“So then, even when the answer was revealed, people continued to argue?”

“Oh, yeah,” I nod at Two-Five’s question. “It was a fascinating study on how powerful convictions can be formed in mere minutes based on almost nothing. Even now, centuries later, there are those that will insist the dress was white and gold, not black and blue.”

“Fascinating. It sounds incredibly stupid and pointless, yet you somehow managed to learn something about yourselves from it. Only humanity could ever achieve something like that.”

I’m still not sure whether he means that last part as a compliment or an insult, and I’m too afraid to ask at this point.

“Don’t even get me started on the Harambe Paradox.”

To this day I cannot wrap my head around it. Hundreds of thousands of people around the world dying daily from disease and famine. Climate change, impending energy crisis and God-knows what else loom over humanity. And what’s the thing that made us band together as one? The worship of a gorilla, who was shot dead to protect a young child’s life. Then they forget all about it in a few months. It’s so unbelievably stupid that even trying to explain it might just give me an aneurism.

I mean, I get it, this was three centuries ago, so some of the facts may have been distorted, but the Harambe Paradox is one of the founding elements of the science of memeology. I had some interest in the field when I was in school, but the sheer complexity of it made my head spin. It’s a science that spends years tracking social trends, flow of information through media, targeting demographics, political views and a hundred other factors, just to produce a 9 second video.

It’s worth it, though. The resulting video’s guaranteed to be seen by at least 80% of the world’s population within the first 48 hours and is often talked about for years to come. It’s a great tool to inform the populace of critical matters like breach safety, though the message is usually distorted or misinterpreted for some. It is quite impossible to reach out to that incalculable number of individuals without missing the mark a few million times. Personally I’m looking forward to see if the Global Meme Center can top last year’s broadcast.

Which reminds me, I really need to go recycle my spent bio-cells when I get back to my apartment.

“What about your bizarre pricing system?” Two-Five interrupts my recollection. “Does the science of memes have anything to do with that?”

“Bizarre in what way?” I ask, befuddled.

“You humans seem obsessed with rounding everything down to the nearest 9. Like, I noticed yesterday that there were quite a few drinks at the bar priced at 299. Then I saw an advertisement for a luxury vehicle that was being sold for 1,499,999 credits. Why is that? Wouldn’t it be simpler to have those at 300 and 1,500,000?”

“Wait, you only noticed this yesterday?”

I get why he would find it odd, but if it really bothers him that much, he should have realized it a lot sooner.

“Because my people use a twelve-based number system,” he reveals. “The translator handles the conversion to base ten and back for me, so I didn’t realize this trend until I saw those items in particular. Once I did, I realized it was literally everywhere. Do your people hate zeroes or something?”

“Huh. Look, I know that other stuff was important, but your people use base twelve?”

“Indeed.”

“Why?” I ask like a moron.

Two-Five cocks his head and raises his right hand to my face, no-so-subtly reminding me that orizian have six fingers on each limb, not five.

“Oh, right. Sorry, it just… seemed so weird to me.”

“Yet your seconds in a minute, the minutes in an hour and the hours in a day are all multiples of twelve, among other things.”

“I guess.”

“Do not get me wrong, things like that are very welcome for those of us not used to working in base ten, I just do not think base twelve is as foreign to you as you seem to think.”

“Alright, alright, you’ve made your point.”

“Then, the pricing system obsessed with the number 9?”

“I don’t really know why it’s like that, to be honest,” I shrug. “I think it has something to do with advertising. Us humans read the digits in a number left-to-right, so 299 looks a lot cheaper to us than 300 than it actually is. It’s some kind of psychological trick to entice people into buying products they don’t need on a whim. The so-called impulse buyer.”

“… Are you saying there are humans out there that would spend 5,000 drinks’ worth of funds to buy a luxury vehicle on a mere whim?”

“Obviously not. To be honest, I’m not convinced whether that 1 credit off is actually worth the minute advertisement. It just seems like a slightly less stupid than suggesting companies do that just because everyone else is doing it, like some sort of self-perpetuation tradition.”

“A mysterious tradition would make more sense, at least to me.”

