by J Boyd Long
“So, could we use tree sap as a sort of adhesive?” Quentin asked.
“That might work.” Bob scratched his head. “Is sap a decent conductor?”
“Oh yeah, it’s almost as good as water,” Quentin said. “You’d still want to try to keep the wire in direct contact with the circuit board, and just put the sap around it to hold it in place, of course. Nothing beats direct contact.”
“He might have some potential,” Bob said to Tocho, nodding at Quentin. “He’s showing signs of resourcefulness, and he hasn’t handed me the wrong tool yet.”
“Potential for what?” Eissa asked, yawning. “He’s not going to be the next James Bond, if that’s what you’re thinking. He did manage to infiltrate an evil corporation, but he has absolutely no ability to talk to a girl in a romantic situation, and he doesn’t own a suit.”
Bob laughed, while Tocho looked confused. “Who is James Bond? Did he invent some kind of glue, or something?”
“Oh my God,” Eissa groaned. “I’m going to have to start screening everything I say, or I’ll spend the rest of the day trying to explain pop culture references to someone from another planet.”
“James Bond is a character in a series of stories,” Bob explained. “I’ve got a few of the books back at the house. He’s a spy, and he always comes up with creative ways to get out of a pinch. Oh, and he always seduces all the women involved.” He laughed again.
“I do all right,” Quentin muttered, his face turning red.
“Alright, alright, let’s get back to work,” Tocho grinned, sitting up. “The day groweth long.” He opened up a cardboard box, pulled out a video screen, and handed it to Eissa. “Here, why don’t see if you can clean that up some. Be careful, it’s a touch-screen. Don’t scrape it with anything sharp.”
They began installing bits and pieces again. The pile of parts dwindled down until the tarp was finally almost empty. Bob stepped back from the panel and wiped the sweat from his forehead. He held a small part in his hand, and had a puzzled look on his face.
“What’s wrong?” Quentin asked.
Bob scratched his head. “Well, I’ve got an extra piece here. Damned if I can remember where it goes.”
Quentin looked at it closely. “That’s a clock crystal. That would go on a circuit board, probably a main board.” He looked inside the panel for a moment. There were a bunch of circuit boards, but most of them were small, with very limited functions. He finally spotted what he was looking for near the bottom, behind a series of busses. He took the crystal from Bob, dropped down on his knees, and plugged it into the empty slot, seating it firmly.
“Not bad, son, not bad at all.” Bob grabbed Quentin’s hand, and pulled him to his feet with a grin. “If I’d known you knew how to do this stuff, I would’ve had you do it right from the start and save me the sore back and knees.”
Quentin blushed, pleased by the compliment.
“I’m going to need your help with this last bit, too,” Bob said. “The power pack is a bit tricky. We’ve got to route the positive cable around the switch box and up through that harness there, and terminate it in this fuse panel,” he pointed. “If you’ll manage that part, I’ll hold it in place down here, and keep the ground wire from touching anything and arcing.”
“Okay,” Quentin agreed.
Tocho passed the power pack to Quentin. It was a small, but heavy box, with two wires coming out of one end. Bob slowly kneeled, sat, and finally laid down on the ground, and reached out for the pack. He grunted, maneuvering it into position.
“Go ahead and route that hot wire up through the panel, like I showed you.”
Quentin began feeding the wire through the complex maze, tugging it around a variety of obstacles. He paused when he got near the top of the panel.
“How’s it going?” Bob asked, through gritted teeth. “This thing gets heavier by the minute.”
“I need about six inches,” Quentin said.
“Me, too,” Tocho said dreamily. “Preferably attached to a young hunk of a man with big muscles and a nice tan.”
Bob snorted, and then coughed. He dropped the power pack on the ground, ripping the wire out of Quentin’s hand and down through the panel as he rolled over on his side, laughing and gasping for air.
It was such an unexpected statement that Quentin had to play it over in his mind to be sure he heard it right. He felt a little awkward laughing, but Bob’s hysterics were contagious, and soon they were all laughing. They were just beginning to recover when Eissa snorted, and that started a whole second round of the giggles. Quentin collapsed next to Bob, trying to catch his breath.
“Whew,” Eissa said, wiping the tears from her cheeks. “I didn’t see that one coming.”
“Me, either,” Quentin agreed.
“Didn’t you know?” Bob wheezed, still trying to catch his breath. “Tocho is vagina-averse, in much the same way that you’re penis-averse.” He winked at Eissa, then turned his head and spat. “But that was a good one, I wasn’t ready for it.”
“Vagina-averse, huh?” Eissa said, still giggling. “That’s a new one on me.”
Bob rolled back over and picked up the power pack, brushing the dirt off it. “Okay, let’s try this again. This time, we’ll try to stay focused.”
After a few minutes of weaving and straining and stretching, Quentin managed to get the positive cable attached. Tocho held the mounting bracket in place, while Bob carefully slid the power pack into position and started the bolts.
