You’re in the university library the summer your parents forgot to pick you up. The A/C is broken. The heat is oppressive. It surrounds you. Chokes you.

The sweat runs off of you in torrents. It stings your eyes. It drips onto rare texts. You’re smothering. You need relief.

You need to take off your shirt.

Doesn’t matter. This is a flashback.

One tug is all it takes, and your soaked shirt hits the floor with a salmony thwap. Every head in the library turns to see your nude, glistening torso. And the rare texts librarian is having none of it.

“Hold it!” he whisper-yells. “Can’t you read the sign?”

He’s got you there; the sign is pretty explicit.

“Take your shirt and get out of here,” he whispers. “You just can’t do that here.”

It was that day that your life changed course forever. As you left the library in shame, shirt in hand, you first made your solemn vow: If this world wouldn’t accept your desires, you swore to tear reality itself apart to find one that did.

You wake with a start, scattering the empty pouches of chunk salmon that litter your workbench, the remains of countless working meals. You’re back in the present, where the time is currently “now.”

The bitterness of that distant memory fades, leaving only the regular bitterness that taints every moment of your broken life.

As always, you’re alone in your filthy lab. You must have fallen asleep mid-equation again.

Well, time to recite your solemn vow!

“The world cast me out because I dared.
I dared to take my shirt off at the library.
I cannot change reality,
But I can change realities.
I will pierce the silk robe that separates dimensions.
I will discover a world that accepts me.
I will step into that world.
And I will take my shirt off at the library.”

Cool! A solemn vow is a normal thing to have.

As always, your math is good. It all checks out. And your drawing is better than ever, thanks to your careful studies of Sonic The Hedgehog levels.

A power source that will let you punch a hole between realities, though, is still beyond your grasp. It’s been years since you made any real progress. Oh well, that big brick you got to do suicide with isn’t going anywhere!

Only what’s that over in the corner?

That, the interdimensional wormhole–looking thing.

The tear in reality quivers and oozes out interbrane juices onto your shitty lab floor. Cool, you’re about to make humankind’s first-ever interdimensional contact, and you’re caked with old salmon.

The wormhole shifts and throbs, and a figure appears within it.

There. Much better.

It’s you. The figure in the wormhole is you. You haven’t had a surprise in years, so this is a fun little treat.

The you you see isn’t the haggard, bitter you that you are, but a proud, healthy, confident you. A shirtless you. The you you’ve always wished you could be.

“Dirt is the key!” says you. “Interdimensional travel is powered by dirt. Dirt, you moron; it was dirt all along! Sweet American dirt! Now come find me. I’ll be at the library.”

Just before the tear seals itself back up, the other you lobs some kind of device your way. Very exciting!

The device lands in your hand with satisfying heft. It fits beautifully, like it was designed for you, which it was, because you designed it. It’s sticky with liminal goop and smells vaguely like white wine.

Dirt. Of course. Mother Nature’s dark, crumbly milk. How could you have been so blind? It makes perfect sense: The only way to reliably navigate an infinite multiverse is to trust in the random composition of dirt.

There are three big buttons right in thumb range, a simple screen, and a slot at the base where dirt begs to be shoved. There is also a small label noting that pressing the same button that got you to a universe, while in that new universe, will lead to an entirely new universe, and not simply back to the one you’ve already come from. Rad!

Thinking quickly, you grab a fistful of dirt off your shittiest desk and shove it into the dirt slot. The device shudders to life, grinding the dirt into energy, stripping out trace minerals. The buttons light up. Time to go. Where?

You press the button, and time-space parts its robe for you. With an erotic schloop, you pass into a whole new universe. It prickles, but it’s not some big ordeal or anything.

You press the button, and time-space parts its robe for you. With an erotic schloop, you pass into a whole new universe. It prickles, but it’s not some big ordeal or anything.

You step through onto rain-kissed grass. Obviously, it’s real sun-dappled. Clouds drift overhead, and in the distance, how about that, it’s a distant villa. It doesn’t look like a library, per se, but maybe someone who lives there can point you toward one. The portal closes up behind you with a fleshy slap.

