Chapter 48

Seeing the damage her Rift had done in real life was a sobering experience for Tiff. That being said…there wasn’t much to actually see. Melissa wouldn’t let her wander into the Rift and Tiff didn’t want to anyway. The thought of encountering a Terror Wraith, no matter how many times she looked at her tablet to confirm the absence of monsters, was terrifying. If anything, the only thing Tiff wished she could do, but she had no idea how to begin expressing herself, was to create a memorial. People died here, and even if Tiff understood intellectually that this Rift wasn’t her fault, part of her would carry a little bit of blame. It would take a long time for that wound to heal and Tiff to process it, knowing time was the only cure.

They hung around the impact site for a while, asking questions to workers, guards, and assorted passersby. After a little while, people started to assume Tiff was working on a school report or something similar. Their stuffy, truncated responses whenever she got too close to a roped-off area softened, and they wore indulgent smiles as they answered random questions.

How does a Rift affect your daily life? Does having an active Rift so close change your daily routine? What did it feel like when it opened? Was anyone you know directly affected?

Most of the answers she received were basic, generic, and pretty much what she expected. For a lot of people, especially those walking through going about their daily business, it didn’t disrupt much. Unless they were an owner or worker in one of the stores nearby, their lives mostly went untouched. Tiff did hear a surprising amount of speculation about the Rift's future status; many locals hoped it might be prolonged once it stabilized to stimulate the economy and drive progressive traffic. On the same note, some people wished it would go away as soon as possible: more people meant more noise, strangers, and potential disruptions to their status quo.

Tiff sympathized with the workers. While she couldn’t assist with the cleanup last time, she understood better than most what lengths the first responders went to on the day of the calamity. Some of them had lost people precious to them, while others wanted to prevent that fate from befalling others, and some just wanted to preserve the small pockets of normality in this chaotic world. None of their contributions should ever be taken lightly.

Tiff supposed there were always the few who volunteered strictly for what they could get out of it, like people looking to score points from the DMA or receive Quest rewards from the System. But she chose to look at those people as charitable mercenaries rather than malicious actors. Maybe they were making the best of a bad situation…just like her.

Melissa eventually pulled Tiff away from the bemused (and possibly beleaguered) guards after Tiff threw all the questions she had at them. They traveled to a nearby diner, one of those greasy-spoon Cali-Mex places famous for serving burgers and burritos. The food was aggressively mid, but their prices were incredibly cheap and their portions were enormous.

Though Tiff did pass on trying “El Giga-Grande”, a 7-pound burrito larger than her arm.

Never mind eating the whole thing in 45 minutes, Tiff seriously doubted she could finish it in 3 days. Sadly, Metahumans were excluded from taking the challenge, or else Melissa might have taken it just for the lulz. She settled for a simple cheeseburger and stole a few stragglers from her mom’s plate of pastrami fries.

As far as being a productive human being making strides to check off a “honey-do” list, the day was pretty much a wash. Melissa wasn’t going to start a project or get a bunch of chores done in the late afternoon, which was when they were going to get back, so she decided to take Tiff out for a drive. It wasn’t like Tiff was complaining: she already got her homework done and she didn’t have anything better to do.

Driving around Pomona was, honestly, intriguing. Not because any of the sights were unique or stood out to her, but precisely because of the opposite. The area meant nothing to Tiff, and the roads and businesses looked identical to the ones she could find anywhere else. But her mom kept a constant commentary running about little details that were only tangentially related to what she was seeing, making the whole trip feel lively and personal. Like when they passed the remnants of a Sears building, which Tiff vaguely understood to be a retail giant that went out of business, and Melissa explained that it had roots in the late 1800s and early 1900s, starting as a watch manufacturer and pioneering catalog ordering.

Nowadays, everything was available online, and Tiff always found it fascinating listening to how the world functioned before the internet. Part of her secretly suspected that it didn’t. But then again, maybe the System helped carry humanity through those dark times? After all, on rare occasions it seemed to function as a distributor of sorts, handing out rewards that were more than just intangible notoriety points.

Melissa drove by the fairgrounds, and both mom and daughter were surprised to see a decent crowd milling about. While the fair itself wasn’t in season, that didn’t mean the grounds shut down entirely. Special events and promotional bookings were happening, but the pair didn’t stop, figuring it wouldn't be fair to the rest of the family to go without them. At the very least, Amy would make her displeasure very well known.

