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| >> Campfire Creative >> Fiction >> Sci-fi >> ID #1791542 |   |
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| [Introduction]
+++1ST CHAPTER+++ Void Jumping He looked up from his iPad to take in the sight of the blazing sunrise. The hulking superstructure of the enormous cruise ship Humility was moving toward it, making the sun even more imposing. But of course, being only 13 miles west of the Mariana Trench, the sun during sunrise would be no less than grand. They were headed towards the deepest part of the seven seas, and the lowest elevation on Earth. Once there, he would commit suicide. Well, at least that was what he thought it amounted to. He looked back down at the iPad on his lap, the beloved gadget he couldn’t part with even during the onslaught of the iPad 5. The article was half done, and like many of his writings left unfinished, doesn’t have an introduction. This was the third of at least five blog posts he was supposed to write before jumping into the unknown, quite literally, as this is what the UN demanded of him. This is what I agreed to, he reminded himself again. The sun’s heat was unforgiving despite the early dawn chill, and his white polo shirt was starting to get stained with sweat. He saved his draft, set the iPad on standby, and thought aloud: “Nothing like kamikaze in the morning.” Major Saunders standing idly behind him in the lee grunted a bemused reply. “Is the Japanese World War II reference supposed to be sarcastic, Rev?” the burly military officer asked, calling him by his internationally lauded blogger pseudonym. “After all, the Emperor’s just a few clicks North.” He walked forward to join Rev as the latter walked away from his comfortable lounging chair, intent on grabbing a fine breakfast to throw up in a few hours, when he finally looks into what he’s supposed to go into. “So run all that shit by me again, would you, Major” Rev spoke to the six foot, 150-kilo hulk of muscle walking beside him. “Remind me how I die.” he jested without humor. “We’re not sure if we’re gonna die when we go through the rabbit hole,” Major Rivan Victor Saunders of the UN peacekeeping spearhead “Oathkeepers” said with equal lack of humor. “Besides, Vince is going in before us, remember?” Ah yes, the convicted sociopath who volunteered to jump into the big, black, gaping hole instead of calmly waiting for his turn at death row. It is such a relief that he goes before I do. His facial expression betrayed his sarcastic thought. “You’re going to witness subject seven’s entry into the resonance,” Major Saunders went on, “and will observe along with the scientists and top brass on deck of the UNS Quasar using special resonant matter monitoring equipment if subject seven survives.” That’s just messed up. Push him in, see if he lives. “Upon distinct and definitive indication that subject seven did not survive transit, you and I will not be tasked the same job.” Major Saunders droned on, undoubtedly using his most alluring briefing voice. “Indications of his survival are definite green lights,” Rev noted that ‘distinct and definitive’ indication that subject seven – Vince – did not survive was necessary for them to abort mission while a mere indication otherwise is an excited go-ahead signal, “and being unsure of subject seven’s situation will call for deliberation among project heads, but will undoubtedly lead to us jumping in anyway; albeit with better survival gear and better precautionary measures taken.” They rounded a corner and entered a rectangular opening that led to the ship’s luxurious canteen-cum-mess hall. Out the far side porthole Rev could see the guns of the battleship UNS Quasar, the UN Oathkeeper’s newest battle-ready recon gunship equivalent in firepower to US Nimitz Class battle cruisers. They’re used for mainly recon. Two smaller frigates deployed by the US were on hand to assist. Not that any threat looms over the scientific expedition and the strange turn of events that found Rev, the world-famous blogger-journalist-author, just hours shy of killing himself for the sake of…of what, exactly? His ride from being a college dropout to worldwide figure was of roller-coaster proportions the likes of which would never have passed any regulatory commission’s standards on safety nor sanity. Everyone on board must think it ludicrous that of all people to choose to send into the contained black hole, the UN project heads decided on a death row convict and a blogger. Well, we did volunteer, after a fashion. What better way to communicate what happens during the once a year phenomenon than through the pseudonym anyone with reliable Internet connection has come to know and read like any International newspaper or magazine? Before all this insanity, Rev worked with journalists, interviewed world leaders, ‘covered’ scientific, military, trivial, and sexual events that piqued the world’s curiosity, and wrote about it all on his blog – a singular platform of income that has made him a multi-millionaire. How could I not see this coming? He asked himself as he and Major Saunders settled into a table. “Look Rev,” noting the look of trepidation that didn’t come naturally to the blogger-adventurer, “I’m, not really jumping up and down, rearing to go, either.” “Well, you’re Oath” Rev said to the Major, who has become a fast friend in the two weeks they’ve been stuck together, referring to the moniker the world gave the spearhead, “I’m…I don’t know. Normal.” “Normal? Shee-it, boy, you’re as normal as that singularity of physics we’ll be jumping headlong into in a few hours.” Major Saunders glanced towards Vince’s table, where he was eating under close guard by two armed MP sergeants. “A blogger respected by world leaders? Who else can claim that title?” “I’m not actually respected by world leaders because my greatness naturally invokes it, you know,” Rev remembered all the awkward times in his writing ventures where at worst, he was unwelcome, at best, he was an oddity. “They just know how to play ball with a worldwide Netizen population enamored by a blogger’s weaving of…bullshit.” He finally decided on the term. Major Saunders smiled. “Well bullshit-weaver, in three hours you just might be jumping into what we call a resonance, a black hole - this particular one only 17 meters in diameter - held in place on a specific point in the expanding universe by a field of resonant matter,” Major paused to think a bit before proceeding. “At least that’s what they know about it ever since the Earth’s orbit last brought us into contact with it. But the last few decades it was too deep within the Mariana Trench, and the years before that not much science was there to explain what it was.” Rev had done a number of really technical physics and astronomy articles, and he knew well enough of black holes that jumping into one both excited and scared him. “So that’s how I die today, huh?” he said to no one in particular. “10-4. That’s how we both die today, if ever.” After the statement, the Major went to the canteen line, got himself a sandwich, sat back down, and tore into it like he usually does. Rev decided against turning the tablet on again. And for the umpteenth time, as he tended to these past few days, he looked up from his iPad to take in the sight of the blazing sunrise. +++END of 1ST CHAPTER+++ |
 4thPseudonym  +++2ND CHAPTER+++Briefing A TLC sandwich downed with a Pepsi constituted Rev's breakfast. In another hour, he, Major Saunders, and Vince Masone - and his armed guards - were hustled into a small briefing room of the Humility, now anchored close enough to the Quasar that a cat could jump from one boat to the other. They sat down and were thoroughly, albeit briefly, indoctrinated to learn all the rudimentary stuff there was to learn about the resonance. "First observed near a century ago by an unknown astronomer," the slideshow speaker commented as slide after slide of imagery slid by, "the phenomenon of resonance is the only empirical evidence of a physical singularity recorded on Earth." "A singularity of physics is an event or phenomenon that defies all set laws of physics, something literally impossible, and thus explicable only to a certain degree." He adjusted his thick-rimmed glasses in the dark before continuing: "In the case of resonance, the impossibility lies in there being a black hole of such small stature that it does not collapse unto itself. And of course, that the black hole can exist in any place regardless of the environment. But that has more to do with the resonant matter that envelopes the black hole." "There is limited knowledge of resonant matter: all we know is that this form of matter is transparent, virtually invisible, unless oppositely charged resonant matter draws close and comes into contact with it. In this regard, resonant particles are the same as common particles that build up matter - they are either positively or negatively charged." Rev has been through the motions, and though he did not bother to listen to his teachers in high school and he dropped out too early in college to indulge in higher physics, his writings have delved into Einstein's realm before. The speaker went on: "Resonant matter is only ever in one of two cases: positively charged and surrounding a black hole, or negatively charged and free-flowing. A resonance like the one the Earth passes once a year for three days on the same spot is positively charged. Positively charged resonance allows everything else to pass through it - and whatever is inside of it - like it wasn't there. Negative resonance, on the other hand, is the literal 'unmovable object.' Everything it comes into contact to must give way, or be destroyed. When negative flows of resonant particles come into contact with positive resonance, the positive particles give way. Essentially, the negative flow of resonance therefore goes into the black hole inside the positive resonance." Rev could feel the excitement growing in the speaker's voice. "In recent years, and with no small volume of effort, we've managed to harvest and use negative resonance and input them into devices that have functioned like keys to the door of positive resonance. You already know we've sent six living subjects inside the resonance we will be observing later on. These were insects and small mammals, and the last two subjects had life monitoring equipment that used small amounts of negative particles to transmit through whatever dimension they were sent