Playful titterings drift over the lawn. Maybe you’re in a nymph dimension, where the name of the game is Fuck? You haven’t had a fucking in a dog’s age—not since your homemade fuckbot taught itself to dream and induced itself into a coma.

Taking your time, you saunter up to the tile patio. As you get closer, you can see a foursome of muscled-up hunks, sparkling with sun and wet, rippling with erotic tautness. You would like to give these men a bath, please.

When you get closer, one cocks his head towards you, opens his mouth, and lets out a deafening, guttural wail.

Good thinking; sprinting is faster. You break into a full Usain Bolt high-stepping stride, heedless of your asthmatic gasps and blurring vision.

Seconds later, you’re right in front of a foursome of muscled-up hunks, sparkling with sun and wet, rippling with erotic tautness. You would like to give these men a bath, please.

One cocks his head towards you, opens his mouth, and lets out a deafening, guttural wail.

Your perfectly reasonable statement falls on deaf ears, and now the screaming in front of you is joined by a scream from behind you. You turn, because you enjoy responding to stimuli.

“Get away from my Hemsworth!” yelps a dressy poolside gal. Other ladies follow her, just as aghast, if not twice as aghast. “If you lost yours, that’s your own fault, but you can’t take ours!”

“Easy, Barb,” says a lady. “Maybe the poor thing’s been in an accident?”

The women are aghast off the charts now.

“A Hemsworth brother!” barks Barb. “Everybody has one from birth! Except for the Hemless like you.”

“If you’re Hemless, you’re worthless,” chant the women. Wow, it is true what they say about how every universe has its own chants.

The Hemsworths huddle together, unsettled by you. One woman pets hers, soothing it. “It’s okay, Chase,” she coos, “a Separation Squad is already on its way. They’ll deal with this.”

“A library?” She’s not only aghast now, but moreover, puzzled. “Um, ancient Rome, maybe? When people need to know something, they just ask their Hemsworth.”

She turns to hers. “Benji, how many films in the Snow White And The Huntsman franchise star a Hemsworth?”

“Both of them,” says Benji Hemsworth with a sexual rumble.

“See?” she says. “Everything there is to know. Where are you from, anyway?”

“Obviously.”

Your erratic outbursts are putting everyone on edge, per fucking usual. The other women guide their dripping Hemsworths toward the house and away from you while your chitchat partner tries to keep you occupied.

“There’s a Separation Squad on its way,” says Barb as her Hemsworth nuzzles her hand. “You know what happens to the Hemless. Or if you somehow don’t, you’ll soon find out.

“Wanna guess?”

“That’s actually a way better idea. That’d be great. You’re still a Hemless abomination, but hey, you’re pretty creative.

“No, they just bury you. Anyway—”

With a squeal of tires and the thunder of boots designed specifically for repression, a heavily outfitted outfit troops out onto the patio, followed by their just-as-heavily outfitted Hemsworths. You can tell which ones are Hemsworths because they’re oh so very musky.

“We have visual on the Hemless,” one officer shouts into his radio.

“Hey there! By mandate of the Prime Hemsworths—”

“Hail Liam! Hail Chris!” cry the women.

“Having forsaken your Hemsworth, you forfeit your right to dwell above ground. You are hereby sentenced to being buried, by us, right now.”

A pair of burly Hemsworths step forward. Better think fast!

You spout off about all the wonders of your universe: the electric blanket; the mostly interesting novels of Michael Chabon; the Dyson Airblade; the fungus that makes ants insane; the huts given over entirely to sunglasses; the weird ubiquity of the word “calumet.” Then you wait for the dazzling to set in.

“We have those,” says an officer. “Telegraph Avenue was a total slog. Anyway.”

A Hemsworth cracks his nightstick across the back of your head, and you go down like a chump.

You book it across the grass, heading for the woods, your panic and lack of riot gear helping you outrun the sound of heavy boots behind you. Soon, you’ve made it past the tree line, and the woods engulf you, muffling the shouts of officers and their Hemsworths.

