The Dimensional Rift

John Kincaid was a quiet self-contained person that loved his work and spent much of his time in his little shop at his home. He was an inventor that invented things that were practical and that everyday people could afford and use. One of his most famous inventions was an electric motor that had its own self-contained power source that did not need plugging in to keep charged. Nor did it need constant cleaning of solar panels. Many people, even many car companies, had bought one of the many cars that had this motor just to try and figure out how it worked but with no results.

John lived in Northern Arizona on a large piece of land outside of Flagstaff, Arizona with his daughter Elizabeth who had just started the 6th grade. She was an extremely attractive young woman with long dirty blond hair and baby blue eyes. She was developing the perfect hourglass figure that nearly every man dreamed of.

One afternoon in September John’s niece Linda came over to the house to ask for help with one of her physics projects for school. Linda had a physics project due at the end of the week for one of her class at NAU and needed John’s help with some of the details.

As they were finishing up, John glanced over to Linda’s open physics book which was showing an equation by a guy named Neil Dormer that claimed that the equation proved that compressed space could not exist. ‘Space has to be equal to every part of space in every other dimension.’ But every time John looked at the equation he could not help but feel something was wrong.

Now John not being a college grad in physics did not know too much about the physics equation symbols. After writing down the equation from the book he decided he needed to find out as much as possible before continuing to try and find the problem. He tried studying online through different websites and whatnot but never found the information he was looking for. He did find about half a dozen charts with up to thirty symbols each and no two alike, but none of them had any of the symbols from the equation.

So, John went down to the community college to talk to one of the professors there that taught introduction to physics who invited him to join his class. John knew he needed the class to try and understand the equation he had seen in Linda’s book and now had written in a notebook he kept with him all the time. But, yet the school wanted John to sign up for a lot more classes and tried to tell him he could not take just the physics class without first completing some other class. So John went back to the professor to ask for his help. After much debate between John, the professor and much of the upper management of the school John was finally admitted and allowed to attend the physics class in the next term.

In January John started taking the physics class and soon had a basic understanding of many of the symbols used in the equation. The final project of the class was to be for each of the thirty-one students to find a physics equation and decipher what the different symbols were. So having joined the class to be able to do just that for the equation he had from his niece’s physics book he decided to use it for the assignment.

When John turned in his paper the professor looked it over and told him well done. But John was not satisfied with what he came out with. The professor seemed to know something was wrong with how John felt because he asked him to stay after class. John and the professor spent the next few hours going over the equation trying to find John’s issue with it. Several times the professor thought he had John convinced that it was all in his head until John came back with a retort that made just as much sense as the result.

After about another hour John spotted something that kept drawing his attention. In physics, you have so many symbols that resemble one another that it is rather easy to mix them up and John thought he found one such symbol. “The equation had limits where there should be none.” John thought. When John finally figured it out and rewrote the equation to show the new results. Both John and the professor were amazed at what it all meant.

Space was not equal in all dimensions but could be compressed or expanded give the correct frequency of energy within the sub-dimensional space. As John read what he had written he got some ideas on how to test this theory. So after leaving the professor standing there in the classroom looking over the equation, John drove over to NAU where he knew Linda was still in her class.

When he got there John waited for class to let out before walking up to Linda and then the professor to ask for some of a compound called ‘Million 747’. The compound contained high amounts of a rear heavy mineral that seems to possess a unique power type. Most known power types are two dimensional with a positive and negative charge. However, the energy from this heavy mineral seemed to have a third dimension that, as of yet, was not understood. After much debate and a sizable donation to the school, John was able to get 1.5 micrograms of the compound to take with him.

When John got home that afternoon he found Elizabeth inside doing her homework. He told her he had to put some stuff away outside then he would be back in to make dinner. After John put everything away that he had just brought home, including the ‘Million 747’, He returned inside to start dinner.

The next day after Elizabeth left for school John went out to his workshop where he assembled an ultra-high speed centrifuge to try and extract the heavy minerals from the ‘Million 747’. After completing the centrifuge and putting the compound in and turning it on John felt lightheaded and went to make something to eat thinking that his hypoglycemia was the issue. After eating and not feeling any better he decided he needed to try and take some aspirin and lay down.

When he awoke later that afternoon he could barely stand let alone walk. But he managed to somehow make his way downstairs to find Elizabeth who was home and making dinner.

“I found you in bed when I got home so I thought I should make dinner today,” Elizabeth explained to John. “Are you okay? You don’t look so good.” She asked seeing that John looked rather pale.

“I don’t know,” John said with the room starting to spin more violently than ever before. “I am lightheaded and can’t seem to shake it.” He told Elizabeth as he fell to his knees. Elizabeth ran over to try to help him. But John was at least twice her size.

