Dimensional Lapse III:
Dimensional Breakdown
By
Nicholas T. Davis
©Copyright 2016
IBSN-13: 978-1530338665
IBSN-10: 1530338662
All Rights Reserved
No part of this publication shall be reproduced or transmitted in any form without the prior written permission of the publisher
Dedication
The continuation of the Dimension Lapse saga
is dedicated to my parents,
Phillip B. Davis & Lucy E. Davis
who inspired me to follow my dreams
PROLOUGE
On a crisp, clear and cool night, the sun faded from the view on the small Adirondack Lake. The solitude and quietness of the night air was a perfect escape for Professor Martin Avery, his wife April, and their children, Louis and Sara.
They finished their dinner, and the eight year boy and his ten year old sister sat on the porch of the cabin, while their father sat in his favorite rocking chair and smoked his pipe tobacco. Their mother was still inside cleaning up the table and washing the dishes.
It seemed a long time since the last time he was up here; work consumed his life lately, and he was glad just to get away for the weekend. As a nuclear physicist, he was developing a possible fusion alternative to the currently fission based systems, which produced a lot of waste, and were inefficient.
After the President's speech on alternative energy to reduce global warming, he was pushed by the administration to come up with better ideas. He loved what he was doing; even if sometimes it was a bit overwhelming. It was times likes this he was glad to have the cabin and quiet time with his family.
Little Louis sat bored, while his sister strung beads to make a necklace, which was one her favorite hobbies. "Dad, can I go play in the water?" he asked. "Sarah will watch me!" She gazed at him with a look of disgust into his dark brown eyes, and lowered the beads to her lap in annoyance.
"No," his father said. "It's getting late, and you need to stay near the cabin. There might be bears nearby, and I don't want you far from my
sight."
"I never have any fun!" the inquisitive child remarked.
"Nonsense!" Professor Avery said. "We'll go fishing in the morning, just the two of us. What do you say?"
"Okay," he sighed, as he tossed his baseball between hands. "Sarah, do you want to play cards or something?"
"Can't you see I'm busy?" she snapped. "Why don't you ask Mom?"
He went inside the cabin, and could see his mother was still cleaning up. "Mom?" he asked. "Will you play a game with me?"
"Not right now, Louis," she told him. "Maybe later. Will you be a sweetheart, and take this garbage out to the side of the cabin?"
"Yes, Mom," he said, and followed her orders, shutting the door behind him. His father glanced over at him, as he walked around to the side.
"No wandering off, Buddy," he reminded him. He knew his curious nature, and his inability to always listen.
Louis rounded the corner, opened the lid of the garbage can, and threw it in. He placed a rock on the lid to keep the animals out, turned to go back, and noticed three green and red lights flashing in this distance through the evergreens, near the lake. He guessed from his position it wasn't visible to the others. He ran to get his father and explain what he saw. He reluctantly rose from his chair to satisfy Louis' moment of hysteria.
"What is it?" he asked.
"I just saw three lights flashing in the woods," he said, as he dragged his father by the hand to the side of the cabin. "I think it was a spaceship!"
"I don't see anything," his father asked, as Louis and Sarah looked fervently for the object.
"He's making it up," Sarah replied.
"No, I'm not," Louis insisted, and pointed through the trees. "It was right there!"
"Well, it's not now!" Martin stated, as he took a puff off his pipe. "Whatever you saw is gone now."
His father went back to smoking, Sarah went back to working on her necklace, and Louis just sulked the rest of the evening. He was sure he saw the lights; so after everyone went to sleep, he quietly sneaked out of cabin and walked down the quarter of a mile path which led to the lake.
When he reached his destination, he peered eagerly out at the water, hoping to find a sign of something, but nothing materialized.
He heard the melodic symphony of frog croaks, and the occasional splash of a fish leaping out of the water for bugs. He watched for several minutes, finally decided it was a waste of time, and figured his parents would be looking for him anyway. He was just about to turn around, when a beam of light shone down on him. He felt paralyzed and unable to move.
Facing the lake, he could see a large triangular craft at least half the size of the mile wide lake, which detailed several red, green, and yellow lights that flashed wildly. It hovered over the lake about one hundred and fifty feet in the air.
The beam's luminosity shone upon him, and was so strong it lit up the cabin area, thus waking his parents, who ran out to see what the commotion was.
"Louis!" his mother yelled from the porch, and tried to get his attention, but saw that he didn't turn around. The child felt an enormous tug on his body, and was lifted into the air by the beam towards the craft. When he reached it, a door opened, and he vanished into it.
April Avery fell into her husband's arms in tears, as Sarah awakened and came out to see what the commotion was all about. Her blond, frazzled hair sparkled in the light of the craft, as it slowly lifted above the lake. There was a bright flash, and the craft disappeared into the night sky.