But now, quick, it’s time to trip over a tree root!

Your vision blurs and unblurs as you cling to consciousness. There’s an earthy, rhythmic pulse pounding in your head like the eclectic South African percussion of Paul Simon’s Graceland.

You’re being dragged into the forest somewhere, and now lifted up by gloved hands that heave you back and forth before tossing you into a fresh, shallow grave. The Separation Squad stands over you while their Hemsworths begin shoveling in dirt.

“Any final words, Hemless?”

Your final words go unacknowledged because the officers are screaming now as something tears them apart.

“The Ferals! They’re upon us!” howls one before his gurgle indicates he’s finally captured that je ne sais quoi that only dead people have.

A gloved hand falls onto your chest, severed from its favorite body. Blood streaks through the air like BlueAngels. Finally, it’s silent.

On top of the dismembered officers, a pack of shirtless hunks wrestle playfully over a half-gnawed human head. They’ve got that Hemsworth musk. Are these the Ferals?

One steps forward to address you, his voice hoarse with sexy vocal fry.

“You are like us. Severed. Separated. This world hates and fears us. It holds nothing for our kind.

“Yet we dream of a brighter day, when man and Hemsworth are not bound involuntarily by draconian edict, but willingly, by mutual respect, comradeship, and, aye, love too. Until that hallowed day comes, though, we will keep ripping people up and eating them.

“Go now. Your passage is secure.”

The feral Hemsworths pad silently back into the foliage while you scoop up a chunk of this universe’s dirt and feed it to your interdimensional device. The buttons light up. The dismembered bodies are starting to stink real bad.

You mutter your solemn vow and pray for a universe heavy on libraries and light on hangups. Time to go!

You press the button, and a wormhole unfolds before you with a breathy sigh and a puff of cold, vaguely thyme-scented air. You step through, because fuck that last universe, and you’re gone.

This world’s air is warm and sweet, and there’s plenty of trees, too. You’re generally getting a real Eden-y vibe, and you’re not good at picking up on vibes, so it’s got to be a pretty strong vibe.

There’s even a man exalting in the sunlight.

“Yes!” he cries without turning around. “At last! I’ve been expecting you!”

“Yes, you!” he cries, spinning around all Sound Of Music and flinging his jacket onto a log, still not really looking at you. “You, my greatest creation! To finally meet you face-to-face. Ah! A pleasure!”

“I am God,” he says. “I made you. Welcome to my realm.”

“Don’t you recognize me?” he cries, spinning around all Sound Of Music and flinging his jacket onto a log, still not really looking at you. “After all, you are my greatest creation! To finally meet you face-to-face. Ah! A pleasure!”

“I am God,” he says. “I made you. Welcome to my realm.”

“Ah! So passionate! So driven! Truly, I created you in my own image!

“Out of Hamburger Helper, I formed you, and I breathed life into you with smoke from my hand-rolled cigarillos! This was of course after I created the entire multiverse from my spit, blood, semen, bits, and a variety of combinations thereof!”

What a dullard! You did one cool thing; get over yourself! He’s too caught up in monologuing to help you out, apparently.

“I am positive that I am God.”

Wow. Maybe he really is God?

That’ll show him.

You clench, step forward, swing for God’s chin, pivot on your front foot, and follow through. The perfect sucker punch. God drops like the ground is his sweet wife returned from war.

“Ah!” cries a new voice behind you. “Finally! My greatest creation is here! Come and meet me, your one and only God!”

Christ, what a universe.

You look around to see what the rest of this universe has to offer as God blathers on about his bits.

“Ah!” cries a new voice behind you. “Finally! My greatest creation is here! Come and meet me, your God!”

Christ, what a universe.

“Hello, yes! I am obviously God the Almighty, creator of all things, splendid in my glory.”

God seems extremely pleased with himself for being God. You’re starting to think that this universe might be a bust.

“Ah! What single-minded fervor! You get that from me, of course, who created you.

