The First Iteration

Jate Goldmet is a very special person, but he doesn't know it. The beneficiary of an extremely rare mutation, he possesses the ability to survive the cross-dimensional journey from one iteration of reality to another. All but lost in a winter snowstorm in the middle of the USA, he stops at a run-down bar in a century-old mining town and asks for shelter from the weather. Alone in a back room after hours, Jate is pursued and then abducted by agents of the Infinity Compound. Rendered unconscious due to an unprotected passage through a cross-dimensional portal, he wakes up in an iteration of reality known to its inhabitants as Prime Trace. His guide and mentor, Menothenes, explains that he has been drafted by the Infinity Compound, and that he will be extravagantly compensated to function as a portal adept, an agent capable of surviving the transition between iterations of reality. His job will be simple and straightforward: righting wrongs done by those with evil intent. As he has prior experience with being drafted, Jate reluctantly agrees and begins training for the hardest job of his life under an unrelenting taskmaster named Matthew Samaras. As Jate learns his new trade, he begins to understand just how difficult and dangerous the work is, and he wonders if he can long survive something so perilous and same time, financially and emotionally rewarding.