Psycho Gem

Chapter 9: B.U.R.N.E.

We arrived in a city-like area. I began walking ahead of Tracks, who was looking at the buildings around him. Some were like the ones on his Earth, some were different shapes and had unique architecture. There was a beautiful fountain, a bunch of stores and departments and a giant television displaying a sport that he had never seen before. It was sunny as usual, and everything was well kept. From the decorative plants and bushes to the cleanliness of the structures around us. The area was busy, but not to the point where we were getting blocked by crowds. There were all kinds of different people buzzing around the area. Some looked subjectively normal while others had highly exotic clothing and appearances.

"Wicked." I heard Tracks whisper to himself.

"This is the Hub." I said, followed by Tracks snickering. "It's the neutral ground for all multiversal explorers. They have tech, they have food, basically anything you can think of is here."

"So they have everything?" he asked, looking at a bar as we walked past it.

"Yes, you can find anything, but only if you know where to look." I said as we passed a guy in a long trench coat who gave Tracks a dirty look.

"The fuck're you lookin' at, cockhead?" Tracks jeered at the man.

I pulled Tracks away so he wouldn't be damned for inciting violence on neutral ground. "Look, You can't just go around being an ass here, you could be damned to Kattarax!"

"Damned to where?" he said, wrenching his arm out of my grip.

"Kattarax. It's a pit below Hell where the gods send dangerous people. It's a prison for some of the worst monsters to ever exist so I wouldn't advise going there." I said, flustered by the close call.

"Why would you be sent to a place below Hell just for picking a fight?"

"Because this place was built by the gods to be neutral ground. A sacred place where there is no violence. anyone who disobeys that rule is violating that sanctity and is therefore taken out of the equation."

"Seems over excessive to me. Who was that guy, anyway?" Tracks asked, looking over his shoulder.

"That was another multiversal traveller, I'm not the only one out there. He saw that you weren't tagged. All multiversal travellers have a tag in their watch. It's how they keep your account info."

"Wait, so they use those watches to track you? I thought the whole point of jumping universes was to be free."

"Freedom can cause bad things to happen. It's more complicated than that."

"I can tell that you don't truly believe that, and it shouldn't be that complicated. Who are these sad arses in charge anyway?"

We came upon a large building that had the B.U.R.N.E. logo at the top. "The Bureau of Universal Regulation and Non-discriminatory Enforcement. They are the people in charge. They regulate all multiversal travel." I said as we strolled through the front door.

I walked up to the front desk. "I need to see the chairman, and it's urgent." I said to the clearly bored receptionist lady.

She spoke to the chairman over the phone and told me he was in the conference room as usual. I told Tracks to sit on one of the chairs by the wall where there were magazines in a little box next to them. He sat down as I got into an elevator which had windows on each wall. As I ascended, I saw Tracks look around himself, then pull what he would call a "wank book" out from the back of his pants and hide it behind a larger magazine he was pretending to read. I couldn't help but chuckle to myself as I saw this. I looked around as I was going up the many levels, seeing the office district where people worked in a stereotypical office setting organising universal level data. I saw the lounge room, where people were either sitting on their phones or talking as if they had nothing better to do. The elevator finally stopped and I walked to the conference room. There were people walking out as I entered as the chairman had just finished a meeting.