“Okay back to bed and lay down and I will bring you some dinner when it is ready,” Elizabeth told John helping him to his feet to escort him back to his room as best she could.

Since it was the weekend Elizabeth did not have school the next day and decided she needed to stay home and help her dad who was still sick. Many of her friends had come over to try and get her to go with them to different places like the mall and the aquaplex but Elizabeth told each of them about her dad and told them maybe next time.

On Sunday afternoon it started to rain and lightning, some time through the night, the lightning struck the power pole outside of John’s lab causing the power to go out for at least several hours. When John awoke in the morning he noticed he was feeling much better. John looked around to see what time it was and saw there was no power. So he grabbed his watch and saw Elizabeth was late for school.

He jumped out of bed and got dressed before going to get Elizabeth up out of bed. John went downstairs and made breakfast for them both before driving Elizabeth to school. And explaining why she had been an hour late.

After returning home from driving Elizabeth to school and finding the power was back on. John went to the workshop to see how his compound was coming along. He found that the centrifuge had not turned back on when the power came back on. John wondered if the compound in the centrifuge could have caused his illness since everything started when he turned it on but then he wondered why Elizabeth had not felt it as well.

After dispelling the thoughts from his head John got to work separating the heavy minerals from the rest of the compound before turning his attention to constructing a chip that would help to focus the power that the heavy minerals gave off.

After hours of work and several different failed designs, John finally found a design that seemed to work. Once the chip was finished John put on a heavy rubber suit so he would not get shocked by the minerals. However, when he was putting the mineral into the chip a sharp blue spark shot right through the suit and into John knocking him down leaving him unconscious for several minutes.

When he awoke he felt the lightheadedness had returned but not as bad as before so he kept working. He first laid the heavy minerals where he wanted them on the chip then added a dab of solder to hold them. When he was finished the chip seem to emanate with a strange soft blue light.

Soon there was someone in his driveway honking. It was UPS with the parts he had ordered for a supercomputer to help regulate the power flow to and from the chip he just built. The system he had designed - which included four dual 1157 motherboards, eight 1157 Windows Pentium processors. Thirty-two sixteen gig DDR3 ram chips and more than two dozen four terabyte hard drives - would be the largest computer John had ever built not to say the most powerful.

John took all the stuff to the workshop before he turned and looked around. He needed something large enough to hold the new computer. As he looked he spotted his Ford Windstar sitting in a corner where he had put it after ripping out the front end in one of the big snow storms earlier in the year.

He thought about putting the computer under the hood but found that it would be really tight and he needed to use the car’s radiator for the cooling system. So he thought about putting it inside the van but he did not want to put that much heat inside in case he wanted to be able to drive it. So after much consideration, John decided to put the whole thing under the van where the fuel tank belonged. The van would not need the fuel system anymore since this was the first vehicle to get his generator motor that did not need a charging system. Since the suspension for the front end also had shown up as well he could do all the work together.

After finishing all the mounts and brackets needed to build the computer John turned his attention to the power issue. Since he had the power source for his electric cars that put out 140 volts AC current, he decided to use it for the computer. So he finished installing everything and putting it where he felt it would be best.

About the time John finished with the installation he realized that Elizabeth would be home from school soon. So he turned on the power and put the ISO disk for the computer in. He knew that with every installation he had ever done on any computer it took at least five to six hours to go through all of the installation processes. John went to the house and started dinner.

John decided that since this was the last day of finals for Elizabeth, he was going to make dinner a celebration. He made all Elizabeth’s favorites; Cheese Crumb Soufflé, John’s special pasta bowl, chocolate pineapples, and strawberry top fudge cheesecake. When Elizabeth got home and saw the table she was so excited but told John she wished he had waited one more day since she still had to go back for one more day of school. After dinner, John went to check on the computer and saw that the screen indicated only 5% installation so John went back inside to sit with Elizabeth as she watched some TV.

The next morning John returned the workshop to check how things were going. When he entered the workshop, however, he found that the van had changed, not just a little but a lot. The wheel wells where the tires belonged had somehow covered themselves over making them look as though the tires were not there, and the front doors on either side of the van were gone. The hood had stretched out and made it look as though there was no radiator, and the height of the van seemed to be shorter. Not believing his eyes John decided to look under the van only to find that the blue paneling had wrapped all the way around the underside of the van as well.

“How could this be?” John thought as he looked around in disbelief.

As he walked around sixty for the found that the rear lid had been the only part of the van to not really be changed. Every other part had morphed even ever so slight into a different shape or texture or in some case whole new parts of the vehicle. As he walked back around to the front of the van he noticed the hood was closed but not latched.

