“Hmmmmm, hmmmmm, hmmmmm.”

I keep walking through the rocky wilderness, humming a certain tune to myself as I replay it in my head. Since there’s practically nobody else around and the good part is coming up, I decide to fuck it and sing along.

“Would you look at all that stuff…”

“Pardon? What stuff?” Two-Five asks from behind.

I turn on my heel and kindly tell him while continuing to walk backwards.

“They've got allen wrenches, gerbil feeders, toilet seats, electric heaters, trash compactors, juice extractors, shower rods and water meters, walkie-talkies, copper wires, safety goggles, radial tires, BB pellets, rubber mallets, fans and dehumidifiers, picture hangers, paper cutters, waffle irons, window shutters, paint removers, window louvers, masking tape and plastic gutters, kitchen faucets, folding tables, weather stripping, jumper cables, hooks and tackle, grout and spackle, power foggers, spoons and ladles, pesticides for fumigation, high-performance lubrication, metal roofing, waterproofing, multi-purpose insulation, air compressors, brass connectors, wrecking chisels, smoke detectors, tire gauges, hamster cages, thermostats and bug deflectors, trailer hitch demagnetizers, automatic circumcisers, tennis rackets, angle brackets, Duracells and Energizers, soffit panels, circuit breakers, vacuum cleaners, coffee makers, calculators, generators, matching salt and pepper shakers!”

“Uh…”

I face the front and keep going.

“I can't waaait, no, I can't waaait! When they gonna open up that doooor?”

“What door?!”

“I'm goin’ yes I’m goin’, I'm a-goin’ to the, goin’ to the, we’re goin’ to the, I’m goin’ to the, a-go-ing to the hardwaaare stooore!”

“… Navigator’s log,” he mumbled into his jeweled bracelet. “The stress of our circumstances seems to have rendered navigator Seventeen mentally unstable.”

“I am quite sane, thank you very much,” I playfully say over my shoulder. “It’s just hard to sing that last part with just the one mouth.”

“So you were singing?”

“Yup. Just trying to lighten the mood a little.”

“I don’t know whether to be impressed or worried,” the orizian notes. “That ‘song’ nearly broke my translator matrix.”

“To be fair, even I don’t know what most of those words are, but I’ll be damned if I ever forget them.”

“Might I ask why you remember them with such clarity?”

“When I was first starting out as a navigator, my incompetence got me stranded on Juniper-7. Landed in one of its oceans, nothing but saltwater as far as the eye can see.”

“By the Omnissiah!” he exclaimed. “It’s a miracle you made it back at all!”

His reaction is understandable. When a breach opens up around body of water, it’s almost always near its bottom rather than on the surface. It then gets flooded by a few hundred litres of water and collapses within half a second.

“Yeah, tell me about it,” I grumbled. “It spent nearly two months floating around on a Lifesavers’ All-Purpose Emergency Raft™ before I managed to get to dry land. Another week until I found a breach.”

“Incredible! How did you survive that long without food or water?!”

“Oh, I had plenty of food,” I say as I take out a fist-sized metal canister from one of my pockets. “Capsule Corp © Nutrimax Supplements™. Enough to keep me going for years. Only problem is they need fresh water to work, so I had to purify the salt water by boiling it into steam, catching the vapors in a plastic jar, then letting them condense.”

I was also lucky that ocean was full of regular old H-2-O and not one of those water-but-not-really liquids you sometimes come across through the breaches. That ordeal was also a huge wake up call. It showed me that all that training I was put through serves a purpose, even something as inane-sounding as ‘Low-Tech Survival 101.’

“I see. No wonder you appear so carefree despite our dire situation.”

“Oh no, that’s not it. I just don’t see how being all doom and gloom is going to make it any better.”

“Kek,” Two-Five chuckled. “I suppose that’s true.”

This weird rock our little ‘accident’ stranded us on doesn’t seem to have too many breaches. When we arrived, the closest one was eight days away by foot. We started heading towards it, but it closed after a few hours. Another one popped up relatively nearby, but we missed that one, too. Been chasing breaches since, but the one we’re headed towards now seems to be a keeper. My PDA has had a firm lock on its location for the past forty hours and reads no sign of destabilization, so there’s a good chance it’ll last the two days it’ll take us to get there.

“Seventeen? There is one other thing about that story that puzzles me.”

“What’s that, Two-Five?”

“What does that weird song have to do with it?”

“Oh, right. That was a leftover from my helmet’s previous owner. Not sure what the story was, but my quartermaster must’ve neglected to scrub its data. It had a bunch of files uploaded into it, and that song was the only one that wasn’t corrupted. I must’ve listened to it thousands of times in some vague attempt to not go insane.”