And since today was a makeshift discovery-date focused on Rifts, Melissa decided to make an educational detour.

“Mom, what do you know about the Rifts in the area?” Tiff had asked. She wasn’t thinking of anything specific when she asked, but she couldn’t help wondering if Southern California was “lucky” to have 3 stabilized (public) Rifts.

“If you’re asking for specifics, not much, I’m afraid,” Melissa answered. “Other than they’re vital to society? Couldn’t really say. Why do you ask?”

“It’s just,” Tiff mused, mulling over her words. “The two that we’ve seen lately have been…I don’t know…lackluster? I mean, one had wood and the other had stone. Neither really offered us much.”

“I’m sure in parts of the world, governments would kill for a ready supply of both,” Melissa said.

“Sure,” Tiff admitted, “But I guess that’s not my point. It’s more like…is this how it always is? Rifts pop up, people rush to loot and close them, then they go away? How is it in other parts of the world?”

“If you’re wondering if every major town has a Rift, the answer is most likely no,” Melissa correctly guessed. “Yes, the biggest of big cities have stable Rifts, and if there’s a Rift with a valuable resource out in the sticks, you can bet somebody is going to try to secure it. But are they all brimming with wealth and fortune ready to be tapped? Heck no.”

“That sounds boring,” Tiff muttered before she could stop herself. Melissa scoffed.

“What?” She laughed. “Are giant monsters not exciting enough for you? And look at it this way. What’s really valuable here? An endless supply of fresh water, or a Rift that prints money?”

Tiff couldn’t lie; she’d be very interested to visit a Rift that printed real money. What would that even look like? Would the monsters be animated mints? Humongous coin-sorters that shoot pennies everywhere? Faceless giants with fat stacks of cash making it rain?

“You say that,” Tiff grumbled, “But that sounds better than smelly cows.”

“Oh,” Melissa grinned. “So you heard of Chino’s Rift? We’ve never been out that way. Did you go on a field trip?”

“No,” Tiff sighed. “Tori told me about it.”

Tiff hesitated, glancing up at her mom, and wondered if she really wanted to know the truth.

“Does the whole city really smell like cows?”

“Would you like to find out?” Melissa grinned deviously. “Actually, you know what? Why not. Let’s go see.”

Tiff’s eyes went wide as her mom punched in a new destination on the GPS. It wasn’t directly on the way home, but apparently making a detour to Chino was a worthy commitment.

They took the 71 to Grand, turned onto Edison Avenue, and made their way toward the Chino Airport. One might think building an airport next to a Rift was a fundamentally bad idea, but once a Rift was stable, it was little more than a glorious night light.

And as for whether or not Victoria was telling the truth?

“Ugh,” Tiff groaned the moment they pulled off the freeway, “What’s that smell?!”

She scrunched down into herself, as if turning into a ball would block her from the stench. She wrinkled her nose and pulled the neck of her shirt up to her eyebrows.

Sadly, Victoria was extremely right.

Chino smelled exactly like cow, and now Tiff was intimately familiar with what that meant!

“Heheheh,” Melissa cackled. “Packs quite the punch, doesn’t it? That’s what you get when you pack a valley full of livestock. If you think this is bad, you should visit Harris Ranch on the 5!”

“This is torture,” Tiff’s muffled voice complained. “Why would anybody submit themselves to this?”

“Eh, they’ve got their reasons,” Melissa said. “Land might be cheap out here. Could say the same for beef. And who knows? It might not be so bad during winter.”

“It’s October,” Tiff whined. “That should count!”

“Might as well be the middle of summer, kiddo,” Melissa chuckled, plonking her hand down on Tiff’s head. “This is Southern California.”

The smell was bad, but Tiff was also hamming it up for comedic effect. After about 5 (horribly agonizing) minutes, it became tolerable…almost unnoticeable. Either that, or Tiff’s sense of smell died an agonizing death.