And now that I’ve said it loud, I’m also convinced that that is the most probable cause. But I guess the reason doesn’t really matter, and I personally have no problem with it. One credit off is better than zero credits off, after all. My gunner is a bit on the OCD side though, so I understand why he would be bothered by those funky numbers.

“So, Two-Five, ready to get back out there and do some good?” I change the subject

“Indeed,” he nods. “Though these past ten days have been deeply enlightening, I am eager to resume my duties. I am also quite curious how you handle yourself in less adventurous circumstances.”

“Good to see you’re motivated, because we’re here.”

The shuttle lands moments later, leaving my gunner and I staring at the outside of the strangely nostalgic departure facility. We go through the usual motions and obtain permission to use one of the hundreds of breaches that forms here. The plan is to give Two-Five’s prototype anchor another try. What messed us up last time was the timing, a flaw that the orizian states would require ‘much time and effort’ to fix. In the meantime, we came up with a basic but effective workaround, at least in theory.

Once we’re standing in front of the breach we’re going to use, I go through the usual motions of mapping out a route to our first stop. The place we were supposed to go last time, but instead ended up on that arid, rocky hellhole. Having gotten a fix on my destination, I take out my own anchor pin and leave it in the little slot at the edge of the walkway. Two-Five then passes me his crystal device, which once again explodes into dust, only to pull itself back together a few seconds later. I leave that on the ground.

“And remember,” I reiterate for the hundredth time, “don’t activate it until after you see my regular anchor disappear.”

This is the workaround. In order to make sure his thingamajig doesn’t go off while I’m in mid-transit, he has to wait until I recall my equipment. I can’t really do that until after I’ve finished passed through the breach, so it should work out. And if not, well, I doubt it can be any worse than last time.

“Seventeen, do not invoke the wrath of Murphy with your ‘what could go wrong’ thoughts,” Two-Five cautions me.

“… Okay, you seriously need to stop doing that.”

It’s not mind-reading, not really. Just character profiling. Apparently, after spending two straight weeks with me, he’s already figured out the way I think and act. Which, while admittedly useful considering our line of work, is also creepy as shit. In any event, I need to get moving before the route changes, so I leap off the platform and dive into one of the breaches a few meters below. The familiar feeling of spatial dissonance overwhelms me and then settles down, allowing me to find my way through the breach without incident.

I exit in the middle of a green meadow with the traditional faceplant. I wait for the post-transfer sickness to subside and pick myself up, dusting off the grass and dirt clinging to my uniform before I send the recall message my anchor. The collapsible high-tech stick with a light at the end falls out of thin air. I snag it before it hits the ground and then walk out of the way so as to avoid Two-Five landing on me.

However… nothing happens. A full minute goes by without a single sign from my partner. I look up at the ripples of my exit wound and start to worry. I don’t know what’s holding him up, but that thing’s going to close before he even gets here. My worry turns into confusion when the clock on my PDA says that a full five minutes have passed since my departure, yet the spatial disturbance has not yet sealed itself. These things typically disappear within one to three minutes. My gut tells me this oddity has something to do with Two-Five’s prototype, so there’s not much I can do but stand right here and hope something happens.

It takes another ten minutes, but my gunner finally arrives with a magnificent belly flop, crystal anchor in hand. The spatial disturbance I caused disappears before he even hits the ground, which is good.

“You okay?” I ask as I crouch next to him.

“I will be,” he groans into the dirt. “Just give me a moment.”

Well, I’ve been doing nothing but waiting anyway, so that sounds like a plan. He pushes himself off the ground about ten seconds later, rising to his slightly shaky feet. Seems to be just some residual post-transfer sickness, so I figure it’s alright to hit him with the big question.

“So, what took you so long?”

“What do you mean, Seventeen?”

“You’re fifteen minutes late! I was starting to worry whether you would show up at all!”

“… That can’t be right. I followed you through the breach right after I saw you recall your anchor. I should have arrived right after it did.”

“Yet my PDA clock’s clearly says it’s been… sixteen minutes and twelve seconds since I jumped through the breach.”

“I… Hmmm…” he crossed his arms in thought. “It didn’t feel like I’d spent that long in the breach. But how could’ve… No… Unless… Ah, I got it! It’s because of the light gap!”

“… I’m sorry, the what?”

