Touchstone 1 - Stray

hope to claw their way through.
    While we were waiting for clearance, Maze set up a group channel or ‘space’ in the interface for the squad, started a mission log which would record everything we did, and then talked me through what was going to happen.
    “We have three objectives today. To test your enhancement on the talents which are only effective in the Ena. To see if there’s any variation with the talents we’ve already tested due to the different environment. And to orient you in the Ena, since you stepped directly from your world to Muina, and you were sedated when you were transported from Muina to Tare. The Ena is a very disorienting place, visually overwhelming in places, and at the same time it intensifies the senses. Tell us immediately if you start experiencing any kind of sickness or distress.
    “Annan and Gainer will accompany you at all times while we are in the Ena. Don’t move anywhere without them. If we encounter any situation which requires moving quickly, they will move you. Do not run. Above all, do not enter any of the gates without clearance. Do you understand all that?”
    “Yes,” I said, in such a small voice I sounded about five.
    Maze crinkled the corner of his eyes encouragingly at me before going on. “We are unlikely to encounter Ionoth in this section, but it always remains a possibility. Depending on the type, we may choose to deal with it. You’ll be kept well out of the way if that’s the case. Anything serious, and we’ll return you to actual space before approaching it.”
    By this time the big door had opened, and we moved into the spacious metal box. I couldn’t see any sign of visible tears in the world, but then I hadn’t when I walked from Earth to Muina either. The interface obligingly drew a triangle of light in the air in front of us, showing where we should walk. Maze and Mara went first and then me with Zee and Alay on either side of me. I was finding all the surnames confusing, so it’s good that I’d been given back name display and could see Zee Annan and Alay Gainer floating over their heads.
    I didn’t feel any sense of resistance walking through the triangle, but I certainly felt the cold. That was something they hadn’t mentioned, that the Ena is perhaps 10 or 15 degrees Celsius. And the weird thing was, we were still in the metal containment box, and the door was closed, but most of the walls were missing – or, not missing. If you’ve ever seen a drawing someone’s made, where they start with the line art and then colour it in, we were in a version of the box where the line art was there, but only half of it was coloured in. Kind of.
    Anyway, it meant we could walk out of the box through one of the ‘uncoloured’ sections of wall. I felt like I was walking into a half-complete animation for Setari: the CGI Movie . We were where we’d been before, but with all the people and lots of the ‘textures’ missing. This was the part of the Ena they call near-space, and it was truly weird.
    It did make me feel more alive. I don’t know if it was the cold, or a sense that the gravity was lighter there, or just…mystic spooky stuff, but I felt hyper-alert and awake. Maybe the air there has adrenaline in it. Everyone was waiting to see how I reacted, so I smiled and shrugged and Maze nodded and started off.
    It took me a while to recognise the gates for what they were, scattered through the construction zone of a world. Some glinted and some were dark. It was only when we rounded the corner into a patch where there was nothing above us but a dark sketch of a sky and…thousands of them. It was like someone had taken an ocean’s worth of mirror and shattered it and flung the pieces to spin in every direction, but every piece reflected not what was before it but some other place. Other space.
    We didn’t walk far, stopping at a jagged rift about the size of a car: all brilliant green intensity. Through it was grass, and rolling hills, and a pale blue sky paling to white. Huge tumbled stones, like blocks for an ancient grey castle. Most of this was intact, coloured in, but the edges of the space were fading out into mist.
    “Try not to touch any edges stepping through. Gates can be fragile, and tearing them attracts Iono–”
    Maze stepped through as he spoke, lifting his feet carefully, and I noticed that passing through not only cut off the sound, but that ‘no connection’ had appeared in the group channel display where Maze should