The ship flew away at a rate so fast Professor Avery knew it couldn't have came from Earth. They stared in disbelief, it vanished from sight, and the night grew dark and quiet as it was before. How could he, a renowned nuclear physicist, explain that his son was abducted by an alien spaceship? He knew his son's curiosity would get the better of him; he just didn't expect anything like this.
CHAPTER ONE
Ten years passed since the incident, and Sarah was now a beautiful young woman. Although therapy was long and extensively painful, she somehow managed to rebuild her life, working as a research scientist in the aerospace division of the base.
Her parents passed away in late 2015, during the nuclear war, when Iranian terrorists detonated a stolen bomb, starting WWIII. Sarah survived, but went through many years of therapy, as she lived in the underground NASA facility her father worked for. Unable to accept her parents' death, and her brother's abduction, she partly blamed herself by not heeding his warning, and totally ignoring his repeated requests to keep him occupied.
Advanced space travel was still a few years away, considering the catastrophic events which took place a few years earlier. NASA completely restructured itself to work on new rocket systems under radioactive conditions on the Earth's surface. Rockets were launched from underground, through enormous bay doors at the top of the Rocky Mountain facility.
The atmosphere was a poisonous mix of radioactivity, carbon monoxide, dioxide, methane, and the lack of adequate oxygen. Several underground facilities were built to accommodate five thousand people at each; with enough food and air to survive the thirty years it would take to rebuild a craft big and powerful enough to reach space.
Earth's last hope was to leave the planet all together, at least temporarily. It would take generations to rehabilitate the world, and for NASA, that just wasn't an option. At least in space, there was a hope they may find a suitable world one day to terraform, such a
s Mars, or perhaps develop a cryogenic sleeper ship that could take them to the next star. Titan and Europa were also promising prospects. Earth was a little similar to Venus now, a 110°, poisonous world with noxious air. If it weren't for the underground growing facilities that produced oxygen, they all would
have surely perished. These types of systems were already implemented on the ISS space station to some degree, but in the future they needed to be produced on a much larger scale.
Her father transferred here just before the war, and her parents were on a second honeymoon when disaster struck. She was staying with a
family friend, General Albert Carver, commander of the base, and the chief Astrophysicist, who eventually took her under his wing. He promised Professor Avery he would care for her in the event of an emergency.
On July 18th, 2020, everything began to change. Sarah was part of a team of thirty to forty scientists who were working on a fusion propulsion system, expanding on some of her father's ideas. General Carver acted a little suspicious lately, diverting her every time he walked by her. She thought he was angry with her about something, but she couldn't figure out what.
He went into a highly classified area every day where Sarah didn't have access. She watched from afar, as he typed in a code and used a fingerprint scanning device. Her brother's curiosity haunted her, and she wondered what was going on behind closed doors. She knew Carver would kill her if she was caught inside, but the unknown projects peaked her interest. She decided to come back at night to see what was going on. She had to think of a way to gain access, and she thought about a friend or two in personnel that could help her.
She went down to the floor where records were kept to see her friend, Terry. "Hi, Terry," she said, and sat down in front of his desk.
"Hi, Sarah," the twenty two year old sandy colored hair man with brown eyes said. "What can I do for you?"
"I need a really big favor," she explained.
"Such as-"
"I need a copy of General Carver's fingerprint."
His eyes grew wide at her request.
"Why don't you just ask me for the moon?" he asked.
"I'll make it worth your while," she said, leaning over the desk.
"I could lose my job."
"I'll make us dinner. I'll wear that pretty blue dress you like, and maybe a little extra present. Besides, he won't find out."
"I'd need something more substantial than that," he stated. "Like a new job? Besides, the file won't help you anyway. You need his actual prints."
"Just get them for me anyway, please."
"What's this all about?"
"I'd rather not say at this point until I know more."
"Very well," he said. "Dinner will be fine. I wouldn't want you to think I was taking advantage of the situation. But there is something you can do for me."
"Name it!"
"Put a good word in for me upstairs. I'm tired of keeping track of everybody's personal information."
"Consider it done."
"And don't get caught, whatever you're up to. We'll both be in hot water if you do!"
"I'll be careful," she said. Terry went back to the records room to pull Carver's file. He came back with a slide of a fingerprint.
"Here you go," he said. "I don't suppose you're going to tell me what this is all about?"
"It's better if you don't know," she said, smiling.
"General Carver's probably thinking the same about you."
"Terry, I have more request. How do I get the code to the classified section of the base?"
"What kind of trouble are you getting us into?"
"Uncle Albert's been acting a little strange, I just want to know why."
"You'll have to get that yourself. I don't know anything about that. And, Sarah-be careful."
"Thanks, Terry," she smiled, and kissed his cheek. "You're an angel. See you tomorrow night."
