Summoning McGuffin's

When the meeting ended, Millie leaned back from her divining tablet and contemplated what she’d just committed herself to. She’d only been at McGuffin's for a week and hadn’t made much of an impact yet. Maybe her standards were too high, but this was her first job out of university, and she wanted to make a name for herself.

Millie had joined the operations team at McGuffin’s headquarters, which handled the in-tavern logistics for all six thousand locations across Othwynn. Her first week had been a whirlwind of orientations and introductions with no real opportunity to get involved with anything other than pleasantries. Despite all the smiling faces and kind words, she was dying for something of substance.

Her final meeting of the week was with PortalPush, their summoning partner. PortalPush was the premier food summoning service in Othwynn, and its partnership with McGuffin's formed a juggernaut of food service and delivery. Aside from a brief introduction, Millie said little, but when a lull came, she unmuted her speaking coil.

“Have you guys ever done any courier shadowing before?”

Silence and blank stares from the faces on the tablet were her answer. Then, after an eternity, her boss said, “No, Millie… but I think it’s a great idea!”

The PortalPush manager, an older and visibly disgruntled Gnome, rolled his eyes before he came off mute and replied, “Sure, I’ll see if we can get you someone to shadow with, uh, Mary.”

“Oh, it’s Millie,” she said, but the conversation had already moved on. Millie sent her scrye information to the PortalPush account manager, who, expectedly, didn’t respond. A few minutes later, she found herself staring back at her reflection on the tablet’s surface after everyone had unceremoniously signed off without the faintest of goodbyes.

Millie decided she had done the right thing. After all, she hadn’t made any new friends since moving to Veydris and had nothing better to do on a Fallsday night. Despite being in a vast, sprawling metropolis with fun and adventure around every corner, she yearned for the fields, forests, and farmlands of her home in Willowstead.

She rolled her chair back from her desk, stretched, and looked out the single window of her tiny chamber. She could see the sky turning a beautiful collage of orange and purple as the mana smog caught the waning beams of sunlight that shot across the endless towers of the Veydris skyline. Despite its dirty beauty, she didn’t know if this was the place for her. However, the business of magic was based here, and she’d always dreamed of being more than just a farmer in her home hamlet.

A sudden and loud knock on the door startled her back to the present.

“Coming!” she shouted in a mix of surprise and confusion.

After an eternity of fidgeting with the several chain locks, deadbolts, and ward alarms on the door, she opened it to reveal a woman leaning against the wall across from her. The woman was tall and lean, with dark hair and dark features. Pointed ears jutted up from underneath a Wraithball cap, and her severely pulled-back ponytail bobbed out of the band in the back. She wore form-fitting active silks, running boots, and a leather chest guard with pauldrons. In a fingerless-gloved hand, she held her scrye, intensely focused on what was happening on its surface.

“Um, hi?” Millie said after a moment.

“You Millie?” she asked, only looking up from her scrye when no immediate answer came.

“Yeah.”

“Been trying to get ahold of you. Sent you like five quillflashes.”

“Oh!” Millie said, pulling out her scrye. The surface showed several quillflashes she had missed. “I’m so sorry. I was on Do Not Disturb while I was in a meeting.”

“Uh-huh. You work at McGuffin's HQ, right?”

“Well, I’m an operational representative. I just started…”

“Uh-huh,” the woman said again, cutting her off. “Name's Sylvara.”

She put out her hand, and Millie shook it briskly.

“Oh my god, that’s a beautiful name. I like, love Elven names.”

“Just call me Syl,” Syl said very matter-of-factly.

“Millie,” Millie said, shooting a thumb at herself and striking an enthusiastic pose.

“Is this what you’re wearing?” Syl asked, gesturing to Millie in her simple jeans and sweater.

“At this moment, yes. But I can change. What should I wear?”

Syl quirked her eyebrow up at Millie.

“Something you don’t mind getting dirty.”

A few minutes later, they were out on the sidewalk in front of Millie's building, and Syl was walking briskly ahead of her, gesturing in the air to help illustrate the concepts she was trying to describe. Millie, now in a jean jacket, an old, dirty pair of pants, and work boots she had brought from the farm, followed behind.

“Okay, so it’s like this: the Conflux is like a path you can draw across all the different dimensions that touch. If you imagine them like circles, they link up in certain places. Like a Venn diagram, right?” Syl turned back to see if Millie was still following.

“Right,” she said, interlocking her point fingers on either hand.

“Yeah, or like a chain. Either way, PortalPush and all the other companies that do quick delivery, or "‘summoning,’” she made air quotes. “They figured out how to map paths through all the intersections of the Conflux, which made it so they could travel anywhere, anytime, like, really fast.”

“Cool.”

“Sure, except for the fact that dimensions in the Conflux are dangerous as hell. In fact,” she looked up and away, thinking. “One of the dimensions might actually be hell. Anyway, as a courier,” she gestured to herself. “I traverse those dimensions so some stoner can get heart disease without even leaving the sofa.”

Syl looked back down at her scrye, swiping at its surface as if she were looking for something. After a few moments, her eyes went wide.