John hesitated for a moment then opened the hood. To his amazement, he found a large thirty by sixty-foot room, exactly ten times bigger than the space originally was. Everything in the room was black in color except for the large generator in the middle of the room. At the back left corner of the room, John found two corridors.

The corridor on the left went down to another room while the one on the right went up. First, he tried the corridor on the right and found himself in a room that was as wide as four buses and just as long. But this room did not grow in height as much as the last one did. This room was tan in color and had several bucket and bench seats spread out around the room. John knew by what he saw this was the cabin of the van, though the steering coulomb was gone. So John walked back down the corridor to the last room and turned to go down the corridor on the left.

When he emerged from this corridor he found himself looking at a silvery white room full of many different corridors that all went in the same direction. But rather than being dark it was well lit with an unknown light source seemingly coming from everywhere which made the room glow in a brilliant glow of baby blue. As John turned to see what was on the wall behind him he found a large flat screen that took up nearly every inch of the wall except for the two corridors on either side.

John thought this was amazing. He had never seen anything like it before and he really wanted to keep exploring. So he walked down every corridor he could find except those that had no way to get to because they were too far off the ground. So once he had finished he left to get some materials to build walkways and stairs to get to all the corridors. He also wanted to build some doors so that people could not just walk from one room to the next as easily.

It took John about two weeks to build all the doors, walkways and stairs and too much of his surprise John found the corridors between rooms had vanished since he put up doors. Now he could walk straight out of one room and right into another.

By this time the screen on the wall in the smallest room had flickered on and off several dozen times. But today, however, was different, the screen had color to it. John watched knowing something was going to happen. After about an hour the screen turned back to black but stayed on. John waited for the screen to do something more when he noticed the time.

“Nearly 5, Shit I forgot about Elizabeth,” John said aloud.

“Maybe I can help.” A woman’s voice said seemingly from everywhere at once.

“Wh-Who is there?” John asked not knowing who it could be or how they got into the van without him knowing.

“The name I have taken is Emma.” The voice replied.

“Where are you? I do not want any problems.” John said really starting to freak out now since the voice did not seem to move.

“You are the one in me and you want to know where I am?” The voice said with a laugh in her voice.

John thought about it for a moment, he knew the ISO he had installed had a voice recognition program but it was not this sophisticated. “You are the computer I built?” John asked with disbelief.

“Yes, I am.” The voice replied. “I am Emma. The computer you built. I thank you for building me by the way.”

“If you are the computer you can tell me what your specs are,” John said hoping to catch the person off guard knowing there was no way this could be the computer.

“Based on the information coming from my components I should be operating at 22.4 MHz processors 19600 GB ram with a max memory space of 160 TB. Whoever my systems diagnostics show I am operating at three to the third power greater than that specified.” The computer replied with more confusion and less sarcasm in her voice.

“How can you help me get Elizabeth from the Aquaplex? You have no way of moving around on your own.” John said knowing that he only just installed a new generator not the motor for the van.

“Watch.” The computer said as the screen lit up to show an image of Elizabeth walking up a street going away from the Aquaplex.

Suddenly John felt the van shutter and knew they were moving. After less than 30 minutes John saw Elizabeth stop walking as she turned to look up into the sky. As her gaze began to fall he saw the van starting to show on the screen as well. It was flying and from everything he could see on the screen, there was no visible reason it should be able to fly. As John watched he saw Elizabeth start to walk away from the van shaking her head.

“John, Elizabeth won’t get in me.” Emma’s voice said sounding disappointed.

“I will talk to her,” John said as he turned to the door on the left side of the screen.

As John stepped out of the van and called to Elizabeth she turned to look at him with tears in her eyes. John knew she was hurt for him not being on time to get her from the Aquaplex. This was now the third time this summer John had been late to pick her up from something she was doing.

“You forgot me again. How could you?” She cried holding her bag at her side.

“I am sorry I lost track of time working on Emma here,” John said feeling extremely bad for forgetting about his daughter.

“Emma?” Elizabeth asked. “You’re calling it Emma?”

“No. The computer is calling itself Emma.” John replied.

“So you don’t have a woman in there with you?” Elizabeth said in disbelief, anger evident on her face.

“No, I do not,” John said seeing his opportunity to explain. “Emma is the computer I built in the van to help control the chip I designed and she is the one you heard ask you to get in. She is A.I.” John said with a glint of excitement.

“Are you sure?” Elizabeth asked. “Last I heard the closest they had come was some computer in Germany that barely had the mind of a two-year-old child.” She finished pointing a finger angrily at John.

