Oftentimes he wondered where he went wrong. How did he get here? Why did he take this job? Did the phrasing “...we work with unusual matters...” not set off a red flag? What went through his mind to think “Yep, this is a good idea”. It was probably the money. Yep, definitely the money. Well he was here now. That was all that mattered. But if it were up to him…

“Aren't you tired of walking?”

Again he heard that voice. He had heard this same voice for the last week or so. They were both on the same assignment but… couldn't they have split up or something?

“You really should save your energy. Imagine if we run into him huh? He might run, you know?”

“I know what you're implying and I refuse.”

“Oh come oooon…. I'm way superior to any motor vehicle. You should just take advantage of this opportunity and ride me.”

The man shuddered to think of the last time that had happened.

“I’ll take my chances.”

This mission would definitely drag on, wouldn't it?

About a year prior a man named Zachery Elmore disappeared. Where exactly a world class mathematician went on their free time wasn't exactly common knowledge. Maybe the coast? Maybe in some isolated cabin? Nobody seemed to know, not even his family. But that oddly specific question wasn't answered until a few months after his disappearance. They found his body in a comatose state. He wasn't dead, but his mind was gone. And wherever it went was everybody's question.

At this point a certain shadowy organisation got involved. The thing is, the Elmore family wasn't just a family. It was the family. The Elmores possessed a bountiful wealth to their name, and not only that, all of them seemed to be blessed in some way. This along with their positions in the world, made them some very powerful people. But even with all the power in the world, the man named Zachery Elmore was gone. Case closed. Or at least it should have been. So with an odd mixture of grief, denial, and a lot of money, a certain unusual organization was pulled into the situation.

This book's true home is on another platform. Check it out there for the real experience.

How exactly he “died”, is what allowed the organization to step in. When they found his body, it was connected to an amalgamation of a machine by many wires all leading to a headset. PCs connected to laptops connected to used phones connected to anything and everything that could possibly compute. What Zachery had made was complex, and the programming was even more so. Equations that shouldn't work built programs that couldn't scientifically function. Yet they did. What Zachery built had used special concepts and mathematics that shouldnt function in our reality, nor did they even come from it. Many may call this magic, when in fact, it was. What Zachery had built was no simulation. It was a gateway.

And that's where the story ends. The odd man under the designation of Agent-173 didn't have the clearance to know much else. So for now, that story was concluded. But that wasn't really important to him. He could barely understand the unusual anyways, so no point in putting effort into something that didn't get him paid. All that was important was his job. He just had to step through the organization's new “100%-safe-and-well-tested-not-a-deathtrap-gateway”, and hope he didn't go into shock, experience seizures, or simply blow up like some kind of meat balloon. Past that, the assignment was simple: “Using the equipment provided, and any other tools you come across, track down and bring back the target: Zachery Elmore. Maybe document some stuff, i don't know, we aren't really paying you for anything other than tracking. Oh, and don't die”. Or at least that's how it sounded in his head.

“Alright...” he muttered to himself

“It'll only be a flash… It’ll be over in a minute”

Then the images of keiling over on the floor and puking came into his mind. The side effects only lasted for a minute. But nevertheless, he shuddered.

And he stepped through.