“No wonder you know it by heart. And with our current circumstances being somewhat similar, I can understand why you would be reminded of it.”

I sigh deeply at Two-Five’s sagely remark.

“No, see, you’re doing it all wrong,” I shake my head. “When I say ‘I did it to avoid going crazy,’ you’re supposed to retort with something like ‘I don’t think it worked,’ not ‘I understand.’ Seriously, get with the program already!”

If we’re going to work together, then this guy needs to learn how to banter. Otherwise I’ll just end up talking to myself. Well, I do that a lot anyway, but I don’t typically have an audience when I do.

“… Two-Five?”

I suddenly realize my companion’s gone quiet and turn around in a rush. Thankfully he’s still there, just crouching over a weird rock. I mean, ‘weird rock’ describes 90% of the terrain we’ve seen since we got here, but this one is a slightly different kind of weird. It’s about as big as my head and one half of it seems to be awfully sparkly.

“Two-Five,” I call out as I approach. “You can’t just stop like that, I almost left you behind.”

He turns his head at me, then back towards the rock.

“Do you know what this is?” he asks, pointing at it.

“… No, but you clearly think it’s important.”

“It’s a mineral from my homeworld. I’d know it anywhere.”

I raise an eyebrow under my helmet and use my PDA to try and scan it. It fails to do so, but has no problem getting partial readings on the surrounding dirt and gravel. I guess that more or less means it really is alien in origin. It also raises a rather worrisome point.

“So… we’re closer to your home than mine?”

“I severely doubt that. I had to pass through eleven breaches to reach Earth from Oriza. Our transfer might’ve been an anomalous one, but there’s no way it could’ve spanned that many layers.”

“Layers? Oh, right, your people subscribe to the ‘layered universe’ theory.”

“Why, yes. I am surprised you know of it.”

“Eh… ‘Know’ is way too strong a way of putting it. ‘Head of it’ is far more accurate.”

I’m not going to pretend I understand it, but the theory in question claims that all of the worlds connected by the breaches are arranged like a stack. A big ol’ mega-skyscraper where each floor holds an entire damn universe. It kinda makes sense with how the BMA has these dimensions grouped into ‘districts’ that have frequent travel between them, with breaches being massive holes in the floor or ceiling in that analogy. It’s one of the more popular beliefs behind this breach business, but ‘belief’ and ‘theory’ is as far as any world’s science has gotten with trying to explain exactly how it all works.

“But yes, you have point,” I get the conversation back on track. “This stone must’ve undergone quite the journey to get here.”

That said, if recent memory serves, it’s also the second mysterious rock I’ve seen this far out of its place.

“Is this mineral vital to getting us the fuck out of here?”

“Not vital, but useful,” Two-Five corrected me. “I just need to… process it first.”

“Oh.”

“… So may I proceed?” he asks after a brief moment of silence.

“Why are you asking- Oh, right.”

I almost forgot, but I’m technically the commanding officer here. If he wants to interfere with the local environment in some way, then it’s up to me to judge whether he should or not. I can’t imagine there be any harm in him removing an alien element from the environment, but there is one other issue I need to consider.

“Will it take long?”

“No more than three minutes.”

“Then go ahead.”

He picks it up with both hands, and the rock starts to vibrate fast enough to become a blurry spot in my vision. A dust cloud emanates from it as god knows how many years’ worth of dust and grime are shaken off in a matter of seconds. Once it settles down, Two-Five is left holding what appears to be a bright blue glass sphere about half the width of the rock it used to be.

“So… should I bother asking what that was all about?”

“You could, but I don’t think you’d be able to understand my explanation.”

“Yeah, probably not. What’s it do, though?”

“In simplest terms, its a type of fuel common to Oriza. I can use it to supercharge my equipment if need be.”

“That’s good.”

I stare off in the direction of the only stable breach in the area, and at the volcano-looking thing sitting in the way.

“I feel like that ‘need’ might come up pretty soon.”

“Agreed.”

We continue trudging along. The terrain is dry, unstable and uneven, so our progress is not the most stellar. Two-Five’s new battery-thing is slowing him down too. It’s heavier than it looks, but that’s not why it’s a problem. He has to use one or both arms to carry it, which means he’s not swinging them around. And if someone as tall and spindly has him isn’t swinging his arms around, he has trouble maintaining his balance, which means he has to be even more careful than usual to not trip or slip.

As for me, long hikes through an alien wilderness are basically 90% of my damn job, so I’m more or less used to it. It’s not like I have much of a choice. I have to get from one breach to the next somehow, and vehicles aren’t exactly worth their cost in the agency’s opinion. Yes, they would be handy for situations like these, which is why emergency response teams usually arrive with a set of wheels. They’re not amphibious though, so they couldn’t help me when I got stuck in the ocean. The only thing I would’ve accomplished if I asked for help back then would’ve been to get up to ten of us stranded for two months.

