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The Applications of Sorcery

Copyright © 2010 Paul Edwards

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# The Applications of Sorcery

# Chapter one

It was three AM when I found the Personal Digital Assistant. It was sitting on the bathroom floor of the bar I was in.

I had had too much to drink, which wasn't unusual for most of my Friday nights. I was peeing unsteadily in a urinal when I saw it on the floor between my feet.

It looked like a relatively new high-end gadget. I was pretty sure I knew whom it belonged to so in a fit of drunken jealousy I decided to keep it.

I scuttled out of the bar unnoticed. Thankfully the police had left.

The night had begun as it usually did with me. I sat at my usual spot at the bar, drinking my usual drink watching the usual baseball game on the TV.

The only difference between this night and any other was that there was a new bartender serving me drinks.

She said her name was Val and she was beautiful, not just beautiful in the way most servers are in sports bars, but radiantly movie star beautiful.

She had long naturally blond hair, a perfect figure and large hypnotic blue eyes. She was very friendly, funny and charming as well.

I tried some lame patter with her trying to get her number but as usual was shot down in flames, so I concentrated on getting drunk and watching the game.

That's when the stranger walked in. He was flamboyantly dressed in an expensive Italian suit with a white fedora sporting a dark band with a feather sticking out of it.

He had an expensive looking Rolex watch on his wrist and when he opened his fine leather wallet it was full of what appeared to be crisp new one hundred dollar bills.

Val was impressed with him right away, she would stare at him stroking her long blonde hair and laugh at all his jokes when she wasn't serving the rest of us drinks.

The rest of us at the bar were steadily getting more and more jealous, angry and drunk. Who was he to flirt and chase women in our territory. What made it worse was his obvious success with her, climaxing with Val writing down what appeared to be her phone number on a piece of paper and giving it too him.

I was sitting beside Fred another regular, a fine person sober but a vicious and violent drunk after about fifteen beers.

He was on his fifteenth beer at about one AM when I had a nasty idea which if I hadn't been as drunk as Fred was I would have ignored.

The stranger had left his spot to go pee when I whispered to Fred.

"He sure doesn't like your father," I said.

"Huh? Wazzat," Fred mumbled glaring at me in violent suppressed rage.

"He said your father was thief and a cheat."

I knew Fred had some issues with his father and I had learned the hard way not to talk about him when he been drinking. I also knew that criticizing his father was a sure fire way to push him over the edge.

"That fucker, I'll kill the asshole," Fred said in a low voice seething with rage.

Fred staggered to his feet and stumbled towards the washroom. Val quickly looked up from her cash drawer sensing that something bad was going to happen.

Fred smashed through the washroom door and attacked the stranger. We heard a violent crashing noise complimented by screams of rage and pain.

Val didn't waste anytime calling the cops when she heard the commotion, they appeared almost immediately.

Fred was quickly arrested and an ambulance called for the stranger who had been severely beaten and knocked unconscious.

After Fred was hauled away we where all questioned by the police. I denied everything, Val however looked at me with an expression of suspicion.

The cops finished questioning everyone by three AM. That's when I found the PDA and went home.

I woke up in my apartment the next morning with my usual hangover. I climbed out of bed and walked over to the bathroom to take a shower and brush my teeth.

When I finished I got dressed and went through my dirty clothes from last night to get my wallet. That's when I felt the PDA and remembered picking it up.

I put my wallet in my pocket and took the PDA with me to the kitchen were I put some coffee and water in the coffee maker and turned it on.

After a few minutes I sat down at my kitchen table with a fresh cup of coffee and looked at the PDA. It didn't have a manufacturers name written on it anywhere. It didn't seem to have any of the markings that modern manufactured things had, no serial number or made in china written on it.

It did have an on and off button though, so I turned it on.

The colour LCD screen flashed to life. There were five desktop icons on the screen they were labelled Algowriter, Algorithms, Encyclopaedia, Complex control, Hot Chick catalogue.

I touched the icon for the Hot chick catalogue and a picture flashed up of a beautiful woman. There was some kind of what seemed to be coordinates written on the bottom of the picture.

I was able to flip through picture after picture by swiping my finger across the screen. There were hundreds of them, all of spectacularly beautiful women. Val's picture popped up after I had gone through about thirty women.

So the stranger meeting Val wasn't a coincidence.

I exited the catalogue and went back to the main screen by touching a small exit icon on the top corner of the screen.

I touched the Algorithms icon, a list of weird names appeared: The probe, The Copier, The Pixilatior, The brain transference device, The Quantum shield. There were about a hundred of them.

I touched the one named The copier, the screen flashed up what looked like computer code and two icons, one said execute and the other stop.

I pressed the stop icon and the PDA went back to the main screen.

The Encyclopaedia icon was simply that, an extensive encyclopaedia with a search function. The hard drive in the PDA must have been huge, it seemed to have entries on everything along with video.

Some of the entries seemed to me to be wrong, or completely made up. How could there be video of Jesus? Though the costumes the actors wore had a feeling of real authenticity.

The entries all had the same coordinate system that the pictures had had at the top of the screen. I exited back to the main screen and pressed the last two icons. The Algowriter icon was some kind of compiler to write programs. I recognized it because of my hobby of writing simple computer programs in my youth.

The Complex control icon brought up another screen with a number of other icons. I pressed the one that said entrance.

I heard a small snap sound which caused me to look up from my PDA, what I seen caused my jaw to drop. It was what appeared to be a rectangular opening in mid air showing the interior of a large room.

It looked like someone had copied and pasted a rectangular section from a picture and put it in front of me.

I stood up and walked around it. It didn't seem to have any thickness and the other side seemed to show the same room from the opposite direction.

I took a fork from my table and tossed it through the opening. The fork made a clanging noise as it bounced along the marble floor of the alternate reality.

I looked at the screen of the PDA, there was one icon on it. It said close. I pressed it and the opening disappeared.

I couldn't believe what had just happened, was I dreaming? I looked at the PDA screen again. The five icons were back on the screen. I pressed the Complex control and then the entrance icon again.

I heard the snap sound again as the opening appeared. I saw my fork lying on the floor on the other side.

I closed the opening one more time and sat down at my kitchen table drank my coffee and thought. This was something out of a fantasy novel. Who was this stranger who had owned this PDA? What the hell was going on?

The other thing that went through my mind was what did I have to lose to go through to the other side.

My life had gone south a few years ago. I lost my good job and my girlfriend within weeks of each other, both a victim of the stock market crash. She lost interest in me when I could no longer afford the expensive dinners and high end BMW.

I had responded to my downturn by becoming an alcoholic financed by a crummy job at a call centre. My days now consisted of answering calls from people trying to work their cell phones and my nights sitting on a bar stool drinking beer.

I finished my coffee walked to my bedroom closet and pulled out an unused knapsack I had bought on a whim three years ago when I was rolling in cash.

I walked around my shitty little apartment and started putting anything I could think of that I might need into it: bottled water, a Gerber all purpose tool, four boxes of breakfast bars, a coil of half inch nylon rope, spare clothing, sleeping bag and pup tent and a very large hunting knife in a scabbard.

I put on a pair of heavy duty hiking boots a heavy winter jacket and putting thick gloves and a wool toque in the pockets.

I grabbed the PDA pressed the proper icons and opened the window. I walked through into the large room and picked up my fork.

I had expected to feel something as I walked through. I didn't, no electric shock no nausea or disorientation. It was just like I had walked through a normal doorway.

I looked around the room I had just entered. It was mainly constructed of glaring white marble, even the high ceiling was marble.

The floor had an large intricate pattern made up of inlaid black stone, as I walked farther away from the window I had opened from my apartment I could see that it was located in the exact centre of the pattern.

The only exit from the room was a wide staircase located on one wall. I couldn't see were the staircase led to as the top of the steps were obscured by the ceiling.

I looked back at the window to my apartment and decided to leave it open in case I had to make a quick getaway. I was also unsure of whether I could open another window back up if I closed it. I had no idea of the rules of the PDA's magic.

I put the PDA in my pocket slung my knapsack over my shoulder and started up the steps.

# Chapter two

I emerged into long a carpeted hallway with a plaster ceiling and fine wood panelled walls. There were large expensive looking oil paintings hung at regular intervals. They all looked vaguely familiar but not recognizable.

I was startled to see a beautiful voluptuous naked woman standing stock still about thirty feet down the hall. She was staring across the hall at a painting. I quickly walked up to her, curious and aroused at the same time.

"Hi," I said, as I got within speaking distance.

There was no reply, she didn't even turn to look at me. I didn't see any movement from her at all. I finally got close enough to examine her and realized she was some kind of a hyper realistic statue.

I cautiously touched her shoulder, it was solid but I felt a minute vibration.

The detail of the statue was unbelievable. She looked completely real, even her eyes had the sheen and reflectivity of real eyes. She was also breathtaking, with large full breasts and long legs. Her face was radiant, having full lips and big bright green eyes.

The only thing she had on was some expensive looking finger rings, a necklace with a circular pendant and large hanging earrings. Her hair was pulled back in a loose pony tail.

I stared at the statue for some time, trying to find some flaw in her appearance. I couldn't.

I decided to move on down the corridor and see were it led. There were doors at regular intervals but they were all locked.

I started to see more hyper realistic statues at regular intervals, all were of beautiful young women with large breasts and flawless voluptuous figures. I tried grabbing one and lifting it to see if I could take it back to my apartment. It wouldn't budge, it was obviously cemented to the ground.

I reached the end of the curving corridor after about three hundred meters. I had passed over fifty doors, all were securely locked. The end of the corridor was just a wall with an exquisitely painted large mural depicting a harem scene. The women depicted seemed to be some of the same people as the statues I had passed.

The women in the harem surrounded a muscular young man relaxing against a pile of pillows. I looked at the face, it was the same as the stranger's from the bar last night.

I thought about stealing all the paintings. They must be worth something and unlike the statues they were not secured to anything. They were simply hanging on hooks screwed into the walls. I decided not to take anything for now.

I thought about what to do next. I couldn't go through any of the doors unless I went back and got an axe or a sledgehammer. That didn't seem like a good idea. I had no idea who else was here.

It suddenly occurred to me to look at the PDA for an answer. I took it out of my pocket and pressed the Algorithm icon. The list of weird names appeared, I swiped my finger up the screen until I found the name I wanted. The doorway.

I touched the name with my finger which brought up the next screen. There were two icons, open, and close. There was a small note written at the bottom of the screen, "Keep PDA one meter from wall."

I pointed the PDA at a door and stood about a meter back, then I touched the open button. I heard the now familiar snapping sound and a rectangular opening suddenly appeared. It was the same approximate size as the door.

I could see the interior of the room on the other side. I stepped through the opening into the room for a closer inspection.

It was the entrance to an immense library. There were ten levels filled with books sitting on book shelves surrounding a large open area. The open area had many tables with chairs, some of the tables had large weird looking flat screen monitors with some kind of joystick controls in front of them.

The books on the shelves were a bizarre mix of papyrus scrolls, hand bound leather books, clay tablets and any other type of written media that had been thought up during the ages.

I walked through the shelves until I came to something I recognized. The collected works of Shakespeare. The plays were handwritten on rough paper stuffed loose leafed in modern manila folders.

Someone had neatly written the titles of the plays on the folders with a sharpie. I saw all the familiar ones such as Romeo and Juliet and some I had never heard of like, Loves Labours Won and The Great Alexander.

