Outland (World-Lines Book 1) (8 page)

June 26              Suzie

Suzie looked up as she heard her friends approach. They’d agreed to meet in the Union Cafeteria for breakfast—or
brunch
as Stephanie nose-in-the-air insisted on calling it—and a cram session for the upcoming exam. Suzie noted that Stephanie, as usual, had a latte and croissant. No coffee and muffin for her,
oh never!
Suzie smiled to herself.
But I’m not being catty.

She could see Frank—
Frankie
, she corrected herself—going on about something.
Wow, he’s a diva.

The friends exchanged greetings, and they all settled in for the duration.

“Welcome to summer session. Ugh!” Joy said, making a face.

Suzie nodded. “Poor Professor Tilston. I’m glad he’s better now, but yeah, it’s this or end up a year behind.”

“I don’t see why I should have to pay the price for his injuries though,” Stephanie said.

“It’s called
real life
, bi-atch. Get used to it!” Frankie replied. Frankie’s delivery, as always, was perfect.

“All right, boys and girls,” Suzie moved to derail the incipient argument. Stephanie did not like being talked to that way, especially by Frankie, which, of course, just motivated Frankie to do it more often. “Medieval History, what fun. Joy, did you bring the sample questions?”

Joy waved some sheets of paper.

“Then let’s get going. First question?”

Suzie sighed and rested her chin on her hand as Joy read the first sample exam question out loud. It was going to be a long day.

June 28              Bill

Richard, Bill, Matt, and Kevin moved the equipment from the lab into a rented moving van parked in the loading bay. Bill had been concerned about University Security getting suspicious and questioning them, but there were no interruptions. They drove to a warehouse storage unit that Matt had found, unloaded the van, and set everything up. They also brought in some furniture and small appliances and set up a kitchen of sorts.

Bill donated a commercial-grade coffee maker, the kind that a restaurant or cafeteria would use. At the disbelieving looks, he said, “Craigslist. Ten bucks. And for the record, I live not only
for
coffee, but
on
coffee.”

Kevin and Richard set up the turntable in the middle of the floor. On top of it, they placed a new and larger gate, about three feet in diameter.

Richard looked at the results with a smile. He turned to the others. “Okay, step one, done. We have a base of operations. Special thanks to Matt for being the moneybags. We’ll reimburse you first, Matt, before we split the profits.” Richard gave a couple of villainous eyebrow wags.

“Bill has a medium-sized gate built,” he motioned to the gate on the turntable. “And a couple of larger, person-size gates almost finished, but I still have to, uh, borrow a spare set of modules sufficient to build a second portal generation system. We also need a generator, and supplies. Bill will be starting to work on a truck-sized gate next.

“Supplies will have to include gold-panning equipment and weapons. I don’t know what kind of animals are on the other side of the gate, but it’s a fair bet some of them are carnivorous.”

Erin, who had been looking thoughtful, waved a hand to get attention. “Guys, I have a friend who I think should be brought into this. Monica is a zoologist, so I think she’d be valuable, especially
for the identification of threats. We’ve been friends forever, and I’d trust her with my life. I
will
be trusting her with my life if I go through that thing, I guess.”

Richard’s face clouded up. He’d been more relaxed as he got to know the other members of the group, but now with Erin’s suggestion to bring someone else in, he was looking like the old Richard.

“You’ve
got
to be kidding me!” He said, glaring at Erin.

She sighed. “Richard, do you know what kind of predators there are on that side? Lions and tigers and bears? Velociraptors? I’d like to know what might be wanting to eat me before we step through that thing.”

Richard glared at her for a few more seconds, then seemed to deflate. He hung his head and shrugged. “Yeah, okay, that sounds reasonable. I’m not keen on becoming lunch either.  Go ahead and talk to her. But make sure she’s sworn to secrecy, all right?”

Bill grinned at Erin. “Tell her we have a sign-off from a geologist, now we just need a biologist to rubber-stamp our little amusement park.”

“Oh for God’s sake,” Matt rolled his eyes. “All in favor of stuffing Bill through first to see what eats him? Opposed? It’s unanimous, Bill. You’re the main course.”

The group exchanged smiles. A whole world to themselves, the possibility of large amounts of money for not much work, eventual fame. What’s not to like?

In other news, activity continues to increase in the Yellowstone National Park. USGS representatives stress that this is not unprecedented. Yellowstone gets dozens of small earthquakes every day, and there have been lava excursions in the past. Spokesperson Robert Danell is quoted as saying, “It’s a long way from a bit of volcanic activity to an impending supervolcano explosion.”

---

In Washington, Republicans are loudly
questioning if FEMA would have the resources to handle an eruption. They point to budget cuts that have forced FEMA to cut programs and are demanding that the Democrat administration confirm that they have a plan.