“But don’t worry about that now! We have so much to talk about! You can tell me how much you enjoy existing, and I can tell you about how I am God. I’ve waited so long for this moment. An eternity!

“I passed the time by practicing kissing, on my shoulder.”

“If I weren’t the real God, how would I remember creating you by eating two whole bottles of Tums and sticking my finger down my throat until I threw you up into a cone of newspaper?”

He leans back at his desk, supremely satisfied.

“Well, I’ll go ask!”

God gets up from his desk and saunters over to God, who greets him warmly.

“Hello!” cries God. “What a pleasure to meet you. I am God, lord of hosts and king of kings! With my mighty hand I created you!”

“Ah! Tremendous!” cries God. “The pleasure is all mine. By way of introduction, I am the one and only God, dweller in eternity, voice from on high, lover of truth, and friend to the children! How powerful for you to behold your creator!”

“Ah!” cries God, shaking God’s hand vigorously.

“Ah!” cries God.

You leave God in his idiot stasis and head deeper into the seemingly endless woods. Minutes later, it’s these guys.

“Hello!” cries one. “At last! You, my finest child, standing before me, who is none other than God! I am deeply intelligent and strong!”

“Me, God!” cries another. “I am the God! Remember when I ripped a scab off my back and planted it, and a gourd grew, and I stomped the gourd, and you came out of it? I do!”

You leave God and whoever the other one is in their idiot stasis and head deeper into the seemingly endless woods. Minutes later, it’s these guys.

“Hello!” cries one. “At last! You, my finest child, standing before me, who is none other than God! I am deeply intelligent and strong!”

“Me, God!” cries another. “I am the God! Remember when I ripped a scab off my back and planted it, and a gourd grew, and I stomped the gourd, and you fell out of it? I do!”

You turn on your heel to leave them and walk right into this bunch.

“Ahoy!” cries God.

“Hello there!” cries God.

“Hey, hello!” cries God.

“I created you and hello!” cries God.

“Hi! I bike in the woods!” cries God.

This universe is a lost cause.

“Wait!” screams the God from before, gasping as he pedals through the woods toward you. “Wait! Before you go, I need to tell you! I’m God! Monarch of the skies! When people talk about God, they’re referring to me!”

Your device is ready, and each button will take you to a brand-new parallel universe, hopefully one with a permissive library. Bye, God.

You press the button, and a wormhole pops up promptly and cheerfully. Pop! That’s how it sounds.

This universe is...still. Incredibly still. An eerie un-beingness surrounds you, engulfing you. You start to panic, flailing for anything to focus on, until you swing around, and there he is.

“Well, howdy!” he says in a reedy voice. “We don’t often get visitors through here. I’m Henk, and this nugget is eCommerce. Say hello, eCommerce!”

“Hello,” breathes the dog whose name is eCommerce.

“I’m Henk,” says Henk.

“Your voice...delicate as a Stradivarius,” breathes eCommerce.

“You know, I’d never given it too much thought,” says Henk, looking around. “We’re here, I suppose. And we’re delighted to have you here. Aren’t we, eCommerce?”

“I would paint you,” breathes eCommerce. “I would sculpt you.”

“Care for the grand tour?” asks Henk.

“A-plus! Let me just get my coat.”

“Great.”

“I have a human’s penis,” breathes eCommerce.

Henk takes your hand and leads you over to elsewhere.

“This is my wife, Astrid. She keeps the place spotless, she’s a virtuoso with the cast iron, and those haunches? My God!”

“Easy there, Casanova!” laughs Astrid. “It’s a pleasure to meet you, honey. I can’t remember the last time we had a guest!”

“I’m Astrid,” says Astrid.

“That’s Astrid,” says Henk.

“I’m Astrid,” says Astrid.

“That’s Astrid,” says Henk.

“......”

“......”

Henk takes your hand again and leads you on.

“And this is my rebellious teenage son, Constantijn,” says Henk. “He is extremely sick from his diet of tinned fish and stewed birch bark.”