I tried to read the hand written pages but they were almost incoherent. They seemed to be written in the original old English. I looked at the last page of The Tempest, there was a large scrawling signature at the bottom of the page, William Shakespeare.

I couldn't believe it. These can't be the originals, they looked like they were written within the last year, and how could the stranger have gotten them?

Of course how does one open mysterious windows to other dimensions, if the stranger could do that then maybe finding original Shakespeare manuscripts wouldn't be so difficult.

I looked at the other shelves, and found manuscripts that if they were real would be literally priceless such as Cleopatra's letters to Mark Anthony, The complete works of Archimedes, original architectural drawings of the Great Pyramid of Cheops and on and on.

It was amazing, anything that I could think of was there, in what appeared to be original transcripts in pristine condition.

I resisted the urge to take anything. I had no idea who the stranger was and how long he would be in the hospital. I didn't feel confident enough to do anything but look for now.

I left the library the same way I came in. I saw many other doorways on the other levels of the library but decided to stick to the main corridor in order not to get lost. I may have to vacate this place in a hurry and didn't want to lose my way in a panic.

I stood in the corridor in front of the opening the PDA had created, pulled out the PDA out and pressed the close icon on the screen. The opening disappeared.

I walked back towards the main entrance and picked another door at random and used the PDA to make an opening. I walked through the hole and emerged into what looked like a computer lab of some sort. There were workbenches with extremely high end computers sitting on them as well as large monitors on the walls. The floor was a conservative dark blue carpet, the walls and ceiling were painted bright white. The room was lit with large square fluorescent looking lighting panels.

I looked at one of the computer monitors on the workbench closest to me. It showed lines of computer code very similar to what I had seen on the PDA.

The workbenches also had what looked like weird trinkets scattered all over them. There were necklaces, bracelets, rings and plaques mixed among other things. All the items looked well made but not expensive. Like they were designed to be decorative and functional but not overly noticeable.

I examined one of the plaques closely. There was the same kind of code written on it as there had been on the computer monitor. I also noticed a little tab that had been flipped up on the edge, it cut into one of the lines of code causing a break. I flipped the tab back towards the plaque, it snapped back into a groove of the same size making the plaque whole. I heard the familiar snapping sound.

I jumped back looking up at the same time wondering what effect would happen this time. A hyper realistic statue appeared with its feet standing directly on the plaque. I looked closer at the statue, it was of a beautiful woman like all the others, but unlike the others this was a person I recognized, Terri Phoenix, my favourite fantasy woman when I had been a teenager.

I walked closer to see her better, I then grabbed the statues legs to see if I could lift her off the bench. It wouldn't budge. I decided to flip the tab on the plaque back to see if the statue would disappear, this so I could just move the plaque to the floor. I brushed my hand against the plaque reaching for the tab, it moved, amazingly doing this made the whole statue move.

I picked up the plaque tipping it, the statue stayed perfectly perpendicular to the top, as well the weight of the plaque appeared to be exactly the same as when there was no statue. I put the plaque flat on the floor and then grabbed the statue around the waist to try to lift it again. It wouldn't budge. This was extremely weird.

I stood back and took a good look at the object of my adolescent desire. The pictures in the magazines I had hidden under my mattress in my youth sure hadn't done her any justice. She was spectacular, every curve was even more perfect then I had remembered, even the hairs on her forearms seemed to be in just the exact right place.

I flipped the tab on the plaque and the statue disappeared. I had figured out one thing, however this magical computer code worked, physically disrupting it stopped it from functioning.

I put the plaque in my knapsack and decided to leave. I was getting a bit paranoid and still had no idea who else was in this place. I had done enough exploring for today anyway.

I exited the room closed the opening and walked down the hall back to the main entrance. I noticed now that every single statue had the same type of plaque that I had found underneath it, all with little tabs that would shut them off when flipped.

I walked back to my apartment and shut the opening. I took the PDA and the plaque and hid them in my secret little hidey hole. It was starting to get late and I had decided to go back to my usual bar and see if I could glean any information about the stranger and his condition as well as getting something to drink.

I walked into the bar and sat at my usual seat. Val was working again tonight. She brought me a beer while staring right at me.

"What did you say to Fred last night?"

"Nothing," I replied.

She looked at me suspiciously.

"That guy's got fractured skull you know, Fred could of killed him."

"I wasn't the one who served him fifteen beers, Fred's nuts, didn't anyone tell you what he was like? Why didn't you cut him off?" I said.

Val face had an expression of guilt and shame on it.

"I'm sorry, I'm new here, Fred seemed normal when I first met him."

"How's he doing anyway?" I asked.

"Oh he should be fine, I visited him today, he's still groggy but the doctors say he should be out of the hospital in a few days."

I felt a surge of jealousy, I was pretty sure she wouldn't have visited me in the hospital after just meeting each other. I decided to suppress my feelings and try to find out what I could. I was pretty sure that when the stranger's wits returned he would want his magical PDA back.

"Who is he anyway, I've never seen him before," I asked Val.

"Oh he's a software engineer, he wrote something for the Internet that made him millions, he's so cool. He's from New York he was just passing through."

I could see that Val was completely taken by this guy. I wondered what she would think if she knew that he had basically stalked her and that he was much more then what he said he was.

It suddenly occurred to me that if he had been stalking Val he probably also had a way of finding out how to be and say all the things she wanted from a guy.

I wasn't so jealous anymore. I remembered I had the plaque with the statue of Terri Phoenix back in my apartment. Was she more than a statue?

I finished my beer and left, for the first time in months I didn't feel like drinking anymore.

I walked back to my apartment, once inside I carefully locked the door and shut the blinds on all the windows. I took out the plaque and the PDA from their hiding place and put them on the kitchen table.

I examined the plaque first. I took out a piece of blank paper and a pen and started coping all the code down.

I had been a competent database programmer at one time, so I knew the basics of algorithms. I was hoping that the code that all these things seemed to use had similar principles.

This is what I wrote:

Reference X

LOCK Reference B

START

New TSW

Label "Terri Phoenix"

Creation time: now

Shape: Circular

Size: r=.5m

Distance from reference: +0cm

Elevation from reference: +2m

Orientation off perpendicular from reference:

X axis: +0 degrees

Y axis: +0 degrees

Z axis: +0 degrees

Duration: .001s

B time: -630075603.8769s

B space: +2304.24765km, 92.87658 degrees True N, -5.1295 degrees off perpendicular

CHANGE Elevation from reference: -2m

WAIT .0099s

CHANGE Elevation from reference: +2m

GOTO START

I also wrote down two long lines of random numbers and letters at the bottom and top of the plaque that bracketed the code. I finished writing the very last letter when I heard a snapping sound causing me to jump back in alarm.

A hyper realistic statue of half a toilet was sitting on top of the piece of paper I had wrote the code on. I studied the toilet closely, the half bowl held water that wasn't flowing out. I touched the water, it felt hard and had the same slight vibration that the human statues had had.

I couldn't lift the half toilet but lifting the paper with the code moved it easily, as if it were weightless.

I decided to change the code on the paper. I ripped off the last line of random numbers and letters. The toilet disappeared. I rewrote the exact same code on another sheet of paper omitting the GOTO START and the second CHANGE Elevation line.

I jumped back as I wrote the last letter in the last line. I heard the familiar snapping sound and half a toilet appeared on my kitchen table gushing water out of the half bowl. Then it toppled over onto the floor and smashed into a hundred pieces.

I had learned something, the statues must be of real people, they must be a snapshot in time and space cycled over and over every .001 seconds.

All this code worked just by writing it down and I suspected the lines of random numbers and letters in the header and the footer was all that was needed to activate it.

I also suspected that the reference point was the point from which the coordinates in the B time and B space lines were measured.

If I had wrote the code at the same time and place the plaque had been written I would have gotten Terri. If I write it now at my kitchen table I get half a toilet.

I was still unsure of what the whole B thing in some of the lines meant. Why didn't the code just have time and space, instead of B time and B space?

Another thought occurred to me. I looked at the statue of Terri and realized that she looked pretty good for a girl that must be pushing fifty. I had obsessed over her almost twenty years ago. She was at least twenty-five or older then.

Maybe B time and B space was in a parallel universe. I did the math and divided the number of seconds into minutes, hours, days and then years. The B time line came to about twenty years.

So this plaque was cycling the time and space were she existed twenty years ago in a parallel universe every .0099 seconds.

I had an idea. I shut the plaque off, I grabbed a hammer and chisel from my small collection of tools and chiselled the GOTO START and the second CHANGE Elevation lines off the plaque.

I grabbed my bathrobe from the washroom, it was still relatively clean, put the plaque on the kitchen floor and turned it on.

Terri Phoenix appeared and immediately started screaming.

# Chapter three

"Who the fuck are you!" She screamed.

I tossed the bathrobe to her, which stopped her from screaming as she quickly put it on.

"Stand back mister, I may be short but I know martial arts," she said trying to look threatening.

"Calm down, its all right, I'm not going to hurt you."

"Where am I? How did I get here? Did you drug me?" She blurted out frantically.

"You probably aren't going to believe me, so I'll show you something first."

I slowly picked up my TV's remote control off of the kitchen table and in the most non-threatening manner I could manage I turned on my twenty inch LCD TV that was hanging on the wall behind her. It was tuned to the weather channel.

"Oh!" She said as she turned around at the sound of the TV.

"Look at the date," I said.

"That's bullshit, you're crazy."

"Look at the TV," I replied.

"So its built in, big deal," she said trying to look unimpressed.

"Pick it up, its on a hook."

She tentatively walked over to the TV trying to keep her eye on me, and then looked at it more closely.

"Oh geez," she said as she passed out.

I picked her up and carried her over to my sofa then laid her on it trying to make her comfortable, I got a glass of water and waited for her to wake up.

After a few minutes her eyes started fluttering and she started stretching her arms then she looked at me and an expression of fear came onto her face.

"Don't hurt me please, I'll do what you say."

I gave her the glass of water.

"I'm not going to hurt you. I'm sorry but I think I made a big mistake," I said.

Terri sat up and drank half the glass of water in one gulp.

"What kind of mistake?"

I went back to the kitchen and retrieved the plaque from the kitchen table, I handed it too her to look at.

"What's this?" She said examining it closely.

"The writing on it is an algorithm that cycles a chunk of time and space over and over to create a hyper realistic statue of you."

"Me?"

"Yes, and as you can see, I scratched two lines of code out making it cycle only once and stop, which it did depositing you here."

"Why did you do that?" She said her voice rising.

"I didn't think that this would happen."

I explained the whole story to her, even the part about getting Fred to beat up the stranger, she had a look of disbelief on her face until I showed her the PDA and opened the entrance to the marble room.

"So what do I do now? How do I get back?"

"I don't know, but I think the answer is somewhere in this complex," I replied pointing at the opening.

"I need some clothes," she said.

I remembered the name of an algorithm on the PDA's algorithm list, it was labelled: clothing/supplies. I didn't think I could make things any worse then I already had so I took a risk and activated it.

A large smooth square stone suddenly appeared hovering perpendicularly in midair. It was about two feet square and one inch thick, the front and back was divided into smaller squares like a checkerboard, each square had writing on it.

I found a square that said clothing and pressed it. The matrix on the stone instantly changed, now the squares had writing on that only referred to clothing.

