Ellison’s Fall (Part 1)

I had Ellison on a cold-storage chip in my pocket. He’d fallen back at the ravine.

Could’ve happened to anyone, honestly. Maura’s a planet you don’t mess with. The anomalies still boil across the world’s surface.

One minute you’re rappelling down a cliff-face, and the next you’re leaving an impact crater because the rock you’d anchored to decided that it might not exist anymore.

Object permanence is a horrible thing to take for granted.

The comms still worked, and I’d called it in when it happened. With a skeleton crew, I didn’t get a response for two hours.

“We’ve got a copy of him on file, but take the chip with you.”