Democrats are quick to point out that the cuts to FEMA funding were all enacted by Republican administrations, and that FEMA would have a much more generous budget if the Republicans would stop blocking all attempts to give them one.

---

Discovery Channel has announced that they will be rerunning their
Supervolcano
series this week due to viewer demand.

June 30              Erin

“Hey, buttercup!”

Erin smiled at the familiar voice. There was no question about who was at the other end of that yell. Her friend Monica had always been brash and loud. Monica Albertelli had been raised in a large traditional Italian home, always competing for attention and air time. She had a voice that carried and when necessary could shock people into astonished silence.

The two had known each other since before grade school and had been delighted when they learned they would be going to the same university. Monica was taking biology with an emphasis on zoology. She was fond of saying that plants were less interesting because they just sat there.

Monica and Erin were a sharply contrasting pair. Where Erin was tall, slim and athletic, Monica was five-foot-four with dark, long wavy hair and a figure that could—and on at least one occasion
had—
made men walk right into telephone poles. Monica often joked about her effect on men and made no pretense about not enjoying it.

Erin had arranged to meet Monica at
La Mexicana
. Both girls loved Mexican food, and Erin admitted to herself that she was getting tired of burgers.

Monica motioned Erin over and indicated a seat at the table. She waved a menu at Erin and said, “So hey, what’s all this big deep mystery? You been recruited by the
see eye aye
?” Monica laughed.

“Oh, for crying out loud! No, this is about that project that Matt has gotten involved in. It’s turned into something, um, interesting
.
And I
do
mean like in the Chinese curse.”

“Oooooh. Danger. Intrigue. C’mon, give.”

“Sorry, no. I don’t think you’d believe it without seeing it. Anyway, they made me promise, and it’s their show. The boys will want to show you a few things,
then
explanations. Bottom line though, they need someone with some zoological background, and you are it.” Erin paused to dig into the salsa and nachos.

Monica leaned forward. “So any of these bro’s interesting? And I don’t mean like the curse!”

“Hmm…” Erin thought about it for a few seconds while chewing. “Well, Richard is hot. Kind of intense, if you know what I mean, but not creepy. Bit of a temper. You might get along fine with him, or you might kill each other.”

They both laughed at that. Monica’s relationships had always tended towards the volatile end of the spectrum.

“Bill’s cute, and nice in a geeky sort of way. According to Matt though, he has a case of referencitis that would put you to shame.”

“Well, then, he must die,” Monica replied with an exaggerated dramatic tone. “There can be only
one.” Then more seriously, “Also, it’ll be nice to finally
meet this new boyfriend of yours.”

Erin smiled. “Yes, well, take it easy. I don’t need you scaring Matt off. We’ll be meeting them all tomorrow night at their secret lair. Ordered yet?”

Monica shook her head, and they got down to the serious business of choosing lunch.

July 1                            Omni

Richard and Kevin met at the warehouse well after dark. Kevin had brought along his pride and joy, a Meade 10” telescope with computerized equatorial mount. This piece of equipment packed more power into a two-foot-long package than any pre-20
th
-century astronomer had ever had access to.

“First thing we need to do is get the gate positioned above the telescope, so I can see the night sky on the other side,” Kevin said. “About three feet above the table will do. Angled down. No, facing in that direction.” Kevin motioned with his hands. Richard was using a combination scissors-lift and universal ball-mount to place the three-foot gate per Kevin’s requirements. “Great, now turn the lights off. Use a penlight to see with. Use this one with a red filter.”

“Why a red filter?” Richard asked.

“Red light doesn’t wreck your night vision.”

Once Richard had completed all the setup, he switched on the portal generator and picked up the tablet. After a few seconds of poking at dialogs, the gate faded into focus, showing a starry night. Kevin made sure his telescope pointed properly through the gate, then looked through the eyepiece. He made a couple of small adjustments and asked Richard to move the gate a little to one side. When Kevin was satisfied, he started concentrating on the view through the telescope, with occasional breaks to make notations in a book. True to his instructions, he wrote his notes by the red light of a filtered flashlight.

After about ten minutes, Kevin said, “Okay, I’m done. Gate off and lights on, please.”

Richard complied, and came back to find Kevin consulting a magazine and his notes.

Looking up from his work, Kevin turned to Richard and said, “No question. The other Earth isn’t the past. It’s present-day Earth. I compared the position of the Galilean satellites to the published positions in this month’s
Sky and Telescope
. Perfect match. Plus, Jupiter is in the same place in the sky, as is the moon. No way that specific configuration is going to duplicate itself, at least not since dinosaurs ruled the Earth.”

“Fine,” Richard said. “So where are all the people?”

“There were no people on Greenhouse Earth, either.”