Every time I pressed a square the matrix changed narrowing down the types of clothing but increasing the varieties of sizes and styles showing them with small images imbedded into the stone.

Eventually through trial and error Terri was able to find a pair of trousers her size and a style she liked, when she pressed the final square and a small flat stone appeared hovering in the air with the object of clothing neatly folded sitting on top.

Terri, spent the next thirty minutes building up an outfit including socks shoes and underwear.

"Wow this thing is sure cool, it even has bra's in my size."

"You're size, why wouldn't it?"

"Bra's are just like any other type of clothing, they only mass produce the typical sizes. If your stuck with these puppies," she grabbed her large boobs through the bathrobe, "you have to get bra's custom made, which costs a fortune."

"Oh," I said as I felt my face flush.

"What's your name anyway, I'm Terri," she said holding out her hand.

"I'm James, I already know who you are," I replied shaking it.

"Really? How?"

"Umm... well, I uh... remember you from a magazine I seen when I was uh.. younger."

A look of enlightenment suddenly flashed across her face followed by a suppressed smile.

I walked back to the kitchen to give her some privacy to change. I put some coffee on while I waited. I was sitting down on the kitchen table drinking a cup when she walked in fully clothed. She was dressed in tight jeans and a form fitting t-shirt, she had running shoes on her feet.

"What now?" I asked.

"I guess we go back to were you got the plaque and see what we can find out. I was looking at it and I am pretty sure I get the gist of the code."

"You know how to program?" I said surprised.

"I'm a closet nerd, I've had a computer ever since the commodore sixty four came out. I have a three eighty six now."

I grabbed my laptop from were it was sitting on the coffee table in the living room and brought it back to the kitchen giving it to her.

"Things have changed a bit in the last twenty years," I said.

She opened it up and turned it on.

"Well I see they ripped off the Macintosh, so that's the future huh."

"Not really," I said as I opened up the Internet browser.

Terri was blown away by the world wide web.

"This is unbelievable, and it's all wireless?"

"It can be, but they still use cable for most of it," I replied. "Try Googling yourself, that's always interesting."

She typed her name in Google and clicked the search button. There wasn't much that came up, a few web links for old girlie magazines for sale and a few blogs about centrefold models.

I moved the mouse pointer to the news button and clicked it.

Three links popped up to news articles with her name in them. I clicked on one.

It read: Noted Centrefold model dies of injuries following car crash. Terri Phoenix nee Terry Webersnide died in the intensive care unit of Fort Lauderdale's Lincoln Memorial Hospital in on the 2nd of July 1990.

Ms. Webersnide suffered massive injuries when the car she was driving was struck by an oncoming tracker trailer that had veered into her lane on Interstate 95.

Ms. Webersnide was returning home from a gentlemen's club she had been performing at. She is survived by her Aunt Doris Webersnide. The funeral will be held in Fort Lauderdale at the Flying Angels funeral home on the 10th of July.

Terri's face turned white when she read the article.

"That's three days from now," she said.

"No it's twenty years ago, and it won't happen to you because you're here."

"How does this all work, jumping around in time? Aren't there paradoxes or something?"

"I don't know, but I'm beginning to suspect there are many parallel universes," I said.

"Well, I sure won't be driving much anymore when I get back."

"It's getting late, why don't we get some sleep and start searching the complex in the morning, you can sleep in my bed, I'll sleep on the couch."

"Ok. Do you have some food? I'm starving."

Terri ate some potato chips I had in the cupboard, and drank a glass of milk. She then said goodnight and walked into my bedroom closing the door.

I got some blankets and linen from my hall closet and settled in on the couch falling asleep immediately.

# Chapter four

I woke up the next morning to the sound of someone showering in my bathroom. My back was sore from sleeping on the uncomfortable couch and I heard it creak when I sat up.

I heard the water stop running and a few minutes later Terri walked out wrapped in a large towel.

"That PDA has everything man, I even got a toothbrush and floss out of it," she said.

"You used it?"

"I sure did, I even tried some of the other algorithms. There's one that copies shit, look on the table, I made a bunch of twenty dollar bills."

I walked over to the kitchen table and looked at the pile of twenties, they were all exactly the same.

"What else did you try?" I asked.

Terri grabbed the PDA and pointed at an empty spot in the living room and pressed the screen, a odd looking machine appeared. It looked like a cross between a racing motorcycle and a jet ski. It hovered noiselessly about two feet off the floor.

"It's some kind of flying vehicle. I couldn't find a motor or anything it just works the same way the PDA works. The controls look pretty simple."

Terri pressed the PDA's screen again and the vehicle disappeared.

"I'm going to take a shower," I said walking to the bathroom.

I showered and brushed my teeth, I walked into my bedroom now that Terri was sitting at the kitchen table eating a bowl of cereal.

I put on some clean clothes and combed my wet hair. I looked around my bedroom noticing that Terri had cleaned it and made the bed.

I walked into the kitchen and got a bowl of cereal for myself.

"I guess we can start after we finish eating," I said.

"I copied one other thing," Terri said.

"What?"

"The PDA," she took out another PDA and put it beside the first on the table.

"Does it work?" I said feeling slightly alarmed.

"The entrance algorithm opens into the great outdoors, not the complex, it's a forest on the other side, all the other stuff seems to work the same though."

"You don't think it could be dangerous screwing around with the thing?"

"Hey, I'm supposed to be dead in two days, I think I'll live a little," Terri said narrowing her eyes.

"Sorry, I'm just a bit paranoid. I don't know what's going to happen when the guy that owns the thing gets out of the hospital."

"He sounds scary," she said.

"Ya, and he's going to really pissed when he finds out I'm the reason he got the shit beat out of him."

"It's reverse Karma."

"Huh?"

"He was using all this stuff to hustle women, he deserved to get beat up, you just didn't know that when you sent Fred after him, your jealousy was really Karma in reverse."

We finished our cereal and got ready to start our search of the complex.

I activated the entrance algorithm and the opening appeared. We grabbed our stuff and walked through.

"Wow, this is sure wild," Terri said as she walked through into the white marble room.

I quickly led her up the stairs into the main corridor and then showed her the first statue.

"This is what you looked like at first," I said pointing to the naked woman.

Terri examined the statue closely touching it with her fingers.

"He sure didn't leave anything to the imagination, she's completely naked."

"They're all like that, he must have a way of finding them when they're undressed and then capture that spot in time and space," I said.

I had a sudden inspiration.

"Follow me, I know were there's a painting of the stranger, maybe you know him."

I took Terri to the painting of the harem scene at the end of the corridor, I pointed out the stranger sitting in the middle of the picture.

"Ah, that clears up a few things," she said staring at the strangers likeness.

"You know him?" I asked.

"He called himself Jose, he wasn't the type of guy I'm usually attracted too, but something awful had happened to me and I was extremely vulnerable. He managed to come along at just the right time, he was always able to say the exact right things at the exact right times. I always thought it was weird how he seemed to know me so well and was able to manipulate me so easily. I slept with him mostly out of guilt. Now I know how he did it, what a creep."

"Did he seem like the violent type?" I asked.

"I honestly don't know, he was kinda nerdy and obsessed with sex, it's all we really did together. He disappeared after a week or so, I never saw him again."

We started walking back down the hallway to look for the computer lab I had found the plaque in. I was able to find the door of the lab using the statues of naked women as a reference. They worked remarkably well as landmarks.

I was about to activate the doorway algorithm when Terri put her hand on my arm to stop me. She held up a key.

"I seen it on one of the squares of the matrix when I was looking for clothes," she said.

She put the key in the keyhole on the door and turned it. The door opened inwards and we walked into the lab.

Terri started looking through the junk on the workbenches and in the drawers underneath them. I did so as well. After a few minutes Terri held up what looked like a small book and said, "Look at this."

I walked over and grabbed the book looking at the cover, it was called The Principles of Sorcery, someone named Franz Morton wrote it.

I leafed through it, it appeared to be a manual on how to write the programs that did all the remarkable things we had seen so far. There were definitions of all the different commands as well as examples of how to use them the context of a program. The last half of the book was filled with completed programs with the same names as the ones on our PDA's.

"This stuff is called transcendent technology, TSW stands for time space window," said Terri.

"We need to read this," I said.

"Give it too me."

Terri whipped out her PDA and quickly thumbed through the menus with one hand, she was very dexterous, then she pressed a final icon on the screen pointing at an empty space in front of her. A flat rectangular stone tablet appeared hovering in mid air.

I walked closer to get a better look, it was divided in half by a shallow groove, one half had PUT ORIGINAL HERE chiselled on it as well as a small square in the bottom right with COPY chiselled inside it.

Terri took the book and put it on the PUT ORINGINAL HERE, and then she pressed the COPY square. After two or three seconds a copy of the book appeared on the other side of the tablet. Terri grabbed the original book and the copy and then pressed another icon on her PDA screen, the stone tablet disappeared.

"Man I could of made a fortune with this," she said putting the PDA away.

"I think you still can."

Terri tossed me one of the books.

"Lets read," she said.

I read through the book as quickly as possible trying to get the gist behind this technology. From what I could gather, there appeared to be an infinite number of parallel universes to ours, all this technology worked by manipulating time space windows between them.

The Time space windows could connect two different parallel universes with a circular or rectangular opening of any size, anywhere and at any time. The openings were always two dimensional, having height and width but no thickness.

Time travel would be one of the easiest things to do, just open a TSW to the past and step through.

The writer of the book also postulated a theory about why all this stuff existed. He theorized that the universe was created as software by some kind of ancient sentient beings he called the brains.

He then went on to write that the header and footer codes that every algorithm had at the top and the bottom activated a subroutine that caused the universe's operating systems debug program to start. This enabled new code to be inserted into it by people like us.

I heard Terri sigh and sit down on one of the stools in front of the computer benches, she had a very sad look on her face.

"What's wrong," I asked.

"It says here that once a TSW is closed, the opening to that particular parallel universe is gone forever," there were tears flowing out of her eyes.

"What does that mean?" I said confused.

"I came out of a parallel universe, the way the code on the plaque worked was it cycled the same spot over and over in a different universe every cycle. The universe I came from was opened for .001 seconds then closed. I can't go back."

I thought for a bit and something occurred to me.

"Terri, all the parallel universes are exactly the same until someone disrupts the time flow by opening a TSW between them. All you have to do is just go back to another parallel universe."

"But there will be another me there," she said.

"All the other Terri Phoenix's will die in two days, you'll be the only one left," I said.

"Oh ya, right, but how will I explain my corpse?"

"You were hit head on by a tractor trailer, if you were driving a small car there wouldn't be a lot of corpse left to worry about. What were you driving?"

"A Porsche 911."

"They probably identified you by a drivers license or something. Just say you were kidnapped and they stole your car and everything, and then it took three days to escape from being tied up. They won't have a reason not to believe you."

Terri had stopped crying but was still thinking about what I had said.

"What about my poor Aunt in the universe I came from? She'll be pretty sad," she said.

"In two days they'll all be sad, you'll have the opportunity to make one of them happy again."

"You saved my life you know," she said looking at me with a strange expressionless stare.

"Reverse Karma I guess, it wasn't what I set out to do," I replied.

We searched the rest of the computer lab, all the trinkets we found had mostly unfinished code on them. The ones that seemed to be finished we were afraid to try because we didn't really know what they did.