into. The more recent of those two subjects, subject six, a guinea pig, is registering alive and well." Rev could hear the smile on those last few words. They’ve finally been able to send a mammal into whatever dimension the black hole leads to. Which necessitates for a subject seven – Vince. Not so small a mammal. Steve Ellen A slide came up showing a cross-section of a human brain. "What we don't know," said the speaker, "is the effect of the transition on the brain. We know that life continues, as evidenced by subjects one to six, but we don't know if their brains have been altered in any way yet. We'll only know that when we do a complete analysis on them after their return." Rev felt a little uneasiness to hear this again. Of course, he already knew that the complete effects on a human were unknown and that there was no way to know until a human went through. Sure, you could send a monkey but what would that tell you? Only that the monkey lived. In a way, Vince Masone was the monkey. If they detected any mental problems with Vince, then Rev's trip would hopefully be aborted. Hopefully. These gung-ho Oathkeeper scientists might be prone to reckless behavior, Vince thought, not for the first time, but like he always did he gritted his teeth and accepted the risks. if he made it through it would be the story of the century. The speaker had a slide up showing the resonance polarities around the black hole. "How do we get our subjects out? We believe exit is automatic after a given period of time which is directly related to the mass of the entering lifeform. Our small subjects should exit quickly. Larger subjects will take more time. You can see in this diagram of the polarities that there is a polarity reversal at the..." Rev tuned out the technical talk. He had heard it a dozen times and still didn't understand exactly how it all worked. He had a suspicion that nobody else really did either, even if they had the mathematics worked out to predict what might happen or not happen. The important thing now was to see if the bugs came back. Because if the bugs didn't come back, then Vince and Rev sure weren't coming back. And being trapped in another dimension with Vince was not Rev's idea of a fun vacation. Next thing would be the the analysis of the guinea pig. Between the bugs and the guinea pig the scientists should be able to fine tune their calculations enough to predict when Vince and Rev would return. With any luck at all the wait was almost over. Soon he would be the first, well, the second, man to enter a black hole. 4thPseudonym The next few slides showed bugs and mammals, with labels indicating them to be subjects one through six. A cockroach? They sent a cockroach through? Rev was bemused by the seeming incredulity of sending one of Earth’s most pestilent critters to another dimension, and he figured out why it was done a split second before the speaker announced it.“Cockroaches are amongst the creatures on Earth that are the hardest to kill,” he started, “and in this case, since they were almost immune to radiation, they were ideal subjects. This is Bessy” The speaker pointed his laser pointer over the cockroach image, which, Rev noted, was male. The visible segments in the ventral surface of the male Blaberius is more numerous than the female, plus Bessy didn’t have a more rounded, broader abdomen particular to the female of his species. “She was subject one.” The speaker pointed out. Rev was inwardly glad scientific geniuses can sometimes make laughable mistakes, though it was distasteful to recall how he had to work with and around cockroaches for a particularly skin-crawling blog piece he wrote back in the day. His mind wandered onto the brink of daydreams. A new slide came up: a cuddly little squirrel whose vital signs were showing green across the board. But his mind was seeing the red glare of the sunset as he saw it in Manila Bay, the Philippines, where he last went off to write about the Philippines’ sudden economic change in policy. “…subjects one through four are due to return any minute now, but subject five and six would take another hour, according to our estimates. Now, we’re…” Rev was in Australia with an aborigine hunter. The sun was glinting off the silver scales of a two-foot long lizard, a by-product of evolutionary genes run amok because of mutation owing to the nuclear waste of Australia’s then new nuclear power plant. “…Now, an update we’ve received is that Major Saunders will be participating in the planned jump when it is given the go-ahead…” That perked Rev up, though he wasn’t surprised. His friend Rivan Saunders already broke that news to him yesterday. He looked to his left. Major Saunders was wearing half a smile. Suicidal Oath, Rev thought with a silent chuckle. “…subject seven will be going in two hours after examination of subjects five and six, which would be about sixteen hundred…” Everyone in the room consulted his or her synchronized watch. Everyone except Rev. He was seeing the translucent workings of the Ambrosia, the world’s first pseudo-quantum computer. He imagined the sub-atomic particles and nanomachines in the tubes of the semi-transparent, LED-lined box moving around, powering the fastest PC on Earth. “On a final note,” the speaker’s tone turned a note more serious, which necessitated Rev’s departure from dreamscape to pay attention, “tomorrow will be the last day the resonance will be on that same spot. In three days, it will rapidly move away from its point of convergence with Earth’s orbit.” He paused to make sure everyone was listening, and Rev felt he was looking straight at him and Major Saunders in the dark. “That means if all things go smoothly, and we don’t suspect otherwise, if the lot of you who go through the rabbit hole are not expelled by force by our new negatively-charged resonant matter equipment, then there will be a chance you might be expelled naturally sometime between tomorrow and next year, which is the next time we will be in contact with the resonance.” Rev was already drafting his last will and testament in his head. “Which would mean you could be expelled from the black hole high in the atmosphere, or in space, somewhere along the orbit of the Earth.” There was an awkward pause. The question of how reliable the new equipment was was not uttered, but remained hanging in the air nevertheless. “But we’re sure everything’s fine, so by tomorrow, rabbit hole jumpers Alpha and Bravo, along with subject seven, would be safely out.” The speaker quickly concluded before the atmosphere inside the room forced the forbidden question out of somebody’s mouth. He motioned for an MP to turn the lights back on as he turned his projector off. “Now, let’s go see rabbit hole.” The miniature black hole shrouded with positive resonance was called the rabbit hole, for obvious reasons. Rev got up with a little difficulty, shrugging off the uneasiness that weighed him down. When they peered into the rabbit hole a few minutes from now, he was half expecting to see the disembodied smile of the Cheshire Cat. +++END of 2ND CHAPTER+++ Steve Ellen Although he knew from the many photos he had studied that the Rabbit Hole would not look like a literal "black hole", Rev was still a little disappointed at his first view of it. Because it was shrouded with the resonance fields, the Rabbit Hole resembled a sphere with a mirror surface, but one that was poorly made. It reminded Rev of the silvery helium balloons sold at fairs, but on a larger scale. The resonance field's reflective surface was constantly fluctuating with little waves so that it resembled a balloon that was not completely inflated. It always remained approximately spherical, but never perfectly spherical. Rev understood that it was these fluctuations that would make entry through the resonance field into the Rabbit Hole possible. They called it a Heisenberg Shift because it derived from the Uncertainty Principle. Apparently there could be a moment when there was an opening in the shroud without the shroud losing its resonance properties. A lot of power was required and exquisite timing on the part of Ambrosia, the project computer. Rev knew he was going to need a lot more discussion with the scientists before he could write clearly about it, but events had rushed forward at such a breakneck pace that there was still a lot he didn't fully understand. Surprisingly, Ambrosia was located very near to the Rabbit Hole. This was because there could be no appreciable delay between its highspeed calculation and its effecting a change in the field which would then fed back for another calculation and another effect. The number of calculations per second required was astronomical. Locating Ambrosia even a kilometer away from the Rabbit Hole would have introduced time and phase delays that would make success impossible. There was even a power plant located nearby, although it was redundant with another source located on the UNS Quasar. It wasn't possible to make Ambrosia redundant. If the highspeed quantum computer failed there would be no time to switch over to a backup. 