Thank fuck for coffee. Seriously, I have no idea how our ancestors did anything without this miraculous elixir. Then again, they also didn’t have to deal with the fabric of reality ripping itself open every day. Or at least I hope they didn’t, otherwise that nutjob cult that says humans came to Earth from breaches might be a right. And nobody likes a cult being right. Someone really needs to round up those morons and stop them from encouraging people to ‘find their destiny’ by hurling themselves through god damned interdimensional portals.

Seriously, just how stupid can people get?

Oh, right, I had to go meet whatshisface. What was his name again? Salami Flicker. Two-Five. Yeah, let’s stick with Two-Five. I finish the rest of my coffee and start getting dressed. Shirt, tie, pants, boots, coat, PDA, utility belt, holster, helmet, hat, and I’m done. I check myself over in the mirror one last time. Looking sharp, Seventeen. Alright, let’s go see what my new gunner’s been up to while I slept like a rock.

I barely manage to leave my quarters when I see him in the hallway outside. Floating. In some kind of weird fetal position. I gotta say, having an apartment in the same building as my office is convenient most of the time, but this sort of shit is not okay.

“Two-Five?” I call out to him. “What the hell are you doing here?”

That seems to have gotten his attention, as the ball of spindly immediately started untangling itself. Once his feet were firmly on the ground, he gave me a wave.

“Greetings, Seventeen. Forgive me, I must have fallen asleep while waiting for you.”

So that’s how his people sleep? Bit weird, but I’m not one to judge. I’m told I snore like an elluvian ogre constantly passing gas. More importantly-

“Still haven’t told me why you were here in the first place. How did you even know I lived here?”

“Forgive me if I unintentionally invaded your privacy,” he rubbed his hands together. “I was intrigued by what sort of person you were, so I asked your, or rather, our superior if he could give me data on you. Which he did. By throwing a paper-thin machine containing your records at my face.”

Yup, sounds like Jameson, alright.

“And I must admit, what I saw surprised me,” he continued. “I was told I’d be assigned to one of the BMA’s best navigators, but I merely took those words as idle chatter.”

Oh boy, here we go.

“Nearly fifty thousand incidents resolved over your ten years of service? And with a 97.526% success rate?! How are you still a simple navigator?!”

“Wait, that’s what you’re curious about?!”

“… Yes?”

I suppose it’s better than him outright calling me a cheater, lier, hacker, or something along those lines. Just because I’m a teeny tiny bit above the 73% average success rate doesn’t mean I altered my own records. I’m not trying to game the system to earn prestige or money.

“Because I want to help people,” I plainly state my sole reason for doing this job, “but I can’t do that if I get taken off the field by a promotion. I plan to keep doing what I’m doing until I get so old that my body can’t keep up with me.”

Which, thanks to some gene therapy I received as a baby, should be another fifty or so years. Unless I lose a limb or something. Once I’m deemed unfit for active field duty, I intend to just straight up retire. It’s going to be lonely, though. A navigator’s lifestyle doesn’t leave much room for me to find a wife and start a family of my own, but there are more important things than my personal happiness.

“That is a most admirable attitude,” Two-Five remarks. “You remind me of this royal army soldier I used to know, back on my homeworld.”

“Oh? Was he a war hero or something?”

“Not exactly. He was just this old veteran who lived near me when I was a child.”

“What happened to him?”

“He… gave his life to protect dozens of life, mine included. I do not wish to go into details, but I recognize I wouldn’t be here if not for him. Becoming a navigator is my way of honoring his memory.”

“Really? Shouldn’t you have become a soldier, then?”

“I would have, but I’m not physically capable enough to be considered fit for military duty. On the upside, I’m told my mind is well suited to being a navigator, so I decided to play to my strengths instead of chasing the impossible.”

“Well, so long as you have no regrets,” I shrug. “And don’t let my record intimidate you. It may look impressive when you just look at the numbers, but it really isn’t once you see how I operate. Speaking of which, shall we get to it? My shift starts in twelve minutes so I’m practically already late.”

“Ah! By all means, let us proceed.”

The two of us chat some more on our way to the departure station. Two-Five seemed interested in how I became a navigator, but I didn’t have much to tell him. I’m just doing the job because someone has to. I like to help people, too. It may sound a bit selfish, but I enjoy the dopamine hit whenever I reunite some lost soul with their friends and family. Less so when I have to bring in dangerous beasts or investigate smugglers. That’s also why I have such a huge success rate. I focus on helping individuals get home, which is by and far the easiest part of the job. Also the most important one, at least in my opinion.

