Rage part 1

It was an ordinary day for Mark Smith, aka Agent Jade. He was a young man, graduated college about a year ago and now worked for an agency called the Guys in White. The Guys in White dealt with everything ghostly and supernatural. Since he was fairly new on the force, he didn’t see much action. In fact, he was only one of the techs. Jade worked with all sorts of odd bits of machinery, from ghost brainwave monitors to weird looking weapons. Even though he liked his job, he was always envious of those who got to work out in the field. The agents that would fly to any place in the world that reported anything supernatural to fight, capture and study them. Not only did they get to see cool creatures, they got to visit places he’s only dreamed of. Oh how he wished he were part of the field agents.

However, he was skinny and lacked any sort of muscle. That wouldn’t be much help while in combat. He could barely lift some of the larger, bazooka-like weapons, let alone be able to fire one. His intelligence was a different story; spending more time in the library than outside playing football back in grade school. Despite this, he put in his best effort to allow weapons to operate at their full potential, as well as anything else around the lab. There was nothing he couldn't fix.

Jade approached the main entrance of the main building, which was placed in an unmarked location amongst the barren lands of Nevada, kind of like Area 51. Most of it was underground, of course. Upon entering his passcode and lowering his black shades to the eye-scanner, the large metal doors slid open, and thus began another work day.

A few hours passed, and Jade was presented with the usual problems; a busted computer, some faulty medical equipment, new security installments and the like. Even though he knew how to build and fix these with ease, it still got boring after a while.

Lunchtime came and went, and Jade didn’t seem to have much else to do, that is, until he noticed one of his superiors, Agent Crimson, approaching him. He straightened up and smoothed the wrinkles in his white jacket as the burly man stopped in front of him, towering a good two heads above him.

“Agent Jade.” Crimson rumbled, more as a statement than a question.

“Yes?” Jade answered, looking up at his superior, the man’s beady eyes hidden behind a pair of sunglasses identical to Jade’s.

“You have an assignment.” Crimson took a Manila folder out from under one of his muscled arms and handed it to the much smaller agent. With raised eyebrows, Jade took it.

“What is it?” he questioned, but without waiting for an answer, he dug into the folder and pulled out the first page. In bold, black letters, “PROJECT PORTAL” stood out amongst the smaller paragraphs. “Portal?”

Crimson nodded. “You’re aware that our development team has been trying to construct a portal for years?”

Jade nodded. He’s only heard so little, though. The only information he gathered is that they were trying to create a portal to another dimension, yet every attempt has failed. He’s heard of natural portals appearing and disappearing all over the world, thanks to field agents chattering during lunch break, but a man-made one? What would that require, magic? He sifted through the rest of the documents. More paragraphs, and diagrams of a circular looking object, and the blueprints of said object.

“It appears that our developers have had success with their latest prototype, which was able to connect with a natural portal to have it open and close at will.” The burly agent explained as Jade examined the blueprints with surprise.

“And why am I a part of this?” he asked.

Crimson smiled down at him. “Your work in the technology team greatly exceeds the work of your colleagues. No accidents or mishaps, and you took on each and every challenge without doubt.”

Jade couldn’t help but to bashfully smile at this. Yeah he got praises every now and then, yet hearing one from a superior meant a great deal. But there was still the question of, “What I do with it?” he inquired.

“It is your job to help build and configure a full-sized model, as well as hook it up to different bits of machinery for monitoring,” Crimson explained, and Jade smiled wider. He could configure and connect technology at ease, but now for a supposed portal? That was beyond cool. He was still sifting through the documents when Crimson continued, “However, this assignment will require travel. You will be flying to-”

Jade’s eyebrows rose as he reached the last document, and pulled it out. On it, a date and location was printed. He read it out loud. “Sierra Blanca, Texas.”

--

That next day, Jade boarded a small, private jet to the small town known as Sierra Blanca. He spent the previous night reading through the documents, learning more about the portal and its purpose, as well as a natural ghost portal that appeared near the town just a month prior to this. The citizens were becoming bothered by the ghosts that would occasionally haunt the town, and the mayor called the Guys in White for help. There was already a lab built on the site of the portal. The man-made portal, as Crimson said, was supposed to merge with the natural one so other agents and scientists could open it to study specter specimens at will. However, the natural portal appeared on a timely schedule, only to be active at night and gone in the daytime. They had to time it just right in order for the two portals to merge successfully.

Hopefully, Jade would be able to stick around long enough to see a real ghost up close. He was confident in his abilities so this portal project shouldn’t be too hard, yet it was important for the agency. He would have to take caution not to mess anything up.