4thPseudonym Yet another loophole fraught with theoretical dangers. The Ambrosia is one of a kind. More a freak accident than a planned transcendence of current technological capacity, the quantum mechanics that makes the supercomputer work was discovered by pure accident. And without the help of nano-machines, the gadget would be just a shiny contraption. The Ambrosia was brought here from the CERN lab where it was completed a month before to oversee the Rabbit Hole Jump. Without it, the whole endeavor was science fiction. Nope, no Cheshire Cat there, Rev concluded as he turned from the silvery shifting resonance fields that enveloped the black hole. On a table to his left, a group of scientists were excitedly observing subjects one through four, who were more or less ungracefully excreted by the resonance a few minutes before they got there. Rev walked over to see what was going on. He stepped to Major Saunders’ right, using the Major’s bulk as an impediment to keep the writhing mass of scientists to the soldier’s left at bay. He looked at the bugs, and was not sure what to think. All of them lay there on the table, unmoving. A veteran entomologist had just finished checking subject three, a mealworm. Not really a bug yet, as the project scientists wanted to observe the resonance’s and the transition’s effects on a younger subject. He shook his head slightly, on his lips the beginnings of a frown: “This one’s barely alive.” He picked up subject four, a huge King Stag Beetle, and after a close but brief observation, he put it down and declared, “This one’s completely gone too.” Silence crept over the room as everyone around the table contemplated the fates of the subjects. Three bugs dead, and the larval mealworm was barely alive. The aged entomologist was scratching his beard, grown scraggly in the last few days of excitement that forsook shaving. Rev looked back at the resonance. The UNS Quasar was on peaceful waters, but the occasional big wave sometimes sent the ship upwards, and during those times Rev observed part of the Rabbit Hole pass through the floor, undoubtedly to be seen by those below decks if the surging wave crested high enough. I could walk through that shining singularity and not feel a thing, Rev thought. Air molecules are in that exact same spot the resonance field is sitting…so much for the high school mantra that no two forms of matter can occupy the same space. Well, it is a singularity. Hushed whispers that failed to hide tones of excitement forced Rev out of his stupor. He looked back at the table. There he saw the mealworm wriggling animatedly, shedding its chitinous exoskeleton in the process. “Hmm…A remarkable turn of events. But that’s odd…” The entomologist scooped up the shed exoskeleton. It was broken and ragged in places. “Mealworms don’t shed their exoskeleton until after they’ve fattened themselves up.” He went to examine the exoskeleton through a microscope close by, more interested in that than the evidently lively mealworm which just shed it untimely. The scientists were scribbling notes on their notebooks or handhelds, and recordings of findings were lodged in every sort of device in myriad formats. “You know, the other bugs seem to have their exoskeletons damaged too.” It was Major Saunders, with an uncharacteristic grave expression of thought on his angular face. Rev looked closer as the table became less crowded. Saunders was right. Even without the aid of magnifying glasses or microscopes the jagged edges of cracked exoskeletal structures jutted out conspicuously. “Think someone stepped on them?” Rev asked half-jokingly while studying the remains of Bessy, the male cockroach. “I’m not much of an insect man,” Rivan started, “but I know my exoskeleton science.” Rev remembered his article on the Oathkeeper’s exoskeletal nano-suit project based on insect exoskeletons. “Those outer shells are tough, man.” Rivan was telling Rev, “And if gravity wasn’t here to crack them up if and when they got too big, then we’d have giant insects running around in giant exoskeletons.” Rivan was about to say something else when he stopped. He looked at Rev. Rev thought his face probably mirrored Major Saunders’ expression of realization intermingled with abject apprehension. The insects on Earth grow to their relatively small sizes because that’s about as much as Earth’s gravity can allow their exoskeletons to grow without collapsing from their own weight. Subjects one, two, and four, all small insects, were crushed to death when they went through the Rabbit Hole, leaving the mealworm larva the sole survivor. Its exoskeleton probably wasn’t all that heavy compared to the other subjects’. Rev opened his mouth to speak, but before he formed the words he was meaning to say, a sudden rippling of the surface of the Rabbit Hole seen from his peripheral vision caught his eye. He turned quickly, just as a spray of broken white fragments and a small squirrel were ejected from the silvery-black depths of the hole. The squirrel fell to the ground amidst the fragments, some of which were intact enough for Rev to realize what they once were. The bugs were sent in naked. The mammals had suits with some pretty solid components that not only monitored their states, but also helped keep them alive from too much radiation or gamma rays, theoretical dangers project scientists conjectured might impede a jumper’s progress. Everyone was looking at the squirrel, apparently subject five, and no one moved an inch as the squirrel writhed in apparent agony, squealing hideously while it was thrashing about. Subject five was more than half an hour early compared to time estimates of its return, so no welcome back party was prepared for it. Unlike the bugs which were spewed back out just in time. Rev wanted to go to the stricken squirrel but he was rooted in place. The squirrel squealed one final shriek, and then went limp. The seconds that passed seemed like hours waiting for one limp squirrel to confirm if he was jumping into a black hole or not. Soon the squirrel stirred. Sluggishly, it limped to a more upright position. After a few more seconds, it seemed to be back to normal. Everyone relaxed and the scientists gathered around the squirrel, possibly the first inter-dimensional traveling mammal. It was a shame they named it “Lulu.” A rather anticlimactic touch of comedy there. The pieces of her suit were collected for analysis, and only Rev noticed, as everyone was looking at the recovering Lulu. She was soon squirreling about, and before she could muster enough strength to scurry off somewhere in the bowels of the ship, the scientists put her back in her cage, and fed her some vegetables which she ravenously devoured. One scientist quipped “Well, I guess we should be expecting Harvard soon.” He was referring to subject seven, a young Tasmanian Devil. Rev was not in a jesting mood, but the scientists’ choice of subject seven was completely out of the box. He shook his head to rid the thought, and turned to look at Lulu in her cage. But then he felt something wet and warm on his left arm, and a split second later, the sound of many objects hitting the floor, one of them the sound of a sickeningly wet thud. Everyone turned to look, and a few gasps broke out: Harvard was dead. One hind limb was torn and missing, his skull was crushed, and an eyeball was hanging only by an optical nerve to its socket. Around him were blood and white fragments of his suit, some of it still plastered to his body. Rev noted in distaste that the wet and warm sensation on his left arm was splattered Tasmanian Devil blood. Steve Ellen Major Rivan Saunders paced back and forth before the door to the biolab. "A delay now would be a disaster. Do you have any idea how much money has been spent just to get us to this point?" "Yeah," Rev said. "Billions if you count all the preliminary science and all the support units." Rivan clenched his fists and looked upward. "We can't wait another year for this!" The door opened and Doctor Rathbone said, "Come on in. It looks better than we thought, but not as good as we hoped." After everyone was comfortably seated, Rathbone continued. "The 1.5G gravity of Planet X explains the bugs well enough. And the squirrel just seems to have had a little trouble readjusting to the 1G gravity of earth. That's surprising considering how short a time she was gone. Also surprising is that the squirrel has aged more than expected. We don't think time on Planet X is in sync with time here." Rev said, "You mean it's like Einstein's Relativity Theory in reverse? If we go there and come back here, then we will find that not much time has passed here but we'll be a lot older?" "I wouldn't say a lot older. We're not sure of the exact time ratio, but I don't think it's so extreme that you will come back as old men or anything like that." Doctor Rathbone chuckled at his little joke and Rev half-heartedly chuckled with him while wondering what the hell he was getting himself into. Rivan Saunders didn't chuckle at all. He just said, "What about the tasmanian devil?" "Predator of some kind," Doctor Rathbone said. "It was attacked by something that thought it might be good to eat." "Was it something big enough to attack a man? It's a good thing I insisted we go in with weapons." Doctor Rathbone paused and rubbed one hand with the other. "If you go in. I'm recommending that the insertion of human subjects be delayed until the next orbit." "What?!" Rivan said. "That's impossible! Congress barely appropriated enough for this mission. You think we can go back to them and say we changed our mind and now we want to do it next year?" "But the danger..." "F**k the danger!" He turned to Rev. "I understand if you don't want to go in the hole now considering what you've just heard, but Vince is a volunteer who can't refuse. He will go in and I will be right behind him." Rev felt indecision taking hold of him. Should he do it? Should he not? It wasn't like he had a wife and kids to worry about. He wouldn't even have run the risks he had up until now if there was anybody depending on him to remain alive. On the other hand, he wasn't suicidal. He looked at Doctor Rathbone. "What's our chances? Give me a percentage." Doctor Rathbone held up his hands. "How can I do that? This is uncharted territory. Maybe everything goes perfectly. Maybe you die as soon as you go through the hole. But I can tell you a lot more after Vince goes through. Remember, you aren't going through simultaneously. There will still be a chance to abort." "Right. I'm still in then." Rivan clamped a hand on Rev;s shoulder, "Good man! We'll make history." 