“Yeah, two hundred degree temps will do that. So what’s the excuse here?”

“Who knows?” Kevin began packing up his telescope. “So many things could have gone wrong. Or right, depending. What we know is that Lincoln doesn’t exist on that side, there’s no pollution, and the flora and fauna look like what you’d imagine it must have been like before people.”

“Why was this so important to you?” Richard asked.

Kevin stopped packing and turned to Richard. “I trust my models. Really. But funny, at the back of my mind I had this worry that maybe this wild planet was the past and Greenhouse Earth was the future. That would be bad.” Kevin tilted his head sideways in dismissal. “But that’s not the case, so we’re not heading for an inevitable runaway greenhouse effect.”

Richard considered for a few seconds. “I’m not sure what bothers me more,” he replied, “that one out of three worlds so far has never had humans or that, on one out of two that had humans, we killed ourselves off.”

“If that’s what happened,” Kevin said. “Eventually
we’ll want to jump beyond these two to find out more, but that will take a lot of infrastructure.”

“And I’m not sure we want to be the ones doing that,” Richard replied. “It’s one thing to get an early
shot at the gold rush. It’s another thing to create our own SG-1, as Bill would say.”

July 2                            Monica

Erin ushered Monica into the warehouse. The four men sitting around a table watched them approach. A couple of partially devoured pizzas sat on the table, the aroma of pepperoni and sausage reminding Monica that she hadn’t eaten since lunch.

The tension radiating from the men was palpable, and Monica was beginning to wonder what she was getting into.
This is Erin, one of my best friends. I’ve known her forever
.
She’s not about to sell me into slavery, so relax.

Monica decided to try to lighten the mood a bit. She piped up, “So, do you have a park you need a biologist to sign off on?”

To her surprise, everyone turned to look at Erin, who held up her hands and exclaimed, “I didn’t say
anything
!” One of the men, a cute but somewhat pudgy character, was choking back laughter.

A tall and very attractive man stepped forward. “Let’s start with introductions, then we’ll explain the situation. Afterwards, we’ll try to convince you we’re not crazy.”

Erin made introductions, then Richard played a couple of videos for Monica, without commentary. Once she’d seen them, the explanations started.

“Another dimension?” Monica asked, bewildered.

“That doesn’t mean anything,” Kevin replied, “unless you mean another time dimension, in which case yes
.
It’s another world-line. A parallel universe. An alternate Earth. Whatever science-fiction cliché you want to use.”

“And it’s filled with animals but as far as we can tell, no people,” Bill added. “We’d like you to look at the animals and see if you can identify them and come to any conclusions. We’re especially
interested in which ones will try to eat us.”

Monica looked at each of the men in turn. They appeared serious. “All right. I’m still treating this as an elaborate practical joke, but if you do manage to open a gateway to another world, I’ll reconsider. Shall we start?”

Bill grinned. Richard began the startup sequence, which by this time consisted of little more than a couple of menu selections and an OK button.

The three-foot gate blurred, then settled into a scene showing distant trees and animals. Matt handed Monica a set of  binoculars and motioned towards the gate.

Monica sidled up to it like a cat investigating something unknown. After a few seconds, she put the binoculars to her eyes and began scanning the scene, muttering just loud enough to be heard, “
Tapirus californicus
.
Tayassuida
.
Cervalces scotti
. Holy shit. Those are supposed to be extinct!”

As she walked sideways, trying to scan the landscape, she found herself trying to peer through the gate at a steep angle. She lowered the binoculars and frowned.

Richard came over. “Here, you can rotate it. Let me.”

He took hold of the gate assembly from behind and turned it on the table. As he rotated it, Monica walked around to keep the best angle of view. Abruptly she screamed and jumped back as a large paw with very impressive claws poked through the gate. The paw withdrew and was replaced by a large feline face with very long teeth. The animal growled and started to push farther through.

Richard yelled “The fuck!” as he caught sight of it and pulled out one of the cables. The gate shut down and the feline head disappeared.

“Fuck, fuck, fuck, oh fuck!” Monica backed away and yelled. “That was a
smilodon!
” She started hopping from foot to foot, with her fists balled, the binoculars forgotten around her neck, yelling “Shitshitshitshitshit!”

Bill watched this performance with a bemused look. He turned to Richard, who stood with his jaw hanging. “I think we may have found your soul-mate.”

Monica yelled, “Oh Jesus! What am I, the first character that gets killed so everyone learns to be more careful? Am I wearing a red fucking shirt? Shit!”

“Or mine…” Bill added, a smile slowly growing on his face.

In a few minutes, things calmed down. Richard was giving Monica a strange look, like she’d just appeared out of thin air.