Terri started looking at the computers on the benches to see what kinds of programs were stored on them.

"They all have some kind of simulation program on them. Jose must have used these to get some kind of idea how an algorithm would work without having to try it in the real world," she said.

"I could see how opening these windows could be pretty dangerous, miss a decimal point somewhere and all of a sudden the Pacific Ocean is flowing through it," I replied.

"Speaking of dangerous lets go through some of the other doors. I want to find out as much as possible about this place before Jose gets out of the hospital. I'm not coming back here if he's around," Terri said.

We left the lab and locked the door behind us. I looked down the hall at all the other unlocked doors, there were no marks or labels on any of them, they were all the same.

"Which one do you want to try next? There's no way to tell what's behind any of them," I asked.

"This one," Terri pointed at the door immediately across the hall, "It's as good as any other."

I put the key in lock and turned it. The door opened inwards revealing a short white corridor with another door at the end. The walls had what appeared to be hooks with lab coats hanging on them. I also noticed some kind of small built in machine on one side.

I walked over to the machine, it was basically a slot below a camera lens with a big red button on the right hand side. I pressed the red button.

I heard Terri gasp as a bright light flashed blinding me for a few seconds. I stepped back from the machine wary of what might happen.

A small flat object fell out of the slot and dropped to the floor. I picked it up and examined it, it was a security badge with my picture on it. I looked at it more closely and noticed that it looked like something that would have been made in the nineteen fifties or sixties. The lettering appeared to be typewritten and the picture was black and white and physically glued to a cardboard badge that was laminated in clear plastic.

The badge had a generic name written on it, John Smith. I was a systems design engineer for the Transcendent Rocket Company, my employee number was N305084.

I showed the badge to Terri, she examined it then walked over to the machine herself and pressed the big red button.

The camera flashed again and another badge popped out of the slot, it was similar to mine except her name was Nancy Bell, and she was a public relations consultant.

"Hmmm, interesting," she said.

She grabbed one of the lab coats hanging on a hook and put it on. She then clipped the nametag onto one of her pockets. She grabbed another lab coat and threw it to me.

"Put it on, I think this stuff is so that we blend in with whatever's behind that door," she said pointing at the door at the other end of the corridor.

I put on the lab coat and clipped my security badge to it. I took the key and put it in the door's lock, it fit, it appeared that all the doors in this complex used the same key. I turned the lock and we both walked through.

The door opened into what appeared to a very large control tower that was hundreds of feet above a vast airfield littered with all kinds of bizarre looking aircraft. The towers windows were huge, almost fifty feet high, there were dozens of people walking around, all wearing white lab coats just like ours complete with security badges. They were either on phones or operating what looked to be very archaic radar consoles.

I could see the interior of one of the consoles because there were technicians working on a partially disassembled one. I saw rows of vacuum tubes and large metal capacitors inside it.

One of the lab coated people noticed us walking through the door and excitedly rushed over to greet us. I read his security badge as he got closer, his name was Bob Norris and he was a senior operations manager.

"Hello, Hello," he said offering his hand, "I'm Bob, it's always nice to meet our cohorts from the design division. What brings you here?"

I shook his hand, "Just checking our new designs," I said starting to panic.

Terri offered her hand to Bob "Hi I'm Terri."

Bob's demeanour changed immediately when he looked at Terri more closely. I could tell he was immediately smitten with her. Well who wouldn't be? Even in a lab coat she looked spectacular.

"Umm, nice to meet you Miss," Bob said shaking her hand for an embarrassingly long time while staring at her like he was hypnotized.

"Well Bob," she started, prying her hand free from his grasp, "John and I are here to see how are new designs are working out.

Terri cautiously walked back and closed the door we had come through and locked it with the key.

"I sure would like to see how that transporter you guys use to get around works," Bob said pointing to the door, "I wish your boss would give us some for our ships."

"Well you know how he feels about that," Terri lied.

"Yes I sure do. Well to your first question, the new star drives have been almost flawless. We installed one in the frigate Phoenix and we got it almost sixty light-years out. Our only problem is that we seem to be a few hundred kilometres off target when we come out of warp. I guess that's why you guys are here," said Bob.

"That's right, we always need to tweak new designs as you know. Is the Phoenix here? Can we take a look at her?" Terri said.

"Yes she is, I'll escort you personally," Bob said as he put his arm around Terri directing her to the rooms elevator.

We all walked into the elevator together. Bob pressed the button for the ground floor. From looking at the buttons I could see the control tower had only four floors. I tried to imagine what it must look like from the outside.

The elevator took a few minutes to reach the ground, not surprising considering how high it looked from the windows. The doors slid open once our downward motion stopped and we walked out onto what looked like concrete.

I turned back to look at the building we had just come out of and had to stifle a gasp. It was a extremely tall tower consisting of a disk shaped upper structure supported by a thin column. I estimated it to be at least a thousand feet in height.

It looked like something out of a pulp science fiction novel.

I then looked around the concrete apron we stood on. Bizarre looking spacecraft dotted it as far as I could see. They too looked like them came out of the same pulp novel as the tower. They all had large fins on a vaguely cigar shaped structure. All had wheeled retractable landing gear.

Bob waved us over to a small motorized vehicle that looked like it was designed to pull these large space ships.

We all piled into the cabin then Bob put it into gear and we whizzed towards one of the cigar shaped ships.

After travelling for about a kilometre we pulled up next to it. I could see the ships name painted on the plain aluminium skin, Phoenix.

We exited the vehicles cabin and examined it up close. It was huge, at least five hundred feet long.

"We just had it retrofitted, some of the systems are using point contact transistors now, we used French ones. The American ones are crap." Bob said gesturing at the ship, "Lets go inside I'm sure you want to get started."

Bob led us to a set of portable stairs that was parked next to the craft, the top ended at an open door on the side. The stairs looked like they were originally made for a jet liner.

We followed Bob up the steps and then into the Phoenix.

# Chapter five

The interior of the Phoenix was like everything else we had seen so far. It looked as if the designer had used the covers of pulp science fiction novels for inspiration. All the walls and furniture had art deco curves to them. The electronic equipment was full of brightly covered knobs and levers and had lots of analog needle gauges.

There were also many built in monitors on the walls made of old style cathode ray tubes, they had fabric covered speakers with large volume and channel selector knobs beside them.

The walls and ceiling were made of what looked like grey painted metal, the floor was steel plate with a raised diamond pattern covering it for traction.

As we followed Bob we passed members of the crew walking the other way. The men were dressed in what looked vaguely like the costumes of a popular sci-fi TV show from the sixties. The women wore tiny mini skirts and revealing tops of similar design with the same military like insignias as the men.

"This place is like some kind of adolescent male fantasy," Terri whispered in my ear, "How can these women even bend over wearing that shit."

"I think that's the point of this place. I have a feeling that Jose somehow conjured it up," I whispered back.

"Make a whole world? Man that's intense," Terri replied.

Bob finally stopped in front of a hatchway that had WARPDRIVE #1 written on the front of it, he opened it stood back and said, "here it is, I'll show you the other one when your done, I know you guys work in secret so just contact me with a PA announcement," he pointed at one of the speaker monitor devices on the wall.

Bob turned and left us.

Terri and I walked through the hatchway door and closed it behind us. We were in a small room about two meters square. The room was completely empty except for a black line outlining a door shaped rectangle. The word entrance was written between the lines.

Terri walked up to the rectangle feeling for a handle.

"It's just painted on, there's no door," she said.

I took out my PDA, "I'll use the door algorithm, stand back."

Terri stood behind me and grabbed my arms while peeking over one of my shoulders. I activated the algorithm and a rectangular opening appeared between the lines of the painted rectangle. We both walked through into the next room.

We were in a room that was maybe twice the size of the room we had just left, there was a metal workbench pushed up against the far wall, it had been bolted to the floor. On the work bench there was a very modern looking Hewlett Packard desktop computer, complete with a flat screen monitor. It was secured to the bench by metal straps.

I walked over to the bench to examine it more closely. The computers parallel COM port had a cable running out of it to a small metal box about a foot square and six inches high. The words analog digital converter had been written on the top of it.

The other side of the box had six different cables emerging from it, each cable consisted of twenty or so pairs of smaller wires surrounded by insulation. The smaller wires were terminated on top of a wooden strip with metal pins. The bottom half of the wooden strip had an older style of cables terminated to it. These cables were secured along the wall until they entered a conduit that led out of the room.

"This must be how the crew controls the ship. The ships archaic control signals go through this converter which turns them into digital signals so they can activate the algorithms in the computer," I said looking at the set-up.

Terri was looking closely at the wooden wiring strip.

"I think I found out why the drive system is off a bit," she pointed to the strip, "The guy who wired this got some wires backwards."

"How can you tell?"

"Boys on girls, bad sex," she said.

"Huh?"

"Blue Orange Green brown slate. That's the standard colour code for phone cable, which is what they've used, someone reversed the orange and green wires on this set of pins."

"How do you know this?" I said impressed.

"I used to work for Southern Bell in the summer when I went to college, all I did was wire shit. I was seeing this colour code in my dreams."

"There's tools here," she walked over to a black toolbox bolted to the floor. Terri opened the lid and pulled out what looked like a screwdriver, pliers and a gun like tool.

"I'll fix it."

Terri fitted the screwdriver tool over one of the connections and quickly turned it, the wire came loose. She repeated the process on another wire, then she straightened them both with the pliers. She inserted one of the straightened wires into the gun like device put the barrel over one of the pins then squeezed the large trigger.

I heard a crunching sound, Terri pulled the gun away and the wire was now freshly wrapped around the pin. She repeated the process with the other wire.

"Fixed. Just like new," she said.

"What did you take in college?" I asked.

"Oh the usual crap, I was going to be a lawyer."

"How did you end up doing, umm, what your doing?"

Terri looked at me with a tired expression on her face.

"God I hate that question, I've heard it about a thousand times. People work for money, I make ten times more cash showing my boobs then I ever would as a lawyer. When the boobs start sagging I'll go to law school."

"I'm sorry, I was just curious. How did you start? I would've been terrified if I had to take my clothes off."

Terri laughed, "You know, when I was young I was just a gawky kid with big Frankenstein braces, all the boys ignored me. Then suddenly like Cinderella the braces came off and these popped out," she grabbed her boobs," and the boys stopped ignoring me. Did they ever. I felt like a Martian or something, they all started acting so weird around me, it's hard to describe, sort of an angry desperation.

I had no idea why. I didn't think I looked any different, anyway, moving on, when I was in college I went out to a bar with a few friends one night. There was a wet T-shirt contest on and I was drunk, so I thought what the hell and entered it.

That night sure changed my perspective, the guys went so fucking crazy it was scary, and all the girls were looking at me like they wanted to beat me to death.

Then the bar manager gave me five hundred dollars. I won it.

I made twelve dollars an hour during the summer working for Ma Bell, and five dollars an hour as a waitress working two nights a week when I was in school. It was hard work too. Now I had just made five hundred dollars shaking my butt for five minutes. It was an epiphany.

I started entering all the wet t-shirt contests I could, it wasn't long before a magazine photographer who went to these things to look for new girls seen me, and the rest is history."

"Do you like it?" I asked.

"It's a job, I wouldn't do it for free. Lets go, I'm curious about the rest of the ship."

