The door lead into a long grey, dimly lit corridor. Kevin couldn't even guess at its length as both ends just faded out of vision rather than the usual abrupt stopping you usually get with a wall. There were no other doors to be seen. Kara was marching off down the corridor. "Hurry up slow coach. The clocks-a-ticking," she called back.
A brief sprint and Kevin had caught up. The door, the only definable feature in the eerie passageway, was now fading away into the distance leaving nothing to see except Kara, two grey walls, a grey ceiling and a slightly darker grey floor.
"Where on Earth are we?" asked Kevin.
"Always with the assumptions. Remember what I said earlier? Think bigger."
Kevin thought about what she had said, "Not-"
"Go on," encouraged Kara.
"on-" continued Kevin.
"Nearly there."
"Earth?"
"We have a winner."
Kevin lost his balance slightly and fell against one of the walls.
"Actually," continued Kara. "We’re technically not anywhere."
"Are you sure I’m not dead?", Kevin says feeling for a pulse in his wrist.
Kara pinched Kevin hard on the arm. He yelped and jumped a short distance.
"Quite sure. Some people call it the void, others call it the nothing, null-space, n-space or sub-space."
"What do you call it?"
"A corridor."
"That's not very sci-fi."
"They made the universe too big. It took too long to get from one end to the other. So, in their wisdom, they put in short-cuts."
"That's not very sci-fi."
"They made the universe too big. It took too long to get from one end to the other. So, in their wisdom, they put in short-cuts."
"The universe was built?"
"Yeah, we found that out a few millennia ago. Believe me, those evolutionist guys were not happy about it."
"I can imagine."
"These short-cuts, corridors, tunnels or whatever you want to call them have been lying around just below reality since the beginning. They take you from one point in space-time to another point in space-time."
"Like a wormhole?"
"Yes! Well, no. Not really. Most wormholes are just black-holes and will squash you flat. The Dododechrans found that out the hard way. A misinformed scientist had convinced the whole planet that their version of everlasting afterlife, heaven, Shangri La or whatever you call it was through a local ‘wormhole’. So they built ships, loaded the whole damn species on board and-" Kara smacked her fist into her hand. "Goodbye Dododechrans. Poor bastards."
"The ones that do actually take you somewhere," continued Kara, "are a fault, a snag in the universe. We think that they rushed things near the end."
"Did you say space-time? Time?"
"Yes. They go everywhere and every-when."
"Really? Travel through time? Go anywhere. At any point in time? Can we go-"
No comments:
Post a Comment