Monica expounded to everyone in the room, “Okay, rule number one, we don’t open the goddam gate while we’ve got pizza in the room! Especially
Meat-Lovers! By the way, Bill, you were asking about animals that would eat us? That’s one.”

Richard wordlessly offered Monica a beer. She took it without comment, opened it against the table edge without missing a beat, and downed about half the bottle before continuing. “Okay, look. You have a bunch of what appear to be Pleistocene animals out there. The plants, as near as I can make out, are consistent with that. The climate appears to be cooler than ours. Kevin, given what you said before that it’s the same date on that side, I’d say either the climate over there has been more stable, or humans never migrated to North America, or some combination of that. Fuck!” She downed the rest of the beer.

Richard continued to stare. She turned to look at him and demanded, “
What
?” He turned away, blushing.

Damn, he’s cute when he’s discombobulated,
she thought.
And even when he’s not…

“So, is it safe to go through?” Matt asked.

“Safe?
Safe
? Something just tried to eat me. No!”

She stopped, took a couple of deep breaths—well aware that Richard’s eyes were bugging out—then continued. “The prevailing theory is that humans wiped out all the megafauna when they migrated to North America, either through direct hunting, competition for resources, or destruction of habitat. So those nasties aren’t invulnerable. You’re bringing guns, right?
Big
guns?”

“We haven’t provisioned ourselves yet,” Richard replied. “How about you give us an idea what we’ll need.”

“Okay, let’s see… We’ve got smilodons, that’s saber-toothed cats to you; dire wolves, think wolves but bigger and meaner; American lions, which are exactly
what they sound like; homotheria, scimitar-toothed cats; short-faced bears; mastodons and mammoths, stag moose, giant sloths, and giant beavers.”

“Giant… beav—beavers?” Bill said. “Giant
beavers?
Six feet tall, and hungry for human furniture!” He started to laugh.

Monica glared at him. “Hey, just because something isn’t carnivorous doesn’t mean it isn’t dangerous. People have been injured by white-tail deer. Now try meeting a moose or a bison. Or imagine something even bigger that hasn’t learned to be afraid of you.”

Monica waved the empty beer bottle at the gate. “The giant sloth in particular wasn’t slow and sedentary like its modern South American cousins. It was mobile, territorial, and judging from the state of some skeletons, a bit of a scrapper. So have some respect.”

Matt got a puzzled look. “Hey, Richard or Kevin, how come we don’t have a decapitated smilodon head sitting in the middle of our floor? It was definitely
on this side when you cut the power.”

Richard turned to Kevin. Kevin looked thoughtful for a moment. “First, the portal isn’t a door, like in the traditional sense. You aren’t walking through from here to there like some sci-fi wormhole. The portal is just an interface. When you push through it, you become more and more likely
to be here rather than there, and at some point—probably
when you’re fractionally more than halfway through—you become here even if the power cuts off. The cat was still mostly
there.

“Second, the interface can’t
cut
stuff in half because cutting is
work.
It requires energy, and there’s not enough energy in the design. If you turn off the portal, things go to where they most likely
are. Sort of. I think I just gave myself a headache.”

“Well, that’s a relief anyway,” Bill said. “One less thing to worry about.”

“Okay, people,” Richard called out. “Time to get organized. Monica, are you in?”

Monica tilted her head, and a grin slowly spread across her face. “Oh, depend on it. I’ve only ever seen fossils of those animals up until now. What kind of zoologist would I be if I walked away?”

Richard smiled an acknowledgment. “Excellent. So, we have to start getting supplies, including weapons.
Big
weapons. Also tents, sleeping bags, cook-stoves, water purification, food, axes, knives, yadda yadda yadda, and gold panning equipment. Matt isn’t made of infinite money, so we’ll have to kick in as well. Everyone keep track of what you spend, and we’ll settle accounts as soon as we are able.

“We also need a map and detailed information about whichever gold strike we decide on, and you all have to make sure you’re free for enough days to get this done.”

Monica gave Richard the hairy eyeball. “And why, pray tell, do we need tents and sleeping bags?”

“You’d prefer to sleep under the stars?” Richard asked with a grin.

“No, I’d prefer to sleep in a hotel. Preferably
five-star. I’ll
camp
when you can plug a hair-dryer into a tree. Is there any reason we can’t just do day-trips to the panning site?”

The others exchanged glances.

“You know, I’m not sure,” Richard answered. “I just assumed it would be a long way to the site from the nearest outpost of civilization. Obviously
we have to cross over when we reach the limit of where the van can go.”

Monica replied, “Here’s two words for you.
Google Earth
. How about we find out?”

Again there was an exchange of glances. Richard looked a little crestfallen, probably realizing that he hadn’t thought things through as well as he’d believed.

“Okay, Monica. You’ve got my attention. I guess we’re going to have to go through everything and do a re-think.”