We board a shuttle and are taken to one of the BMA’s departure stations. They’re special BMA facilities that act as lightning rods for breaches. They take a lot of the randomness out of the whole unstable fabric of reality thing. Unfortunately the special materials required to build them are both hella expensive and super rare, so it’s just not feasible to have these in every city, town, village and hamlet. Would make life a lot easier for everyone else if that were the case.

“So, Seventeen, I’ve been trying to find information on something without success,” Two-Five informs me while we’re en-route. “I was wondering, perhaps you might be able to help me?”

“I might. What were you looking for?”

“Data on shukhrotokar.”

“I’m sorry, data on what?” I ask dumbly.

“Shukhrotokar?” he repeats, twiddling his fingers.

“No idea what you’re saying, I think the translation is glitching out.”

“Ah, perhaps I chose the wrong word? Our people have many names for it.”

“It happens. Describe this… shughorokar to me.”

“Ugh, your pronunciation is horrible. Please never attempt to say that again.”

“Two-Five.”

“I apologize, Seventeen. I get a bit… touchy around improper use of language.”

“Get used to it. Auto-translators aren’t perfect, but it’s the best we got. So, what’s this all about.”

“Shukhrotokar is the orizian scientific term for the mysterious mineral that has been linked to the breaches.”

“Ohhh! Yeah, okay. We call that ‘ivanium’ over here.”

If memory serves, it was named after the geologist who first discovered its existence and then spearheaded the research into it. Pjotr Ivanov or something. They say the element appeared within the Earth’s crust seemingly out of nowhere, and that it’s responsible for creating those breaches. Solar radiation is also somehow involved, hence why those things only appear on the surface of planets rather than deep underwater or in the void of space. Good thing too, I don’t think my navigator’s gear would last too long in a vacuum.

That aside, ivanium has a few helpful uses. It’s used to generate causality fields and trace amounts of it have been used in my equipment’s construction to reduce the risk of it going haywire in foreign words. My PDA has a whole 15.6 micrograms of the stuff, which makes it more valuable than the rest of my gear combined. Myself included.

“Eevaneum? Am I saying it right?” Two-Five asked.

“It’s close enough. And I already know why you can’t find any data for it. The BMA considers it restricted intel. You need to put in a request with our archivists if you want access to it.”

“Ah. Yes. Very good. Then I shall inquire about it formally once we return.”

“Yeah, about that. Been meaning to ask, how is this going to work? Can you even follow one of my anchors once I go through?”

Our equipment is literal worlds apart, after all, and as the acting navigator, I have to be the one to head through first in order to map out the route.

“No. But, you can use one of mine, and I will follow that.”

He holds up a purple gemstone that looks like a fist-sized rice grain.

“… You sure about that?”

“Absolutely. I designed it around the premise of using your world’s natural laws to emulate those of my own. The theory behind it is quite sound.”

“Theory?! You mean it’s never been tested?!”

“Why do you think I approached your superiors in the first place?”

“Fan-fucking-tastic!”

“I understand your concern, Seventeen, but this item is the culmination of all my life’s work. I would stake my own existence on it.”

“You’re also staking my own, though.”

“Yes. I am aware.”

“… Alright. Give it here.”

“Okay, but do be careful. The crystal circuit is laced with, what did you call it? Eevaneum. It took half of my family’s sizeable fortune to get this much, and I would rather it be kept intact.”

I reach out to take it from his hand, but stop myself at the last moment.

“Actually, let’s wait until we’re firmly on the ground before we do any… experiments.”

“Yes, very good point, Seventeen. I shall temper my eagerness.”

Somehow I wish this shuttle ride wouldn’t end, but it does. We’re dropped off at the perimeter of the departure facility. The whole area has been sealed off by a huge dome that’s been electrified to fuck and back. Sometimes I wonder if it’s designed to keep unauthorized personnel out, or to keep something in. Probably a bit of both.

The guards give Two-Five some weird looks, or at least I assume they do, I can’t see under those helmets. Anyway, they let us through without issue and I’m greeted with an all too familiar sight. An entirely spherical arena two hundred meters in diameter, with a veritable storm of breaches crackling ominously all throughout.

“My word!” Two-Five exclaims. “I heard Earth had it bad, but I never imagined there were this many!”

