CHAPTER 1
The Suitable Candidate
To every citizen of the Terran Galactic Federation, reality was a settled fact. Universe-Prime was the stage; the laws of physics, the script. The existence of other universes, other planes of existence, was a theoretical footnote in advanced astrophysics texts—a fascinating conjecture for tenured academics, but irrelevant to the daily business of life. They were separated by the Infinite Void, a conceptual nothingness that made travel an impossibility. For the common man, it was less a scientific fact and more a philosophical one: Your life is here. Your duty is here. Your future is here. The Federation, in its boundless ambition, had mapped the galactic spiral arms of Galaxia Krystallos, but the dimensions beyond the Veil were someone else's problem.
Kaelen's problem was much more immediate. The walk to Orphanage 7-Delta felt longer today, the polished permacrete corridors of the Aethelburg Arcology seeming to stretch and distort. The summons had been clear: Mandatory household meeting regarding the Great Settlement Mandate. His "household" was a data-entry: one name, one identity, one small, easily moved piece on the Federation's galactic board.
He entered the familiar common room, the scent of antiseptic and recycled air a ghost of his childhood. Sister Margret stood with two other members of the orphanage's board of trustees. They were all there—the other aged-out wards. He saw Liam, who had a stable job in the arcology's power-conduit maintenance and donated a portion of his earnings back every month. He saw Elara, who worked in the fabricators and helped manage the orphanage's younger children. They had roots here, however fragile. They had value to the system beyond their mere existence.
Kaelen had a student loan debt and a dead-end data-archivist internship.
"Children of the Federation," Sister Margret began, her voice a practiced blend of warmth and authority. "The Great Settlement Mandate is the cornerstone of our continued prosperity. To tame new worlds like Elysian is to secure the future for all Terrans. Each household must do its part."
She painted a picture of opportunity—debt cancellation, land grants, a chance to build something new. But everyone in the room heard the unspoken truth: it was a one-way ticket to a hard, dangerous life far from the secured comfort of the core worlds.
"The selection algorithm is impartial, wise, and fair," she continued, her gaze sweeping the room before settling, inevitably, on Kaelen. "It weighs the greatest good for the Federation against the smallest disruption to our social fabric."
The data-slate in her hand glowed. "The household of Kaelen has been selected. Your status as an unattached adult with federal education debt, now completed, makes you a prime candidate for the benefits offered. Your debt will be absolved upon landing on Elysian. This is a great opportunity for you."
The words were a physical blow. Unattached. Debt. Prime candidate. He was being drafted because he was nobody, with nothing to offer but a body to fill a quota. Liam and Elara couldn't quite meet his eyes; their relief was a palpable force in the room. They were established. He was expendable.
"Your departure is in thirty days," Sister Margret said, finally pressing the data-slate into his numb hands. "The Federation thanks you for your service."
The walk back to his apartment was a blur. The gleaming, orderly corridors of Aethelburg felt like a gilded cage he was about to be ejected from. He was a piece of data, processed and sorted. NON-APPLICABLE.
He stumbled into his small, single-room apartment, the door hissing shut behind him. The silence was deafening. He didn't even bother with the lights, collapsing onto his bed, the thin mattress offering no comfort. The weight of it all crushed him—the injustice, the hopelessness, the sheer, impersonal efficiency of it.
As a child, the doctors had called it Chronic Dream-Sickness. Vivid, terrifying dreams that felt more real than waking life. He'd fall into a deep sleep and experience fragments of other places, other lives. He'd been poked and prodded, his neural pathways scanned, only for the med-techs to shrug and prescribe suppressants. It was a glitch, they said. A minor neurological disorder. He had learned to be ashamed of it, to see it as a weakness.
Now, drowning in despair, he didn't fight the fog of sleep creeping in. He let it take him, a welcome escape from the crushing reality of his waking life. He felt the familiar, dizzying sensation of the world falling away, the pressure building behind his eyes until it was a crescendo of silent noise.
But this time was different.
This time, in the heart of the swirling chaos, a single, clear thought formed, born of desperation and a will to survive that he didn't know he possessed.
No.
The falling stopped.
He wasn't dreaming. He was aware. He hung in a silent, dark nexus. And before him, not as images, but as sensations, were… pathways. A tapestry of infinite doors. One felt like grinding gears and cold logic. Another like a roaring, elemental fire. And one… one felt like green things growing, like simple steel and raw emotion, like a world of ancient struggles.
A silvery, intangible thread, a part of his very being, yearned toward that greener world.
Without understanding how, he knew he could follow it.
His eyes, in his apartment on Aethelgard, were wide open, staring at the dark ceiling. But he wasn't seeing it. He was seeing the Veil between worlds.
And he was about to step through.