4thPseudonym Doctor Rathbone, project scientific coordinator, took his leave after a few more minutes of discussion. He handed Rev and Rivan a concatenated data sheet of all the info they had on the planet the resonance leads to. They sent in probes before the bugs, and collected data beforehand. The atmosphere was the same, only with slightly higher nitrogen content. They managed to get soil data transmitted back, as inanimate objects don’t exit automatically like animate objects do. The polarity reversal that occurs some time after the entry of a live subject does not happen when something inanimate goes through. The soil data was inconclusive, but they managed to get some trace minerals of pretty much the same minerals here on Earth, only in different ratios. They neglected to check gravity, and three bugs paid the price.Rev was looking at the shortened report with Doctor Rathbone’s shorthand scrawling at its sides. But he was thinking about the recent developments, and particularly curious about his friend Rivan’s eagerness to jump into the unknown. He knew the Major to be a devout soldier, and one who knows his politics enough to be concerned the way military rednecks would when delays cost billions. The governments of all the nations making up the G-8 all had substantial, albeit veiled, investments in this endeavor, after all. But more than his curiosity for his new friend’s penchant for suicide, he was aware of his subconscious hope for the mission to be put off. But a commotion next door, punctuated by what he thought were three gunshots, jolted him out of his reverie. A suddenly opened door and a breathless voice dashed his hope as quickly as he affirmed its existence. “Doctor Rathbone!” the frantic scientific assistant almost screamed, “subject seven went in!” ------------------------------------------------- Cui bonuo? Vince was seething underneath his calm façade. Who benefits from this proposed delay of greatness? He just overheard some project technicians talking amongst themselves, saying that the project scientific coordinator wanted to recommend delaying the jump to the next time the Earth passes the resonance point. And everyone was rather relieved, having seen all but two of six subjects return safely. Some female staff were even slightly mourning Harvard’s death. You would all stand for your life’s work to be delayed by another year because of simple setbacks? Typical. Unwilling to cavalier forward despite immortality’s beckons. I don’t have another 365 days to spend waiting for my chance to finally be free of this world. He looked nonchalantly about the room. Lulu was playing with an effeminate technician saying she should have been named Sandy because she looked just like Sandy in Spongebob Squarepants when she wore the transition suit. Both of Vince’s guards were lax and paying him no mind. Even great minds of technical and scientific genius enjoy the lithe senselessness of such a toddler’s show. Hannah Barberra’s work was so much better, several generations before. But only by a small measure. Vince had surveyed the entire room, his guards’ readiness, and was planning his escape. Finally, a way out of this existence. Dead animals will not stay my feet. I’ve suffered this reality enough. I’ve had my fair share of disillusionment brought by bearing witness time and again to endless ignorance and the human mind’s infinite capacity to misunderstand. I no longer wish to be tethered with the self-proclaimed dominant species of this Earth. I wish to finally complete my transcendence from a mindset founded upon the fallacies of human evolution and civilization. A luminary unbound by superficial ethos is labeled a sociopath here. I will not die by the hands of these self-contradictory, self-defeatist beings who call themselves intelligent sentient life forms, feigning prescience over their fates. Beyond that silver doorway lies the ultimate freedom. There no set laws, cultures, traditions, and ethics can weigh me down. There I can start anew and discover what it is to be more than these life forms can ever hope to be. If society and civilization exist there, then I shall set myself to find if they are more worth adhering to than what has flourished here, what has failed me here. Vince was thinking at a furious pace, fueled by rage. No… even seeking a new form of this failed human endeavor betrays my upbringing. I should transcend even society and civilization, embracing practical biological limits while doing away with dogmatic boundaries that corrupt the dreamers, enslave the unknowing, and empower the wicked. He was waiting for the right time to strike. His heartbeat was rising gradually, and soon the increased blood flow would trigger the slight adrenaline rush he needs. This world and its human race are hopeless. You want to do away with me? Watch me do away with you. He was lightheaded, his muscles were tensed, and his ploy was complete. All that was left was to implement his plan. The effeminate technician giggled ladylike at Lulu’s squirrelly tricks. Vince intoned: “They really should have called her Sandy…” The incongruous comment had its desired effect. Some staff grunted amusement, soft chuckles were afoot. The two guards standing slightly behind him to his left and right were all but disarmed psychologically. He knew it was time to leave. His transition suit was flexible enough to allow natural, free-flowing movement, while the contraption strapped to his back did not even weigh five kilograms. So when he moved, he did so swiftly and accurately. He ploughed his right elbow into the solar plexus of the guard to his right, making him double over involuntarily. Before that guard was even halfway through the involuntary bow, Vince’s left elbow landed an upward blow to the nasal ridge of the guard to his left, effectively breaking his nose. Using the momentum from the left elbow strike, Vince spun on his right heel, grabbed the left-holstered .22 revolver’s handle on the left hip of the first guard, then rammed his left foot to the side of that soldier’s bent left knee. In time with the crunch of the soldier’s knees, Vince thumbed the holster lock on the pistol and let the guard’s body fall away from it, making it accessible to his right hand. In another split second he grabbed the pistol with his right hand and rammed its butt on the side of the other guard’s temple while he was automatically reaching for his left-holstered sidearm. The force of the impact made the soldier twist to his left, exposing the back of his right knee to Vince. Vince merely pushed it forward with his left foot and the soldier went down on that knee. Before he was even kneeling on it properly, Vince already thumbed the safety on his revolver and leveled it to the guard’s head. After a quick shot to the back of the head of that guard, Vince quickly went back to his former position, easily accessing the still-holstered sidearm of the now deceased guard, and lifted it out of the holster as the guard went limp and fell, while shooting the other guard who was still bent over from the excruciating pain of having his kneecap shattered. With two guards dead and two revolvers obtained, Vince pointed the gun on his left hand at the lead technician who controlled the negative resonance equipment on his suit, and fired a shot. The bullet whistled by the technician’s ear so close he could feel the wind it generated as it sped past, burrowing and destroying itself on impact with the Quasar’s thick hull. Vince looked blankly at the technician and uttered two words: “Activate it.” After immediate compliance from the technician and hearing the peculiar hum of the contraption on his back, Vince casually walked into the resonance. A young intern was fast enough on her feet and not shaken as badly as the others that as soon as Vince dematerialized as he was sucked into the resonance, she was already opening the door to the adjacent cabin, where Doctor Rathbone went to talk with Jumpers Alpha and Bravo. She swung the door open and screamed: “Doctor Rathbone! Subject seven went in!” In the confusion, nobody noticed that the monitoring equipment in the lab showed Vince’s vital signs were all green. Steve Ellen Doctor Rathbone, Rivan, and Rev ran to the insertion chamber with Rivan barking orders to get help for the guards who had been shot. Doctor Rathbone was the first to look at the monitors. "He's in and he's holding good!""He's alive?" Rivan said. "I see no problems in the vital signs." he studied the monitor for another moment. "That was unorthodox, but he certainly established feasibility, didn't he?" "What made him bolt?" Rev asked. "Vince thought they were going to postpone the insertion until next orbit a year from now." Rev put out his hands. "But what did Vince care? He's no scientist, just a convict volunteer." The mind of Vince Masone was a puzzle to him. Why had he volunteered? Why was he in such a hurry now? Rivan said, "You need to read his psych profile. I'll make it available to you when I get back." "What do you mean when you get back?" "I'm going in," Rivan said. "Vince has proved it's doable." "What? Right now? Aren't you going to wait for more confirmation?" Rivan paused and Rev wondered if the major had indeed been planning to go in immediately, but Rivan chuckled and said, "Sure, we'll wait for that. Are you still up for this?" Rev gulped. Things were moving faster and more unexpectedly than he had anticipated. "Yeah, but I'd sure like to know what happened to Vince, I mean, before he jumped. For God's sake! He shot two guards! What's to stop him from shooting us when we go through?" "One thing to stop him is that we will not end up on the same piece of ground that he did." "That's right. I forgot. We would have had to go through right away to be in the same place. That's what you were thinking, wasn't it? You wanted to chase him through the hole." "Maybe. But this way is better. There will be two of us and we'll have time to take some more equipment with us. I think some night vision goggles would be useful, don't you?" "Yes," Rev said. "Major? Is Vince going to try to kill us?" "We'll neutralize him. We'll tie him up and he can be a neat little package waiting for his return delivery." "Unless he gets us first." Rivan shook his head and grinned. "You're too moody and pessimistic, boy. Cheer up." Several hours later they were ready to jump. "You boys want to hold hands when you go through?" the technician asked. "Would that work?" Rev said. "Just make sure you don't wait too long. Every second corresponds to about a 2 meter displacement. "I knew that," Rev said. The characteristic whine of the resonance field generator went up a couple of notches in pitch. Major Saunders walked into the lock and disappeared. Rev hurried in after him. The jump was gut-wrenching, but very quick. Like a momentary urge to vomit, Rev thought. He was surprised to be standing. He had thought maybe there would be a fall or he would stumble. Rivan was a few yards away and looking at him. "That's quite a show from this side," Rivan said. "It looked like you popped out of empty air." "I feel better than I thought I would." Rev looked around. They were in a barren area, mostly sand and rocks. "I thought there would be more in the way of life here." "There is," Rivan said. "Look over there." He pointed at a line of jagged shapes that stretched across the horizon. "That's got to be some kind of vegetation. I doubt rocks would form shapes like that." Rev was scanning all around him with his iPad, capturing the sounds and images of a new world. "Should we head in that direction?" "It's the only direction that doesn't feature more sand and rock." "How far away is it?" "No way to tell since we don't know the scale, but it can't be too far or it would be below the horizon." Their boots left patterned footprints in the sand and Rev saved an image of them. "First step for a man, second step for mankind." "That's terrible," Rivan said. "I'll think of something better later." 