"If I live that long," he quipped.
Later that day, she watched a couple of the classified research team enter the restricted area, trying to catch a glimpse of the code. One older gentlemen watched her, and covered the keypad when he found out what she was trying to do. He thought she hadn't seen his numerical entries, but she did in fact, and wrote down the numbers as soon as she had the chance.
That evening, she made her way back down to the section. When she saw there were very few staff wandering about, she quickly punched in the
code, and placed the fingerprint slide over the identification device. Much to her avail, it didn't work. She heard someone coming, so she quickly hid around the corner. When the man opened the door, she quickly grabbed it before it closed.
As the man walked down the stairway, she hid behind a computer panel on the catwalk. She noticed only a few people inside, mostly on the lower section. She looked over the observation deck, and froze in shock. There was a large area below her which housed a triangular craft similar to the one she saw ten years earlier, only smaller. There were also several engineers and scientists examining it, and two small holding rooms with glass windows. In one room, there was a small gray creature, and in the other there was an eight year old boy with black hair. "Louis!" she said, and began to cry. She heard the door open, and as she turned, was faced by the General. He hugged her, as she fell into his chest in tears.
"I hoped to spare you from this," he said. "How the hell did you get in here anyway?"
"If I tell you, will you promise not to yell at me?"
"You shouldn't be here," he reminded her. "This area is off limits for you or anyone else that isn't authorized. I love you very much, but it's protocol, and violating it could jeopardize what we're trying to do here."
"Why is my brother down there, and why hasn't he aged?"
"It's a bit complicated," he told her. "If I tell you, will you let us do our job, keep it quiet, and stay out of our way?"
"But he's my brother! Why are you keeping him in that room, and what the hell is that gray thing down there?"
"It's an extra terrestrial," he said. "His ship crashed, we retrieved it, and that's about all I'm going to say. Come on, Sarah, it's time to go back to bed, and forget what you saw here."
He could see she wasn't going to give up that easily, and tried to get her to leave, but she refused to until he answered her.
"My brother was abducted by aliens ten years ago. Explain to me why he's here, and why he hasn't aged."
"We don't know exactly," he reluctantly said. "We think he's been traveling faster than the speed of light, or possibly through time itself."
"That's impossible!"
"Not for our extraterrestrial friend it's not."
"How long are you going to keep them both in there?"
"Well, we have to run some tests on your brother and the Grey. I don't actually know. How ever long it takes."
"Uncle Albert!" she yelled, and knew all too well he was trying to get her to believe everything was all right.
"Maybe a month or two," he answered.
"Can I see him?"
"I'm afraid that's out of the question."
"Why not?"
"He wouldn't recognize you," he said. "You're ten years older, and he's still a boy who believes his sister is ten years old.
"Why didn't you tell him the truth?"
"He wouldn't understand, just as you don't understand. Sarah, you really need to go now," he said, and grabbed her shoulders, pushing her through the door. "Stay in your quarters, and please don't force me to put a guard on your door."
"Yes, Uncle Albert," she complied. "Will I get to see him in a month?"
"We'll see," he said. "At least you know he's still alive."
"To be used as a guinea pig!"
"We're more humane than that. We wouldn't perform the tests without his permission. He's agreed to help us."
"In your own words, he's still a boy," she argued. "He doesn't know what's happening to him!"
"Relax, Sarah. We won't hurt him, or the Grey."
"You promise?"
"I promise. Now go back to your room and go to sleep."
"Yes, Sir," she said, and walked out the door.
General Carver walked down the stairway, and approached one of the scientists.
"Dr. Thompson," he said. "How did Avery's sister get into this area?"
The older gentleman, a balding man about five feet with a mustache and glasses, shook his head and waved his arms.
"I don't know, Sir. We caught her eyeing the pad earlier for the code, but she couldn't have got through the fingerprint device without help."
"Exactly," he answered. "I want to know who gave her the information. And switch the code, I don't want her
interfering with the project."
"Yes, Sir," he answered.
"Have you found out anything from the boy yet?"
"He keeps saying that he doesn't remember anything after the beam
hit him."
"What about the alien?"
"He's been uncooperative. He won't speak to us, but he seems to be reading our thoughts."
"How do you know?"
"His brain waves are off the charts, indicating telepathic abilities."
"Then he can communicate through our minds?"
"Yes, but so far he's refused to do so."
"Did you inject him with truth serum?"
"Yes, but so far it's been ineffective."
"What do you suggest then?"
"That we try hypnosis on the boy."
Carver was surprised at the suggestion. "Hypnosis, Frank? You can't be serious."
"It can't hurt," he said. "Nothing else seems to be working."
Dimension Lapse III: Dimensional Breakdown (Dimension Lapse Series Book 3) Page 1