What should've been a clean artifact retrieval went very, very pear-shaped. Raina Krupin and her partner, Agent Steve Jinx, had not only failed to bag the artifact but it had opened a rift in space-time. That rift had started leaking demonic entities from more than one set of parallel dimensions. They were ugly, and so far, vicious. Her partner was dead for the third time this year, probably permanently this time. And worst of all, the charge on Jinxie's Tesla gun was approaching zero. She took a deep breath and looked around the stone column hiding her from the rift. Two more creatures had fought their way through. She gripped the Tesla tighter and stepped out from cover. --- --- --- "A simple bag 'n' tag," Artie said. "In and out, you two. No complications, no improvisations, no shinanigans. You hear me?" "It's Einstein's Comb, Artie." Agent Jinx had his usual confident smirk on display. "How much grief could it cause?" "Says the guy who had to be resurrected after he knocked Al Capone's Tommy Gun off the top shelf," said Raina and smirked as much like her mentor as she could manage. She'd only been an intern at Warehouse 13 for 3 months when Agent Claudia Donovan had stepped up to replace Mrs. Fredric as Caretaker of Warehouse 13. Pete and Mika were off on their second maternity leave. It left a big hole in the teams available. Artie had fought Claudia's promotion of Raina at every point in the process. He said she'd make a spectacular agent, but not for some time. Claudia insisted she be put into the role of full agent. "Listen you two," Artie said, arching his bushy eyebrows and pointed a finger to each in turn. "Don't underestimate this one. I'm sure the folks in New Mexico thought the same thing." "So, is this for real?" Raina scanned the artifact database on her smartphone. She'd been responsible for making the mobile front-end app. She read off the description, "During Einstein's secret visit to the Los Alamos Trinity site, his shock at the destruction wrought by his equation imbued his pocket comb with the ability to tear the fabric of space-time. He never combed his hair again." "Yes, it's true." Artie continued the story, "Edward Teller used the comb on just his eyebrows when he was at the Bikini Atoll in 1946. It triggered an event so terrible that it required the use of a newly developed hydrogen bomb to stop. The Warehouse is all out of H-bombs so snag it, bag it, tag it and get back here without incident. Please!" Jinxie dangled the keys to the Warehouse SUV in front of Raina's face and dropped them in her hand, "You get to drive. But I call dibs on the playlist!" ============================================================ A different setting featuring my Tesla Gun, now available in the Freebies section.