It didn’t sink in right away what Art had just said. And when it finally did, my breath caught in my chest.
At that moment, I remembered my first bungee jump.
We had been walking through a park with friends and happened to pass a bungee-jumping tower. Out of sheer curiosity, I wandered closer, studying the structure and imagining what it must feel like to stand at that height and jump off. I imagined it calmly, abstractly, as if it were happening to someone else—someone who had nothing to do with me personally. Thinking about it that way was amusing, even pleasant, and caused no discomfort at all.
Then I noticed a man sitting on a chair nearby, his back turned to me. He was probably an instructor or the attraction’s administrator. The moment I looked at him, he suddenly turned around. He gave me a quick, assessing glance and asked, briefly and matter-of-factly:
“Gonna jump?”
Of course I wasn’t planning to jump. But whether out of surprise or politeness, instead of answering with a firm no, I just shrugged vaguely.
The administrator immediately stood up and, addressing someone somewhere nearby, said in the same businesslike tone:
“Guys, we’ve got a customer. Let’s work.”
He wasn’t looking at me anymore. He simply turned and headed toward the tower. And suddenly I understood that it was already too late to say anything—that everything had been decided. I was going to jump.
In that very instant, the full horror of that necessity crashed down on me. I looked at the tower again, judged its height—but now I was thinking and feeling completely differently. This was no longer about some other person. This was about me.
The same thing was happening now with the Gate.
When Art had first told me that I could pass through the Gate and enter another world, I’d imagined it as an abstract possibility—something that might happen not to me, but to someone else. Or to me, perhaps, but someday later. At some undefined point in the future. Something I didn’t need to think about yet.
And now, suddenly, I realized that it was happening for real. Not to someone else—to me. Right now. And just like before that bungee jump, the realization unleashed a wave of primal fear that swept over me.
“Wait… but… what about my things?” I blurted out. “What will my landlady think?”
I trailed off mid-sentence, realizing that this was just a defensive reflex—my subconscious frantically trying to find a way to avoid, or at least delay, the inevitable.
“Don’t worry, Mac,” Kirsten said calmly, professionally. “I’ll take care of everything. That’s my job. If you want, your landlady won’t even remember that anyone’s been renting her place lately.”
“No, no, don’t do that!” I said quickly. “She’s a wonderful woman!”
Kirsten and Art burst out laughing.
“She’s joking—relax,” Art said reassuringly, quickly returning to a serious tone.
“I’ll figure something out,” Kirsten added, just as seriously. “I can be your caring sister for a while. Or your jealous wife. Or whoever else is needed. Though honestly, if you can just text your landlady, that’ll be much simpler.”
“Yes, of course—I’ll write to her,” I said immediately, pulling out my phone.
“Perfect,” Kirsten summed up. “Your personal belongings, documents, money—everything you left behind—I’ll be able to pass on to you later.”
“I’ve got my documents with me, and my bank cards too,” I said, thinking as I typed. “Yeah… I guess there’s nothing really important left there. You can throw my things away or give them to someone.”
And suddenly I realized it was true.
I’d been traveling light, living lightly. I hadn’t accumulated anything of real value yet—and everything I might need could be bought again.
“You’re an ideal client,” Kirsten said, slipping back into her ironic tone.
I sent the message to my landlady, then turned off the phone, and pocketed it. I leaned back against the seat—and unexpectedly felt a sense of relief.
I wasn’t leaving anything behind. Which meant I had nothing to worry about in the past. I wasn’t losing anything by turning the page—by, in essence, starting my life over.
“Let’s go over the details of the crossing itself,” Art said, his voice serious and focused. “When we reach the Gate, we’ll need to wait for the transition to our Variant.”
“Oh—and wait,” he interrupted himself. “I don’t think I ever explained how this works.
“Variants on the far side of the Gates rotate. The switch happens every five to ten minutes. The sequence isn’t fixed, but each Variant appears at least once within roughly an hour.”
“Really?” I said, surprised. “I always thought each Gate led to one specific Variant. Probably because the number of Gates and Variants is the same.”
“If that were the case,” Art replied calmly, “there would be one fewer Gate than Variants. Think about it. One of the Variants is the one you’re already in.”
“Oh… right. Of course,” I said, feeling slightly embarrassed by my own oversight.
“So,” Art continued, “while we’re waiting for the right Variant to appear, we’ll be at our most vulnerable. We’ll be forced to stay in one place—one where our presence is obvious to whoever’s been following us. Kirsten will be monitoring the perimeter, and she’ll warn us if anything shows up, but still—it’s better to be prepared.”
He paused, as if giving me time to absorb this, then went on:
“If an emergency situation arises, remember three rules. First: stay calm. Don’t panic. Second: watch me and do exactly what I do. And third: if anything happens to me, go straight through the Gate. It doesn’t matter which Variant is on the other side. Just cross. That way, there’s a chance whoever’s chasing you won’t be able to follow—or won’t make it through before the Variant switches.”
I took a deep breath. It came out sounding more like a suppressed sob.
“Hey,” Art said more gently, “Don’t worry. Everything should be fine.”
Silence settled over us.
I leaned back against the seat and tried not to think about anything at all. That wasn’t easy. But eventually, I think I did manage to shut down—and may even have drifted off for a short while.
I was pulled back into reality when the car, barely slowing down, left the road and continued across rough terrain. We were jolted violently, thrown from side to side. Despite the shaking and the still near-total lack of visibility, I made out a ghostly shimmer ahead through the windshield.
The Gate.
Fortunately, the wild jolting didn’t last long. The car began to slow, almost stopping several times—apparently navigating particularly difficult patches—and finally came to a complete halt.