“Before we tighten all this down and attach the ground, let’s glance over the whole thing,” he said to Tocho. “I don’t want to fry it.”
“Good plan,” Tocho said.
They went over the panel together from top to bottom, talking each other through the sequence as they went. Quentin followed along, trying to understand how it all worked. At last, Tocho and Bob stepped back and looked at each other.
“Well, I guess this is it,” Tocho said.
“Moment of truth,” Bob said with a grin. “Let’s try it.”
Chapter 10
Quentin, Eissa, and Tocho stood together, not without some apprehension, and watched as Bob connected the ground wire, which energized the workings of the DimGate. He slid the wire through the clamp, and began tightening the screw as lights flashed and long-still circuits came to life.
“Well, it didn’t catch on fire,” Tocho said. “We’re off to a good start.” He stepped up beside Bob and gazed into the panel at the screen.
“The self-test isn’t running,” Bob said. “It’s probably a bad connection somewhere, maybe in the fuse panel. Everything’s been growing mold for three years. It’s no wonder it doesn’t conduct very well anymore.”
“Whew,” Quentin said. “I rather thought you were going to blame my tree sap idea.”
“That’s probably what it really is,” Bob said. “I just didn’t want to hurt your feelings.” He dropped a lavish wink, and Quentin grinned.
“Well, do you want to go ahead and program it without the test function, and just see what happens?” Tocho asked. “We really don’t have much choice, do we?”
“Yeah, we might as well,” Bob agreed. “It’s still set from our last traverse, which was from the Genesis Dimension. We need to input the destination coordinates for Dimension 165.” He consulted a worn and barely legible list taped to the inside of the panel cover.
“Hhmm,” he said. “We have a set of coordinates for somewhere near Atlanta, but that doesn’t help us out, unless you two want to hitchhike back to Florida. Let’s see.” He accessed the map screen and began zooming in on Gainesville. “We need a safe place to cross, somewhere that’s not a road, or a public area, if possible.”
“How precise is it?” Quentin asked. “Can we take it right to my apartment and open the door into my living room?”
“In theory, yes,” Bob said. “It depends on how up to date the map is for your area. This thing hasn’t accessed the network in three years.”
�
�My apartment has been there since the eighties.” He stepped up beside Bob and pointed to the map. “Zoom in there.” His fingers shook slightly from the growing excitement, but he felt a sense of dread, too. Now that it was actually time to go home, he found that he wasn’t in a hurry to get there. He had discovered an iceberg, but he hadn’t even been able to see the whole tip of it. Bob finished entering the destination information on the screen, and Tocho glanced at Quentin and Eissa, motioning them over to the side.
“Alright, safety briefing,” Tocho said. “Before we make the door active, we have to go over some things. The first one is the emergency shutdown. Bob’s pointing to that big red button inside the panel, see? If we open the door, and something happens and you know we need to shut it fast, hit that button. Push it in, and quick. That will cut power to the door. Now, it’s important to know that if someone is in the door, as in partially in this dimension and partially in another, and you hit that button, then half of them will stay on that side, and the other half on this side. It will kill them, just to be clear. If it’s a bad guy, then that’s helpful. Not so much, if it’s one of us.”
“Who makes that call?” Eissa asked. “How do we know whether to push the button or not?”
“I will be at the panel, ready to abort,” Bob said. “You shouldn’t have to worry about that, unless something crazy happens. It’s mainly a ‘just so you know’ kind of thing.”
“Okay,” Eissa said doubtfully.
“This is how we’ll do this,” Tocho said, getting them back on point. “Bob will activate the DimGate. I’ll open the door and do a visual inspection, while Bob stands there with his hand on the shutdown button. Once I determine it’s safe, I’ll step through for a quick scout. Quentin, you watch me, and if I give you the universal kill signal,” he demonstrated with a slicing motion of his fingers across his neck, “you tell Bob to shut it down. If I come racing back through, get out of the way, and tell Bob I’m coming on the run. If I wave you on through, then we’re good. Everybody got it?”
Quentin nodded. The most dangerous thing they had to worry about in his apartment would be his dirty clothes hamper, unless Denise was in the room. Or unless…
“Do you think DimCorp has someone inside my apartment?” Quentin asked. It suddenly seemed plausible, and he couldn’t believe he hadn’t thought of that possibility. What if Carl Holt was standing there with his gun, waiting for him? What if a whole DimSec team was there, torturing Denise for information, trying to find out where he was?
“Oh shit,” Eissa said. “You’re right, we can’t go to your apartment. They know who we are, and what we did.”
Bob shook his head. “Jesus Christ, I’m going soft in the brain. I should have thought about that a long time ago.” He walked in a circle around them, his hands gripping his head. “I’m going to get us all killed, acting like this. Is there somewhere safe you can go? Someplace not in Gainesville, preferably?”