“What, you don’t have facilities like this back on your homeworld?”

“We do, but it is not nearly as bad as this!”

“Yeah… And then off-worlders wonder why us humans are so invested in managing the breaches. Now stop gawking, we have a ride to catch.”

Thankfully getting back to my district is fairly easy. I can usually do it in three jumps, two if I’m lucky. Heh, just a walk in the park compared to what Two-Five must’ve gone through to get here. Getting from Earth to Oriza or vice-versa can take as many as twenty transfers. That’s days if not weeks’ worth of realm-hopping. In any event, I check with the administrator and schedule for a jump. He points me to one of the more stable breaches along the edge of the interdimensional shitstorm. I go there and then turn to face Two-Five.

“Alright, big guy,” I hold my hand out. “Let’s do this.”

He nods and carefully places his insanely valuable trinket in my waiting palm. However, it explodes into a puff of powder the instant he lets go of it.

“Uhm! That wasn’t me!” I say in a mounting panic.

“Do not worry, Seventeen,” Two-Five reassures me. “It is supposed to do that.”

“O-oh…”

I watch as the glittering dust then converges together into one solid object as if reassembling itself. Within seconds I’m holding something that looks like an actual faceted gem with clearly defined angles and sides rather than that vaguely grain-shaped thing it used to be.

“The prototype anchor has successfully adapted to your causality field,” my gunner reports while twiddling with the crystals on his wrist. “You are clear to commence navigation, Seventeen.”

“But, what do I do with this?”

“Oh, just leave it on the floor here as you would any anchor. Once you have passed through I will grab it and be instantly transported to your side.”

“Seems simple enough. Alright, here we go.”

I gently place the thing on the ground and then look towards my PDA. I do my standard thing of tossing a sensor through the breach and pick out a route. Once I’m done I look over my shoulder and nod to Two-Five. I then realize he probably has no idea what the gesture means.

“I’ll be going ahead.”

I take a short run up and leap through the breach. My brain gets utterly overwhelmed by the impossible sensory input it received, as per usual. It calms down and I can think somewhat clearly again after a short while, again as per usual. I then diligently follow the route I mapped out earlier, making sure not to miss any of the ‘turns’ I have to make. Just a few more mental twitches and I should feel myself land in an ocean.

However, that does not happen. What instead takes place is that I suddenly experience something I can only describe as my head going through my own asshole. Then there’s an incredibly sharp pain that feels like it’s coming at me from half the galaxy away. I then hit the rocky ground, hard. I lay perfectly still for the ten seconds it takes for the post-transfer sickness to dissipate, but this time it’s not going away. Nearly a minute passess before my head stops spinning and my ears quit ringing, after which I feel the distinct taste of blood in my mouth.

At least nothing seems to be broken, so I force myself to stand and observe my surroundings. I’m in the middle of a treacherous-looking mountain region with a thick black cloud overhead. Doesn’t appear to be highly toxic though, so my helmet’s filters are handling it alright. Also the rocks are a mix of green, yellow and brown, while the sky is impossible to see through the gas.

This is not a familiar sight. No, scratch that, this is the first fucking time I’ve ever seen such an environment, whether it be live or in a vid. I take a confused step forward. My foot bumps into something soft, making me leap back and draw my firearm on reflex. Or at least I tried to, but gravity here is a lot stronger than I gave it credit for and I slammed my butt into the dirt.

I then look up to see the thing I nearly tripped over was my new gunner.

“Two-Five?” I call out to him. “Two-Five! Are you alright!?”

He lets out a weird whistling noise as he wakes up, flipping himself onto his back.

“I… Will be,” he groans. “Just need for… my first aid kit to kick-in and... “

*POP*

*CRACK*

“There we go,” he says, his voice much lighter. “Much better.”

“What the fuck just happened, Two-Five?!”

“It seems I have both favorable and unfavorable news. On the favorable side, my prototype anchor worked,” he holds up the gem in question.

“Worked?! You call this worked?!” I scream at him. “We’re on some shithole of a planet in fuck-knows-where! We’re fucking lost, Two-Five. Lost! How the hell is this a ‘working’ prototype?!”

“I was successful in following you through the breach once I triggered it.”

I sigh and rub my faceplate with both hands.

“But how did I end up off-course, Two-Five?”

“That is the unfavorable news. It seems I triggered while you were still in transit, which caused an… unforeseen consequence.”

“…”

I swear, if we die out here, I am going to fucking kill him.