“Yo, an order for McGuffin's just came through. Let’s take it!”

Syl held out the scrye so Millie could see its surface.

“This is PortalPush Plus, the spell the couriers use to accept orders and plot their routes through the Conflux. I’m going to tap it to accept it,” she said as she tapped her thumb on the open spell. It changed then to a map that Millie didn’t quite understand. “Cool, and now the CPS has our route–oof, three dimensions. We better hustle.”

Syl turned suddenly into an alleyway. Millie nearly tripped as she scrambled to follow.

“Our first portal is right over here,” Syl said, stopping before stepping into a dirty puddle.

“Where is it?” Millie asked, looking around the dark alleyway.

“Right here.”

Syl hopped forward into the puddle, but when she was supposed to land, she didn’t. As if the puddle were several feet deep, the entirety of the Elven woman slipped into it with a subtle splash and disappeared under the surface.

Millie stared at the rippling puddle. She couldn’t believe what had just happened. Then, a fingerless-gloved hand, not wet at all, breached the surface and snapped at her.

The grass that met Millie’s fall was soft, lush, and unexpected. She landed as if she’d dropped only a foot, then slowly rose to her full height, inspecting herself and taking in her surroundings. She wasn’t wet at all, which was surprising, given that she had leaped into a dirty puddle in a dark alleyway just moments ago. Now, she was standing in bright sunlight, surrounded by grass that stretched in endless, rolling hills in every direction.

“Yo!” Syl called from a few feet away, with her arms crossed, tapping her foot impatiently. “We gotta hustle. I have a five-star rating to protect.”

“Lead the way!” Millie said excitedly.

For the next few moments, they jogged at a leisurely pace across the endless green fields of this dimension, and Millie couldn’t believe the Conflux was considered such a dangerous place. If this place existed beyond their world, why didn’t people try to come here on vacation, or even to live?

Syl stopped at the crest of a hill, checked her scrye, and then looked around.

“Ugh, I think we took a wrong turn.”

While they were jogging, Millie had noticed a low rumble she’d first mistaken for the wind. Now that they were stopped, she realized it was getting louder. More concerning, she could feel the ground vibrating beneath her.

“What is that?” Millie asked.

“What is what?” Syl turned and froze, staring at the horizon behind Millie. “Shit!”

Millie followed her gaze, turning to see a large herd of animals begin to crest a distant hill.

“Unicorns!” Syl shouted and then began to run.

“Unicorns?” Millie asked in awe before turning back, only to see her companion sprinting away.

“Run!” Syl bellowed.

Millie had run track for Willowstead High, so it took her no time to catch up with Syl, who seemed surprised at her speed when she caught up so quickly.

“Why are we running from unicorns?!” Millie asked, not even breathing heavily despite her hastened pace.

“Because… they eat… everything!” Syl replied through slightly labored breath.

“What? They want to eat us?”

“Look around! They’ve… eaten… everything else!”

Millie did notice that even the grass, the only thing she could see in every direction, was very short. There were no signs of animals or any other kind of vegetation. So, she picked up the pace, running just ahead of Syl now.

After summiting the next hill, Millie spotted something down in a valley below.

“Look! A door!” she shouted.

“That’s… the one! Go, go, go!”

The rumbling was growing louder, and Millie risked her footing for a glance back over her shoulder. The unicorns had gained very quickly. She could now make them out individually. They were all grayish-white with a strange patina that reminded her of autocarriage oil catching sunlight on the surface of water. Their purple-maned heads and glittering horns were lowered and pointed in their direction as they bore down on them at a terrifying pace.

Millie came to a sudden stop at the door. It was a very plain door, not too different from the front door of her apartment. A simple brass knob set on a wooden frame painted an eggshell white. When she turned the knob and pulled, it didn’t budge.

“It’s locked…”

Syl slammed into her from behind, and the door swung inward. They tumbled onto hard pavement, the door slamming shut behind them. Millie immediately rolled over to look back, but the door and the unicorns were gone, and in their place stood only a nondescript brick wall where the doorway had been.

“Whoa,” she said.

“Yeah, whoa,” Syl mocked before checking her scrye. “C’mon, we’re not far.”

Back on her feet, Millie began dusting herself off and looking around at her new surroundings. They were in an alleyway—but not the same one they’d been in before. The sky overhead was a dull, cloudy gray, occasionally lit by flashes of blue-green lightning, followed by distant rolls of thunder.

She followed Syl to the mouth of the alley, which opened onto the street. The city was unrecognizable. Some buildings resembled the stone and glass spires of Veydris, but others were square and made out of an unfamiliar metal. The quiet streets were scattered with abandoned autocarriages and towering heaps of random junk. As with the buildings, some looked familiar, and some did not.

“What is this place?”

“Staging area. It’s where the architects test designs before moving them to the production dimensions. That’s the theory, anyway. To me, it’s just the Confluxe’s junkyard.”

“Are there unicorns here, too?”

“Nah. The only thing you’ll run into here are scavengers. Dumbasses that try to bring other dimensional stuff back to their world. It doesn’t work. Objects from other dimensions decay and break down quickly in other dimensions. That’s why we have to move fast.”

