He stared at the door, eyes drilling through it. It was a solid blond wood, which contrasted the dark colors of the rest of the room. Stoutly built on oversized hinges, it was framed by moulding with extravagant engravings of dragons. He didn’t want to open it. But as he checked his fancy wrist watch, he realized he had to. He exhaled deeply and picked up the large box filled with paper work, and wordlessly, pushed open the door. The room filled with a rush as the air pressures equalized. He jumped through the door way quickly; it closed behind him.
He stumbled about awkwardly, a little nauseous. No matter how many times he made the jump, it still made him queasy. The door from which he had stepped was different on the other side. It was made of a different wood, and it was in a metal frame. In fact, he had just stepped into what seemed like an entirely different setting than his home. And he had.
Hector’s room was located in another dimension. When the door opened, it triggered a generator to open an interdimensional portal instantaneously. Had that portal not been triggered; the door would have opened outside into the dimension the house was on. He had just travelled an unfathomable distance in less than a second. That’s why he felt nauseous. The entire hub world was practically made of portals; those were the “rooms” that people rented out. The neat thing about the Apartment Complex was its rooms were powered by Dream-a-Dimension generators. Building a personality profile from a short quiz, the generators cycle through available rooms in various other dimensions, to traits determined by their personalities. After running through the list and cross referencing with most important attributes, it opens a portal to that property any time it’s triggered. Factors such as price range and specific dimensions can also be entered. They weren’t cheap, and due to the odd energies they produced, they had a habit of behaving… Oddly.
The more the Valtari defied the natural laws of the universe, the more their technology would act up and produce odd and unfavorable outcomes. When you’re playing with forces of baffling extremity, you sometimes get burned. And by burned I mean suck through a wormhole that rings you through a black hole and disintegrates your dissected molecules. Twice. In the end, the Valtari found the proper balance. They perfected the formulas, to a degree. But things still act oddly every now and then. Nobody has quite found a way like they have. Interdimensional travel is sought after by many, but not everyone is allowed to do it. For various reasons, the VTC bar some specific dimensions, and some specific peoples, from travelling to other worlds. Without the VTC’s hub worlds and resources, it is not only extremely difficult to travel outside of one’s home dimension, it’s also very dangerous. But many try. Nearly a decade ago, a band of powerful beings from Dimension 20-26 tried to rupture the walls of their dimension with their awesome magic power. Were it not for the betrayal of a handful of their members; they may have succeeded. This would have destroyed their home dimension entirely and let loose incredibly dangerous forces which the VTC themselves may not have been able to contain.
That makes the duty of a Hub Keeper, such as Hector, that much more serious. He clicked on the electric lights and they flickered on slowly, sweeping over the room like a sheet being pulled back. He paused for a second, still carrying his heavy box. His eyes stared into the lights. He liked wait for them to burn into his vision, and snap his eyes closed and watch the burn dance along his eyelids. He then took a second to overlook the lobby, and beamed with pride over it.
It was cozy, yet bold. He slammed the box down on his desk, and sighed with the effort. He basked for a second in the silence, nothing but him and his property.
There is a feeling exclusive to men who have accomplished something and can see their work come to fruition. It is euphoria of the highest sort, but it’s subtle. It’s a glow, a faint buzz. Hector wallowed in it, and pondered briefly on all the steps he had taken to get there. But then, the ding of the elevator cruelly interrupted his most rapturous moment. He turned to see the doors reveal a figure behind a large cart loaded with cleaning supplies. It rattled and jostled and squeaked out of the elevator, and his faithful janitor Zai was revealed.
“Morning boss.” He nodded quickly. The cart must have been about seven feet long, the amount of supplies on it was mind boggling.
“How are the rooms looking?” Hector asked, looking over the cart with half fascination, and half curiosity.
“Clean.” He said shortly. He didn’t stop, just kept moving past him. “Not that it matters…” He muttered to himself.
“What?” Hector asked, staring down his employee. Zai stopped, and shrugged.
“They’re just going to be pocket dimensions. Don’t know why I need to clean an empty room; when it’s just going to stay an empty room.” Hector furrowed his brows.
“Clean the lobby. You let me worry about that.” He said simply. Zai nodded, turning and wheeling his cart away.
“Want me to touch up the stairs?” He asked over his shoulder. Hector looked up with shock.
