The Trouble With Interdimensional Travel

So, for Christmas, I got an interdimensional portal machine. It doesn't take up as much room as you might imagine. A little bigger than your average laptop, actually, so it slides under my sofa neatly when I’m not using it. Very safe. Very convenient. There is also a suit, like a wetsuit, but much smaller and thinner. It's extraordinarily stretchy. I roll that up and tuck it in the back of the dresser drawer.

It’s very important to “bookmark” and “favourite” your starting point before you go in. Well, you can imagine, I’m sure.

Or maybe you can’t. The multiverse is infinite. That really is rather the point. You can get lost in there, if you aren’t careful. You could spend your whole life trying to get home, and perhaps not even manage it. Not ever. Or (and this could be worse) you could come back to a withered body, almost a corpse, a self you don’t recognise. Hideous. You could do that even if you don’t get lost, if you only lose track of time. I say “only”, but it’s a very large “only”.

Obviously, it didn’t take many Incidents for the manufacturers to build in some safeguards. A few people did get lost, and the resulting lawsuits nearly bankrupted InterD. They threatened to lock up the research in a vault and never release it, like KFC and those eleven herbs and wotsits. Basically, holding this knowledge hostage. So, the government helped them out, didn’t it? The families of those lost just had to put up and shut up, and Progress marched on over them in its big, big boots.

Soon, you won't even be able to progress your registration without flagging your starting point. And you certainly won't be able to Travel without registration first.

For now, I check that my starting point is locked in at the outset, every time. I am meticulous about it. I cannot afford to get lost in there.

During one of my first expeditions, I went to a world exactly like this one, except I was a celebrity. It was as surreal as you are supposing, and then some. I wasn’t an A-list star, either, which was mildly disappointing, really. In a way. I probably only need to keep exploring long enough to find such a world, and I must say, that thought went some way to cheering me. It's not my main goal, you understand. Not my primary objective. But it could be a fun side-quest, one day.

I sat with the device on my lap, and the screen flipped up, just as if it really were a laptop. Perhaps one like your old Gramps might have played Call of Duty or Fortnite on when he was spotty wee lad. I sat there, fairy light strung up all around me, and the Tree twinkling in the corner, and I browsed through all the little dots that looked like stars…

Those stars were, of course, other worlds. When I found one where I was famous, naturally, I had to go and explore it.

I checked my watch. Fourteen hours since I'd last eaten. Good. I donned my not-a-wetsuit, and then disguised myself with a wig and a hat and suchlike. (I have an array of items like that on hand for these excursions.)

In I went.

Like many people, I thought I wanted to be famous, to be recognised, perhaps asked for an autograph or a picture… But on my terms, if you please. I didn’t want to be waylaid hardly as soon as my feet touched the new soil. I wanted a chance to get my bearings.

In fact, I was glad I had exercised such aforethought, because the reality was slightly embarrassing, to tell you the truth.

Don't get me wrong, I've never longed for celebrity, the dazzle of adoring cameras and plush red carpets... but I've thought, occasionally, vaguely, that, you know, it might be nice. There's be perks. I think a lot of people share the same mindset.

Imagine my shock then to find... well. It's hard to explain. My face was everywhere. That was bizarre enough on its own. It was definitely my face, but it was surrounded by neatly cropped curls, and topped with a pointy little hat. It was also adorned with a wide grin, childish in its innocent joy. The rest of me, when that was visible as well, was dressed in tights and a tunic. Things I would never have worn in what I like to think of as "the real world".

I was often depicted with candy canes, or in a state of manic excitement. I was on posters, and mugs, and oversized plastic shopping bags. I appeared to be a star in a very well-known Christmas movie. Not a new one either; the sort that gets trotted out again every year. A classic.

I have never thought of myself as a “stuck up” person, but this experience was illuminating to say the least.

It wasn’t bad. I bookmarked it, actually, so what does that tell you? Why, that I plan to go back there. When it’s not Christmastime. It might be less intense then. Less weird.

It was a fun little diversion, but I must retain focus. There is so much multiverse to explore, and so little time. Life, as they say, really is short. Time is ticking. I have to find her. I have to find her and bring her back. I hope I can manage it before it's too late.

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Thank you for reading! Especially since I started with, "So..." which is a bit of a pet peeve of mine.

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