The sensation of passing through a Gate most closely resembles the feeling of falling asleep—and then waking up.
In the very second you step into the Gate, a wave of blissful, almost dizzying relaxation rolls over you. It feels as if you’re slipping into sleep—light, warm, gentle. Your body loosens completely, to the point of a faint tingling lightness, as though you’re drifting in clouds. Your mind relaxes just as effortlessly; thoughts simply dissolve. Your sense of self sinks from deliberate awareness into a realm of carefree, wordless feeling. There is perfect calm. Harmony. A quiet, radiant peace. The sensation deepens rapidly, pulling you farther and farther inward.
But that rising euphoria lasts only a few fleeting moments.
Then some unseen force suddenly seizes you and drags you back—back into consciousness, into reality. It comes with a growing heaviness: fatigue, dull melancholy, a strange apathy. Like waking after days of sleep deprivation on a gray November Monday morning.
That was how the reality of another world received me.
Subjectively, the transition feels as if it lasts several long seconds. In truth, it happens in an instant—within a single step. I had barely lifted my foot and moved forward when I was already setting it down again, the vast shimmering wall of the Gate sliding through me and settling behind my back.
I swayed and took a couple of quick steps to keep from collapsing onto the ground.
I was standing on grass. It was night. The same—or almost the same—mountains and pines bathed in moonlight. The same sky. The same stars.
I felt terrible. A vast, all-encompassing exhaustion clung to me—physical and psychological. I wanted to surrender again, to let go and return to that infinite, blissful surrender at any cost. But it was impossible. I had to endure it, fight it, force myself back into this harsh and unpleasant reality.
I turned my head and saw Art. He stood nearby, watching me carefully, looking perfectly composed.
“The first few minutes are the worst,” he said. “Then it stabilizes—to almost normal. You’ll still feel residual effects for a few hours. Your Essence level drops sharply during the transition. Recovery follows a kind of hyperbolic curve—very fast at first, then gradually leveling out. Better sit or lie down. And try not to think.”
I followed his advice and lowered myself onto the grass. My pack immediately began to shift and reshape, forming a comfortable cushion with a headrest. I stretched out my legs, settled back, and stared up at the night sky.
That was when I noticed—or rather realized—the first unmistakable sign that we were in another world. There were noticeably more stars. And many of them weren’t fixed in place—they drifted slowly across the sky, moving in different directions.
A second later I understood: they weren’t stars. They were floaters—flying vehicles, the kind Art had told me about.
“Feeling any better?” he asked.
I turned my head. Art was sitting on the grass as well, reclining against his own pack-backrest.
“Yeah… I think so,” I replied weakly, enunciating carefully.
“Big Tom will be here any minute,” Art said. “Think you’ll manage to get aboard?”
“Big Tom?” I repeated.
“Mm-hm. My Agency-issued glider. I named it after Thomas—our Head of Personnel Affairs. He grumbles every time he hears it, pretends to object, but…” Art smirked. “It’s mostly for show.”
Curiosity was beginning to outweigh my weakness—which, to be fair, was already fading.
“And what did Thomas do to deserve that honor?” I asked.
Art shrugged.
“He picked exactly the right glider for me. And generally… You’ll understand once you meet him.”
“What’s so special about the glider? And why was it hard to find one like that?”
“Well… not exactly hard,” Art said thoughtfully. “But still. The thing is, it’s entirely my taste. As if it had been designed specifically for me.”
I waited for him to elaborate.
“You see, I like things compact. Or rather… optimized.” He paused, searching for the word. “I value quality over quantity—or, in this case, size. Agency policy assigns us full-scale intercontinental lounges. They’re comfortable, sure. But to me they feel unnecessarily bulky.”
He interrupted himself.
“I haven’t told you yet. Cabs and lounges are the two main types of passenger gliders. A cab is basically a flying car—sit down and go. They’re meant for short, lower-altitude trips. A lounge is more like an apartment in the sky: you can move around, there are pilot seats, a rest area—everything you need for long-distance flights at higher altitudes, when frequent descents aren’t practical.”
He paused briefly.
“When a Storm breaks, it’s critical for us striders to reach the required Gate as fast as possible. And since the right Gate is often on another continent, the flight can take many hours. During that time you need to rest before the picking—especially if you’ve been called out in the evening or at night. That’s why everyone flies lounges. But…” He raised his eyebrows meaningfully. “Lounges are bulky by definition. Heavy. Which means—everything else being equal—slower. And the maneuverability… tolerable at best. Big Tom, on the other hand…”
At that moment I heard a low, rising hum. One of the “stars” detached itself from the sky and began descending rapidly toward us.
“…is a compact semi-lounge fitted with top-tier engines and an exceptional range,” Art continued. “On full tanks, he can circle the Earth without refueling.”
The approaching star took on the clear outline of an aircraft, seemingly illuminated from within—or perhaps from every surface at once. I made out short, powerful wings arranged in a horizontal X, each ending in thickened pylons. In the center glowed a brightly lit cockpit. The engine hum shifted into a softer, whistling hiss as the craft decelerated.
“The cockpit and lounge are integrated,” Art went on, “which maximizes not only range, but maneuverability.”
