I was completely drawn in by the first line of the synopsis. “When an elderly customer at a big box furniture store slips through a portal to another dimension” (AS IS PRONE TO HAPPEN, OBVIOUSLY). Turns out, it is prone to happen in this chain. There is a company policy for what to do. There is even an old training video. Of course the equipment you are supposed to use to rescue the customer is old and potentially broken and who knows what kinds of worlds you are going to encounter. That’s why it is policy to send the lowest ranking employees. They are expendable.
Ava and Jules are assigned the task. This is the first time they’ve spoken since they broke up. Now they have to face people-eating plants, murderous corporate drones, and pirates in their quest to survive the multiverse.
This novella also contains own voices nonbinary representation.