4thPseudonym Great. This was supposed to be a life-changing, historic moment. Now we got hurried into jumping and all but mandated to track down a convicted felon in another planet. Rev looked at his iPad again. The beloved gadget didn’t show signs of damage from the jump. Probably thanks to our own resonance field generators, Rev thought. Their rectangular “backpacks” housed a mini negative resonance generator that envelopes anything two feet away from the suit transmitters embedded into their jump suits. Our jump suits! We look…ridiculous.The stark contrast of the white body suits with the grey rock and sand terrain was ludicrous. All they needed was a pair of huge fish bowl helmets and it would look like Apollo 11 all over again. Except the moon’s gravity is one-sixth that of Earth. Here… wait. Rev noticed that he and Rivan have been heading to the jagged shapes for a minute now, and he does not feel the difference in gravity. He was about to raise the curiosity to Rivan when he suddenly felt queasy. He felt lightheaded, then it seemed all his muscles went on mini-spasms probably akin to mild rigor mortis in the works, Rev noted. His vision blurred ever so slightly, then returned to normal. He breathed, observing for the first time that during the few seconds of whatever it was that happened, he had not taken a breath. He stared at Rivan, and he was just recovering from the same spell. Rev took a step towards the Major, when he felt heavier somewhat. It seems the G difference finally kicked in, Rev thought, sharing knowing looks with the Major. “You’re officially 50% heavier.” Rivan said, flexing his limbs. “That wasn’t as bad as Lulu, now, was it?” It was then that his eyebrows met in a frown after noticing how ridiculous their jump suits looked where they were. “Let’s stow these suits away somewhere. Build camp and explore a short distance from the camp’s secure location.” Rivan suggested. “You’re the Oath, Major. Whatever you say. I’m just here to document.” Rev was stretching and groaning as well, adjusting to his new weight. He looked at the odd shapes in front of them, closer now. “Well I’ll be. Those look like someone spruced them up.” Rev said to no one in particular. Major looked in the direction he was staring. The jagged, odd shapes were indeed vegetation. The taller fauna of the planet grew skyward but each stem had its growth limit, it seemed, as the ‘trees’ formed almost polygonal shapes the taller they grew. “Wherever there’re plants, you could expect animals.” Rivan was thinking aloud, un-slinging his nonlethal ordnance – a modified MP5 that carried tranquilizing darts and immobilizing cartridges. The bullets didn’t kill, but delivered sufficient force to bruise and knock out a grown man. The tranqs were ideal for animals – and for Vince. Rev was documenting the tree line, which was not a line at all. “The thing that got Harvard, our resident Tasmanian Devil, might be out there. Best be on your toes, Rev.” Rivan said to Rev without looking. Rev grunted his reply. They had to set up camp – a refuge, an HQ. They had so many things to accomplish: observe the surroundings, take in the flora and fauna, measure what time it could be on the planet…and Rev had to document everything in his blog. Too bad there’s no WiFi here, Rev was checking WiFI connectivity on his iPad, I won’t be surprised if this planet is the same as ours, maybe even as advanced or more. “Well, we better keep moving Major. You got point?” Rev asked rhetorically, knowing the Major’s military pride would keep him from letting a civilian take the lead. “Nitrogen getting to your head, boy?” Major Saunders asked Rev with a smirk, reminding him of the slightly higher nitrogen levels in this planet’s atmosphere. He locked and loaded his MP5, then lead on. Rev wouldn’t want to succumb to nitrogen oxide poisoning and die laughing literally far away from home. Besides, there was almost nothing to be giddy about in their situation, where almost everything was unknown. Well, let’s get acquainted with the flora and fauna, shall we? Steve Ellen Rev and Saunders headed for the vegetation line. Rev was thinking that on every planet sand was sand and rocks were rocks but there could never be two planets with the exact same lifeforms, even if conditions were the same. Something scurried across the sand. "Did you see that?" Rev said. He was too slow to snap a pic with his iPad. Saunders nodded. "Yeah. About the size of a lizard, but it looked more like trilobite." "A trilobite! You have better eyes than I do. I just saw a blur." "I'm a trained observer. It looked to me to have a three-part shell and maybe a bunch of legs underneath. Look! There's another one!" Rev whipped his iPad into position, again too late. "Why don't you just hold your cam at ready?" Saunders said. "We might be walking through a nest of them. I think they are just under the surface and then our footsteps scare them into running a short distance away to hide again." Another trilobite made its short move. "Got it!" Rev said. He showed the pic to Saunders. "Not very clear but you can see the three-part shell." "Yeah. And there is probably something bigger further up the food chain that eats these little guys." Saunders picked up a long stick-like object. "Get your cam ready. Set it on video." Then Saunders dragged the stick through the sand and a half dozen trilobites came up and scurried a few meters before burying themselves again. Rev replayed the short movie. "Didn't trilobites once dominate the early earth environment?" "Oh yes. There were thousands of different species. They ranged in size from very tiny up to bigger than a dinner plate. Then they went extinct. I suppose if a few of them had survived we would still have trilobites on earth today." "Kind of odd to find them here on Planet X, isn't it?" "Everything about this situation is odd. No sense in being surprised by anything. Anyway, these trilobites are probably completely different from earth trilobites in ways we don't suspect. Internal organs and that kind of thing." Rev rubbed his chin. "This heavy gravity is making me tired. Do you suppose the larger lifeforms will tend to be built low to the ground?" "That would be logical. But Mother Nature isn't always logical. That vegetation we're headed toward isn't low to the ground." "It might be very stiff and strong," Rev said. "Look how close we are and there is no sign at all that it might be swaying in a breeze." "It's not a breezy day," Saunders said. "Let's rest for a moment." 4thPseudonym It was time to hypothesize; time to work on theories. Nothing was outlandish so long as it did not stray from the facts they already gathered. Planet X was hypothetically somewhere else in the universe where the resonance on Earth leads to. It has 1.5 times the gravity on Earth. It has plant life and animal life, as evidenced by the spruced up, strange looking vegetation line they were headed to, and by the trilobite-looking critters under the sand. The soil was almost the same, only some element concentrations were higher. Rev remembered reading somewhere in research and probe results that bronze was probably almost nonexistent, and platinum was plenty. The atmosphere was almost the same in composition as well, save for a heavier concentration of nitrogen.Let the hypothesizing begin, Rev thought. Trilobite-like creatures suggest a prehistoric period of time in the planet. Similar composition in both the planet’s crust and atmosphere probably means life forms in it would also follow a similar pattern on Earth. So if trilobites still exist here, it would be a valid assumption that the planet is in its early stages, and life forms are just starting to evolve. The gravity would force larger creatures to slink lower to the ground, except for some cases where higher was better. The gravity dictates the time flow, and a day here is shorter than on Earth. Rev looked up to scan the grey cloud formations above. They effectively obstructed any view of a patron star like the Earth’s Sun, or several stars to which this planet’s Solar System might be dependent on. Too bad. Two or three suns would have been a good image to go with some of my blog drafts. He looked at Major Saunders. He was admiring the grey nuances of the environment in a bemused manner while unpacking a quick bite from their limited rations. Grey sand, grey rocks, grey sky. It could very well be a prehistoric era, with volcanic gases and particles obscuring the sky. But the air is quite clean. It was as puzzling as it was bleak. Rivan became evidently lost in his own thoughts after two spoonfuls. In the horizon were low-lying mountainous formations. No sign of large bodies of water sparkling. Or maybe they were just as grey as the rest of the planet and therefore unnoticeable? Just then a faint, far-off noise coming from deep within the jagged vegetation line disturbed Rev’s thoughts. It was a cross between a shriek and a throaty roar. It was not repeated. Rev looked at Rivan, thumbing the safety on his MP5 on and off, which, Rev knew, was not a gesture of agitation but excitement. “Please tell me you’re not planning on avenging Harvard the Devil right after we just got here.” “Relax,” Saunders smiled, “Just thinking about what sort of predators would think we look nice and juicy in our jumpsuits.” Rev went back to his silent hypothetical episode. But trilobite-like animals does not necessarily mean we’re in a Jurassic period. Same evolutionary and development pattern, but the timeline may be different. Life could have blossomed here sooner, as the settling planetary crust could also have stabilized faster because of the gravity. Okay…am I just trying to convince myself that roar just now was not from a dinosaur from another planet? Rev shook his head to clear it – it didn’t work. He looked at his iPad blankly. Major Saunders noted Rev didn’t do much of anything during the time they were resting. But there was no urgency. Even if Vince did get even a few days head start, he was only a secondary objective. For now, it was Major Saunders’ turn to hypothesize about the strange, grey location they now languished in. Steve Ellen Another shriek/roar sounded, much closer this time, and all thought of hypotheticals were abandoned for the moment. "Better