“Hell no! For the last time, don’t go on the stairs! There’s a warp in them. I don’t know why.”
“Oka~ay.” Zai said. Hector always found it odd that he could speak squiggles. He could be a little short to talk to, but Hector had never seen a more determined janitor in his entire life. His eyes followed the slim, shuffling figure as it drew gloves over its pale, bony hands. They were hard from scrubbing, and steady for precision work. They knew when to apply pressure and when to ease up. He had thick blue hair that permanently hung in his eyes. Hector had never seen the boy’s eyes before, and often wondered how he could see at all. As he watched, Zai carefully selected a spray bottle from the cart and one of hundreds of rags. He sized up one of the leather seats in the lobby, and was off like a shot. He whirled around it, and one could hear the bottle spraying and the rag wiping. And all at once he stopped, and the couch shined with a dark sparkle of well-maintained leather. Hector imagined Zai had a look of pride on his face, though he couldn’t really tell. All at once, he asked a nagging question.
“Why do you do this, Zai?” Zai gazed up at him. Hector felt like he was being stared right through.
“It’s what I do.” He said, quite simply. And that was that.
Nodding softly to himself, Hector knew all at once that was all the answer he would get out of the boy; somehow, it was all he needed. Zai went back to his work wordlessly. With a faint smile, Hector took the opportunity to take another look over the lobby from his perch. He was satisfied with its appearance, although he knew Zai wasn’t. Watching Zai labor reminded him that it was time for him to work as well. He had to put his paperwork into…
The mailbox. A knot began to knead itself into Hector’s stomach. He’d been dreading this. Sometimes, Hub Worlds have an effect on their surroundings. It’s random, there’s no way to anticipate it. These oddities are called Warping. In Hector’s case, his stairwell had excessive Warping, which wasn’t terribly unusual. Warping could be dangerous, its spontaneity rarely ends in beneficial ways. But it wasn’t the Warping in the stair that worried him; it was the innocent, blue mailbox in front of the
complex itself. It worried him because Warping typically only occurred in the bounds of the Hub World itself. Outside the front door, the Complex was a part of a very regular dimension not much different from Earth. And in that Dimension, the rules of its reality must be obeyed. They can be bent to a slight extent, but when you step outside of the Hub World, your powers are adapted to that Dimension’s rules. So magic beings would find they can no longer cast magic. Some technology, which runs on various outlandish materials, would disappear. This keeps people in check, so no powerful being from the wrong dimension can come to a weaker one and take it over.
But the mailbox was Warping severely. He had bent the rules by having it ship to the VTC home dimension to process his paperwork, and it backfired. Now, the inside of the mailbox would open and transform into all sorts of strange things. He had to close it numerous times to get it to open to the proper dimension. Most of the time it was benign, but occasionally, it revealed something hostile. The uncertainty killed him.
But he took a deep breath and shouldered his trusty Wolf Beil. With his free hand, he grasped the box. He looked over to where Zai had been, and he was gone. Hector snapped his head around the room.
“Zai?!” He called out, half annoyed and half concerned.
“What?” Zai replied, his voice coming from an unexpected place. Hector looked up; Zai and his cart were suspended on the ceiling. He was mopping it, and yet not a drop of water fell to the floor. It stuck to the ceiling. Hector was taken aback.
“What in the blazes- what are you doing?” He asked exasperatedly.
“Cleaning the ceiling.” Zai replied shortly.
“Why?!” Was all Hector could ask. “Nobody looks up there!”
“I do!” Zai retorted defensively. Hector groaned.
“Fine, fine. If I’m not back in a few minutes, check in on me.”
“Oka~ay.”
“And stop speaking squiggles!” Hector shouted. He stormed to the front door, opening it and stepping out unceremoniously. He felt the nausea of jumping again. The door slammed behind him, separating dimensions. For a few seconds, Zai kept mopping in silence.
“Oka#ay.” He said calmly, with a faint smile.
The moment of truth had arrived. Hector started an intense stare down with the blue, inanimate object. Somehow he knew it was looking back. Thankfully, no pedestrians witnessed the spectacle. Most of the residents of the area were at work or sleeping in. Hector set down the box with a heavy thump. Tired of being afraid, he marched up the box and opened the hatch, half expecting another benign sight.
An enormous tentacle reached out and seized him forcefully.
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