Helion had already experienced teleportation of different distances, from one city to another, from one country to another, from one world to another, from one galaxy to another.
But the sensation of crossing the dimensional portal was much more... unusual than he expected.
It wasn't just the sublimation of his body into molecules and the reorganization in another location, it was something more. He couldn't explain how he felt or what. He only knew that, when crossing this portal, even in a state where he would be just semi-dispersed molecules, he was still conscious and felt something just before reaching his destination.
As soon as he felt his body recover, he knew at once that he would not be able to feel the same phenomenon again, even if he repeated the process. Perhaps he would never have the opportunity to study this phenomenon again, as regrettable as it was, Helion decided not to focus on this loss.
After all, he had managed to cross from one dimension to another, he had truly done something impossible, just him, several robots, androids and some AIs (ok maybe not just him but something close).
Helion found himself inside a cave, deep, dark and cold. Based on the resonance frequency of the wind, during a considerably strong storm, doing a quick auditory triangulation he could be sure that it was a cave near the top of a mountain, perhaps 10 kilometers above sea level.
[Initial assessment indicates that the portal is stable and constant, with no detectable anomalies of note.]
"Any leakage from the quantum containment field?"
[A minimal amount. It would take a multiwavelength detection satellite equipped with stable quantum coupling to detect it.]
"Hmm… and you believe that this world has nothing of the sort?"
If Helion didn't know his friend, he would say he was being careless, but he had known him for millennia, so he knew he wasn't acting this way out of overconfidence in his own abilities or his. His confidence came from specific mathematical equations that led him to believe in a fact.
But for Helion, the crux of the problem lay in the fact that this data was based on the mathematics of their dimension, not on the quantum mathematics of a different dimension, even though according to the data itself it was an identical twin dimension to his own.
What differences are there between quantum mathematics, something that in itself was not linear, if they differ from one dimension to another?
Reiterating that this had nothing to do with Ajar's pride in having helped create this portal.
Yes, the AIs of Helion's second world were aware of emotions, but that wasn't a problem; it was a help. Both for the AIs to better understand humans and to serve as a reminder to humans of how to be human.
It didn't take long for Helion's pessimistic outlook to come true. He and Ajar received a warning that one of the drones he had detected a large-scale microscopic radio signal in the surrounding area. Not only that, but the distinct signal was simultaneously transmitting to a point in the stratosphere.
It was therefore safe to assume that the inhabitants had access to drone and satellite technology, leaving Ajar in disbelief.
Helion honestly didn't know what to say to his old companion, but before he could say anything, a new intriguing notification came through. All of the drones detected in the area were observation drones, none of them military, entertainment, or meteorological.
This intrigued Helion and the various AIs still connected to them through the portal. In a society with access to drones and satellites, most of the drones would certainly be used for discreet observations of animal life, meteorology and security.
But none of them would be equipped with weapons?!!
Or any other component such as a barometer for weather forecasting, compartments for extracting samples from jungles, minerals, animal remains, etc., just observation?!.
This is not something common, even if we consider that the society would be something like a police state, a technological dictatorship or a world where machines would have taken control of the world.
In addition to the signal being sent to the satellite being retransmitted to a single location in the middle of the ocean, according to what the drones that Helion sent to the ionosphere were able to triangulate. A single point in the middle of the ocean.
This would not be so unusual, it could be a highly technological fortress where the central control AI would be located. Several possibilities could be true, but the only way to verify would be to subtly hack the network of these drones to try to understand them, and that's exactly what they did.