘Crap. Yep, see your point. Get dressed and we'll step back. No point in stepping back naked.’ Nudity wasn’t an issue in our culture, but I didn’t need to give the guys a free laugh.
‘Not very showy, is it? I was expecting more bling.’
We both looked at the sword. It was a beast of a weapon. I suppose anything capable of hacking through a body didn't also need to sparkle.
I pulled on my trousers and was grateful for the wicking liner that absorbed the water. Being clammy would have been the final insult. With my jacket zipped up, we prepared to leave.
‘Protocols. Wrap the blade in the blanket, and keep the tip on the floor and your hand on the pommel. On the count of five, step through after me.’
I agreed, and prepared the sword. Step through protocols were essential. The quantum functions of the field were normally the same for both parties, but sometimes things went wrong. People were known to come through hours apart, and, sometimes they arrived on top of each other. Early efforts had shown that being attached to another human didn't always work. The first person that stepped back discovered they were holding a hand. The second person stepped back screaming their head off with arterial blood pumping out on the floor. One time, an archivist had to come through at a run with their dagger still pointing forward. They impaled the Section Chief, who had died instantly. Hence all the protocols. Often the most dangerous parts of the extraction were not the volcanoes, earthquakes or the gangsters, but the simple laws of quantum mechanics. Anything could happen, and