get you iPad ready," Saunders said. "If I'm not mistaken there is something flying toward us." "I see it!" Rev said. Over the hills came a wing-flapping monstrosity as big as a small airplane. Rev's first thought was that it was a Pterodactyl to go with his prehistoric speculations, but this creature didn't fit the pattern. The wings were thin, flat, almost butterfly-shaped, and flapped painfully slow. The body of the creature had a strange bloated semi-transparent look. It had a long narrow head that hung down from a thin neck. As it passed over them it shrieked again. Rev captured a video of it on his iPad. "That body is probably mostly a gas bag," Saunders said. "I'll bet it's so full of hydrogen it would explode if you held a match to it." "Where would it get hydrogen?" Rev said. "All you need is water to make hydrogen, son." "You need more than water. You need an energy source. You need electricity, don't you?" Saunders looked at him. "You never heard of organisms that can generate electricity? I could show you a few things in earth's oceans that would give you a painful electrical shock." "That's true," Rev said. "Are you a bio expert too, Major, on top of everything else?" Major Saunders grinned. "I wouldn't have been assigned to this mission if I didn't know a few things. But I got plenty of training in possible forms of exobiology from some of the best scientists on earth. Not that it matters what I know because when we get back safely that will be the greenlight for scientific expeditions to come here. Exploring Planet X will keep us busy for many years to come." "I'm glad you said when we get back to earth instead of if." Saunders laughed. "I've got plenty of optimism." They reached the line of vegetation sooner than they expected. "A lot like earth trees in a way," Rev said. "But the color is slightly wrong - too blue." Saunders nodded. "I wouldn't want to draw any conclusions from only one group of plants. Just like on earth there are probably many thousands of different species of life. What interests me now is that trail through the trees." "Trail?" Rev said. Saunders pointed. "Look closely at the ground right through there. See how it's slightly more compressed?" "Oh yeah." Rev aimed the iPad for a photo. "Should we follow it?" "Is an earthman on a strange planet curious?" Saunders said. "We'll follow it. But shall we go up the trail or down the trail? Let's go this way." "What are we going to do when night falls? It will be dark soon." "Just stop and sleep. Did you ever sleep under the stars before?" "A few times, but this isn't exactly the back yard of my parents' house." Saunders chuckled. "That's true. We'll take turns standing watch while the other one sleeps." 4thPseudonym The trail they followed led them deeper into the forest of bluish trees. Rev snapped off shots of trees and plants, but realized there were no signs of insects or the other tiny critters Earth’s lush jungles have aplenty. The trail forked, and Major Saunders signaled for them to stop. It was plain to see that the way leading to the right ended at the mouth of a foreboding cave a few yards away. The path leading left wound up higher into a hill and past an outcropping. “I feel like I’m in a choose-your-own-adventure book for teens.” Rev commented drily.“And what happens to the protagonist when he searches dark caves like those?” Rivan asked, pointing towards the cave to their right. “He gets mauled by a mother-beast protecting her young.” Rev answered. Major Saunders chortled, but led towards the left anyway. “Best keep an eye on our six, Rev. Something might come out of that cave and catch us with our pants down.” The Major was saying as he was following the trail, which he was starting to have a harder time doing. “Whatever it is, it won’t catch me with my pants down with you.” Rev’s parched throat called for dry humor, he supposed. He took a sip from a canteen and checked a thermometer app on his iPad. “It’s almost 30 degrees. I wouldn’t have taken these blue trees for tropical plants.” Rivan stopped and looked back. “It only got warmer when we went into the forest. I don’t remember sweating my balls off while we were trekking the sand and stone towards this place.” He was right. Rev went near a tree and held his bare palm to it. It was warmer than the air around it, almost like warm blood pulsed through it. Before Rev could voice his thoughts, Rivan was off again, picking up on what was now a barely visible trail. They hiked up a small hill, down on the other side, and when they passed a clearing they saw two more of the hypothetically hydrogen-filled butterflies lazily drift overhead. Are they the only things alive in this forest aside from these trees? Rev was about to confer with Rivan about setting up camp when the Major signaled for him to wait, then dashed off into the trail he was following. Rev barely had the time to respond before he was gone. Well, he outranks me major to nothing anyway. He waited a minute, typing down bits and pieces on his iPad while sitting on a weathered rock, when Major Saunders appeared. Rev looked up and instantly knew he found something quite interesting. The Major was wearing a scowl that usually heralded something of significance – but was it good or bad? “You remember our inclination that this place might be prehistoric?” Rivan started. Rev cautiously let himself be led in, “…yeah?” “Well, there’s an abandoned town up ahead. It doesn’t seem prehistoric from the look of it. I didn’t go into one of the, ah, dwellings, but it seemed more…dark age Europe than prehistoric Pangaea to me.” Steve Ellen "Are you sure it's abandoned?" Rev asked. "Roofs caved in, walls collapsed, not a soul stirring... it seems a reasonable assumption." "I want to see!" "I thought you might." As Rev and Major Saunders headed up the trail toward the abandoned village, Rev said, "I've been thinking about these warm trees. How do we know they are plants?" "Hmmm, I see what you mean. Some kind of animal that is rooted in place like certain sea animals on earth." "Exactly," Rev said. "Then what does it eat?" They walked a little faster. Soon the village appeared. It was as forlorn and rundown as Rivan had promised. Rev snapped a few long shots then they both moved in to poke around the ruins. "What do you think?" Rev said. "Humanoid?" "It wouldn't surprise me. Are you familiar with the Mlodinow theory that any intelligent life form would probably be humanoid?" "No. I've always supported the sci-fi theory that almost anything is possible." Major Saunders pursed his lips. "Well, we should qualify the word intelligence, I guess. Dogs and dolphins are intelligent. But let's consider tool-using intelligent beings that build houses. They can't be four-legged critters and they can't be aquatic critters. They need hands to use tools. Two legs for walking, two arms to hold the hands, a head to hold the sense organs. The humanoid shape is the only one that makes sense." "It sounds logical, Rivan, but I still want to leave the option open for a ten-eyed spider thing with hands or tentacles that builds a city." Saunders chuckled. "It better be small in size if it's got an exoskeleton instead of an endoskeleton. But you raise a point about insect societies, Termites, ants, and bees build cities of a kind. Unfortunately, it's a hive intelligence instead of an individual intelligence and you also have the size problem..." Rev paused with the look of a sudden idea on his face. "The trees!" "What about them?" "Maybe they are an alternate form of the creatures who built this village. You know, a seasonal thing. Sometimes they are treelike and sometimes they are humanoid." "Let's not get too far out with our speculations. Who knows? You might be right. But let's look at the simple solution first. Some group of creatures built this village and lived here for a while and then went somewhere else." "Or died out." "Yeah... or died out." 4thPseudonym The ruins were by no means ancient. It might have been a few months after the inhabitants left, but no more than that. Rivan and Rev came upon interesting tools that easily fit their hands, and some tools that were too small and others too big. Most were made of an iron-ish form of metal. Weavings of some thread-like material were scattered here and there, some of them the duo suspected were decorative in purpose. A half hour more of investigation revealed stale food and evidence of the use of fire, though the ‘firewood’ they saw was peculiar, if it was indeed flammable.“Looks like they don’t cut down those warm, bluish trees for their fires.” Rivan was examining small pieces of the suspected firewood. “That niche there sort of resembles a hearth.” He was pointing at a depression by a corner of a small dwelling that was still sturdy. Rev inspected it closer, with his iPad in tow. A small hole led away and outside, with a meager covering to prevent precipitation from getting through, it would seem. “The food stuffs we found are all berries and fruit, perhaps some vegetable-like material, but no meat.” Rev typed in a quick note in his iPad. “Possibly not omnivores? Vegans, each and every one?” Rev asked Saunders without looking at him. “Meat spoils…the bones should remain, but still, if they didn’t leave in a hurry they could have disposed of food waste in their own proper way.” Rivan was sure they didn’t leave in an orderly fashion, however. The destruction was not made by weathering or time. What fallen roofs and caved in walls there were was most probably due to an attack. The evidence was plain to see for a military man, but he kept his thoughts from Rev in the meantime. He was pleased that at least the blogger was somewhat enjoying himself. “This is awe-inspiring.” Rev commented as he brushed dust out of layered crevices that might have been some sort of book shelf. “Another civilization of intelligent sentient life, possibly humanoid.” He looked out an opening, possibly a window of sorts. Then his expression changed to alarm. “Major, I think someone’s coming.” Rivan scrambled to the same opening and peered out. He saw small dots of bright orange looming in the horizon, from the vegetation line from where they emerged earlier. “Torches?” he whispered, asking no one in particular. He grabbed Rev by the elbow and led him towards a back entrance of the dwelling, where they could exit unseen. They went around two more dwellings until the Major found some high ground suitably hidden from the perspective of the oncoming small