Twin Earth

“Tom, wake up!” a dishevelled looking Rachel shouted into my ear causing me to groan and cover my ears.

“What is it?” I mumbled, “and what have you been eating?”

“Drinking actually, and it’s black coffee. Look, you need to get up now.”

“Ugh, where’s James?”

“He’s with Yuki in the lab.”

“What time is it?”

“It’s four in the morning, will you please stop asking questions and just come with me.”

I reluctantly pulled off the duvet and scrambled to find my trousers on the floor. Thankfully I had fallen asleep in my t-shirt although it didn’t stop Rachel from staring at my pants.

“Do you mind?” I complained, turning away.

“Sorry.”

“This better be worth it.”

“It is, I promise.”

I followed Rachel out through the door and back down to the lab and immediately wished I had put on my jacket as it was freezing. Rachel on the other hand looked like she had managed to find time to put make-up on, do her hair and dress as if she was off to an important meeting in London. Maybe it was a young person city thing, but to me it was too much and just looked out of place for what we were dealing with.

‘Maybe I’m just getting old,’ I thought to myself grumpily.

“Why is it so cold?” I asked. “It didn’t seem this cold yesterday!”

“There’s a freezing cold front coming in from the Middle East. It’s all over the news. They’ve been having snow in Dubai!”

“In Dubai? What the hell…”

“On the opposite end, Iceland have been experiencing a heatwave when they should be well into winter by now. They’d usually be having blizzards at this time of year, but apparently people have been able to sunbathe on the beach. The weather has gone crazy.”

“It must be the magnetic field shifting, causing unusual weather conditions.”

“Extreme more like and it will undoubtedly get worse if we don’t figure out what’s going on up there in space,” Rachel declared.

It was the first time I had seen her looking so serious and it took me aback a little, but I was too cold to think much more about it and pulled my arms tighter around my chest and followed her into the lab.

“Thank God you’re here,” James remarked as I walked in squinting from the bright lights. “We’ve been trying to call your father, but we can’t get through.”

“The WiFi is also down,” Rachel replied.

“I’m more concerned about the cold than our WiFi,” I mumbled sarcastically walking over to James and Yuki. “Did you guys even go to bed?”

“I tried, but I couldn’t sleep so I came back down here. Yuki was still working so I decided to help,” James replied.

“I was going to analyse the samples you brought over, but then the probe sent back some new data. The anomaly seems to have grown bigger,” Yuki stated.

“I thought we couldn’t see it?” I asked confused.

“Now we can, or at least parts of it. We’ve detected some light reflecting of what looks like a… I’m not sure how to describe it, a ripple?” James replied, looking at Yuki.

“A ripple? In space?”

“Here, take a look.”

I leaned down and still trying to focus I scanned through the various photographs on the computer by James and for a moment was confused.

“What is this? It looks like a galaxy, as if… side on?” I asked. “Is that what this is?”

“We thought that too at first, but if that was the case it would mean it was vastly smaller and hovering just past the moon, it did not seem to make any logical sense, so we delved deeper and realised that the stars you are seeing along the ripple’s edges are actually normal stars that are much further away in the distance. They’ve just been distorted by the anomaly,” James replied.

“This is incredible.”

“I know!”

“But, does it look more like two ripples to you though?” I asked, zooming into one of the photographs. “There seems to be less stars on the inside here in this area.”

“There are some stars, but they are very faint. We believe they are very distant stars, possibly some we haven’t even detected before,” Yuki replied.

“What do you think is causing these ripples? Could dark matter really be causing all this?” I asked.

“That I’m afraid, we don’t know,” James replied frustrated, rubbing his eyes. He looked as shattered as I felt, but Yuki however was as perky as she had been the night before, clearly enthralled by the new discoveries and keen to find more answers, not fazed at all by the early hour. Her dedication to the project was impressive and I could see why my father valued her.

“Whatever is happening Tom, it is expanding as the stars within the ripple are slowly getting further apart and more are becoming visible. The gravitational distortions are also becoming more noticeable as one of the asteroid fragments has been caught in a fluctuation for over four hours now and seems to be generating more erratic energy. Interestingly though, the fluctuations are becoming less prominent in-between the ripples, but I believe that these gravitational distortions are what is causing these synced earthquakes,” James stated.

“Yes, there have been twenty more tremors since last night throughout the world that have coincided as the exact same time and at relatively similar frequencies,” Rachel added.

“And I presume they will become more frequent as the anomaly grows,” I replied concerned.

“Yes,” Yuki nodded.

“Then we have to tell my father.”

“Exactly, but we can’t get hold of him. I think he went back to speak to Robert this morning,” Rachel replied, “has he called you?” but before I could answer we were interrupted by the door suddenly bursting open.

“Stop what you’re doing. I need to close down your operations here and take everything in-house,” Robert announced marching over in an overly-dramatic manner.

“What?” I asked confused.

“This anomaly you have discovered, we believe it is causing these earthquakes. I assume you have reached the same conclusion?”

“We have but…” I started, however I was interrupted by James poking me in the ribs. For a second, I gave him a confused look, but I quickly turned my attention to the two military personnel now attempting to turn off the computers with a flustered Yuki trying to stop them as politely as she could.