“That’s it. No way we’re getting any farther,” Kirsten commented briskly.
At that very moment, night inside my mask turned into day.
Everything around us snapped into sharp focus—too sharp, in fact. The outlines of objects were unnaturally crisp, overly contrasted. In the upper-right corner of my view, an icon shaped like a crescent moon appeared. I realized night vision had switched on.
“Mac, grab the pack,” Kirsten said as she opened the door and stepped outside. Art followed her. I slung her backpack over my shoulder and climbed out as well.
It took me a few seconds to adjust—not to what I was seeing, but to how I was seeing it.
The colors of the grass, trees, rocks, the moon and stars were perfectly familiar. Normal. Exactly as I knew them. Except for the sky—it wasn’t blue, but gray. That, combined with the unnatural clarity and contrast, created a strong sense of unreality, like a lucid dream.
We were standing on the top of a small, rocky hill. Ahead of us, the slope dropped sharply downward, and beyond it—two kilometers away at most—loomed the colossal structure of the Gate.
It looked exactly as I’d seen it before. Or rather, as I’d seen it for the first time just a few days ago. The gray haze was gone now, reduced to a faint shimmer, a subtle ripple. On the other side, I could make out only very vague, blurred shapes—an uneven horizon line, and sky above it. The sky inside the Gate was gray as well.
My companions walked a little farther ahead. I came up to them and held out the backpack to Kirsten. She smiled and shook her head.
“No, Mac. It’s yours now. A gift. Don’t worry, it’s almost new, everything works perfectly. Later, if you want, you can exchange it for a newer model. But I’d be glad if you kept mine.”
I felt embarrassed.
“Thank you, Kirsten.”
She stepped closer and helped me slip my arms into the straps. The backpack seemed to be waiting for this—the straps immediately slid forward and closed across my chest, snugly but gently locking me in place.
Still holding my shoulders, Kirsten leaned in and gave me a quick peck on the cheek.
“Take care, Mac. I hope we’ll see each other again soon.”
I felt even more awkward.
“Take care, Kirsten,” I managed.
She stepped back and turned to Art.
“Bye, Art. Say hi to Mona.”
“Thanks, I will. Take care, Kirsten,” Art replied, scanning the surroundings, already half lost in thought.
Kirsten turned and headed for the car. She slipped into the driver’s seat with practiced ease, slammed the door, spun the vehicle around, and moments later it vanished among the trees.
I looked at Art. He seemed to have been waiting for this moment. Once he had my attention, he half-turned toward the Gate. Against its shimmering backdrop, a label instantly appeared in the left corner: V7.
“That,” Art commented, “is the Variant currently behind the Gate. We need Variant One. As soon as it appears, we assume we have five minutes—that’s the minimum interval before the next switch. We must pass through the Gate within those five minutes. And we must walk through—drifters don’t work inside the Gate. Also, we’ll need to shut down all electronic devices, including the mask and the clip.”
I realized that we wouldn’t be approaching the Gate on foot. My suspicion was immediately confirmed. I heard a soft hiss of compressed air behind me and felt the backpack’s straps lift me gently off the ground. Art was hovering as well.
“Your drifter will be on autopilot, following mine,” he said. “You don’t need to do anything. Try not to make any sudden movements while drifting. If you notice anything unusual, tell me—don’t act on your own. That should be everything. Any questions?”
He said all this while hovering in midair, facing me, with his back to the Gate. As he spoke the last words, I suddenly noticed the rippling surface of the Gate intensify. The image within it shuddered, shifted—and changed. The label in the corner flicked to V1.
“Uh—” I said, pointing at it.
Art turned around. A timer flared up next to the label: 4:59, 4:58, 4:57…
Art gave me a short, focused look.
“That’s it. Let’s go.”
He carved a sharp arc in the air, turning, and shot toward the Gate. I followed instantly. Our speed climbed rapidly. Like skiers, we skimmed over the slope of the hill, plunged into the forest, and raced between the trees, weaving effortlessly. The Gate disappeared from view, but the timer remained fixed before my eyes. As the seconds ticked away, my tension grew.
A minute passed. Then another.
When we burst out of the forest and the Gate reappeared directly ahead of us, the timer read: 1:01, 1:00, 0:59…
We rushed up to the Gate, stopped abruptly, and dropped to the ground. Art must have deactivated our masks and clips, because night instantly returned. But now the darkness was pierced by the ghostly glow of the Gate itself.
My heart was hammering wildly.
My first bungee jump came to my mind again.
I remembered the platform lifting me higher and higher, the ground drifting farther and farther away. I remembered the rising terror at the thought that I was about to fall into that emptiness, where the earth lay impossibly far below. Behind me stood two instructors, checking my harness. Then one of them opened the small gate in the railing. Beyond it there was nothing—only air, only void. And I had to step forward. Right now. Step straight into nothing.
The sheer impossibility of the act drowned me in terror.
“One! Two! Three!!!” the instructors shouted into my ears.
And I stepped forward.
In that instant, everything changed. Fear vanished completely. That must be how the survival instinct works—it holds you back from danger only while escape is still possible. And then it simply shuts off. Fear disappeared in a single heartbeat, replaced by an overwhelming, intoxicating exhilaration of free fall.
Standing now before the immense, shimmering wall of the Gate, I remembered all of this. And just like then, my terror dissolved in an instant.
I turned my head and looked at Art. He met my gaze calmly, confidently, smiled—and nodded.
I looked forward again, at the wavering, sparkling surface directly in front of me.
And then I stepped into the Gate.