“Hmm,” Millie proclaimed

“Over here!” Syl said as they approached a strange-looking autocarriage. It was smaller but bulkier than those of their dimension. It was painted yellow with a checkered pattern that ran down the side. Syl opened the rear storage hatch and looked expectedly at Millie.

“Alright. This next place is weird, so wait for me before you do anything.”

“The next place is weird?” Millie asked with a laugh as she looked down into the darkness of the storage compartment. Not hesitating, she dove forward, felt a brief wave of vertigo, and then stepped into her childhood bedroom.

Everything was exactly as she had left it just a few weeks earlier. The band paintings hung on the walls, her bed was still neatly made, and everything was right where she had left it. Not the heavy wicker laundry basket, however, as it was toppled over and a pair of legs was kicking their way out of the top.

“Mmf,” Syl grunted as she crawled out of the basket and looked around.

Millie started toward her but stopped when she heard her mother's old harmonograph playing downstairs.

“How is this possible? We’re at my house in Willowstead,” Millie said, wide-eyed with amazement.

“We can’t stay,” Syl snapped. “Let’s find the portal and go.”

“At least come downstairs and meet my mom! I bet she’s nearly done with dinner,” Millie said as she walked out the door and headed toward the staircase leading to the first floor.

Syl followed to the doorway, calling after her.

“Millie, stop! This dimension creates an illusion of the one place we want to be more than anywhere else. We’re not seeing the same thing. I’m somewhere else.”

Millie ignored the warning and started down the stairs. Syl rushed after her and caught her by the shoulder just as she reached the bottom.

“This place is a trap. It feeds on outsiders!”

“This is home!” Millie shouted, slapping her hand down on the banister in anger. When she pulled it away, a thick, unnatural, glue-like strand stretched away with it. Then, it began to retract, pulling her hand back toward the banister.

“What? I’m–I’m stuck!”

Syl didn’t hesitate. She drew a short dagger from her belt and swiftly cut through the strands clinging to Millie. Millie yanked her hand back, and the goo began to dissolve rapidly. Then the ground trembled—a subtle quake rippling through the house as if it had felt the pain of the cut.

“Don’t touch anything else unless you want to get stuck and slowly digested,” Syl said as she sheathed her dagger. “This is a hungry dimension.”

Syl turned toward the front door, but Millie lingered, staring down the hallway into the kitchen, where her mother’s shadow danced across the cabinets. She wanted to go to her, but the reality of their situation settled in, heavy and undeniable. Reluctantly, she turned to rejoin Syl, who had stopped and was now staring at the wall.

“I’m sorry. I have to, sweetie... I have to go,” Syl whispered, backing away from someone only she could see. Then she spun around, and Millie saw her eyes were squeezed shut.

“There’s a door,” Millie said gently, looking at the closed front door.

Syl opened her eyes.

“I see it, too. “

“If I walk through it, I’ll be leaving home... again,” Millie said, her voice shaking.

“Me too,” Syl whispered.

They both stepped forward and into the lobby of a McGuffin's Tavern.

They stood there silently for a long moment, breathing heavily and regaining their composure in silence. A traumatic experience shared between two near-strangers. After some time, Syl exhaled, stood straight, and held up her Scrye for Millie to see.

“So yeah, we check the information on the bag,” she said, strolling forward to a pickup shelf next to the counter. She snatched up the only bag on the shelf and looked at the tally parchment stuck to it. “And we’re good to go.”

Millie took a deep breath. The Conflux had already proven to be exhausting, and they had only been in it for a few minutes. She wasn’t looking forward to going back in.

“How far?” she asked.

Syl stopped, still looking at her scrye, and then chuckled.

“Not far.”

They stepped out of the McGuffin's, off the sidewalk, and into the street. The autocarriage traffic was light, so waiting for the crosswalk orbs wasn’t even necessary. Directly across from the tavern stood an apartment building, its windows reflecting the big, golden "M" from the giant McGuffin's sign behind them.

Just as they climbed the stoop and approached the main door, it flew open. A fat, middle-aged man with a pair of phonos on his head reached out impatiently.

“You’re thirty seconds late!” he shouted. Then, in annoyance, he reached up and pulled the speaking coil on his phonos to his mouth before saying, “Nah, not you. I’m talking to my PortalPusher.”

He snatched the greasy bag from Syl's hand and slammed the door behind him.

“Don’t forget to leave five stars!” She cried as the door sill shuddered in its frame.

From Syl’s scrye, there was a loud chime that sounded like coins falling into a pile.

“Done! Out here, the delivery time was one minute and thirty-seven seconds. That’s summoning for ya! Any questions?”

Millie looked back at the McGuffin's tavern. The million questions she had prepared earlier in the day, when the world was as simple as being an operations specialist, had drifted away. With a shrug, she said, “Nope!”

“Want me to take you back through the Conflux?”

“No, it’s a beautiful night,” Millie responded as she looked around. “A good night to explore.”

Syl smiled at her.

“Drop me a line anytime you need a guide, in this dimension or the next.”