“My kidneys are a disaster,” says Constantijn. “A boy my age should feel invincible, but every time I close my eyes I see grave dirt raining down on me, and every time I open them the darkness lingers a little longer.

“I don’t want to be forgotten,” he whispers.

“I don’t want to be forgotten,” he whispers again. “I don’t want to be forgotten.”

“You are but dust with delusions,” breathes eCommerce. “Clay that thinks itself a man.”

“Wanna see the library?” says Henk.

Henk leads you away from his doomed son.

“The minute he’s out of the picture, I will impregnate my wife with another son,” says Henk. “These days, you gotta have a son. Gotta have one.”

After a nauseating walk through non-space, you arrive at the library.

“Here is our library,” says Henk. “And this is my dutiful daughter, Catharijne. She’s our little bookworm.”

“Sure is!” cries Henk, leading you away from his doomed son.

“The minute he’s out of the picture, I’ll impregnate my wife with another son,” says Henk. “These days, you gotta have a son. Gotta have one.”

After a nauseating walk through non-space, you arrive at the library.

“Here is our library,” says Henk. “And this is my dutiful daughter, Catharijne. She’s our little bookworm.”

“Hi there!” says Catharijne. “I was just reading one of my father’s many self-published novels. This one is about a featureless cube that slowly rotates anti-clockwise.”

“I draw inspiration from the world around me,” says Henk, smiling sheepishly.

“It’s wonderful, Papa,” says Catharijne.

Maybe you should exercise some tact, but you’ve waited too long for this opportunity. And sure, this universe is a little lacking, but if they’re cool with this, maybe you could learn to love it.

You tug your shirt over your head with a whoop. Henk sucks air sharply through his teeth; eCommerce breathes, “Transgression.” Catharijne bursts into cackles.

“You look like a fish carcass!” she cries. “Sad and damp!”

Uh-oh. Time for some damage control.

“Maybe, but I find meaning in my love for my family!” yells Catharijne.

“I think you should go now,” says Henk.

“Well, eCommerce isn’t a dog!” yells Catharijne.

“I am beyond comprehension,” breathes eCommerce.

“I think you should go now,” says Henk.

“Don’t be so precious about printed media!” yells Catharijne. “Fetishizing paper and ink won’t stop the information revolution!”

“I think you should go now,” says Henk.

“Then scrape some off eCommerce’s filthy paw,” says Henk, “and for God’s sake, put your shirt on.”

“At last,” breathes eCommerce, “the sweetest touch of all.”

You take eCommerce’s quivering paw and gingerly scrape the dirt off it into your device.

“Take care now,” says Henk. “And please don’t ever expose yourself to my daughter again.”

“Madness is a gift,” breathes eCommerce. “The inflexible mind is brittle. The universe delights in snapping it.”

Where to?

“So long!” shouts Henk as you wander off into the vast blankness.

You head toward a figure in the distance who doesn’t seem to notice your approach, or acknowledge you in any way, for that matter. Whatever he’s staring at, he’s real caught up in it.

Nothing. You look where he’s looking, but there’s nothing to see.

He tips backwards and lands without a thud. Still nothing, though.

Uh.

Um.

Uh-oh. You’re lost for sure.

Oh no no no no no.

The wormhole deposits you right in the middle of the goddamn ocean. Boy, is there nothing in sight! No land; no vessels; not even a continent of trash or a raft made of bloated corpses.

Worst of all, there’s no dirt. If you’d only watched Waterworld, maybe you’d know the play here, but the later verses of your solemn vow made you swear off box-office bombs.

Sure, why not.

After what feels like hours of pointless repetition, miracle of miracles, a woman pops her face up above the waves.

“By Triton’s favorite conch!” she cries. “A Dirtfucker! We thought you extinct!”

“Come, come! You will be an honored guest in my undersea kingdom!”

The world you step into is a dead one, bleached of color. The grass crumples to dust beneath your tread. The sky is choked with ash or fog, muting the sun. Behind you, a house rots where it stands. Even the air itself is sour, and gritty in your throat.

“What the hell are you doing?! For God’s sake, don’t breathe them in!”