Unlike in Pomona, Chino wasn’t an endless urban sprawl. The bustle around the freeway junction quickly petered out into residential suburbs and small communities, then faded into farmland. Yes, Tiff could now see exactly where the smell was coming from, with plenty of cows dotting the rolling hills, but she was also interested to see various billboards advertising an aerospace museum. She assumed it was attached to the Chino airport, but that wasn’t their destination today.

Instead, Tiff turned her attention to the city’s massive agricultural complex. Farms, warehouses, things that looked like dairy plants and distribution centers…this place was suddenly becoming the new dictionary-picture of “imma farm” in Tiff’s brain. A small convoy of delivery trucks pulled off the road, heading down the mile-long driveways, likely about to load up and distribute literal tons of meat across the county. Tiff wondered how much cow was processed here daily…and if Candice was here, would her skill be able to calculate it all?

The Chino Rift wasn’t open to the general public, but there was a rather well-maintained gift shop and visitor’s center. After passing the umpteenth identical farm-plant, they finally came across a well-established block of land with a large, attractive sign heralding their exit.

​

California Department of Rifts and Wildlands

presents the

California State Rift of Chino

(Bovinae Eternatus)

​

In the distance, Tiff could see a handful of tall refineries with huge smokestacks, which she assumed helped keep the stabilized Rift open. In front of them, the manicured driveway’s gravel crunched below the truck’s tires as they pulled into the stylized parking lot. It looked more like a national park than a loot factory, but Tiff figured something this vital to the economy needed to be presented at its finest.

Tiff hopped out of the truck, immediately got blasted by a waft of manure-infused hot air, and wanted to gag. She scurried after Melissa as her mom cackled, leading the way inside.

Blessedly, the inside of the center was climate-controlled and odor-free. Tiff didn’t know how they did it, but she considered it a modern miracle worth praising. She wasn’t the only one, judging from the look of relief on several nearby patrons, of which there were more than Tiff expected.

The visitor’s center was fairly large, and Tiff compared it to a presentation-grade museum hall. It had monuments, placards, informational displays, and all sorts of educational interactives. Despite the jazzy elevator music playing throughout the lobby, Tiff could tell some exhibits featured historical or expert breakdowns and analysis, playing through speakers and headphones next to each station. Almost as if in a trance, Tiff shuffled to the closest one.

A clean, highly polished board read: What is a Rift? And how do cows fit in it? Below that hook of a title sat a bright green button, with a helpful image of an ear with a couple of wavy lines indicating audio. A set of large, fully encompassing headphones sat in a holster, waiting for the next listener.

Tiff slid them over her ears and pushed the button.

​

Welcome to the Chino Rift Discovery Center. Formed in 1974, the Chino Rift has been a steady supplier of beef and dairy products for Southern California for decades, leading up to the world-class distributor of quality products it's famous for to this day. But not all cows are created equal, so what goes into a Chino Rift cow? Or more importantly, what comes out? Through selective spawning, we're able to harness the power of diversification to summon many different types of bovinae from across North America.

First, let's meet some of our most common residents! From the rolling grasslands of the American Midwest comes the Angus, one of the most recognizable beef cattle in North America. Hardy, adaptable, and prized for its flavorful meat, Angus cattle are raised throughout the United States and are particularly well suited to the open pastures of states like Nebraska, Iowa, and Kansas. At the Chino Rift, Angus provides many of the familiar cuts found on dinner tables across Southern California, including steaks, roasts, and ground beef. Their calm temperament and efficient growth also make them a favorite among ranchers—and, of course, our Rift technicians!

But beef isn't the only thing a cow can provide. For that, we turn to some of our dairy breeds. The Holstein is perhaps the most famous of these, easily identified by its distinctive black-and-white coat. Originally developed in Europe and now found throughout American dairy country, Holsteins are remarkable milk producers. Here in California, they are especially important to the dairy industry, where carefully managed herds provide the milk used in everything from fresh cream and butter, to cheese, yogurt, and ice cream.

The Midwest gives us other valuable varieties as well. Hereford cattle, recognizable by their white faces and reddish-brown bodies, are renowned for their hardiness and ability to thrive in a variety of climates. Simmental cattle, meanwhile, are larger and muscular, making them useful for both beef production and crossbreeding programs. Brown Swiss, despite their name, have become a familiar sight on American dairy farms, where their sturdy build and high-quality milk make them particularly useful for cheese production.

