The two men who had jumped through onto Andrew’s world and set up the ramp looked around nervously as if expecting to see people waiting for them, and when they spotted Andrew, they yelled something in Japanese that meant nothing to him. The people who had jumped through the circle were gesturing and speaking to the people inside the warehouse, who then turned and stared at Andrew. There were several cyborgs and a lot of people in uniform staring in his direction. The people who had donned the white cloth coverings threw them off, said something to the group standing there, and disappeared from view.

“Surely they must realize that their invasion has failed, with us standing here,” Simpson said in his ear.

The cyborgs carried large caliber rifles, which they now opened fire with, the impacts rocking Andrew back on his feet. He began to retreat towards the corner of the building, but at a nudge from Simpson, he stopped, and she stuck her rifle through the small hole he had opened in his shield for her and fired, taking down one of the cyborgs. He resumed his backward shuffle as the APC, or whatever it was, began to move forward, swinging its turret around so that the rather large-looking barrel lined up to fire at him. Having learned from his previous experience, he angled the shield up and to the left, and when the vehicle fired, the shell hit his shield and deviated up into the air before exploding. Fortunately, it went far enough up and to the left that they didn’t get showered in shrapnel.

They reached the corner just as the front of the vehicle reached the top of the ramp, and it nosed forward from the other world onto their side of the portal. At least there was a bit of sunshine here at the corner of the building, and he pulled more power and then slashed, slicing across the vehicle’s tracks. The armored vehicle slewed sideways away from Andrew, and then it hit the edge of the glowing circle, and it seemed like the world had ended in a flash of bright light. He felt himself speed up as he pushed Simpson back and got behind the building just as large pieces of metal came flying past and crashed into the building on the other side of the alley. The bits of metal kept flying for some time, or at least what felt like some time, but which turned out to be barely a second or two. One piece looped up in the air, over the roof of the building they were sheltering against and crashed into the alley behind them.

Finally, it all calmed down, and they looked at each other before he cautiously peeked around the corner. The parking lot was strewn with bits of metal, and there was a large burnt area right where the ramp had been, and that was it. No portal, no Japanese. They walked forward to where the portal had been. Parts of the concrete had been obliterated by the blast or gouged by the metal, perhaps. He could see there was some sort of rectangular object buried in the concrete. He remembered what he’d been told about how their portal worked, the very limited information they had gleaned from a few prisoners who’d been chipped slaves from other worlds that weren’t Japanese ones and who had been willing to talk. Most non-Japanese prisoners were pretty girls with purplish hair, a hair color that was very popular with Japanese lords for female slaves.