group. He stashed Rev unceremoniously in a corner and told him to shut his iPad down to prevent its unnatural light from gaining attention. Then he switched magazines on his weapon to use the knockout ammo instead of the tranq darts. He then positioned himself at a vantage point where he can effectively monitor the group. Rev started to get up but Rivan motioned for him to stay down. “Not until I say it’s okay.” As Rev reluctantly obliged, he heard a rustling sound, indicating the group was near enough to be heard. The major was whispering to him: “Three quadruped beasts with…either torches up their asses or bioluminescent tails.” He cocked his gun softly. “They’re being led by a humanoid form in a sort of cloak.” His tone was neutral, like he wasn’t seeing an intelligent humanoid life form that was not Homo Sapien and from another planet. “A tracking party. Those quadrupeds must be like canines, that humanoid might be a hunter or recon unit of some sort.” He doesn’t sound very excited, does he? Rev thought to himself. Rivan stopped whispering and was making a confused face, probably wondering what his targets were doing – which Rev can’t see. He edged forward silently, and like the trouble-making sidekick in a mainstream Hollywood movie, knocked loose some stones and sent them noisily tumbling down the slope they were on. Steve Ellen The humanoid and his three quadrupeds froze in place. If they have ears they are cocked to listen now, Saunders thought. He carefully aimed at the biggest quadruped and let loose a round. The animal dropped heavily to the ground. The humanoid stared at the fallen animal, apparently not understanding what had happened. That gave Rivan time to knock down another one with a well-aimed shot. Now the humanoid was alarmed and ran back the way he had come with his last remaining quadruped on his heels. Saunder turned to rev. "Let's get some pictures before those beasts wake up." "What about the third beast and the humanoid?" Rev said. "I can handle them. Four against one is tough but two against two is a fair fight." "Two? Oh, you're counting me in?" "You have a weapon, don't you? But just play with your iPad for now unless I give the word. Come on, quick now. We have a little time before that humanoid comes back." "How do you know that?" Rev asked. "Use you empathy skills. What if you and I were poking around and I got shot and you retreated and took cover. Would you immediately come charging back out? You would try to assess the situation first. We just need to move fast and be done with the pictures before this being's time for assessment is over and his time for counterattacking begins. Let's move!" They scrambled down to where the two quadrapeds lay and Rev got his pictures. Not exactly like dogs, he thought. More like long-legged lizards with big snouts and beady eyes. He was kneeling down getting a closer look when he had the feeling of being watched. He looked up. Rivan was standing still with his gun pointed at the humanoid who had returned and was standing and watching them. It didn't seem to have a weapon. "He is wondering who we are and what we are doing," Saunders said. "Why isn't he afraid of us?" "I don't know. Maybe he senses these two quadrupeds are still alive." 4thPseudonym Well, that’s true, they’re still alive, but…Rev rose slowly, mindful not to make any overt or threatening gestures. Rivan was as still as stone. The humanoid walked on two legs bent the wrong way by the joints that would have been knees, and its two upper limbs seemed to have two elbows each, or perhaps the joints that should constitute wrists simply evolved higher than they did in humans on Earth. Its skin was bluish-pale, and from the looks of it might be tough as leather. What was most mesmerizing was its face, however. It had a mouth (which was scowling, it would seem) with no lips, two small openings in the middle of its head that might have been nostrils without the fleshy cartilage, and no apparent ears (or just the cartilage that makes up the outer ear). What stunned Rev the most was the humanoid’s two eyes – they were exactly the same as human eyes, though with an unnerving glint, like a light is reflecting off of it, that does not go away. “Is it just me, or is he more curious than afraid?” Rev whispered to Saunders. “Is it even a ‘he’?” Rivan whispered back in an even tone, never moving an inch. The creature was looking them over, and then it shook his head in a familiar gesture of what might have been exasperation. The lizard-like quadruped by his side was sniffing and the tip of its bio-luminescent tail was alternately glowing and darkening. The humanoid’s expression was plain to read, but what Rev and Rivan could take as a scowl might actually be a smile, or vice-versa. Rev boldly stepped closer and raised his arms up slightly, showing them bare. The Major didn’t voice out a complaint, but he wasn’t exactly encouraging either. Someone has to break the ice… Rev was about to try to communicate with gestures when the humanoid made some noises. It gestured towards the fallen lizard-like animals, made a sound that was half grunt, half squeal, and shook its head more vigorously than before. Then it used its left two-jointed limb and made the common human gesture that typically says “come, follow me.” Rev stood there, confused. The creature started turning away, then noticed Rev and the Major weren’t moving. It turned back, gestured again, this time with a low guttural sound that was oddly like a complicated gurgling. It swept its limb from Rev to Rivan, then gestured again for them to follow him. They stood there, in a queer Mexican stand-off. Rev looked at Rivan, Rivan looked perplexed but still ready to pull the trigger. Rev looked back at the humanoid. “You want us to follow you?” He asked, using the same gestures – sweeping his own arm from him to Rivan, then gesturing in the direction of the humanoid. The creature repeated the “follow me” gesture twice, then held his limb out, showing a hand-like end with three equally-spaced multi-jointed appendages, seemingly pointing at Rivan. It pointed its limb straighter, making it clear it was pointing at the gun. Then it swung his limb downward. “Rivan…” Rev started. “I know.” Rivan answered. The creature gesticulated for them to follow again, looked at the downed quadrupeds, then simply turned away and stalked off, leaving Rev and Rivan to decide whether to follow it or not. Rev turned back to his companion, “I want to ask you what you make of this, but the more pressing concern is should we follow?” Rivan had relaxed his hold on his pistol, and from the look on his face was trying to decide just that. Rev looked towards the slowly stalking creature steadily making his way into a part of the same forest they came out of, then turned again to Rivan “Well…?” Steve Ellen "Let's do it," Rivan said. "Don't forget to get pics and video." The creature led them through the ruins until they came to a stone hut that was in fairly good shape and even had a roof. They followed it inside. A small fire was burning in a fireplace and the creature added wood to it. Rev looked around. The single room of the hut was mostly empty. He couldn't decide whether the creature lived there or was just camping there temporarily. "I wonder what our new friend's name is?" Rev asked Rivan. "How about Leatherface," Rivan suggested. "Do you think he lives here?" "If he does, he gets by with very little. Uh oh. I think he is offering us tea." The creature had dipped a cup into a pot standing near the fire and now offered it to Rivan. "No thanks," Rivan said after gazing at the brownish contents of the cup. He reinforced his words with gestures and the creature got the idea. Similarly, Rev was offered drink and refused it. Then the creature put the cup to his own lips and drank. "Maybe we should have tried it," Rev said. "Don't eat or drink anything here unless we purify it first." "Right. Forgot my training for a moment." "Well don't forget," Rivan said. "It was designed to keep us alive and healthy. I don't know what to make of Leatherface here. He sure seems calm and collected. Almost as if humans are nothing new to him." "It's not impossible, is it? I mean, that other humans than us have been here?" "Hmmm, I suppose some other group could have discovered the way to Planet X, but I doubt it. We would have heard something about it. I still believe we are the first. Maybe it's just Leatherface's nature to take whatever happens in stride." "But why did he want us to follow him here to this hut?" "That," Rivan said, "is the big question and the poor sap seems in no hurry to answer it. Why don't we pretend like we're leaving and see what he does." 4thPseudonym Rev shrugged and turned towards the door. Rivan followed. Before Leatherface could gurgle out his objections, however, the duo found themselves face to face with the two quadrupeds the Major shot down earlier. Like the first one, they exhibited similar signs of curiosity and wariness.Leatherface grunted a command, it would seem, and his pets shuffled inside to lay by his feet, if they were indeed feet. He set down a bowl of the same stew he was eating, and both pets started at it. Leatherface then motioned to Rev and Rivan. The gurgling and grunting meant little to either the blogger or the soldier. When the creature finished, they stepped outside. Rev stopped after a few steps and turned to Major Saunders. “Well, Major, he doesn’t seem to mind.” “Why did he even bring us here, I wonder.” The Major shifted his weight. A gentle breeze went past, bringing a draft of something that smelled familiar to Rev. He looked around for the source, but instead found something else. “Major, someone else is coming.” Rivan looked where Rev was staring. More creatures were emerging from somewhere inside the line of vegetation. As they neared Rev and the Major saw that it was another Leatherface, with three more of the torch-tailed quadrupeds. But there were two other creatures that walked alongside them. “Those two look nothing like the Leatherfaces.” The Major commented dryly. Rev just stared. They were bipedal and had translucent, fleshy skin where their suits of some sort showed it. The garb was dirty white and plain except for two green bulges by the sides of the creatures’ torsos, and conformed to their mostly humanoid features. Their arms were more tentacles than limbs, and Rev suspected that their lower limbs were much the same with a few differences that allowed them to walk