Pros:
-An interesting story. Small town politics with geopolitical parallels, and XK-class possible repercussions. It's solid social commentary if nothing else.
-The Foundation approaches the situation thoughtfully. So many portal-to-another-world skips have staff just blindly exploring until they get eaten by boogeymen, or shooting anything that comes through with no questions asked. Here they investigated cautiously, made contact with the natives, and tried to work with local authorities to proactively prevent passage. Didn't work, but it was still the right thing to try.
Cons:
-The explanation is muddled. I re-read the relevant section a few times and I'm still not clear if any visitor causes an explosion when they arrive, or if reality collapse depends on if they are in group A, B, or C. I believe it's politics-independent, but there shouldn't be any doubt about something so basic to the concept.
-The mayor's brother causes reality distortion in a 2 meter radius, which returns to normal when he leaves the radius. But how can he leave an area effect that is centered on him? I think it was trying to say that the effect moves with B5, that everything goes back to normal behind him as he walks around. But as written it just makes no sense.
-When The Foundation got new intel from B5, they should have adjusted their operations. Security would need to know not to fully trust Bs at the very least. Unless they had strong evidence that he was lying, in which case that should be a note after the interview log.
-In the last interview, why would the mayor's brother not be able to go back? B1 doesn't know he died from reality failure, and there are no side-effects when anyone goes thru the portal into the pocket dimension. So why wouldn't the mayor's "friends" at The Foundation just take bro home if they found him?
Net score: -1, but it's a close thing and I'm clearly in the minority.
