Ava spread out the instructions enough for Jules to peer over her shoulder, then tapped one of the diagrams. The diagram pointed to a large bubble on the bottom of the FINNA, like the plastic capsules for vending machine toys. “I’m assuming ‘insérez un objet personnel’ means insert a personal object?”

Jules wrinkled their nose at Ava’s pronunciation. They used to tease her for only knowing English, when they’d grown up speaking English and French, Creole to their Guianan parents and cousins, and knew enough Spanish to crack jokes with the Honduran and Mexican dudes working down in assembly. “You’re not wrong,” they said begrudgingly. “Just mildly offensive. Here.”

They handed over one of the purple gloves they’d found on the other side of the maskhål. Ava pressed a button, and the bubble cracked in half to open. She stuffed the fleece glove into the hollow space, which stretched to accommodate it like hard plastic never could.

“Cool, just gonna not think about how weird that is,” she said.

“There should be a switch on the side,” said Jules. “Turn it to … I guess that’s a compass?”

When she did, there was a momentary whine, high-pitched as a mosquito. The glove dissolved into a gently glowing purple haze, trapped underneath the plastic. There was a pleasant ding, like an oven timer, and the console lit up.

“That’s so cool,” Jules said.

Ava looked back at the diagrams. “I guess we just point it at the maskhål, and it should …”

The FINNA beeped cheerfully, and a neon-green arrow appeared on the screen, juddering and moving as she swept the device from side to side. Some of the gauges on the console jumped as she pointed it toward that puckered seam where the two worlds joined.

“I guess that’s it,” Ava said. The dread that she’d successfully tamped down with anger bloomed in her stomach again.

“I guess so,” Jules agreed. They picked up the instructions, put them in their back pocket, then held a hand out to Ava. She wanted to roll her eyes, but she wasn’t sure she’d be able to force her leaden legs to move without any assistance.

She let Jules pull her up, and they walked toward the maskhål together.

* * *

The weirdest part about walking through the maskhål was that it wasn’t weird at all. Ava had expected to feel something; a membrane, a temperature change, her ears to pop. They took half a dozen steps and were in another world.