But this situation is different. The ER guys’ souped-up ATVs would tear through this terrain like nothing. Problem is, my PDA can’t get my distress signal out. It keeps blaring ‘unknown error’ at me for some reason. Two-Five’s communicator is equally useless, though at least he knows why. Something about background energy interference. I’m not sure if I trust that, to be honest. Mostly because this world’s so stone dead and barren it’s hard to think of anything or anyone that might be putting off that much energy. There isn’t even any moss on any of these rocks, for fuck sake!

Okay, let’s calm down. Complaining inside my head is only going to make me feel miserable so I keep trying to chat to my gunner. ‘Trying’ being the operative word in that sentence. As previously established, Two-Five’s banter skills are terrible. I feel like I have to drag his words out with a crowbar. Then again, I have been asking him a bunch of personal questions, so he probably feels like he’s being interrogated. I’d ask if he knew any good jokes, but those never translate well, and not just because of the language barrier.

Actually screw it, what’s the worst that could happen?

“So Two-Five, know any good jokes?”

“Why, yes, actually,” he said, surprising me. “I’m told my sense of humor is above average.”

“Oh? Let’s hear some, then.”

“Are you sure? I doubt they will be very funny without context.”

Took the words right out of my mouth.

“It’s worth a try,” I shrug.

“Very well. Let me think for a moment… Alright. So. A famarian nationalist was arrested for publicly calling the Emperor a ‘fathead.’ He was sentenced to eleven years of hard labor. One for sedition, and ten for revealing a state secret.”

“Hah! Okay, that was better than I was expecting. Got another?”

“There are three types of people in the world. Those who can count, and those who cannot.”

“Wow, you have that one, too?”

“Apparently. What about you, Seventeen? Do you have any good jokes?”

Sure I do. Mostly puns and wordplay, though. Those definitely do not cross the language barrier. I do have a certain ‘backup’ though, one that’s apparently relatively universal.

“Two hunters are out in the wilderness when one of them collapses. He doesn't seem to be breathing and shows no vital signs. The other guy whips out his communicator and calls emergency services. He gasps, ‘My friend is dead! What can I do?’ The operator tells him ‘Calm down. I can help. First, let's make sure he's dead.’ There is a silence, then a shot is heard. Back on the line, the guy says ‘Okay, now what?’”

“Kek! Kekekekeke!” he starts giggling. “Kekheum! That was a good one. Okay, how about this one?”

We spend the next hour or so swapping jokes. Or we try to, but most of the ones that follow those first few end up bombing. I did notice that a lot of Two-Five’s material had something to do with famarians. I asked him about it and apparently ‘famarian’ is a nationality, not a race or species. Seems his country and theirs have had a rivalry that’s existed since forever, hence all the derisive jokes. I get it though, we have the same thing back home. The english and the french are still at each other’s throats even though the Great Unification did away with borders long ago.

Then again, I can’t exactly blame them seeing as how the french are a bunch of pompous surrender monkeys.

We eventually call it quits when we stop to rest for the day. Well, chronologically speaking. My PDA’s clock says it’s been eighty six hours since we ‘landed,’ but I’ve seen no hint of a day-night cycle. That thick cloud of smoke covering the sky hasn’t budged, either. But the time of day doesn’t matter when your feet are howling at you, so I park my butt in a shallow cave for shelter. Two-Five’s biological clock runs on a different scale from mine. Apparently a day on his home planet is about thirteen hours longer than the twenty-four I’m used to, so he’s been taking six hour ‘naps’ while I sleep like a rock.

It takes us another two terran days’ worth of mind-numbing walking before we finally close in on our destination. That part, at least, was as we’d estimated. However, the closer we got, the more my gut feeling was proving to be true.

“Say, Two-Five, do you know what Murphy’s law is?” I ask while staring at my PDA’s readout.

“I cannot say that I do,” he responds from behind. “I know of most of your world’s scientific pioneers, like Eyesack New-ton and Albert One-Stain, but this is the first time I’ve heard of a ‘Murphy.’ What natural law did he discover?”

“That whatever can go wrong, will go wrong.”

“… That does not seem like a proper scientific theory.”

“Maybe not, but it’s hard to fault it.”

I turn off my PDA and point at the massive active volcano at the end of the rocky valley before us.

“If what my equipment is telling me is true, our way out is inside that fiery pit of lava.”

Two-Five walks up to me and stares at the smoke-belching mountain for a moment.

“I take it back,” he mumbles after a bit. “This Murphy fellow might’ve been onto something.”