We exited the room and closed the opening with the PDA, then we walked back into the main corridor closing the hatchway behind us.

"I guess we have to call Bob," I said.

I looked closely at one of the speaker devices built into the wall. One of the knobs on it had a setting marked PA, I moved the knob until the pointer on it lined up with it. There was also a small red push button under the speaker labelled TALK. I pushed it and started speaking.

"Bob Norris please report to Warp drive number one."

I heard my voice echo through the entire ship, I flipped the selector knob back to were it was originally.

Bob appeared a few minutes later, it looked liked he had been running.

"So Terri, how did you make out?"

"We think we found the problem, but you'll have to test the drive to be sure," she said.

Bob glanced at Terri's security badge with a confused look on his face.

"How come your badge says your name is Nancy?"

"Oh. Um, Terri's my middle name. I forgot to tell the security folks that's the one I use," she replied.

Bob seemed satisfied with her answer.

"Lets go to the bridge and brief the Captain, he'll be the one making the decisions," Bob said.

We followed Bob as he led us through the corridors of the huge ship. There appeared to be all the comforts of home. I saw one of the crew rooms through an open hatchway we passed. It looked large and comfortable.

We finally ended up at the bridge after walking for almost ten minutes. It looked as if taking elements of a variety of different sci-fi shows and movies and mashing them together had created it.

There was a large chair in the middle of it all looking vaguely like a recliner.

A tall muscular man had his back to us as he was talking to one of his crew, he looked like the one in charge.

"Captain Brick, may we have a word with you?" Bob said.

The man turned around to look at us. He had a perfect coif of blond hair which framed a face that even I could tell was impossibly handsome.

"Wow, now that's a good looking guy," I heard Terri whisper.

I felt a stab of jealousy as I noticed her running one of her hands through her hair while staring at the Captain.

"Bob, nice to see you again. Who's the beautiful woman," said the Captain as he walked toward us. Terri blushed visibly and giggled like a young girl.

"Trent this is Terri Bell. She's with Trans-rocket."

Trent grabbed the hand that Terri held out and brought it up to his mouth kissing it. Terri giggled and blushed some more.

"Trent, this is.. um, John," Bob was looking at my security badge, " they're here to fix the glitch in your warp drive."

"Call me James," I said.

Bob looked at me with a slightly perturbed expression "You guys really need a better security department, all your badges always seem to have the wrong names on them."

"Ya, well, you get what you pay for I guess."

"So where do we start," Trent said, looking directly at Terri.

"We think we've fixed the problem but we would like you to test the drive to be sure," Terri said.

"We can do that right now, we have a skeleton crew on board and we have other systems we like to test as well. Lets stretch this babies legs."

I noticed Bobs face suddenly turn as white as chalk.

"Ahh, I..I need to do some important paper work Trent, I'll get out of your way," Bob said, sweat was starting to bead on his forehead.

"To late, the hatch has already been secured, you operations guys need to get out more anyway, see the pointy end of the stick," Trent slapped Bob on the back making him jump.

"All right every one prepare for departure," Trent said in a loud voice as he walked over to the large recliner like chair and sat down in it.

"Terri, come over here, the comms chair is empty have a seat," he pointed towards a chair a few feet away from him, which sat behind a rather complicated looking, console.

"Isn't this kinda fast, aren't there pre-flight checks or something?" I asked Bob.

Bob looked at me, his eyes wild with panic.

"You'd think so wouldn't you."

"Lights green, ready for departure Captain," yelled out a thin panicky looking bridge officer.

Captain Brick pressed a button on the armrest of his console and I felt the ship lurch upwards. After a minute or two he pressed another button and I felt a soft thud then a grinding noise.

"Landing gear secure, ready for atmospheric departure," again from the same thin officer.

Trent flipped a small green lever built into the armrest of his chair. The ship suddenly lurched so violently Bob and I stumbled into the back wall of the bridge.

"Brace yourself next time!" The Captain yelled sternly.

The ship started to accelerate at what seemed to be an alarmingly fast rate. I started to hear a soft groaning noise that got louder and louder until it was almost deafening, it was then accompanied by a similarly loud banging noise.

"We like to stress the equipment to it's maximum, that's how we find its weaknesses," The Captain yelled to us over the din.

"He's sure stressing me to the maximum," I said to Bob.

Bob looked back at me his eyes wide with fear, "It gets worse, he's fucking nuts."

"OK, Mr. Edwards, light it up," Trent yelled at the same thin officer.

"Umm, shouldn't we umm, wait sir? Until its been fully tested," the officer replied.

"Nonsense, testing stuff is for the eggheads, our job is to utilize it."

Trent walked over to the thin officer's console and then while holding onto it with one hand confidently pushed a large red button.

Somehow the noise the ship was making actually got much worse, it coincided with a nauseating bucking motion and chainsaw like vibration.

"This ship has a five million pound thrust chemical rocket system, it's only supposed to be used for emergencies," Bob screamed in my ear.

"We'll have one soon enough," I screamed back.

The violent ride seemed to last for an eternity but was probably only a few minutes. As suddenly as it started the noises stopped and everything was completely silent except for the whir of ventilator fans.

"Approaching warp point sir, T minus ten minutes and counting."

"Acknowledged Mr. Edwards," replied Trent.

"She handled that beautifully, almost no vibration," Trent said, patting one of the consoles like it was his child's head.

I looked at Terri, hoping she had weathered the terrifying takeoff better then Bob and I. She bounded out of her chair and over to Trent, her face beaming a radiant smile.

"Oh Trent, that was sooo exciting!" She said clutching one of his arms.

I felt another stab of jealousy followed by a wave of nausea.

"I gotta find a bathroom, I think I'm gonna throw up," I said to Bob.

"Way ahead of you," Bob was holding his hand over his mouth.

I followed Bob through a hatchway and down a corridor, he quickly ducked through another hatchway with the words MENS HEAD written on the door.

I heard Bob start retching in one of the stalls. I soon joined him.

# Chapter six

Bob and I recovered after a few minutes, we cleaned ourselves up using the bathroom sinks.

"What happens now?" I asked.

"I don't know. We all die?"

"Why is this Captain Brick guy in charge if he's so reckless?"

"There's a Mess on this ship a couple of decks down, I'll buy you a drink and explain it all."

We arrived at the Mess after a few minutes of walking. It was surprisingly cosy, complete with dark wood panelling, stained glass lighting fixtures and numerous brass rails.

There was a large well worn bar that lined one side of the room, a bartender with a white shirt and bowtie was behind it.

"What'll you have, gentlemen?" the bartender asked.

"Double Scotch, no ice," replied Bob.

"I'll have a beer," I said.

"Lets get a table."

I followed Bob to a secluded table and sat down across from him.

"How long are we going to be in space?" I asked.

"A day or so, he likes to play with all his toys first."

"Again why is he in charge?"

"He's the Admirals golden boy, hand picked by him. You should see him fawn over Brick when he travels on this ship."

"Admiral?"

"You know, our boss, the guy who invented the transcendent rocket," Bob said looking exasperated.

"Oh ya right, sorry brain fart. Does he pull all this scary shit when the Admirals on board?"

"Not quite as extreme, Brick knows which side of his bread is buttered on and doesn't want to screw it up."

"Why is the Admiral so loyal to him?"

"I'd say he was gay, except that's not the vibe I get. If I didn't know any better I'd say Brick is sorta like a fantasy father figure or something. It doesn't make any sense until you see them together, its really weird."

I suddenly had an epiphany, I remembered a nerdy friend I once had who was obsessed with the main character of a really crappy sci-fi TV show. The show was quite popular so my friend's obsession probably wasn't unique.

I had a feeling that the Admiral was really Jose, and that he was probably obsessed with the same character my friend was, now that I thought about it Brick had an amazing resemblance to him. Jose had probably created this world to satisfy some fantasy concerning him.

"Where did Brick come from?"

"God knows, I heard a rumour once that he was some two bit actor, but nobody really knows," replied Bob.

"Can this ship take this kind of abuse?'

"You're the designer, you tell me."

"I don't do the superstructure, just the warp drive."

"All I know is Brick's taken the Phoenix out about ten times, and each time it came back it was so fucked up it was in dry dock for a month. That's why it always has the latest crap on it."

A sound similar to distant thunder suddenly rumbled through the ship. It caused the beer in my glass to foam a little more aggressively.

"He's not starting the chemical rockets again I hope?" I said starting to panic.

"Relax, its one of his other toys, he's firing the cannon."

"Cannon?"

"Jeez don't you design guys talk to each other, there's a cannon with a hundred meter long barrel running through the ship, it can get a shell up to five kilometres per second."

"Wow, that's impressive," I said.

"It is if your shooting things a few kilometres away, unfortunately nothing is a few kilometres away in deep space, and everything thing moves at the same or greater speeds. It would be almost impossible to hit another ship with the thing. Thank god we haven't met any aliens."

"So what's he shooting at then?" I asked.

"Probably an asteroid. My guess is he's trying to impress your co-worker. Can I ask you a question?"

"Sure."

"You design warp engines, why do they only work up to sixty light years from earth, and why can't we travel to certain stars like Alpha Centauri?"

I was pretty sure I knew the answer to this question but was reluctant to tell Bob.

"Umm, the phase coils can't take the neutron pressure in certain parts of space," I lied.

"Your making that up aren't you? I'll tell you what I think. I think the Admiral doesn't want us disturbing to much shit in the universe, so he made god damn sure we couldn't go anywhere there was alien life or to far out."

Bob looked directly at me daring me to disagree with him.

"Well if the Admiral is doing that, which I assure you he isn't, I'm sure it's for the best."

"The best? Since that fucker showed up he's held the whole world to ransom!"

"Bob, calm down," I could see other people in the mess eying us suspiciously. I realized that when Jose used this world to create a fantasy setting for his enjoyment, it must have deeply affected the residents living here.

They would have been powerless against Transcendent Technology.

"I'm just a designer Bob. I don't want to change the world."

Bob downed the rest of his scotch in one gulp slamming the glass down on the table.

"Lets get back to the bridge."

Bob was right about the cannon, Captain Brick was using it to shoot a nearby asteroid. The thing was huge, it filled up the entire span of large windows on the bridge, I could see valleys and mountains on its surface.

I heard the rumbling thunder sound again as the cannon fired, I counted for almost twenty seconds before I saw an incredibly bright flash as the shell hit the asteroids surface.

There was a small but visible plume of dust and debris rising from the surface.

"This is the tool I think the aliens fear the most," Brick was eagerly explaining to Terri, "that's why they stay away from us."

"Wow it sure looks dangerous," Terri replied," James, your back," Terri said as she walked over and grabbed my arm, "We have some more tweaking to do with the warp drive, it can't wait."

Terri dragged me with her as she hurriedly walked out of the hatch. I followed her as she walked back through the maze of corridors and stairs and into the warp drive room, she closed the hatch behind us.

"Brick's nuts, we have to get back," she said.

"How long did it take you to figure that out? He almost ripped the ship apart taking off."

"Oh it wasn't that bad. The thing that worries me is he wants to hunt and kill aliens. That cannon he has isn't very impressive. I have a feeling any aliens we meet would laugh at the thing."

"Doesn't he look familiar to you?" I asked.

"Not really, although I do get a Déjà vu feeling around him."

"Do you remember that TV show from the sixties, Space Destroyers?"

"Oh my god! Is that were he's from?"

