Subsequent to that he’d been blown up, ripped into other dimensions, killed he was pretty sure, resurrected he was more sure and generally had a “blast” stopping an alien invasion.

The anomaly had been a boson generator, a black sphere they still didn’t have a theoretical handle on, that generated Higgs bosons at a phenomenal rate. What was worse, or better, take your pick, is that the bosons turned out to have the ability to “link” to other bosons and open up portals to… well, just about anywhere. Instantaneous transportation, even to other planets. The portals created mirrorlike openings that had been christened “Looking Glasses.” They went some strange places, that was for sure.

The kicker was that some of those planets had sentient beings that were interested in taking over the Earth. Called the Dreen, the species reproduced via a mat of fungus that was programmed to produce various other creatures. Like big, howling dog demons that ate people — humanity’s first contact with the Dreen — and all the way up to giant spider things the size of mountains. Presumably there was some sentient control behind the Dreen, but Bill had never seen it. All he’d seen was rhino-tanks and centipedes and howlers. Lots of howlers. The very name, Dreen, was an Adar rendition of the howl. Dreeeeeeen. Neither humans nor the Adar had any idea what the species called itself and didn’t really care. All they cared about was avoiding them or, if necessary or possible, wiping them out to the last fungoid monstrosity.

The upside to the gates were the Adar. They had encountered the Dreen when they’d first started creating their own Glasses, had had similar problems and had figured out how to close a Glass. Basically, all it needed was a big enough explosion. Big. World-killing. Since there was no way to set it off in the middle of a transfer — the movement was as close to instantaneous as instruments could detect — you had to choose which world to set it off on.