“The speed of light in our home dimension is different from the speed of light on Earth,” he explains while fiddling with his bracelet. “About 16% slower, to be precise.”

“And… this is important because…?”

“Because the faster you go, the slower time moves for you. Objects within a breach have been observed to move at or near the speed of light, but that speed changes from universe to universe. The matter that makes up our gear and bodies originates from realities that have a marked difference in the speed of light, so we end up with a noticeable time difference when taking the same routes even though it’s more or less the same from our perspective.”

Huh. Did not know all that. I mean, it has been observed that people who travel regularly through breaches, like us navigators, always register ‘lost time’ once they make it back home. Our PDA’s clocks can be anywhere from a few hours to several days behind once we make it back, depending on how long we’ve worked. It’s the main reason why maintaining a romantic relationship as a navigator is so… challenging. Not even we know when we will be back from our patrols.

I just didn’t realize it was because of the speed of light. I mean, it makes sense now that I think about it. Einstein’s theory of relativity and all that. I suppose that being unable to connect those dots is entirely my own fault for being a jarhead who just accepts things the way they are. I like to think I’m clever and quick-witted, but the traditional sciences really go over my head.

Then I realize something.

“Wait, what happens to your ‘matter’ if your causality field goes down?”

“Are you referring to the time we spent in the detention facility?” Two-Five asks matter of factly.

“Yeah. I remember you were freaking out quite a bit.”

“Indeed. I experienced a constant and distinct sense that I did not belong there. My vision was blurry and the colors I saw were confusing and unnatural. I could barely even make out the hand signals you were giving me, though the moral support was most appreciated. I also felt like the world was moving faster around me, but the worst part was that there seemed to be this constant and nagging buzzing in the air. It was quite maddening.”

“Damn. I suspected you suffered some side effects but I had no idea it was that bad.”

No wonder why he lost his temper when he found out the recording he was using as a security blanket had been corrupted.

“Perhaps I am making it seem worse than it was, but I am certainly not eager to repeat the experience. I also do not wish to be reminded of it. So, shall we move onto our next stop?”

“Right. Yeah. What about the time dilation problem, can you fix it somehow?”

“I am not sure. However, I would need to return to my laboratory on my homeworld before I can even try.”

“And when will that be?”

“Once I’ve gathered enough data. I think 1,728 breach jumps should be a satisfactory sample size. We will just have to deal with the glitch in the meantime.”

That’s a weird number. Oh, right, base twelve. Two-Five probably sees it as a nice round number like a thousand or something.

“So I have to spend fifteen minutes doing nothing while I wait for your slow-ass matter to catch up?”

“Quite.”

“How long is that in total?”

Two-Five goes silent for a few moments and cocks his head, no doubt doing the calculations that I’m too lazy to do myself. Thankfully the auto-translator is smart enough to accurately convert terran measurements into orizian ones, so I don’t need to worry about that. Unfortunately this makes the translation lag a bit since it needs to hear both the number and the units to make sense of it, but hey, it’s something.

“Precisely four hundred and thirty two hours, or eighteen terran days,” Two-Five states confidently.

Damn, that’s a lot. It’s time that could be spent helping people, but I suppose it’s for a good cause. Wonder if that’ll qualify for overtime, actually? Speaking of which I should really get on with actually doing my job.

“Alrighty then,” I turn to my PDA screen. “Let’s where the nearest breach is!”

I picked this meadow as our drop off point because there’s typically a lot of breaches in the surrounding woods. And wouldn’t you know it, there’s a suitable one just a short brisk walk from here. We find it and pass through it without incident, apart from the glitchy time lag between Two-Five and I.

The place we arrived in this time is a sort of navigator staging area in the middle of a synthoid city on the planet X-33, where the locals have built a sort of departure facility of their own. They call it a ‘grounding facility’ though since its only function is to contain and control the otherwise unpredictable breaches, lest one open in the middle of the densely populated area. Synthoids can’t have navigators of their own since breach travel is essentially fatal to their kind. The chaotic void between realities turns their electronic brains to mush even with a causality field around them, so they’re pretty much DOA should they fall into a breach.

