Glossary

Boomvac: the technical term for the peculiar sound of a searer discharging. A deep church-bell bong, followed by absolute silence.

Brief: the description of a specific job, with all the appropriate and relevant information. It is a habitual complaint of Net ops that Briefs are never complete, and are often actively wrong or misleading. Collection dispatches the Briefs, but does not prepare them.

Clean-up crew: workers from the Net who are dispatched to get rid of any unwanted traces of a job in a specific Division. The members of the clean-up crew are masked and described as “ferret-like”. They are very efficient, and use cleaning products that smell strongly of vinegar.

Collection: the dispatcher at the Net. Currently a man, he is responsible for distributing the Briefs to ops. He also receives and processes the final reports after jobs.

Containment: the process whereby a section of a Division is separated for the rest of the Division. This process is not always due to actions from the Net: sometimes, Discrepancies contain an area for their own purposes. Inside a contained area, people tend to act strangely, as though they’re in a dream. This is called the “containment blur”.

Discrepancy: a living being from the dimensional voids between the worlds. Discrepancies are transelemental and tend to have a natural shape based on a specific property or type of matter (water, lava, wind, glass, etc.). They are attracted to normal worlds, ours included, and when they travel here they tend to assume a human shape and identity. The longer a Discrepancy stays in our world, the more insane it becomes, until it snaps and becomes violent (this process can take an extremely long time, however). Also, the presence of a Discrepancy in our world eventually creates Ruptures.

Distension: the state whereby time no longer passes at a steady rate.

Division: a specific area of space, at a specific period in time.

Division Bonus: extra money paid out to an op for a job, in line with the risk level of the specific Division where the job is taking place.

Divisional garotte: a strangling weapon carried by Net ops, which is specifically attuned to Discrepancies.

Dreamer (the): mission simulator used to train Net ops.

Elemental Madness: incurable insanity caused by prolonged or particularly traumatising contact with a Discrepancy.

Endwall (the): death. Ops use the expression “to hit the Endwall”.

Estate Pension: the financial settlement received by the family of an op who has been killed on the job.

Honers: drugs used to sharpen concentration on a job.

Interstices (the): another word for the Voids.

Interstitial silt: residue from the voids, which looks like mud that glows violet.

Label: the aliases used by Net ops. These are based on insect/bug names (Moth, Butterfly, Spider, Flea, Cicada, etc.).

Launch: the station from which an op leaves or arrives when using the Slide. Launches are assigned Greek letters (Launch Alpha, Beta, Gamma, and so forth).

Medical: the clinic at the Net.

Net (the): mysterious agency dedicated to taking care of the problems created by Discrepancies.

Net House: the actual building where all Net personnel live. Set up like a large hotel with every amenity. No one, not even the people who live in it, knows where it is.

Notes: a mental/technological process whereby a Net op sets down information about a current job into an archival system. The ops “make a note”. These notes can be reviewed/edited/consulted by anyone with the proper authorisation, and are used to prepare and bolster the final report at the end of a job. Ops tend to use the notes system while in theatre as a way to communicate in silence and at a distance. The resulting notes are cleaned up afterwards, as Collection frowns on such a use of the system.

Nothing and All: another name for the Voids.

Op: a Field Agent at the Net.

Plinth: an object or a person of particular importance to reality.

Poste restante pod: a device used to leave emergency messages in a Division.

Protocols: rules and guidelines that govern an op’s actions in theatre. Notoriously, these guidelines are often modified by an unseen department.

Psychic remodeling: intervention by the Psych to help bystanders who have been traumatised by events they witnessed during a job.

Recertification: series of standard tests that Ops undergo every six months, by their Reckoning, to ascertain that they are still fit for theatre.

Reckoning: a subjective measure of time. Ops use the expression “by my Reckoning”.

Rectification: return of normality within a Division after straightlining of the problem.

Reggies: dismissive term for ordinary bystanders, used by members of Net clean-up crews.

Relic: a body part from an op who has been killed on the job, when the entire body cannot be repatriated. Another op or a member of the clean-up crew is responsible for securing a Relic, which is used for the Rites when the complete body is not available. The Rites are different according to the deceased’s religion and/or beliefs.

Report: both the written and oral account of a job. The spoken Report is usually made to Collection, while the op is still in theatre.

Resonance: detectable energy that betrays the presence of a Discrepancy in a Division. Ops say that a place is “resonant”.

Retirement: administrative procedure where an Op decides to leave the Net. The Op is Washed and left to Dry in a Division of their choosing.

Rites (the): the funeral ceremony for an op who has died on the job.

Ruptures: tears between the Divisions, that cause patches of one Division to drift through another Division.

Searer: a handheld shooting weapon carried by Net ops, which disintegrates almost anything and is not stopped by Divisional boundaries. Searers need to be charged. Discharging a searer is called searing.

Slide (the): the process ops use to travel to and from a specific Division. This is the process that produces the distinctive sweet almond smell that accompanies an op’s arrival. People and objects can be sent via the Slide, in either direction. Ops use the expression “on this side of the Slide”.

Straightlining: arriving at a satisfactory outcome for a job. Solving the problem outlined in a Brief: “The Discrepancy has been straightlined.”

Theatre (in): on the ground during a job.

Trigger (the): the use of the word “Discrepancy” aloud, directed at a suspected Discrepancy. Usually, but not always, this causes the Discrepancy to reveal itself.

Vestigial Resonance: energy traces left by the presence of a Discrepancy.

Vial: a vessel used to gather, transport and store the remains of a Discrepancy after it has been killed. Putting the remains in the Vial is a “delicate” operation.

Voids (the): the space between the worlds, sometimes called the Nothing and All or the Interstices.

Washed and dried (to get): the process whereby someone’s memory is wiped down to basic identity patterns, before that person is relocated to live out the rest of his or her life. This applies to Net ops upon retirement, as well as bystanders when it is deemed appropriate by the ops in theatre. 

Wiping it down: reducing the site of a job to a singularity when a clean-up would not be pertinent.