And what about California? Our own Golden State cattle have adapted to a very different environment. California's long growing season, varied terrain, and warmer climate mean that cattle producers have developed practices suited to everything from coastal pastures to the dry interior valleys. At the Chino Rift, we can reproduce these regional differences without requiring our cows to travel thousands of miles. A single properly calibrated spawning cycle can produce cattle representing breeds, bloodlines, and agricultural traditions from across the continent.

Of course, producing a cow is only the beginning. Every animal at the Chino Rift is raised under strict standards for nutrition and sanitation. Our cattle receive routine health checks, fresh water, appropriate shelter, and enough space to behave like cattle—which, depending on the individual, mostly means eating, resting, wandering around, and occasionally staring directly at a staff member for reasons that remain poorly understood.

When the time comes for our beef cattle to enter the food supply, different parts of the animal provide different culinary favorites. The loin produces tender cuts such as strip steaks and tenderloin. The rib section gives us ribeye. The shoulder and chuck are excellent for roasts, stews, and ground beef, while the round provides leaner cuts suited to roasting and slicing. Even the less celebrated portions have their place, contributing to burgers, sausages, stocks, and countless other foods enjoyed throughout the region.

So the next time you enjoy a glass of California milk, a cheeseburger, or a perfectly grilled steak, consider this. Behind every product is a remarkable animal, a dedicated agricultural tradition, and, in the case of the Chino Rift, several hundred years of bovine biodiversity compressed into approximately four acres of very carefully monitored extradimensional pasture.

And that's just what comes out.

To discover more about selective cattle spawning, proceed to the next exhibit.

​

Tiff put the headphones back on the holder and slowly backed away. Melissa crossed her arms over her chest and stared down at Tiff with a very amused expression.

“Well?” Melissa asked.

“I feel like I suddenly need to take up work as a cattle rancher,” Tiff said shakily. “Like, it’s my moral obligation.”

“Ha!” Melissa laughed and slapped Tiff (very gently) on the back. “Nah, you just got got by a professional showman. With enough charm, even the most skeptical cynic can be persuaded to join a cause.”

Tiff shook her head and crept slowly away from the stand. It was very engaging, she’d give it that. The two of them roamed around the showroom checking out various displays.

Against one wall was what appeared to be a timeline. At the far left, where it said 1974 in bold letters, were life-size cutouts of a group of 4 people. Judging from the assortment of weaponry hanging from their belts or slung over their shoulders, these must have been the original delvers. And Tiff was judging them…because all four of them were wearing bell bottoms and atrocious psychedelic shirts.

Moving only slightly to the right was another group of people, this time in lab coats. The scientist responsible for “taming” the Rift, which was what the act of prolonging the life of a stabilized Rift was sometimes called. It moved forward several times, pointing out famous individuals who’d visited (or donated large sums of cash), and once or twice highlighted valiant defenders in the case of a Rift break.

Apparently, no matter how stable a Rift was, it still needed to be monitored…a lesson learned at great cost.

Tiff could only imagine a scene like the running of the bulls stampeding down Chino’s main street.

Some exhibits were more interesting than Tiff gave them credit for, such as the corner of the hall dedicated to dairy. A small dedication to Louis Pasteur listed some of his achievements and gave an overview of the pasteurization process. It showcased butter churns, old-timey cheese makers, and things Tiff expected to find on the back of a covered wagon. It covered yogurts, curds, and even gave a rudimentary “recipe” for homemade ice cream with a bunch of rock salt and a Ziploc bag.

But to top it all off, the exhibit waxed eloquent on all the methods of milking…ranging from “hands-on” experience all the way to industrial-grade machinery. It also categorized the different components of milk.

To Tiff, milk was either “2%” or “Whole.” Sometimes “non-fat.”

But the process didn’t stop there. Along with 1% milk, there were also different types of cream, depending on how much butterfat they contained. Half and half, light cream, whipping cream, heavy cream…Tiff found herself craving a very large Starbucks drink. She’d even settle for a banana split with extra whip.

​

Eventually, Tiff found herself standing next to a thick, wooden cow standee. But instead of being colored to match a real breed or being a completely black silhouette, it had a white background, and the entire animal was labeled in sections. Smaller writing inside indicated what each of those sections were, and as Tiff read things like chuck, rib, short loin, and flank, she couldn’t help but suppress a sigh.