"I think so, I think Jose created this world to live out some nerd fantasy to do with that show," I said.

"I had never even heard about Space Destroyers until I had a gig at a sci-fi convention, I met all the shows main actors. It's no wonder I didn't recognize Brick, at the convention he was old, fat, wore a hideous toupee and smelled like a distillery. He kept trying to grab my ass too," Terri said.

"Is he going to go back to Earth?" I asked.

"No, he says he wants to do a reconnaissance of the area, he says he smells aliens."

"What 's he going to use to find them? All the radar equipment on this ship looks like its from the fifties, they could only detect objects a few hundred miles out back then," I said.

"He's looking for planets, there's a crew of astronomers and a three meter telescope on the ship. They should be able to find all the major terrestrial objects in a week or so. Then he plans aerial bombardments, to "scatter the cockroaches" and pick off any fleeing spaceships."

"He really is nuts. What if there are aliens here and they have transcendent technology? We'll be sitting ducks," I said.

"I think I can run the ship from the computer in here," Terri was pointing to the sealed room.

"Really? I know the programming language is pretty simple, but the actual algorithms look really complex."

Terri smiled at me, "I used to write computer games on my commodore 64, I'm pretty clever."

We entered the warp drive room again using the doorway algorithm, Terri quickly walked over to the Hewlett Packard computer and disconnected the cables leading to the digital to analog converter.

"I don't want any commands coming in from the bridge," She said over her shoulder.

"What about the back up system, the other warp drive?"

"I loosened all the cables under the control panel on the bridge," she replied, "It'll take them a while to find it."

I was beginning to be very impressed with Ms. Webersnide.

Terri, spent the next twenty minutes looking through all the algorithms on the desktop computer, I scanned them as well over her shoulder.

"There's a lot of stuff here that's not being controlled by the bridge. I see an algorithm for a powerful magnetic shield and a failsafe that brings the ship back to earth in case of a hull breach," Terri said.

"The magnetic field must be for protection from cosmic radiation," I said.

"Here's the gravity generator," Terri pointed at a long list of code on the flat screen.

"How does it work?"

"I think it accelerates the ship upwards through a cycle of large TSW's. The ship generates downward force but it always ends up were it started when it goes through the TSW."

"How does the ship stay in the same universe?" I asked.

"He uses two TSW's. The entrance of one and the exit of the other are in this universe. The other entrance and exit meet in a parallel universe," Terri replied.

"Can you just activate the failsafe? It would be the quickest way home."

"Already done, " Terri smiled at me after she typed a few keystrokes and hit the enter button on the keyboard.

The ship suddenly made a nauseating lurch downwards, and then stopped suddenly with a loud thud. The motion threw both of us to the floor. I then heard the loud clanging noise of some kind of ship wide alarm. We both quickly staggered to our feet.

"Lets go, we should be back on earth," Terri said.

We ran out of the warp drive room closed the doorway algorithm and then cautiously entered the corridor. There was a frenzy of people running down it headed towards the nearest exit, we followed them.

We were soon sliding down an inflatable exit shoot, much like what would be on a modern jet liner. We then emerged onto the large concrete area surrounding the large control tower that we had first seen the ship from.

The control tower was about three hundred meters to our left.

We tried walking as inconspicuously as we could towards the control tower. We were almost at the towers elevator when I heard the voice of Captain Brick screaming in the distance "Stop them, they're saboteurs!"

We gave up the pretence of nonchalance and ran the rest of the way. Thankfully the elevator was already on the ground floor and the doors opened seconds after we pressed the up button.

We both jumped in and I quickly pressed the button for the floor our door way back to the complex was on.

Terri whipped out her PDA and was frantically going through the different menus looking for something.

"What are you looking for?" I asked.

"Something to defend ourselves with. Ahh this should do. Stand behind me when the door opens."

The elevator finally reached our floor and the doors opened with a ping. We were staring right at two security guards pointing guns at us.

"All right scum, raise your hands and come out slowly," one of them said.

I saw Terri's thumb move as she pressed an icon on the PDA's screen. The security guards suddenly flew backwards a good thirty feet and landed on their backs. They both dropped their guns.

We ran out of the elevator towards the door we had entered the control tower from. I looked back at the two security guards, they were both staggering around like they were drunk looking for their guns.

Terri pressed the PDA's screen again pointing it at the people in front of us, again like magic they all flew backwards like they had been shot from a catapult clearing the way to the door.

Terri gave me her PDA and told me to press the icon labelled shockwave if anyone came close. She was frantically looking for the key to the door.

I looked at the two security guards, one of them had found his gun and was about to point it at us. I pressed the shockwave icon and he flew backwards again the gun flying out of his hand. He didn't fly as far this time only a few feet. I guessed the shockwave effect diminished the farther away someone was.

I heard Terri shout in relief "Got it!"

She put the key in the lock and quickly opened the door, we both ran in and she slammed it shut and then locked it again.

"Wow that was exciting," Terri giggled nervously.

"Lets get out of this corridor and back to the main hall. I still don't feel safe," I said.

We hung the lab coats back up on the hooks but we both put our security badges in our pockets. I didn't want Jose to find them and be able to identify us if he came back. We emerged back into the main hall then closed the door and locked it.

# Chapter seven

"What now?" I said.

"Lets try one more door, this is kind of fun."

"And dangerous."

"We'll be more careful this time," Terri said as she grabbed my arm and started walking towards another door.

"That shockwave thing was pretty cool, how do you think it worked?" I asked.

"Like everything else, just open a TSW at the time and place were there's a shockwave from an explosion then close it after the shockwave has passed through. The TSW would only have to be open a few milliseconds, not long enough to even see it."

Terri stopped in front of a door about five down from the one we had just exited. She pulled out the key put it into the lock and slowly opened the door and peeking through the opening when the crack was a few inches wide.

"Looks like some kind of castle, there's a suit of armour on a stand next to the door."

"I bet I know what this is," I said.

"What?"

"Jose's a nerd, this has got to be a world based on some kind of fantasy role playing game."

"Yuck, gay elves and unicorns. I am kinda curious though," Terri said.

"Lets go then."

We walked through the door into the new world. Terri locked the door behind us and put the key in her pocket.

I looked around at the corridor we were in, everything was made of rough cut stone blocks put together with mortar. The walls had a wide assortment of medieval shields swords and tapestry's hanging every few feet. I also noticed a few large paintings.

I walked up to one of the paintings to examine it more closely. I saw it depicted a knight in armour slaying a dragon by thrusting a sword into its heart. The knight didn't have a helmet on and I quickly identified him as Jose.

I walked over to another painting, it showed Jose again stabbing yet another helpless dragon, this time clutching a beautiful young woman in his other arm.

"Jose is obviously a megalomaniac," I said.

"Oh ya. I wonder if there are actual dragons here, that would be interesting," replied Terri.

"I thought we were going to be more careful."

"We don't have to get too close, it would be neat just to see one, it's not every day you see mythical beasts."

We started walking down the corridor and started seeing signs with arrows on them. We decided to follow the arrows.

"What if we get lost?" I asked.

"I never get lost."

"Never?"

"Never, I have a spectacular memory for landmarks," Terri said confidently.

I had a nagging feeling of trepidation at her confidence.

After walking for about ten minutes we went through a large vaulted opening into an immense circular room with a high domed ceiling.

There was a group of three knights standing next to an exit door. One of them turned at the sound of our footsteps and drew his sword.

"Oh god," Terri said fumbling for her PDA.

"Geez, your not even in character," the knight started whining. He attempted to push up the visor of his helmet with the same hand his sword was in. The sword slipped out and clanged onto the stone floor. He bent over to try picking it up which caused his helmet to fall off landing beside the sword with an even bigger clang.

The other two knights turned around at the noise the first one was making and tilted their heads back to try and see through the slits in their visors.

I started feeling a sense of relief, they did not strike me as dangerous.

"Are you monsters?" The helmet less knight asked as he stood up. He had a pale round face, long scraggly red hair and a thin beard and moustache.

"Monsters?" Terri replied.

"Ya, you know, are you part of the quest or a role player?"

"Umm, role player I guess."

"Where's your costume then? You guys can't play like that."

"We forgot them."

"Well you can use the wardrobe room to get a basic one, but your not gonna be much use without magical items," round face was pointing at an open door.

Terri and I looked at each other then walked over to the door he was pointing at and entered it.

We entered a room that had rows and rows of costumes hanging on wardrobe racks. The walls were lined with shelves that had every size and shape of medieval armour and weapons laying on them. Terri started looking through the clothing racks.

"Do you think we need armour?" I asked.

"Not unless you want to klunk around half blind like those doofus's," Terri said pointing towards the knights.

I quickly found a costume that fit me and looked comfortable, it consisted of a white silk shirt, dark pants and calf length boots with the tops folded over. I added a dark cape and a flat brimmed hat. I checked myself out in a full length mirror on one wall. I looked vaguely like one of the three musketeer's.

I grabbed a medium sized long sword and scabbard from one of the shelves and belted it around my waste. I put my clothes in a leather shoulder bag I found and slung it across one shoulder. I put the PDA in my front pants pocket.

I looked around to see what kind of costume Terri had chosen to wear and felt my jaw drop when I seen her. She was wearing a skintight red and green outfit complimented by thigh high leather boots with spiked heels. The outfit didn't leave much to the imagination.

"My god Terri, you can't wear that!"

"All the girl shit is like this. This is the most conservative outfit here."

I tossed her a cape and a hat, which she put on. She also put on a leather belt that had a small pouch just the right size for her PDA and a few other things.

"Don't you want to keep your other clothes?" I asked.

"Na, I can just get more from the PDA."

"What about a weapon?"

"Terri walked over to the wall shelves and picked up a large sharp looking dagger. She found a scabbard for it and belted it around her waste.

"God we better not have to walk far, these boots are horrible," Terri said as she wobbled unsteadily for a few steps.

Terri walked out of the room ahead of me. I heard clanging noises, which I suspected, came from the three knights dropping pieces of their equipment at the sight of her.

I followed her out of the room.

The three knights were introducing themselves to Terri, they had all removed their helmets and I could see all their faces clearly. Terri turned around and introduced me to them.

The round faced redhead was called Edward the Terrible, his two buddies, one thin and bald, the other chubbier with dark unkempt hair were Cyrus the Magnificent and Peter the Annihilator.

"These aren't your real names are they?" I asked.

"We have to stay in character! It's the rules," Ed the Terrible whined.

"So umm...Terri, do you role play often?" Cyrus the Magnificent said staring at her boobs.

"I'm up here Cy," Terri put her hand under his chin raising his head.

Cy's face turned beet red, "Uh.. Sorry."

"We've role played before, but it's been a while so were kind of rusty" Terri said.

"Well it's a simple quest, we just have to go to Dragon mountain, kill the dragon and save the fair maiden," it was Peter's turn to speak to Terri's boobs.

"How far is it?" Terri asked.

"About five miles," replied Pete.

"Oh god, five miles!?"

"We have magical steeds, " terrible Ed piped up.

Ed took out a large red stone amulet covered in runes and twisted the top and bottom parts in opposite directions. I heard a familiar snapping sound and five jet black horse like animals appeared. They were the same size as a normal horse but had clawed feet and large fangs protruding from their mouths. The legs were thicker and more muscular then a horse as well. They stood perfectly still, not even blinking.