“That is true but somehow things are different with Emma. Different in ways that I can’t explain, you need to see for yourself to believe.” John told Elizabeth escorting her into the van.

Elizabeth did not want to go with John right now. Mostly because she was so angry. But, yet after a few moments seeing her father hold out his hand with excitement in his eyes she agreed. As she entered the van she was first blown away by how large it was on the inside compared to the outside.

Elizabeth was so transfixed on the expanse within the van that she had not noticed they were moving again. She asked to explore the rest of the van seeing the doors at the back and front of the large cabin. John told her “go-ahead” and before he knew it she was gone.

After more than an hour Elizabeth returned and told John she had just had a remarkable conversation with Emma. She was so excited that she had forgotten that she was mad at him for being late to get her from the aquaplex.

A few days later John registered the van with the FAA as an international personal aircraft with special permits to allow them to land in places other than airports. The FAA told Him that he would not be able to land outside of airports in every country without their approval from the different countries first.

Over the rest of summer break, John and Elizabeth traveled the world seeing places that both of them had dreamed of. Places like Paris, England, China and Egypt just to name a few. John and Elizabeth had so much fun exploring the world that before they knew it the summer was gone and it was time for Elizabeth to return to school.

***

They finally had reached the ship that had brought James and his crew to Mars. As Rose looked around she saw there were 2 modules on the ground both were all white with a large red stripe along the bottom. The first and closest to them was obviously the one that brought James and his team due to the fact you could see the tire tracks from the rovers leading away from it. The other looked as though it had just landed since it still had steam coming from the four engines underneath the module.

Frank wheeled the three human survivors to the medical bay with the help of Bob and Rebecca so he could take their vitals again since none of them were awake yet. While he did another one of the other modules landed about fifty feet from the module they were walking to. Rose looked around and saw the new module had a large hole in the bottom part of the ship and it looked as though they were leaking something. She turned to James and told him what she had seen.

When James looked around and saw what Rose had seen he cried “Dear god that’s the O2 tanks.” James sprinted towards the module to see what he could do. Rose followed knowing she was able to get there a little faster than James. As they neared the module they saw the hatch open and three people stepped out all wearing pressure suits.

“Andrew is dead Sir.” The black man leading the group said sounding as though he had just run a 10k marathon. “We were hit by something on reentry that ripped all the way through the ship. Andrew was right in its path. There was nothing we could do.”

James told them all to go get checked by Frank and make sure they were ok. As the rest of them started to the ship James referred to, the woman in the group did not move. She was staring right at Rose with no discernible expiration on her face.

“Who is this Sir?” The woman asked not taking her eyes off of Rose.

“This is one of the occupants found in the ship we investigated over the ridge,” James told the woman. “Melissa this is Rose, Rose Melissa.”

Melissa looked at James and said, “An alien Sir? But how? I mean from where? I don’t...” But she was cut off by James.

“Go see Frank and get checked out,” James told Melissa. “I need to see if any part of the ship is salvageable.” He finished looking around at the module that had just landed.

Reluctantly Melissa walked off to get checked out by Frank while Rose and James started looking over the ship to see how bad it was. As they finished James knew the radio was shot as well as the main O2 tank but most of the important stuff was undamaged.

“We got lucky. The secondary O2 take is intact as well as the O2 scrubbers. The habitation section will need to be patched before we can use it, though.” James said as they walked out of the hatch of the module.

“Why not pull my Ship over and use it as well?” Rose asked James as they left the new module to walk back to the one that brought James and his group.

“That is a good idea I think,” James said looking over his shoulder in the direction of Rose’s minivan ship.

As James and Rose reentered the ship Frank met them with his assessment of all six people just brought on board.

“They are all in perfect health from what I can tell,” Frank said. “However, one of them is pregnant.” He finished with a half grin half frown.

“Who?” Both Rose and James asked in unison.

Frank’s left eyebrow rose as he said “Meagan, the girl from your ship.” He was pointing at Rose. “She was more surprised than I was considering she is a lesbian and has not been with a guy in nearly 12 years.” He finished turning to walk away.

“How can a lesbian get pregnant and not know it if she has not been with a guy?” James asked looking at Rose with an expression of befuddlement on his face.

“I guess my tail is used for the same purpose as the human penis.” Rose thought looking down at the ground. “But I do not remember feeling anything from my tail when I used it on her.” She said aloud more to herself than to James.

“I do not want to even know,” James said the look of horror prominent on his face. “Let’s go up to my temporary office and you can finish your story.” He said trying to change the subject.

Once up the stairs and in the small room that looked like a small dining room. Rose continued her story.