A panicked man in a gas mask runs toward you, but here’s the thing: You’ve been breathing this whole time!

“The nanomites! The tiny little guys that killed this world!

“And if you’re speaking, that means you’ve been breathing, which I told you not to do, because of the nanomites!”

Sure enough, a tingling sensation travels through your spine—the exact tingling sensation you’d expect to feel if virulent microtechnology was reshaping your flesh and blood into cold, unfeeling machinery.

Bit by bit, your emotions, passions, and fond memories are replaced by strong opinions on whether or not P = NP. This is awful, because you love your emotions! Or do you? It’s getting harder to remember.

You step onto a fine mahogany porch and into spring’s full bloom. There’s a man here reclining in an upholstered deck chair, calm as can be, especially given that an interdimensional sojourner just hopped out onto his porch.

“Well, afternoon to you!” he says evenly. “I suppose you’ll be wanting your trophy, then?”

You’ve never had a trophy before. The closest you ever came was when your parents bought one and made you bury it in the backyard to teach you the value of hard work (presumably?).

“Here you go,” he says, handing you the trophy. “It’s for Biggest Champ, and that’s you.”

The trophy is warm in your hands, and you catch a whiff of something savory floating out of it.

It’s shrimp! The wharfside treat! You chow down, swallowing your champion’s snack in a few hearty bites (and a slurp or two).

“Time to be going, then,” he says, with sudden, if gentle, firmness. “It’ll be dark soon, and you’d best not linger when the dark comes.”

Stowing the trophy in your pretty much irrelevant knapsack, you step off the porch and gather up a handful of cool lawn dirt. The man waves, then heads inside, returning to his porch chair with another, identical trophy, waiting for the next traveler to grace his terrace.

Where to?

You press the button, and, like a whisper in the night, a wormhole murmurs open. With a silent prayer for peace in this life and the next, you step through.

“A human entity is stepping through,” someone says as you emerge from the wormhole.

The space you’ve entered is gleaming and spotless, without visible seams or any evidence of human workmanship. A glimmering field of probably energy surrounds you, hemming you in. Obviously, this is some kind of cool future deal.

“An insurgent?”

“Random insertion. No threat. Recommendation: standard integration.”

The androgyne futzing with the gizmo deactivates the energy field and exits the chamber, leaving you with these two, who are now speaking in unison, for fuck’s sake.

“On behalf of Neo Atlanta, may we be the first to say, howdy.”

They say it with about as much warmth as you figure you can expect from these shaven cyber-drips. God, why are you so reflexively judgmental?

“But you have not come here for pleasantries. No one braves the multiverse simply for funsies. Whatever you seek, we can help you.”

“We can.”

“Yes. Follow me, please.”

“The simulation technology of Neo Atlanta is unparalleled,” he(?) says, leading you through bright corridors, also gleaming, into a fun little pod room.

“Any scenario, any sensation, we can conjure it for you. You are not the first traveler to find bliss here.”

“It’s great. Lot of art, lot of culture, lot of cool little out-of-the-way restaurants and galleries. Public transportation is...fine, like, it’s nothing special, but between bus and light rail you can pretty much get wherever until, we don’t know, one in the morning or so? And ride-sharing is cheap, especially if you split it a few ways.

“It’s a little hard to make friends if you don’t know anyone here, but that’s probably true anywhere, especially the older you get. But you can join a rec league or take a class or something. It just takes a while, is all.

“Also, it’s the only remaining city in a world ravaged by actual demons from the Earth’s core.”

They place a faintly humming headset on your head, covering your field of vision with cyber images.

“What would you like to simulate?”

The simulation winks out.

“What would you like to simulate?”

WHOA.

Damn! They nailed it! This guy is cool as hell!

There’s a dead owl here, too, which isn’t ideal, but beggars can’t be choosers.

“Hey, buddy!” he says. “Great to see you again. You look so comfortable in your own skin, and I’ve always thought your proportions were just right!”

“Thanks!” he says. “Hey, by the way? You’re one of a kind and a true individual! And your arms belong in an art museum.”