"Shadow steeds, from the depths of hell!" Ed yelled out dramatically.

I warily walked over to one of the animals for a closer look. The steed didn't even flinch. I carefully touched it, it's skin felt hard, like steel covered in some sort of fur. I surmised that it must be some sort of mechanical contraption controlled by TSW's.

"Does Jose come out with you guys very often?" I asked, curious if I would get an answer.

"Not very often. I don't like playing with him anyway. He always has to be the hero," Ed said," you won't tell him that will you?" Ed continued, his face suddenly had a worried expression.

"No, we know what he's like," Terri said, instantly producing a relieved expression on his face.

"Were did you meet Jose?" I asked.

"Oh, we all worked at the same software company. He brought us here when he first discovered this place. I don't know how any of the magic works though. Jose's the wizard and doesn't trust us with spells," Ed said with a forlorn look on his face.

"Do you know magic?" Cyrus asked.

"No!" Terri blurted out before I had a chance to reply.

"To bad, we keep hoping to meet another wizard."

We decided to start the quest before it got to late in the day. Ed explained how to ride the shadow steeds. They worked basically the same as a horse, pull the reins right or left to turn, pull them back to slow down and stop and kick its sides to go faster.

"How fast can they go," Terri asked.

"Really fast, I've never had the guts to run one full out. I think around a hundred miles an hour."

Terri's eyes suddenly had a crazy glint to them, giving me a feeling of dread.

# Chapter eight

Ed led the group down a clearly marked path through the forest that surrounded the castle. The terrain was breathtakingly beautiful. The forest consisted of large widely spaced deciduous trees. There were numerous small creeks and calm flat ponds with songbirds flitting about. The path had been well looked after with solidly built bridges placed over the creeks that crossed the path.

After riding at a brisk walking pace for about an hour Ed suddenly put his hand up for us to halt. We all came to a stop, the steeds suddenly motionless again.

"I think I see a skeleton," Ed whispered back to the group.

"Skeleton?" Terri whispered, looking at me.

"Undead monster, very dangerous," Pete whispered to Terri.

Ed motioned us all to dismount. We gathered ourselves into a small group and then drew our weapons. The three knights donned their helmets and tilted their heads back in a familiar pose trying to see out the eye slits.

Terri looked at me with a bemused expression on her face.

We followed about twenty feet behind the knights as they walked down the path occasionally bumping into each other.

The skeleton suddenly appeared leaping out of the forest in front of the knights after they had gone about ninety feet. I watched it as it moved around, it was a completely anatomically correct skeleton and it moved with the agility of an acrobat.

I saw it rush the knights, and then it easily somersaulting over them as they feebly waved their swords at it. Now it was in front of me, gracefully waving a long and deadly looking sword.

I immediately felt a stab of fear, I had no idea how to wield my own sword and I knew there was no way of outrunning it.

It came at me with a blindingly quick thrust, I was barely able to step aside. I dropped my sword and frantically rushed the skeleton hoping I could subdue it by wrestling with it.

I couldn't, it tossed me aside like a rag doll with it's free hand, then it turned suddenly. I saw that it had noticed Terri standing on the path, she was holding her now feeble looking dagger in front of her.

The creature slowly started walking towards her, it's long sword making small precise movements like a snake preparing to strike its prey.

I jumped up and ran as fast as I could towards the skeleton. I smashed into the skeleton with all my might when I got close enough.

The skeleton had been focusing on Terri and had not heard me running towards it. The creature toppled over, its sword flying off into the bush. It quickly jumped to its feet throwing me off of it and onto the ground again in the process.

The skeleton turned to face me, its eyeless skull staring at me emotionlessly. I saw Terri running as fast as she could towards us until she was right behind the skeleton.

I then heard her grunt with effort as she swung her dagger at the monster neck with both hands. She hit the creature on the vertebrae just below the skull.

The creature's skull fell off and onto the ground. The headless body jerked around towards Terri again. It's movements were now erratic, arms swinging wildly. Terri was able to quickly jump back to safety.

The three knights had finally run back up the path as the creature flailed around. They quickly smashed it to bits with their long swords. Unable to see it was no match for them.

"Wow, I've never seen anyone attack a monster with no armour before," Ed said looking at Terri and I in awe.

"And you won't see it again," Terri said putting her dagger back in its sheath.

"How many monsters are on this quest?" I asked.

"We should have one more encounter before we fight the dragon, its probably going to be giants or something."

"Giants?" Terri said.

"Oh don't worry, we should be able to sneak up on them."

We decided to set up camp were we were. The sun was starting to go down and Ed said that according to his map the forest ended in a few hundred meters and we would be safer here then on the flat plain which followed.

The shadow steeds all had portable tents, food and sleeping bags in their saddlebags. Ed said the food was replenished every time they were sent away and summoned again.

We set up our tents in a small circle around a central fire. Ed stationed the steeds around the tents as a makeshift fence.

"They usually scare anything away. I can use the amulet to make them move and sway like real animals all night."

Terri and I both left the three knights around the fire under the pretence of getting more firewood.

"That skeleton was pretty real, I'm starting to wonder if there really is magic here," I said when we were out of earshot.

"I noticed some code on the bones so I don't think so. I think this is like a magicians illusions, you only see the illusion while the bulk of the equipment that creates it is hidden under the stage. Jose could have had a building full of supercomputers in another universe controlling that thing," Terri replied.

"I wonder if the whole universe is like that?" I said.

"Like what?"

"We only see the illusion, the rest is hidden."

"I have a feeling we're going to find out."

"Do you think we should keep going, this is really dangerous and were not prepared very well," I said.

"Why not? I'm going to use the PDA next time. There's all kind of defensive stuff on it. Thanks by the way."

"For what?"

"You saved me again," Terri said staring at me. She looked away after a few seconds and then went back to collecting firewood.

We carried the wood back to the camp, then cooked our food and ate. I said goodnight to everyone and crawled into bed. I fell asleep immediately. I was exhausted.

I woke up the next morning stiff and sore and covered in large bruises which were rainbows of different colours. I slowly got dressed and then packed up my tent and sleeping gear stowing it in my steeds saddlebags.

I was the first up so I started a fire and started cooking what was left over from my food. The sound and smell of the bacon and eggs frying quickly roused everyone else from there beds.

"Man that smells good," Ed said as he got dressed and started packing up his stuff.

We were ready to go after about an hour spent cooking and eating breakfast.

We all jumped on our steeds and followed Ed down the path. True to Ed's word the forest ended after about three hundred meters and we emerged onto a large plain covered in long grass.

Ed dismounted and pulled what looked like a small extendable telescope out of his saddlebag. He put the scope up to his left eye and stated scanning the area in front of us.

I noticed what appeared to be a large mountain a few miles away on the plain. I guessed that it's height was probably about four or five thousand feet. It had the shape of an extinct volcano, smooth sloping sides with a flat tip were the crater should be.

"Ah ha! Giants," Ed exclaimed.

He handed the telescope over to me and I looked at the same area he had scanned. What I saw chilled me right to the bone. There was a group of about twenty very large people between the volcano and us. They looked to be immense, forty maybe fifty feet tall.

I would have thought that anything that large would be slow and cumbersome, but these giants seemed to be as lithe and co-ordinated as a normal human. They appeared to run and jump much like we would.

They carried clubs and wore some kind of fur loincloth. I could feel the ground rumble anytime one of them ran or leaped.

I passed the telescope to Terri and she quickly saw what I had seen.

"Holy shit! What now?" Terri said as she passed the scope back to Ed.

"Well if Jose was here, he would just blow them to smithereens with a spell," said Cyrus.

"What do you guys do when he's not here?" I asked.

"Give up," Peter said.

"Can't we just run real fast on our steeds?" I asked.

"They can run just as fast as our steeds because of their size, and those clubs they're carrying are over twenty feet long. We wouldn't stand a chance," Ed said.

I looked at Terri, she appeared to be deep in thought, then she snapped her fingers to get everyone's attention.

"Look guys, James and I haven't been quite honest with you. When we said we weren't wizards what we meant is that we weren't high-level wizards. We didn't want to get your hopes up."

"So you know magic?" Ed's face lit up.

"Yes, and I think I have a spell that can get us to the mountain. It's called illusory shield."

"Terri can I talk with you in private please," I said starting to panic.

I dragged her out of earshot of the knights.

"Are you crazy! Those are fifty-foot tall people with clubs. We should go back right now."

"You worry too much, besides if things get too bad I'll start shooting RPG's at them. There's an app for that in the PDA. I think this will work anyhow. This app puts a TSW over us with the entrance three hundred feet away. The giants will think we're three hundred feet from were we actually are. Meanwhile the exit above us will just show the grass from the other entrance."

"OK but when they club the TSW that's three hundred feet away, it will transport the club right on top of us." I replied.

"The entrance snaps to a different position every four seconds. They will run over try to club it and poof, its somewhere else. We will just make a bee line for the mountain in the mean time."

We walked back to the knights and explained our plan to them, complete with the risk involved.

"Wow, role playing with you guys is a lot more fun than with Jose. I'm actually getting kind of excited," Ed said.

"No matter what we have to keep together, the shield is just big enough for all of us," Terri warned.

We all put our steeds together as Terri surreptitiously thumbed her way through the PDA so the knights couldn't see what she was doing.

"OK get ready, we'll start to run when I say," she said.

Terri pressed one last icon and I heard a snapping sound above us. I looked up and saw a large square patch of sky above us, it looked like it had been cut and pasted there with photo shop. I looked at Terri, she had put the PDA in her belt pouch and was securing it closed.

"Lets go!" Terri yelled as she jammed her heels into her steed's side, it howled a blood-curdling cry and reared up on its hind feet. The noise it made startled me causing me to jam my own heels into my steed.

We all took off like top fuel dragsters.

The green grass of the plain flew by at an amazing pace. I had owned a motorcycle when I was younger, this steed seemed to be a lot faster then it had ever been.

The clawed feet of the steeds ripped up large clumps of dirt as we all roared forward. Terri looked back at us to see if we were all keeping pace, she had an expression of wild glee on her face that brought a now familiar feeling of trepidation in my chest.

I heard a thundering roar I assumed came from one of the giants, and then the ground started vibrating as he started running, towards the other TSW I hoped.

I looked up just in time to see the giant swinging his huge club down onto us, his face twisted in rage. The TSW above us switched then, back to open sky.

I felt the ground jump as the giants huge club smashed into it three hundred feet away.

I heard more roars, the ground was constantly vibrating now as all the giants started running after us. I looked up again just in time to see a club coming down so fast I started to flinch, and again the TSW switched and the ground jumped as another club smashed into it away from us.

I looked forward just in time to see one of the massive clubs crash into the ground just a few feet in front of Terri. Her steed suddenly leaped into the air landing on the club and the springing off, I felt my own steed leaping right after hers.

I looked around and felt some mild relief seeing that we were all still together. The giants roaring was now louder then ever, I looked behind us an seen three sets of enormous feet running after us, they must have finally noticed the square patch of grass moving across the plain. They appeared to be gaining.

The mountain ahead of us still seemed to be a long way off, Terri turned around and started to yell at us.

"We have to zig zag, follow my hand signals!"

I looked back at the giants feet, they were almost on top of us, then I looked at Terri just as she pointed left at the same time jerking her steeds reins over. We all followed suit, I felt my stomach lurch as the steed made an impossibly sharp turn.