“You can’t do this!” Rachel shrieked, trying to help Yuki.

“I’m sorry, but the government is concerned about the reaction of the general public if this news was to get out, so they have asked me, along with the military, to take this completely in-house. No external institutions are allowed to work on this project any further. It’s too risky.”

“What about my colleagues at UCL? Or Tom’s father?” Rachel asked frantically.

“You, no. Takahashi senior can do what the bloody hell he likes back in Japan.”

“And have you seen my father?” I asked, annoyed at the blatant disrespect towards my father.

“He left my office about an hour ago. I’m hoping he’s on a plane back to sushi town by now.”

“That’s enough,” I declared. “You want to make this personal, then fine, go ahead.”

“Tom, this isn’t about you. You’re really nothing more than a failed scientist. I have my orders and so do you. I want you back at UKSA within the hour or…”

“Or what? I’ll be fired again?”

“Just do it.”

“And what about me?” Rachel asked with a lost expression on her face.

“Go back to London and finish your PhD.”

“I’m sorry?” Rachel blinked in disbelief.

“Maybe we should just do as we’re told,” James whispered, pulling me aside.

“Do you know something?” I mumbled as Robert storm back out the room, quickly followed by his military friends carrying most of the data we had collected so far.

Peering out into the corridor and satisfied that we were alone again James whispered, “if we pass this information on about the ripple in the anomaly to Robert, he’ll ruin whatever chance we have of discovering more. His military cronies and business associates will swoop in and turn this into a media opportunity to make himself look good against NASA, even if it costs us total global destruction!”

“You know he’s right,” Rachel replied walking over.

“So, what do we do? We can’t hide this forever. If this distortion is getting bigger then eventually everyone on Earth will be able to see it. We can’t hide it from Robert then.”

“We need to get up close and fast,” my father announced walking in through another door.

“Dad!” I exclaimed in surprise.

“Were you here the whole time?” Rachel asked, immediately trotting over.

“I was on the satellite phone to Professor Hayden Lugo, an associate of mine in Puerto Rico who I mentioned earlier. I was hoping his radio telescope would have picked up more detail on this dark matter anomaly, if it is dark matter, to see if we can learn anything new.”

“Sir, there has been a development,” Yuki stated softly.

“The ripple in space? Yes, I know.”

“You do?” I asked surprised.

“Hayden discovered it a few hours ago, but he has also discovered something quite astonishing beyond what we have all learnt so far in England. He has picked up a signal emanating from the ripple.”

“A signal? What kind of signal?” James asked intrigued.

“He wouldn’t say over the phone. I think he is quite paranoid about releasing any information to anyone outside his lab. We need to investigate further.”

“But Robert is closing us down,” Rachel moaned, plopping down into an office chair and sighing.

“Yeah, we’ve all been called back to the office,” I added.

“And are you going to go?” my father asked almost slightly amused.

“I … don’t think we have a choice.”

“I’ve been ordered back to London. I can’t even come back to Swindon with you guys!” Rachel complained.

“There is another option,” my father suggested. “Hayden wants us to join him in Puerto Rico to help study this anomaly further. He wants to put a team together to launch into space in the next day or two along with the help of Trevor’s team at NASA.”

“Into space?” I repeated stunned.

“It is the only way to get any closer to this thing. There is only so much our technology can achieve from the confines of Earth.”

“But our rocket technology is not up to scratch,” I replied. “We can barely get to the ISS half the time. Can’t we send up a better probe or something?”

“That would take months to develop. We’re going to use Magnus Ferguson.”

“What? The rich billionaire who wants to take tourists to the moon?” Rachel laughed.

“You mock too quickly Miss Jenkins. Magnus Ferguson has been developing new technology privately within his company over the last year. He believes he is ready to send a manned team up to this anomaly, possible even as early as tomorrow. We could be studying these ripples up close within days.”

“This is madness,” I retorted, pacing back and forth.

“Would you rather go back to working with Robert?” my father replied sternly. “Or would you prefer to actually do some science?”

It had been a while since I had seen my father this way and it felt weird to see him lose his normal jovial composure, but he was right. I had wasted too many years working for the UKSA and getting nowhere. It didn’t matter what amazing advancements I had helped to develop. It only took one mistake to bring everything crashing back down again, courtesy of Robert’s ego.

“Fine. Let’s go to Puerto Rico,” I replied. “At least it might be warmer there.”

“Good man,” my father smiled patting me on the back as if I was a boy again.

“But only if James can come too?”

“Oh, I don’t know,” James interrupted. “Robert would be livid.”

“You want to go back to Swindon and miss out on all this? He’ll shut you down and everyone else, you know that. You’ll be back to working on the non-entity that is the mars mission before you know it and still be there twenty years later. We need you.”

“Okay fine, if you’re going then I’m going. Let’s go find us some jungle,” James replied nodding in agreement.

“And Rachel, Yuki-san, I want you to join us too. I have a feeling we will be needing your expertise just as much,” my father added.

Grinning, Rachel jumped out of her chair and helped my father into his coat and then we all hurriedly grabbed any remaining data we had saved from Robert’s bodyguards and followed my father outside into the freezing weather.