Now close enough to study properly, the glider revealed more detail. The X-shaped wings doubled as pylons; at their tips were mounted four horizontal cylinders, each housing a pair of engines. Four smaller maneuvering thrusters were embedded along the plane of each wing-pylon. The central cabin—about the size of a small bus—projected forward in a teardrop-shaped transparent canopy, through which two massive pilot seats were clearly visible. The upper engine blocks were capped with bulky, ribbed structures; beneath the lower ones I could see twin rows of partially recessed landing gear. The entire structure emitted a soft white glow, though I could see no distinct light sources. Apparently, the material itself possessed a luminous quality.
Art continued, almost casually:
“Honestly, that kind of range and agility aren’t often required on duty. But an Agency glider can be used privately as well—it’s part of the compensation package. So with Big Tom I can, in theory, fly to any point on the planet every weekend and explore every corner of it.”
As if to confirm his claim, Big Tom swept in close, executed a smooth horizontal roll around his axis in the final meters, and then settled confidently onto the ground before us. The engines powered down. Silence fell.
Only a few tall blades of grass swayed for a moment longer.
I noted, with quiet satisfaction, that I already had enough strength to widen my eyes and drop my jaw. That meant I could probably manage standing up as well. I rose slowly, swayed slightly, but kept my balance.
The forward section of the glider’s floor detached and unfolded into a stepped ramp. Its edge lowered gently to the ground, and the white glow of the steps shifted to a soft green—as if Big Tom were politely saying: welcome aboard.
I glanced at Art. He smiled and gestured invitingly—there was a hint of theatrical flourish in it.
I climbed the steps slowly, feeling like a character in an alien-invasion film boarding a flying saucer.
The top of the ramp opened into the rear section of the cabin. Inside, my gaze landed on three outlined door frames set into the back wall, each marked with softly glowing green icons. The two side doors bore suitcase symbols; the central one displayed a water droplet. As I approached, all three doors slid open silently.
“You can use the sanitizer if you need to,” Art said. “Throw your backpack into any locker. You can take off the mask and the clip now. Big Tom’s security systems fully comply with Quintessence transport protection protocols.”
“I’d almost forgotten those existed,” I said with a faint grin, removing my backpack, mask, and clip and placing them in the right-hand compartment.
Then a thought occurred to me—one that suddenly seemed important.
“Wait… how is it that our backpacks, clothes, shoes—all of it—passes through the Gate with us?”
A second thought followed immediately:
“And that means… theoretically… we could fly Big Tom straight through as well. Right?”
Art gave me an approving look.
“That’s an important subject,” he said evenly. “We’ll discuss it over dinner.”
Then I saw a narrow panel slide out of the rear cabin wall, between the doors and directly in front of Art. On its upper surface were two rectangular recessed slots. Art took two identical boxes from the backpack standing beside him and, with visible satisfaction, carefully set them into the slots. The panel glowed green, then silently retracted back into the wall.
I nodded to myself and moved toward the front of the cabin. Two luxurious light-beige seats stood there—and nothing else.
I glanced back at Art and, after receiving his confirming nod, lowered myself into the left seat, opposite “my” storage compartment. Art settled into the right one without haste, almost casually.
“Well,” he said, “there’s nothing left keeping us here. In fact, our direct duty at this moment is to deliver the boxes to the vault immediately—with full urgency and in strict compliance with security protocols.”
He leaned back in his seat.
“There’s a vault at every Agency branch—meaning near every Gate—except this one. The nearest one, fortunately for us, is by the Central Office. About two hours from here.” He smirked. “Two hours on Big Tom, that is. His cruising speed is over two thousand kilometers per hour. Though, of course, some time will be spent climbing and descending through the regulated levels. So the average speed will be lower.”
“Levels?” I repeated.
“You’ll learn tomorrow. You’ll have your first download. It includes all the basic information, everyday skills—and a false memory. It’ll let you feel here, in Variant 1, as if you belong.”
I had neither the strength nor the desire to ask more. If he said tomorrow, then tomorrow it would be. I simply nodded.
“Excellent,” Art concluded. “Then we depart.”
The edges of the seat extended smoothly along both sides of my body and behind my shoulders, folding inward like petals closing around a bud. They met at the front, forming something like a soft vest—though it did not press against me, leaving a couple of centimeters of air between the structure and my clothes. I leaned forward slightly to test it, and the front section parted just as smoothly, still without touching me. I thought that if I were wearing a perfectly tailored suit, this “seatbelt equivalent” wouldn’t wrinkle it in the slightest.
A soft hiss sounded behind us. I turned—and for a moment couldn’t tell what had changed.
The hatch we had entered through was gone. Not merely closed—gone. The floor showed no trace of its outline.
A pleasant two-note chime sounded in the quiet cabin, and before us appeared a three-dimensional projection of a segment of the globe, with an arcing route traced above it. At the beginning of the arc glowed a tiny icon representing our glider.
Beneath the map appeared the text:
Destination: ARC Central Office, Quintessence Vault
Estimated time remaining: 1 hour 54 minutes
And below that:
Initiating departure
Outside, there came the faint whisper of engines coming alive. Almost at the same moment, Big Tom lifted smoothly from the ground, inclined slightly forward—as if offering a courteous bow to the towering arch of the Gate ahead—then moved forward, upward, and to the right. He completed nearly a full turn, leveled out, and began accelerating rapidly, gaining both speed and altitude.
I felt myself pressed firmly into the seat.