Rapture Nation ch 1

By Jesse Spinella
03/06/08

1
“It began like all great innovations, by accident. I triggered a small ripple of space-time in a test tube. The electrostatic material of the tube pulled the ripple in from the adjacent rift. As it sat in my centrifuge, the phenomenon grew. The additional gravity added to the rift’s power, and enlarged the lattice to encompass a four foot section of my laboratory.

Soon, the structure of the rift was large enough to measure with the naked eye. I could study it with various equipment, take readings and formulate my data simply by observing. Months passed, and there was no change. One afternoon however, I went into my lab, and discovered Maestro.”

“Maestro?” Asked the confused millionaire.

“Oh, sorry, he’s my adopted cat.”

“Ah,” came the disregarding reply.

“I’d never had a cat before that day. He just showed up”

The man sitting adjacent to the professor stared intently at his face, as if scrutinizing his words, “what do you mean, he just showed up? Do you leave your doors open to your office?”

“No, definitely not. I was just as perplexed as you. He’s a healthy, neutered, and definitely house trained cat; yet, all of a sudden, there he was. So after a few hours of figuring him out, I realized he hadn’t eaten for a while, and I went to the store to pick up some food, kitty litter, etc. I left him in the lab, and took off for about an hour. When I came back, he had disappeared.”

“Interesting.”

“I figured he went the same way he came, and it didn’t dawn on me exactly how, or where that was.”

“Where was it?”

“Two day’s later, I found him sitting in my chair. He poofed back into existence. I hadn’t left my lab for two day’s, working through the night, having food delivered. I showered, shaved and slept there. Then suddenly, the next morning, there Maestro sat, in my chair.”

“Curious.”

“After acknowledging his presence, and filling his food dish, he scarfed down his meal, and took a nap on the desk. While I went around the office figuring out little to nothing about the opening of space time in the room, I turned and watched Maestro wake up, stretch, and run through the ripple.”

“Intriguing.”

“Very much so. Putting two and two together, I surmised that I maybe able to step through the hole myself if I enlarged it. Repeating the procedure that started all of this, it took me a few more days, and soon, I had enlarged the current ripple to six feet by four feet. It stood proudly in the center of my office above the centrifuge, providing an eerie luminescence. It flickered, breathed and sighed, and generally moved as though it were a pond of water standing vertically.

“After taking several measures of safety, I took constant readings for three more days. I could put instruments through the hole, and pick up breathable atmosphere. I even stuck a digital camera through and took a few snapshots. But there was only blackness on the other side. Radiation was negative, there didn’t seem to be any ill effects of any sort. So finally, I mustered up enough nerve to go through, grabbed a few essentials, and entered the vortex.”

“What did it feel like?”

“Rather anticlimactic, actually. In fact, it was more like blinking than anything. One moment I was in my lab, the next, in the space behind the ripple. It was pitch black, just like the photo. There was the same amount of gravity, the same breathable air, everything felt just like home. Reaching out, I bumped into something. It felt like a handle. A wall stood before me, and I searched for a doorway. When I reached a knob, it turned, and I stepped through the door.”

“Where did you end up?”

“Oddly enough, a parking structure’s janitorial closet.”

“I don’t get it, I thought you said you stepped through time itself.”

“No, not time, a ripple. A dimensional shift. The place I ended up was a parking structure all right, but it wasn’t the Earth I knew.” Nick sat back in his seat and sighed.

Not sure what to make of the story as of yet, Dex leaned back into his posh seat and rubbed his chin, “so where does the book come in, Mr. Hand?”

“I’m just getting to that. As I said, this story will take time. Time to tell it the correct way, the honest way. I can’t just jump in and tell you that I picked the book up from a stack of books in a laboratory somewhere in alternate-dimension-Earth. That would lack the dynamic, the intrigue, and most importantly, miss out on the adventure of getting to that point. Trust me, finding a parallel Earth is quite an adventure in and of itself, and without understanding the nuances of that world, one misunderstands the importance of finding any book; let alone one responsible for my visions of the future.”

“I see. I can appreciate a good story Mr. Hand, but don’t waist my time with unimportant drabble. You, if you recall, are my guest. I am not subject to being told what to wait for in my home,” Mr. Bold’s words came with a sneer, and a pointed, crooked finger in Nick’s direction.

Nick gulped, and nodded. He forgot who he was dealing with. This wasn’t a Sunday school audience, full of bright, doughy eyed children waiting for the next verse. No, this was a multi-million dollar man who had no patience when it came to beggars. Beggars can’t be choosers Nick, remember. Don’t become a stubborn ass like you normally get. Reliability and respect, remember what Wagner taught you, “I understand sir. Where was I? Oh, right, the parking structure.

“In this parallel Earth, there were many differences to note right off the bat. Vehicles hover, and fly above the Earth. Airships still exist, and ferry passengers to and from cities like our jumbo jets. War predominates, everywhere on the scale of World War 2, or larger. Many fronts exist between many nations. And that brings up another point. Nations aren’t even the same, not even continents. Somehow, the Earth we know today had shaped itself differently, the same events that lead to our current land masses have slightly altered the layout of the land. This truly was a parallel Earth.

“I ended up on an island called Paradise. Nestled between several continents, it felt like a small island in our own South Pacific. The heat, the humidity, it was an Island the size and population of Manhattan, but with class…”

2

To Be Continued...