Which is why they’re so supportive and understanding of the BMA’s mission and do everything they can to facilitate us. Plus, since our natural laws are effectively identical, we can exchange tech quite easily, which has been super useful to both sides. I seriously cannot imagine life without the Capture-Cubes 6000™ that are made here.

“Statement: Welcome to Serenis, human,” a police officer model calls out to me it approaches. “Query: Identification, please.”

“BMA navigator, serial number five, five, three, six, eight, zero, five, one, seven,” I introduce myself. “And this is my partner.”

“… Oh!” Two-Five suddenly realizes. “BMA navigator, serial number seven, eight, six, five, seven, one, zero, two, five.”

“Statement: Navigation unit identity confirmed. Query: What is the purpose of your visit?”

“We’re starting our shift, and require access to the breaches in your grounding facility.”

“Statement: Access approved. You may enter the facility when ready. Statement: Reporting that there is a pending message for you from police from Serenis Police Third Cluster. Sender is noted as unit FR-42-10.”

Ah, that was the bot that helped me out during that thunder lizard thing a while back. Wonder what he wants.

“Can I hear it?”

“Statement: Negative. Message is marked as private, hardcopy only. Query: Shall I have it be delivered to you at the grounding facility?”

“Yes, please.”

“Statement: Understood. Delivery request sent.”

I bid the synthoid goodbye and heat towards the giant dome down the street with Two-Five in tow.

“That was jarring,” he whispers behind my back. “I did not expect to see machine men so soon. Their appearance is rather disconcerting.”

“Wow, you really are green if you let something like that rattle you. Don’t worry, you’ll get used to it.”

“I hope that is the case.”

A quadcopter drone carrying Ten’s message was waiting for me by the time I got to the facility. It’s always refreshing to be reminded just how fast things work here in Serenis. I guess being able to process red tape and bureaucracy at light speed is part of it, but still. I take the package from the flying drone, which is a small rectangular device about the size of my firearm’s handle. There’s a small panel and six buttons on it, none of which have labels. Thankfully this isn’t my first time seeing one of these, so I know both that this is an audio recorder, and which one of these is the ‘play’ button.

*Click*

“Statement: I trust this message finds you well, Seventeen,” Ten’s digitized voice spills out of it. “Statement: The purpose of this message is to inform you that Serenis Police was able to track down and secure a third thunder lizard. Statement: This event directly contradicts your assessment that there were no other extraterrestrial specimens than the ones initially captured. It has since been transported safely off-world.”

So what, this is an ‘I told you so’ by mail?

“Statement: However, given the location that this third specimen was found in, the odds of it being related to the initial case are less than one in four thousands.”

Oh, okay. Yeah, I think I know where this is going.

“Statement: This new data suggests that there is a second active smuggling ring within Serenis that the Serenis Police force are currently unaware of. Statement: The necessary request for assistance has been filed with the Breach Management Agency through the proper channels, but I am concerned whether they will respond quickly enough, if at all.”

No, they definitely won’t bother to mobilize another strike force based on what, as far as I can tell, is just a hunch.

“Conclusion: In order to minimize risk to the general public,” the recording continues, “I have deemed it necessary to make an unsanctioned personal request. Statement: Your assistance with this matter would be deeply appreciated.”

I sigh and hit the ‘erase’ button, then throw the recorder on the ground. One of the recycling units will no doubt pick it up and dispose of it.

“Come on, Two-Five. We’ve had enough distractions.”

“Are you not going to respond to that plea?”

“No, I’m not,” I say bluntly. “I’m flattered that Ten thought to approach me, but agreeing to look for some smugglers that may or may not be there would be idiotic. Worst case scenario, I’d have wasted my time. Best case scenario, I find them, then get sued and fired for performing an unauthorized investigation.”

“Please, calm down, I did not mean to imply anything,” Two-Five reassured me. “I was merely asking what our course of action would be.”

“… Right. Sorry.”

Honestly, part of me wants to help since I hate to leave a job unfinished, but this is not the way.

“Okay then,” I wake up my PDA again. “Let’s see which of these lost souls needs a navigator.”

And then, just like always, the screen overflows with signals for illicit or accidental matter transfers. I tap on one that seems to involve enough mass for a person or two, then go off to ‘reserve’ a breach.