And fight back a pang of growing hunger.

“They really have a way of sucking the magic out of anything, don’t they?” Tiff asked, turning to her mom. “I mean, looking at all of this…could they have made it any more mundane?”

“That’s kind of human history, munch,” Melissa gave Tiff a wry smile. “Get killed or conquer. We’re on the winning side of this Rift.”

“I guess,” Tiff grumbled. Melissa hummed and guided Tiff to the window.

“Would you rather it be the Wild West?” She asked softly. “Something dangerous, something untamed? Where there’s no certainty, no guarantee of survival? Look at that, Tiff. We’ve taken something that should, by all rights, flatten humanity, and we’ve turned it into a machine.”

They weren’t staring at the Rift, which Tiff assumed was hidden in a building somewhere. Instead, Tiff saw viewing platforms, a mock-up stable with several token cows lazily eating hay, and what very well may have been a petting zoo section.

“Do you think…,” Tiff asked softly, checking that nobody else was around, “My Rifts will be like this?”

Melissa raised an eyebrow and gave the question some thought. But she didn’t answer right away; instead, she herded Tiff toward the exit.

…which, of course, could only be accessed by passing through the gift shop. Tiff spotted all the staples, including the “cow cut selector” diagram bumper sticker, little flags with a cow-head emoji, and an 8-door cooler selling- shockingly -average-priced milk. At least it was shocking until Melissa explained that government standards regulated the price of milk, and it couldn’t be raised or lowered past a certain point, no matter who was selling it.

Tiff was sorely tempted by a T-shirt that read “I visited the Chino Rift and all I got was this lousy shirt,” but they didn’t have one in an xxs and she wasn’t about to wear one sized for a kid.

“To answer your question,” Melissa said as soon as they were safely back in the truck. “I really don’t know.”

Tiff nodded absently as they pulled out of the lot, leaving the surreal experience behind them.

“I would assume so?” Melissa guessed. “We don’t really have much info to go on, do we?”

“I guess you’re right,” Tiff sighed.

“I don’t see you making a Rift that’s designed to kill people,” Melissa said softly. Tiff shuddered. No, that wasn’t what she wanted at all. “It also depends greatly on how much customization you have. Have you even thought about what type of Rift you’d make?”

“Sometimes,” Tiff mumbled. She wouldn’t admit it out loud, but her first idea was to find a way to summon ice cream monsters. Surely, a monster made entirely out of delicious soft serve couldn’t hurt, right? It was in the name: soft. They’d melt if they got too hot, and even without a weapon, a normal civilian could just eat them to escape.

…somehow, if Tiff managed to do that, she was going to end up with a bunch of fat adventurers battling diabetes, wasn’t she? But then again…Sugar Rush would be ecstatic. Tiff would earn a lackey for life! Tiff snorted at the thought.

“You know,” she said, grinning up at her mom, “Maybe that wouldn’t be so bad. I could make a Rift, plop it down, and all the Smarty-pantses with the big brains could come around and domesticate it.”

“What’s saying you can’t do so yourself?”

“Well, I’m only level 2,” Tiff admitted. She didn’t often think about her Class level. “I bet I won’t have all the options right away. I mean, I didn’t have any options until the last Rift opened, and that’s what pushed me to level 2 in the first place.”

“Mmmm,” Melissa agreed. “Start small. That makes sense.”

“And then there’s the question of where do I actually put it,” Tiff rambled. “Assuming I have that option. And what do I put inside? So far, my options are looking pretty slim. Of the few Rifts I know about, I’ve seen wood, stone, water, and cows. Knowing my luck, there’s probably a tier system…and rolling cows is ultra rare.”

Neither mother nor daughter could speak to that, so the pair fell into comfortable silence, and eventually the conversation turned to greener pastures. Today featured two Rifts, very different from each other. One terrorized a city that would be glad to see it gone; the other was conquered and turned into an industry. Tiff wasn’t any closer to understanding the depths of her power…or the limitations. She had a whole lot to think about, but one thing stuck out to her: those thoughts swirling around weren’t nearly as dark right now as they had been in the morning.

¹

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