In reality, you are Panis, Prince of the world of Cibus, rightful leader of the Leavened Empire. A man whose own foodstuff nearly destroyed him.
Cibus is a world divided by food the way that Earth is divided by geography. Families are organized into clans, which are loyal to particular recipes; these are in turn grouped into Empires that are built around particular categories. The Leavened Empire is the oldest and mightiest of the Empires, covering all of those foods that depend upon yeast for leavening or fermentation. As Sovereign of Sourdough, you were the third in line for the throne of the Empire, ruled by your father, the Risen Emperor. At least, until your brother grew greedy.
Cervisius was the Baron of Brews, just ahead of you in line for the throne. You were comfortable with that; you had no driving need to be Emperor. But Cervisius was different. He craved power, moreso than you realized until it was too late.
It all erupted some fifteen years ago. Cervisius attacked without warning, killing both your father and eldest brother in the middle of the night. His troops came for you, but you were able to fight your way clear and make your escape. You went to confront him in the Royal City, expecting the Royal Guard to join with you in arresting him for his treason. Your naivete nearly got you killed, as he ordered you tossed into your own browning ovens, an almost mortal insult, to roast like the breads you guarded. That was when the Vortex seized you.
You found yourself in a completely different oven, which was just beginning to warm up. You pounded on the strange metal walls; fortunately, you were noticed and released from your near-fatal captivity. The people in that odd place didn't know what to make of you, and didn't want any "bad publicity", so they released you into this -- the strange new world of Earth.
You were on the streets for years, trying to grasp and adapt to this strange new environment. Gradually, you came to understand how this world work, and that, as long as you persisted in telling people about your true identity, they would think you mad. So you adopted this guise, and, one day, stumbled across the truth, as you first encountered the agents of the Interactive Literature Foundation, and another Vortex.
You found yourself involved in a bizarre, hard-to-explain circumstance; when you pressed those around you, they explained that they were part of a new group, which was exploring, and trying to contain, the Vortices. You grew even more excited when they told you the date of the first known Vortex, the event that was code-named Rekon-1, a few years before: the day that you first arrived on this world.
You immediately got involved with the ILF, working your way into their good graces and gradually working your way up. You have kept your actual identity carefully secret, even from the lovely lady who you found yourself involved with and eventually married. One thing is clear: this world is at least as xenophobic as your own, and isn't likely to take kindly to invaders from other dimensions. Even the relatively broad-minded folks from the ILF can't be told; they would be altogether too likely to lock you up like some sort of laboratory specimen, treated with pity instead of respect. You couldn't deal with that.
As you worked your way up, you began to look for others of your kind: those who were swept up in the Vortices and deposited unceremoniously here on Earth. You were determined that no one else would have as miserable a time of it as you did. It hasn't been easy; these "strays" seem to be taken from semi-random worlds, and land in places quite separate from where the actual Vortex occurences happen. But by keeping your ear to the ground for reports of confused people appearing at the same time as known Vortices, you've found a lot of them. And as the technology of Vortex Mechanics improves and grows more precise, you've been able to really start gathering people together, quietly and without fanfare.
When you originally landed on this world, you called yourself simply the "Toastbuster", from the way you had survived being toasted in your ovens; it was a silly name, but you weren't entirely in your right mind then. You've kept the name over the years, though, as a mark of your knack for survival, and wound up dubbing your group the Toastbusters in honor of it. You try to instill in them your attitude that you will overcome this, and get home, someday.
After some years, you even managed to work your way up to the Presidency of the ILF; it required some careful forging of identity documents, but people weren't inclined to believe that you were anything other than who you pretended to be. Then you were in a position to really start working on your plans. You began to orient the research departments of the ILF towards better understanding the reason specific Vortices appear -- exactly how "belief" is a part of the Vortex. Most Vortices simply spring from the subconscious of the people around them, but you wanted to be able to control it. Success finally came some months ago, in the form of the "belief prism". The prisms, in theory, act to magnify the conscious beliefs and wishes of those in proximity of a Vortex. If the Toastbusters can use them, they should be able to productively direct the Vortices where you need them: back to your homeworlds.
You snuck the prisms out of the labs, under cover of a requisition from the President's Office; it was a secret project under your say-so to begin with, so few in the ILF hierarchy even knew that anything was being worked on. The prisms are now in the hands of the Toastbusters now. And now that you are no longer President, you don't see any reason to delay -- you've done what you can to advance the plans. Now, with a massive Vortex brewing, it's time to get it going.
Saturday night, at about 1:30am, probably around Any Port in a Storm, will be one of the biggest Vortices anyone has ever seen. It's going to be like riding a bucking bronco, but you believe that the prisms should be strong enough, especially if you have enough people concentrating on a single world and multiple prisms in operation. Then the only question is: who gets to go?
At first, the project had a simple goal -- getting you home, where you could avenge yourself on your brother, and rescue your people from his undoubtedly despotic reign. But the fact is, you've become rather comfortable on Earth. You have a good life here, a woman you love, even a new "people" who need your help and leadership. Given the choice, you aren't sure that you actually want to go home, to a struggle that will probably take years. Duty calls -- but duty may also call you to stay, and help the others get home. If this works, there will be other Vortices; you should be able to send others through one by one.
The pull of destiny is strong here, though. Especially strong because this hotel is practically next door to the ghastly Wonder Bread factory, where they manufacture that terrible imitation bread. The factory that holds the oven where you first came through to this world.
And things are complicated here now. Stephanie has grown increasingly obsessed with the mathematical projections about where the Vortices are going, and has formed this "Millennium Group" to study them; she's also become a little morbid, obsessed with the deaths that sometimes occur around a Vortex. You still love her -- but you worry about her. And it is clear that things are getting hard at the ILF; with such large Vortices, they need every good Mechanic they can get. You are torn between staying and going.
Of course, it is a bit arrogant to assume that you should be
the one to go; all of the Toastbusters want to get home, some more than
you. The honorable thing to do might be to stay yourself, and instead
choose someone else from the group to go. Then, the question becomes:
who is most deserving of going home? And who needs to most?
Positions of responsibility, you sometimes have to remind yourself, come
with hard decisions.