upright. Their eyes were almost to the side of their almond shaped heads, which, Rev noted, seemed to be permanently held at an upwards angle by a queer neck muscle. They could still look at Rev, which probably meant looking downwards for them. “No nasal cavity or cartilage. Just eyes. See any openings for a mouth of sorts?” Saunders asked Rev while the trio was approaching. Rev just shook his head. The time for worrying about their immediate safety has long passed. The sheer unnatural quality of their situation made Rev unsure whether it was even logical to act the way humans would when in the face of a potential threat. Good thing the Major’s here, he thought. Though seemingly less than nonplussed, the Major’s calm belied a readiness only years of training and combat experience can imbue. Rev was just out of it. As the group neared, the quadrupeds inside the hut-like structure made a half-whelping, half-hissing sound, warning Leatherface about more company. He stalked out from the hut and walked towards them. An exchange of grunts and gurgles commenced between Leatherfaces, and the one who brought Rev and Rivan home with him motioned to the new creatures. One of them stepped forward, seemingly appraising the duo who, for all Rev knew, might seem to them to be the strangest creatures this side of the universe. “These new guys are still not surprised.” Saunders said. “The phase for surprise is over, don’t you think?” Rev asked. The translucent creature seemed to be done staring at the two, and reached behind him to retrieve a disc shaped object which it then tinkered with. Rev was disoriented by the fact that he could see well into the workings of the creature’s body. It had a nerve system somewhat similar to human anatomy, though the blogger noted that he could not seem to identify major muscle groups nor bones. Perhaps the translucence is not so severe, Rev mused. He remembered his iPad and immediately whipped it up, tinkering with it a bit to bring up the camera, then took a video of the new creature. The translucent life form looked down from what it was doing (it needed to hold the disc shaped object at a high angle that suits his vision) just for a second, then went back to what it was doing. It seemed to Rev that it was pushing buttons on the face of the disc shaped, white device. Soon it stopped and showed Rev and Rivan the face of the disc. Rivan grunted amusement. To Rev’s surprise, he was looking at a disc shaped alien version of his iPad. From behind, the disc was plain white, but from the front, only its thin borders were white. Its face was a deep blue hue, and right then it was showing a number of icon-like images of what seemed to be various groups of shapes. Most of them were little more than doodles. Some were too random to be actual shapes. An image caught Rev’s eye: a group of geometrically perfect shapes including a triangle, a square, and a circle. There were even lines and dots that perhaps showed vertices and other mathematical information. Rev and Rivan looked at each other, and then at the creature. The life form held out its other tentacle-like limb ending in a single leaf-shaped stump which in turn ended in what might have been half a thumb on a human hand. It pointed towards the face of the disc. “Multiple choice, you think?” Rivan mused aloud. Rev was stunned by his realization. “Good lord, they’re trying to communicate with images!” He excitedly pointed at the geometric figures. He was surprised yet again to find that his finger reached near the surface of the disc enough that it seemed as if he clicked the image on a touch screen form of technology. Rev and Rivan watched as the image zoomed in and all the others faded away. The creature brought his disc to his line of sight. He looked at Rev’s choice and started tinkering with his disc again. He turned to his companion and a series of high-pitched squeals and moans could be heard emanating from it. A set of squeals and humming sounds came from the other translucent creature in reply. And the one seemingly interrogating Rev and Rivan turned back to his disc, configured it some more, and finally presented a new of images to the duo. “Well I’ll be.” Rivan said. The new batch of images were of different sorts of animals. There were thirteen forms of biped and quadruped life forms on the screen, though what was most noticeable was one that looked exactly like a golden retriever on earth. “That looks like Lassy.” Rivan said as he pointed to it. The image zoomed in again as the others faded away. The creature checked Rivan’s choice, turned to its partner, and squealed. Both of the creatures’ heads then turned in a sort of bobbing-weaving motion. After a few more moments of tinkering, when the creature presented the disc again, even Rivan was speechless. It said: “CORRECT SUPPOSITION” After briefly showing the message to the duo, the creature took the disc to his line of sight again and repeated its tinkering. Rev was aghast. Rivan managed a chuckle. “Did it just say ‘lucky guess’ in a confounded sort of way?” Before Rev could collect himself and reply, the creature handed the disc to Rivan instead of just showing it to them. This time it read: “WELCO1ME THIS DIST57ANT FROM ASSEMBLY SITE 2 ROTATIONS FRO4M PLAN NEED ROUTES” “Okay…” It obviously does not know about punctuation. Rev’s mind went into overdrive. “Shit!” He whispered. “Shit! Shit! Shit! Shit!” he breathed in deep a few times, much to the amusement of the still calm and collected Major. “Get it together Rev, I need your help on this. What’s fishface trying to say?” Rev looked at him. “Fishface?” “Leatherface has got a crocodile hide for a face; this one looks more like a fish out of water to me.” Rivan explained, and then motioned to the disc in his hand. “So? What do you make of this?” Rev looked at it long and hard. “We can assume that the first word is complete, minus the misplaced numeral. A simple ‘Welcome’.” He paused. “Then it’s only a matter of figuring out where the messages end.” Rev grabbed the disc from the Major and showed it to the creature. He gestured to the new line which read NEED ROUTES and pointed to the long line that made little sense. The creature seemed to grasp his meaning. It took the device and tweaked the message. It handed it back to Rev. “What, friends already?” Rivan chided. The message then read: “WELCO1ME THIS DIST57ANT FROM ASSEMBLY SITE 2 ROTATIONS FRO4M PLAN NEED ROUTES ” “A welcome. Easy enough.” Rev said. “And then…’THIS’…what is ‘THIS’ ? Distant from assembly site?” “A meeting place? Or an actual assembly site? Construction?” Rivan offered. “Whatever it is it seems THIS means to say this location we’re at. So the second line says we’re currently far from the site of the meeting or the construction site” Rev concluded. “You’re good at this, huh?” Rivan said. Rev ignored the statement, lost in his excitement. “2 must either be the number two, or just another lost numeral. The other words are plain to see. The third line either says ‘rotations from plan’ or ‘2 rotations from plan’.” “How do we know they use ‘from’ the way we do?” Rivan asked. “They seem to have adjusted to our use of images and linguistics. How, I don’t know. But this is fantastic! Wait, hold on, we need to concentrate.” Rev held back a gush of exhilaration. “Okay, so: welcome, we’re far from the site…what’s next? In the site there’s an event. Whenever there’s an event, there’s a schedule…” “The ‘plan’ must mean schedule… right?” Rivan tried his hand. “Most probably.” Rev agreed. “So we’re far from the site, the schedule is in…a day or two…” Rev finished in a barely audible voice. Rivan thought a moment, and then: “Oh, planetary rotations – as in days. Okay, so if they know how to use plural forms of words then we’re looking at a two-day timeframe, otherwise they’re just being wise-asses and using the S-form of that word and we’re not entirely sure when the event takes place.” He paused for breath. “What about ‘need routes’? Are they asking for directions?” Rev answered solemnly, his realization jolting him into somberness. “No. They don’t use punctuations. They’re being friendly. They’re asking if we need directions.” Steve Ellen "Yes, we do," Rivan said. "We need lots of directions." Rev touched the alien iPad on the NEED ROUTES query and a map filled the screen. There was a blinking red dot near the bottom and a blinking blue dot near the top. Rev and Rivan studied the map. "What do you think?" Rev asked. "I think the red dot is where we are now and the blue dot is the assembly site. Can you take a pic of this with your iPad?" "Sure. Too bad we can't link the two pads directly but I guess that would be too much to expect for them to have the same protocols as earth-based electronics. Here. Check out this image of the map. I guess we can follow this." "I have an idea," Rivan said. "Let's start showing Fishface the pics we've taken here and see how he responds. Maybe we can learn a few things." Fishface typed responses to all of Rev's images. Many of them were I DO NOT KNOW THIS which made both Rev and Rivan wonder if Fishface was a native. Apparently he was a visitor just like they were. on the other hand, the quadraped they called Leatherface did seem like a native, but he didn't know how to use the alien iPad or construct any words in English. When Fishface saw the pics of the Trilobites he typed GOOD TO EAT. "I wonder about that," Rev said. "Good to him, maybe. What do you think is going to happen at the ASSEMBLY SITE?" "It would have to be a big meeting of some kind, wouldn't it?" Rivan said. "Since Fishface assumes we've been invited, it apparently involves multiple species from various planets in some kind of get together. Odd to stumble on something like that here, isn't it?" "Do you think it's a threat to Earth?" "Everything that happens isn't necessarily a threat to Earth." Rev raised his shoulders. "Yeah, but all these aliens having a meeting on a planet that's so close to earth..." "It's only close if you know how to use the resonance. Maybe to them earth is just another planet." "You sure are calm about all this, Major. Have I been watching too many sci-fi invasion of earth movies?" "Maybe. But if I see anything going on here that makes me worried, I'll let you know." © Copyright 2011 4thPseudonym, Steve Ellen, (known as GROUP). All rights reserved. GROUP has granted Writing.Com, its affiliates and its syndicates non-exclusive rights to display this work. |
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