Are there more dead owls than there were before? They’re starting to stink.

“No problem, amigo! You’re so special to me.”

Okay, the owls are getting out of control, and this isn’t really your ultimate fantasy anyway.

WHOA.

The beach is gorgeous and serene. The evening sun kisses your skin, and you can feel the warm sand between your toes. The waves lap ever so softly. Truly, this is a paradise.

A dead owl washes up on shore.

As you let the surf wash your worries away, it produces another dead owl, and another. Their stench mingles with the salt air to produce a truly noxious waft.

Yeah, this isn’t going to cut it.

WHOA.

You’re in a library. You can feel the stillness of the air, hear coughs and shuffling, even smell the book smell. It’s incredible. It’s perfect.

Well, okay, there’s a dead owl here too, but you can overlook that.

You reach down and ”take off” your “shirt,” but it feels as real as anything you’ve ever done. The tickle of the A/C on your torso is sublime.

“Hey!” says a nearby student. “Great idea! Very cool! I can’t believe I never thought to take my shirt off in here!”

This is your moment. Your ultimate triumph. And, yeah, there’s a lot of dead owls now, and they’re starting to stink.

You wander the simulated library, nude from the waist up, trying to soak it all in. This should be everything you’ve ever wanted, but try as you might, you can’t ignore that this library is choked with dead, bloating owls.

This isn’t how it was supposed to be.

“Yeah, so.

“Obviously, full sensory simulation is incredibly complicated to design, and a million times more complicated to error-check.

“Our technology is pretty much perfect, but somewhere in the billion lines of code, there’s some messed-up line or variable that populates every simulation with just a wild amount of dead owls. Nobody’s been able to find it so far.

“It will almost definitely get patched at some point, probably, but we wouldn’t hold our breath.”

You’re not about to compromise on your lifelong goal.

“Very well, then.”

The twins lead you to an incredible futuristic machine like nothing you’ve ever seen before, and punch something into it. With a hum and a whir, it plops out a pile of brand-new dirt, which you feed to your device.

“That’s what that’s for,” they say.

“You are a welcome guest in Neo Atlanta should you ever return. We’ll take you out for neo tapas.”

Jesus Christ.

This can’t be coincidence. You’ve stepped through the wormhole onto a beautiful suburban street a stone’s throw away from the public library.

Even the air here feels richer, sweeter. Could your journey have finally come to the good ending?

The library’s like any other from your own world, full of nerds and shelves. As far as you can tell, this isn’t one of those jacked-up universes where everyone’s got robot arms, or one ruled by Nazi centaurs, or some kind of “Becky’s World.” It’s quiet. It’s normal. It’s nice.

But ultimately, only one thing here matters.

One tug is all it takes, and your shirt hits the floor with a little thupp. Every head in the library turns to see your nude, time-ravaged torso. And the front desk librarian is having none of it.

“Hold it!” she whisper-yells. “Can’t you read the sign?”

Your heart is pounding out of your chest as you turn to look.

It is. Your stomach drops. Your bowels nearly loose. You’ve come so far, and for nothing.

Dimly, though, you realize the librarian said something else.

“I said,” she whispers, “a librarian’s never above a little quid pro quo.”

That’s it. That’s the key.

This is the universe.

You’ve found a universe where librarians take bribes.

“You’re a dear,” she whispers, and returns to her desk. Everyone goes back to their books.

And there you stand, at long last, free as can be, shirtless in the library. You’ll savor this moment forever.

But there’s still one thing left to do.

You leave that sacred place, brimming with hope and joy. It was not so long ago you were trapped in a filthy lab, ready to kill yourself with a brick, but here you are.

But remember, you were the one who gave yourself the interdimensional device, which means this universe’s dirt must be able to open a portal to that one.

You scoop up some dirt and feed it in. It’s time to return the favor you did yourself, way back when.

Where to?

You poke your head through the wormhole.

This is for sure not the right universe.

You poke your head through the wormhole.

This is not the universe you want.