December 1995
Issue 5
The next day, he went to Mementos and picked up his comics. His own creation had sold out, but that didn't mean much, there weren't that many copies to sell. Still, he got some money for it. Next he went to the small local publisher that made his book, and handed in the stories for the next few months. At least he wouldn't have to worry about working on that for awhile, which was good, as he planned to be gone. Then, he visited some friends, hung out. It was a fun day, all in all. But it was his last normal day to come for some time. The next day, he took off on his first Adventure.
He made his way to a wormhole opening, and opened it. He wasn't quite sure exactly how to control where the Wheel took him, even Mr. Cain didn't seem to be able to do that at all well. So Teknomage let the Wheel take him where it would.
As he walked thru the other side, he turned around and found himself face to face with the Wheel itself. "Great. This must mean I'm in the Phage Building on Kalighoul. I wasn't even trying to come here. It's supposed to be nearly impossible to get here unless you work for the Phage. I wonder how this happened."
He looked around, and everybody seemed to be very busy, but none of their business seemed to have anything to do with the Wheel at the moment, so luckily they weren't looking his way. Still, he had to get out of here as quickly as possible. Surely some camera had already spotted him. Just as he thought that, he saw a troop of Vulgar Bootmen enter the room and start in his direction.
He turned back to look at the Wheel. It was divided by a number of spokes. The spaces between spokes were doorways to other worlds. There were simple computers set into the wall for programming destination, but Tek had no time to figure out how to use them. He was going to just turn back the way he had come, when suddenly he noticed something. The Hub.
Cain had told him all he knew about the Wheel of Worlds, the past few weeks. But he had never mentioned the Hub. It didn't seem to be of any importance. It didn't do anything or go anywhere. It was just the conjunction of the spokes. But Teknomage now noticed a small hole at the very center of the Hub, not something a ship could pass thru, like the spaces of the Wheel. In fact, he wasn't sure a man could fit thru.
The Bootmen were fast approaching. The only logical thing to do would have been to step back thru the Wheel, but instead, Teknomage quickly jumped up on the ridge of the Hub and started trying to squeeze thru the small opening. It was a tight fit, but he made it. The bootmen sped up when they saw him doing this, and lunged after him, but the space was far too small for them. Teknomage got away. The captain of the Bootmen squad told his troops to go back to their normal duties, and he went to inform the Phage of what had happened.
"Hmmmm, interesting. It really shouldn't have worked, you know. I designed and built the Wheel, but I did not know of this gateway in the Hub. I do wonder just where it came from, and where it leads. I'll have to send somebody to investigate that. But for the moment, I have far more pressing matters to attend to. I rather doubt that whoever that young man was, he could pose much of a threat. Still, if he can get here in the first place, and then just as quickly discover a quirk in a machine that its builder was entirely unaware of... Perhaps I shall see more of him one day. We could even have another Adam Cain in the making. I wonder..."
Issue 6
...Teknomage came out the other side of the (seemingly) short tunnel that ran from the Hub. He turned and faced a nearly identical Wheel. Except that this Wheel was much cleaner and friendlier-looking. And no one was around outside, he was completely alone. And he was not in a building, he was in a very nice-looking meadow, with light-green grass blowing in a warm, gentle breeze, perfect trees of various sorts growing here and there (some seemingly for climbing, some for fruit-bearing), a small waterfall dropping into a calm pool of the bluest water he had ever seen... and more. It was about the most beautiful spot he could imagine. And no one was around to disturb it.
He did a bit of exploring. Walking with his stick, he had soon explored the entire world, and there seemed to be no one here. Anywhere. It didn't look like anyone had ever been here. It was completely undiscovered, as, apparently, was this twin Wheel, connected by some sort of Majik axle of unknown origins.
"There shouldn't be another Wheel" he said. "There probably shouldn't be a first, but that one was created on purpose. This one seems to be naturally occurring, yet still connected to the one Teknophage made. I wonder where the regular pathways of this one lead...OH! I wonder if I'll have to go back thru the hub to Kalighoul to go thru a passage in that Wheel back home to Earth? That would suck."
Teknomage took time to study the control panel of the Wheel. He quickly figured it out, and managed to get an on-screen prompt of the various destinations for which it could be programmed. Most of them he had never heard of, but many of them rather shocked him.
"...'Over the Rainbow'? I wonder if that's actually...Well, I'll try that later... 'Dominion'? Weird, that's the name of...wait, there's a whole subset under that one...Oh, I can program the Hub to take me to a third Wheel called the Dominion, and from there I could go to some of the other places mentioned under it. Well, for now I'll stick with this Wheel..."
Suddenly, one in particular struck his fancy. "Aha. Wonderland it is." He programmed the Wheel, and stepped thru one of its portals...