What kind of robbers didn’t take a wallet with them, or the TV, the DVD player, or the
expensive laptops?
The Office of Intradimensional Affairs was frenzied by management’s carelessness. A
tier 1 government facility and our windows were lined with broken glass.
I suppose management did not seem to care about the possibility, as they had not
considered it. To the public, we do not and will not ever exist. The existence of multiverses must
be kept to fiction, a coverup planted so that the real truth seemed impossible to digest. Too
dangerous, put in the hands of some people.
Everyone was tearing up their desks but me and the four in charge of internal security
and running the day shift stepped forward, a pillar of sanity in the chaos. We were clad in
chromatic vests trained on a few hundred elements from across our universe of containment.
The plating extended all across our jumpsuits, rounded out with specialized magnetic boots for
antigravity situations. With no tech registered as taken, we feared the worst, marching towards
the portal room.
The man of fifty to the side of me fastened on his helm, and I was reminded of my own.
They all had spray painted emblems on the front, designating each member of the squad. All of
us pulled them over in preparation for the depressurizing seal that contained unstable fragments
of other dimensions.
The room was a red carpet leading down to branches of societies untouched by our
earth. We continued down the eerie passage of life and death until, at the very end, the
fluorescent aqua teal portal, we saw three figures in full black.
I began to speak diplomatically, but the officer two spots left of me immediately opened
fire with his government issued assault rifle. Bullets of chromium, effective on over three
hundred life forms, sprayed out of it, and two of the intruders fell, but one rolled out of the way
and took a riot shield off his back.
The aggressor charged in. He got close as bullets deflected, and hopelessly jumped on
the riot shield, with the man moving it in sync and tossing him backwards, into the portal. A
friend of mine and the lost one charged forward with his knife, cutting the glass pane open, but
ultimately getting stuck through the opened passage and thrown into a separate portal after the
dislocation of his arm.
Three remained. I was paralyzed with the fear of knowledge, being the only officer high
enough to know the contents of the portal. The other two didn’t want to find out, as they charged
forward with gun and knife and were split by one thrust of the shield. I moved around my rifle
and shot through the hole in the shield, the bullet piercing the intruder’s eye. Seizing the
chance, my allies ran in for a melee, but one was grabbed by the arm, tossed into the portal.
Subsequently, the other was tripped, stumbling in as well.
I was the only one, and I hastily emptied the clip. Dents on the bruised shield were the
only fruits of my labor. Charging in for one desperate strike, two combat batons drawn then

spun, I ran. A strike to the attacker’s upper arm was all I could manage, kicked hard into the
portal.
Emerging on the other side, I landed next to heat, and quickly rolled away. Lava was to one
side, and a deep drop to the other. Standing on a crumbling cliff, I felt dread before a rope fell
from above. I took it, and looking up at my comrades, felt relief in a rare source of safety in this
cruel world.
At the office, we nicknamed it The Hellscape. Official name Redworld, the calming color
of its portal showed no mercy towards the original pioneers of its discovery. A useless plain of
suffering, its odium knew no end. With the portal closed behind us, neither would we, in the
months that were to follow.