I regret to inform you that your Earth is a very mediocre planet.
It’s not a bad planet, it’s just…. not very good either. The Lanikean environmental survey gave it a C+. The Bablaxian Review said it was “certainly one way to stick atoms together”. The Etarian catalog of worlds deems it “A bit two-dimensional for a world that resides in four” We all know what the Hitchhiker’s Guide has to say on the subject and acclaimed planetary critic Glaxpon Pip famously said it was “a planet.”
Don’t feel disheartened. It has been observed that the most remarkable people often come from the least remarkable places. Therefore, Earth must spawn some wholly remarkable humans. It is the tale of two such humans which we are here to tell.
Angelo’s Italian was the Earth of restaurants. A three-star dining establishment located somewhere in London whose greatest claim to fame was an enthusiastic endorsement of their garlic bread in the comments section of a cat video. The comment has since been deleted.
In the alley behind this eatery there was a door labeled “Building Maintenance. Do Not Enter” and below that “Beware of Dog”. The door was immaterial. That is to say it is currently unimportant. The important part was the two humans standing in front of it.
Colin, a tall man barely into his third decade of existence, tinkered with a small metal box smelling faintly of mint. He wore an Aviators’ jacket, unreasonably large glasses, and an even more unreasonably colorful shirt.
He nodded in thought and handed the tin to the other human. “Care to check my work?”
“Always.” Alex, a woman of similar age took the box and smiled. She probably also winked, but it was impossible to tell with so much hair in the way. She patted the pockets of her red jacket before reaching into her jeans’ left pocket and producing a screwdriver-like device.
She popped open the tin, and quickly set it on the ground. The mechanism encased in the tin sprung up and unfolded into a two-meter-tall tree of kit-bashed parts. She rotated a branch made up of braided ethernet cables, gyroscopes, and octonion processors then tapped a repurposed key fob.
The not-a-screwdriver’s handle printed a piece of ticker tape which Alex then held up to the light. “Hmm. Circuitry is immaculate as always, but the polarity reversal unit is alarmingly close to the QPM conductors”
If all these words sound like a jumble of science-adjacent nonsense, then I have successfully conveyed the nature of this device, and much of the adventure to come. If these words do not sound like nonsense, speak with a physician.
“What?” Colin leaned over to look at the ticker tape, then down at the device’s said components. Alex side stepped to let Colin get a closer view, and to inspect another component. “Let me see that…Hmm, yes. I suppose it has something to do with the compres—”
“Oh, excuses excuses” Alex chided as she adjusted an antenna labeled with several alien symbols.
“Well, let me just—” Colin didn’t finish the sentence aloud, the totality of his attention focused on rejiggering the parts. He stood and stepped counterclockwise to triple check Alex’s double check.
Alex tilted her head back to quadruple check Colin’s triple check. The impatience was building, it was the first time they would leave Earth in almost half a decade. Stuck in one universe for five years. In a row. Can you even imagine?
“There. How does that look?” Colin asked. “Brilliant enough.” “Enough?” He raised an eyebrow in faux incredulity. “Well then I suppose it’s time.” “Yeah.” Alex nodded “I suppose it is.” Alex put her hand on the door handle.
Then, suddenly, the door was immaterial in a very different sense. That is to say it was not of this physical plane. It was the abstract idea of a door: a threshold between two locations. Any two locations. The humans rushed through, not caring where it led them so long as it wasn’t here. Only once it had shut behind them did the door go from immaterial to immaterial.