Quentin and Eissa looked at one another, and spoke at the same time. “Charlie’s beach house.”
Quentin nodded, confirming the thought for himself. “Charlie won’t mind us using it until we can figure out what’s going on.”
He took over the map screen and moved it to St. Augustine, zooming in on Charlie’s family’s beach condo. Bob locked in the coordinates, and Quentin stepped back beside Eissa.
“Have you ever had to leave someone on the other side of a door?” Eissa asked. Quentin could tell she was nervous, and he grabbed her hand.
“Yes,” Tocho said. A look of pain and grief flashed across his face, and he shook his head. “Now then, do the two of you understand the system?”
“Yes, we’ve got it,” Quentin said. “Let’s hope that no one’s using the condo this week.”
“To be honest,” Eissa said, “it would be funny as hell if the door opened up in the living room while people were sitting there on the couch watching television. I think it would be worth blowing their minds, just to see the look on their faces.”
Quentin smiled grimly, but the realization that his home might now be unsafe robbed him of his excitement. He couldn’t even call Denise to check on her and find out what the situation was. If he surfaced, Holt would undoubtedly use her as a hostage to force him out of hiding. How in the hell was he going to handle this? He gripped Eissa’s hand tighter, more for his own comfort than for hers. One thing at a time, Q. One paper dragon at a time.
Bob looked at each of them, and Tocho took his position in front of the door, standing slightly to one side. Bob pressed the green button next to the display. Something inside the panel beeped twice, and then there was a click followed by a low electric hum. Bob looked over the display of lights and gauges, and nodded at Tocho.
Tocho grasped the doorknob, turned it, and pushed it open. Despite the dirt and plant life that had been covering it, the door swung open easily. Tocho glanced through, then stuck his head through and looked around for a moment. Quentin was trembling, his free hand clenched at his side in a tight fist.
“Relax a bit, son,” Bob said. “You’re going to pull a muscle or something.”
Quentin jumped, and laughed self-consciously. He realized he was squeezing Eissa’s hand, and forced his grip to relax.
Tocho walked around on the other side. He looked first one way, then another. He walked back towards the door, then veered off to the right and out of sight. Watching him disappear when he should have been a few feet away was almost too much for Quentin to accept, even though he understood what was happening, at least on an intellectual level. After a moment, Tocho reappeared and walked back through the door.
“What’s up?” asked Bob.
“Something’s wrong,” Tocho said. “We went to the wrong dimension, is my first guess. That’s not like any part of 165 that I ever saw, anyway.”
“The panel says it’s 165,” Bob said. “Assuming we got everything hooked up right, which admittedly is a big assumption, we should be in the right dimension. Let me take a look.”
Bob walked through the door.
“Can I go take a look?” Quentin asked. “I’m pretty familiar with a lot of different places, so maybe I’ll recognize something.”
“Go ahead,” Tocho said. “But there isn’t anything there to recognize. That’s the problem.”
Quentin took a deep breath to calm himself down a bit, released Eissa’s hand, and stepped through the door after Bob. He realized immediately what Tocho was talking about.
Bob stood off to the left side of the door, looking around slowly. The land was entirely barren. There were no trees, no bushes, and no grass. It was as if they had gone to the moon. There was not a hill or a rise in sight in any direction.
“Well, I would say this is probably not central Florida,” Quentin said. “At least, not in my dimension.”
“Agreed,” Bob said. “I’m going to open the panel on the door and see where it says we are. Let me tell Tocho.”
He stuck his head through the door and spoke for a moment. Tocho and Eissa came through the door as he pulled his head back through.
“It’s a good idea for us to all be on the same side of the door when we open the panel,” Tocho explained. “Just in case something wonky is going on, which it clearly is. We don’t want to get separated in unknown dimensions, or something.”
“That makes sense,” Quentin said. The thought of getting stranded here, in this lifeless void, was terrifying. “If that’s even a possibility, are you sure it’s a good idea to take a chance?”
Bob closed the door, walked around the side of it, and released the access panel catch. “I’m not going to shut it down. We’re just verifying what the screen says. It’s not really a risk.”
“So, the panel might say different things, depending on which side of the door you’re on?” Eissa asked. “Because that’s not confusing or anything.”
“Right,” Tocho said. “Don’t try to understand it. Dimension travel will make your brain go on strike if you try to think about it
too much.”
“That already happened,” Eissa said. “Pretty much the same moment we opened the DimGate and got chased through it.”
“Huh,” Bob grunted. “This says we’re in Dimension 31.”
“Wow,” Quentin said. “That’s a bit of a jump.”
“Yeah,” Bob agreed. He stepped back and closed the panel. “Alright, let’s go back to the other side and make sure it still says it’s set for 165.”
He opened the door and stepped back through, and they all followed.
“Well, it’s still showing 165 on this side,” he reported.
“What if we set this side for 31?” asked Tocho. “Could be as simple of a fix as that?”