It wasn’t too long until he landed in a field somewhere in West Texas, a little ways from the town. He was then escorted to a large, white, rectangular building that sat just about a quarter of a mile from the town itself, its sheer size and shape looking out of place against the small, historical buildings and houses that seemed to fit right in with the tan landscape surrounding them. He felt kind of bad for the citizens, having to look at a huge lab every day instead of the nice scenery.
 
The inside of the building was still under construction in some parts; walls had transparent plastic sheets hanging over gaping entrances, floors were only half-tiled, high-tech computers that still needed to be hooked up to the main system. Construction workers, security guards and scientists bustled about, carrying various objects and mumbling to one another. As Jade was being led towards the center of the building, he heard a noise and looked up to stare at a security camera staring right at him and his escort. The camera looked dated, not as new as the ones back at the main center. There was a small grinding noise emitting from it, and then it proceeded to spark and visibly wilt, with smoke arising from behind the lens. He raised his eyebrows when he heard a woman speak.

“Crap, that’s the 3rd one this week.” Jade turned his attention to a young woman. She seemed to be about his age, if not a little older, with short blonde hair and pretty blue eyes behind a pair of thick rimmed glasses, not the norm as every other agent was required to wear sunglasses. She wore a white lab coat over the generic white suit that every other agent wore. She was holding a clipboard and staring at the broken camera with concern.

“I wouldn’t be surprised,” Jade spoke up, catching the woman’s attention. “Those cameras are from the Stone Age. You guys seriously need an upgrade in security.”

The girl sighed. “If only, I’ve put in requests for the heads and so far, no luck. Just about everything in this place has been recycled from previous sites,” She then observed him fully and looked him up and down. “And may I ask who you are? I haven’t seen you before.”

Jade opened his mouth, but his escort spoke for him. “This is Agent Jade. He was sent here to help build and configure the portal.”

“Ah, so you’re Agent Jade!” the woman exclaimed, rushing forward and stuck her hand out. “I’m Agent Aqua, head scientist of this project.”

Jade smiled and shook her hand. “Nice to meet you, Agent Aqua. Shall we get started?”

“Yes, we shall!” Aqua responded before leading him down the hall. They soon reached the center of the building, which was encased in some sort of glowing green force field. Aqua explained that it was a ghost shield. Humans could pass through it but ghosts would be contained inside. They were lucky it was still day time, because some of the ghosts that emerged from the portal during the night can be hostile.

The center room was huge; almost every inch covered in equipment, thick wires crisscrossing but were all connected to a strange machine in the middle; the portal itself.

It was pretty large in size; about 8 feet high as well as in diameter. Bits and pieces of metal have been removed, exposing many wires and bits of other machinery that powered it. Of course it was off at the moment, because he had to complete the final part of the project.

“As you can see,” Aqua began, stepping up beside Jade, “it’s only partially complete.”

Jade nodded, gazing at the large portal. “Where do I begin?”

---

A few days have passed since Jade's arrival. Since then he'd managed to hook the portal up to several computers, each and every one monitoring a different part of the massive machine. Every so often a part of the portal would break, and he would quickly fix it to be like new. Under Aqua's supervision and with her help, Jade was able to have the portal to tip top shape.
 
"Good work, Agent Jade." Aqua said one evening as Jade finished working on one of the computers.
"Thanks," he replied, stretching out and cracking his back. "You think this baby is ready to connect to the natural portal?"

"We're 99 percent sure this will work." Aqua responded, smiling a little.

"We'll I hope so. I'd like to see a real ghost before I go back to the main base." Jade said with a hopeful expression.

Aqua's smile grew wider and she patted his shoulder. "Tomorrow may just be your lucky day."
Jade grinned from ear to ear, "I sure hope so."

He left the lab just as the sun was setting, casting beautiful pastels fading into a deep indigo across the sky. It truly was beautiful in this little town, so much that he'd actually be a little sad to leave. Maybe he could request a permanent transfer here. As he walked to his rental car, something caught his eye. Just begin the lab was a glowing green substance. This was not unfamiliar to him; it was leftover ectoplasm, formed into a bi-product from the lab. It was spilled haphazardly on the ground, turning the soil a disgusting hue. The scraggly desert plants in the surrounding spots, tinged the unnatural green, were wilted.

He frowned; normally this bi-product was collected in barrels and shipped off to be disposed of safely, so why wasn't this happening here? He might have to inform the lab of this tomorrow. Taking the mental note down, he got into the car and drove off.