I heard the three giants roar followed by an incredible noise as the ground jumped. I looked back to see two of the giants tangled up with one another on the ground. One must of crashed into the other trying to follow our turn causing both of them to fall.

The third giant still on his feet was now further behind us. I looked forward to see two more giant feet running directly towards us, Terri signalled us again and jerked the reins once more, we followed narrowly avoiding the feet in front of us.

We continued zigzagging in this manner until I could see the mountain was very close. I could make out the outline of a small entrance carved into its side. Terri turned around to yell at us once more, "Once we stop, jump off and run through the entrance! Make sure we're all together!"

I watched the entrance and the mountain get closer and closer until I was worried we would crash into it. Terri stuck up her hand at the last possible moment and jerked her reins as hard as she could. We all followed suit. The steeds stopped running and put their haunches lower skidding to a stop. Mine stopped just a few inches from the mountain slope.

I jumped off looking around for Terri and the knights. We had all managed to stop with in a few feet of each other.

"Hurry up! Run!" Terri yelled.

I could see a group of giants about forty feet away running at an incredible speed. We all ran as fast as we could, I was directly behind the knights with Terri in the lead. I put my hands on their shoulders as we ran so we would all keep together.

We ran through the open entrance just as the giants crashed into the mountain. An enormous hand reached in through the entrance wildly grasping for us. Thankfully the opening led into a long narrow hallway and we were just able to elude its grasp. We finally emerged into a large dimly lit cavern and collapsed onto the floor gasping for air. We were safe.

Ed was the first to sit up. He pulled out his amulet that he used to summon the shadow steeds and then twisted the top and bottom halves in the opposite direction from when he had summoned them.

"Won't the giants just smash them into hamburger?" I asked.

"Doesn't matter, they always come back whole when you summon them again. They are magical after all," Ed replied.

I wasn't about to argue with him. I looked around at the cavern we were in. It was carved out of the rock of the mountain, it was dome like in shape with a ceiling that was about fifty feet high at its apex. There was a large low sloping staircase on one wall. It disappeared into a large tunnel that was about twenty feet square.

The light in the room was provided by one foot diameter floating and glowing globes. They were spaced about every twenty feet around the perimeter.

The room seemed to be completely empty other then the lighting globes.

"The stairs go around the mountain and emerge at the dragons lair," Ed said as he noticed me looking at them.

"That must be a long way, this mountain is at least five thousand feet high," I replied.

"Peter has a magic carpet we can use."

"Well that was fun," said Terri as she sat up and straightened her hair.

"We could have gotten killed," I said looking at her.

"Aww, I would have blasted them if they got too close."

I had my doubts about her being able to thumb through the icons on her PDA while sitting on an animal galloping a hundred miles and hour, but I kept quiet.

Everyone stood up and straightened out their outfits. Peter reached into a small pouch hanging at his waist and took out a small roll of thick cloth about two inches wide and three inches in diameter. He grabbed one end and snapped it, it unrolled horizontally in the air and just floated there about three feet off the ground.

Peter then grabbed it from the side and started to pull. The cloth started to widen as he pulled it and after a few seconds there was a six-foot by ten-foot carpet floating in the air.

"Voila, one flying carpet," Peter said spreading his arms out.

We all sat on the sides of the carpet except for Peter who knelt towards the front. Peter then started touching some of the patterns that had been woven into the fabric. The carpet slowly rose until it was about five feet above the ground and then slowly started moving forward.

Peter piloted the carpet towards the stairs and then up, staying three or feet above the steps as we went forward. The carpet was moving only a few miles and hour.

"It'll take about an hour to get to the dragons lair, so get comfortable," Ed said.

"How do you know all this stuff," I asked curious.

"Jose always gives us a map and a description before we start on one of these adventures. I thought you had done this before?" Ed said suspiciously.

"Well the last time we did, we didn't have any maps," Terri said.

"That's probably more exciting," Cyrus said.

"Ya, Jose would just walk over to all the monsters and just kill them, then pick up the treasure. It was kind of boring, "Ed said.

I could see Jose's megalomania was absolutely complete.

# Chapter nine

Terri bunched up her cape into a makeshift pillow and put it behind her head while lying back on the carpet.

"I'm taking a nap," she said.

After a few minutes we could hear her snoring gently.

"Is Terri um.. like.. your girlfriend?" Cyrus asked looking at his feet.

"Nope, just friends," I replied.

"She sure is good-looking."

"Ya, and so cool, she's like some kind of superhero," Ed piped in.

"What does she do in real life?" Cyrus asked.

"Your going to have to ask her that yourself," I said.

"I bet she's an executive or a lawyer," Cyrus said looking for my reaction.

"Tell her that when she wakes up."

We all decided that taking a nap was probably a good idea and soon all of us except for Peter were dozing on the carpet.

I woke about an hour and a half later when I felt someone shaking my shoulder. I opened my eyes to see Terri over me saying, "wake up sleepyhead."

I sat up and looked around, we were in a medium sized room lit by the same floating light globes that had been in the cavern. There was a large closed stone door on one wall. The room itself was completely bare.

We all slid off the carpet. Peter grabbed one end of the carpet and gave it a quick tug, it snapped back into a two-inch strip like a retractable window shade. Peter rolled up the strip and put it away.

"So now we kill the dragon," Cyrus said.

"How do we do that?" I asked.

"The bow of dragon killing," Cy pulled out a flat rectangular case from his pack. He put the case on the floor and snapped it open. I saw what looked like a collapsible bow and three arrows with large diamond tips.

"There's still bubble wrap on the bow. Have you ever used it before?" Terri asked concerned.

"Well there's not a lot chances to shoot dragons," Cy said defensively.

"Have you ever shot a bow?'

"Um.. Well.. How hard could it be? You just point and release the string."

"Hmm.. Really."

Terri turned her back to the group and took her PDA out of her pouch and started thumbing though it.

"I assume the dragon is through that door?" I asked pointing to the door.

"Yep, I think so," said Ed

"Well let's take a peek."

I walked over to the door and slowly opened it a few inches, we both looked through the crack. I was staring at the crater on the top of the mountain. It was about five hundred feet in diameter surrounded by cliffs about a hundred feet high.

All around the crater there were large piles of what looked many different items made of precious medals and jewels, off to one side there was a large cage with a lone person standing in it, she was clasping the bars in her hands and staring at an enormous sleeping copper collared dragon.

"Oh my god, Its Wendy," Ed said.

"Who's Wendy?" I asked.

"The new receptionist they hired at work," Ed said.

"Ok, lets make a plan," I said as I pushed the door closed.

"Just open the door and let me fire an arrow, it'll kill the dragon once it hits, it's magical," Cy said.

Cy had snapped the bow open and with Terri's help managed to string it.

"Ok, but I'm gonna grab a hold of you so I can pull you back, the rest of you grab the door and get ready to shut it quickly," I said.

Cy put one off the arrows in the bow and got ready to pull it back. Terri, Ed and Peter grabbed the door, getting ready to open it. I grabbed hold of Cy's armour tensing myself in case I had to pull him back.

"On three, one.. two.. three.."

The door flew open Cyrus stepped out onto the crater floor pulled back the arrow and let it fly. It flew in a smooth graceful arc before clattering noisily about thirty feet in front of the dragon.

The dragon's eyes immediately snapped open at the sound and saw Cyrus standing in front of the door.

The dragons massive head jerked up and it opened its gaping tooth lined mouth. I pulled Cy back inside as hard as I could.

"Close the fucking door!!"

The door slammed shut just as I heard the start of an incredibly load noise that sounded like a cross between a thousand roaring lions and a jet engine.

I then heard the sound of flames striking the other side of the door as smoke and steam immediately started pouring off of it. I started to smell a strong odour that was similar to jet fuel.

The smoke coming from the door was making it almost impossible to breathe and we started retreating down the stairs. We had to walk a good hundred feet down until we could breathe without coughing.

"That went well," Ed said.

"What now?" Peter asked.

"Terri's a wizard she could help us," Cyrus said as all the knights looked at her.

"I prefer sorceress, and I may have something," Terri said smiling. "It's called flash traveller. It transports me a few hundred feet before snapping me back after a few seconds. I'll get the bow ready transport over shoot it and then come back."

"That dragon is really fast, what if you miss?" I said feeling my chest tightening.

"I won't miss, besides I'll snap back after three seconds."

"That's a long time to be next to a dragon."

"You worry to much, I'll be fine."

It took about an hour for the smoke to clear in the room with the door in it. It still reeked with the smell of the dragons fire breathing fuel.

I carefully opened the door a small crack to see outside, it was still hot from the flames. The crater was empty the dragon was gone.

I scanned the whole crater looking for the dragon but could see nothing. I then heard a loud rhythmic flapping sound coming from above the crater. I looked up and flinched involuntarily as I saw the beast flapping its wings and hovering about sixty feet above the floor of the crater.

I felt Terri above me looking through the crack in the door as well.

"I can make that shot, its only sixty feet," she said.

"Oh god Terri."

Terri was adamant that she could do it, no amount of arguing could change her mind. I was alone in my opinion, as the knights seemed to be in awe of her.

I felt almost sick as Terri prepared to use the PDA's app to transport herself underneath the dragon.

She took off her thigh high spike heeled leather boots revealing her shapely legs. She then grabbed the two remaining arrows and the bow got into position then asked us if the dragon was still in the same place.

"Yes," I said.

I had pulled out my own PDA and frantically thumbed through all the defensive apps while she was getting ready. I held it in my hand as she reached into her pouch and pressed the flash traveller icon on hers.

There was a snapping noise behind me and I saw Terri flash into view underneath the dragon, she smoothly put the arrow in the bow pulled it back and released it.

The dragon was ready for her, it jerked out of the way of the arrow inhumanly fast and locked its eyes on her. Terri frantically tried to put the second arrow into the bow but it flew out of her hands and landed a few feet away. She ran after it to pick it up, I saw a flash and heard a snapping sound behind me.

Terri was still out there, she had run out of the app's area of effect. It had snapped back without her. The dragon reared its head back and opened its mouth.

I threw the door open and ran out onto the crater floor yelling at the top of my lungs while at the same time trying to thumb through the icons on my PDA.

I looked up from my PDA just in time to see the dragon snap its head around and look at me. I heard the knights yelling and banging their swords against their armour right behind me. It started to roar and I saw the explosion of flame beginning from its mouth.

I looked back at Terri as I felt my bowels turn to water. Her back was arched in a perfect curve, one arm straight the opposite hand cocked beside her ear. I saw the flash of the arrow as it left the bow.

The dragon exploded above us like fine china falling onto a hard surface. The ceramic pieces rained down onto the crater floor.

I ran over to Terri as fast as I could and threw my arms around her without thinking.

"Are you all right," I said while hugging her.

I realized what I was doing and let her go. She had a thoughtful look on her face as she stared at me, and what might have been a hint of a smile, I couldn't be sure.

"Well, I peed myself, and I think I'm probably gonna have some kind of post traumatic stress disorder in the future. Other then that I'm fine."

I walked over to were the dragon had crashed onto the ground and picked up one of the pieces. It was white ceramic on one side and painted the colour of the dragon on the other. Terri walked over as well and took the piece out of my hand.

"It just looks like it was some kind of hollow ceramic creature, how that's possible," I said.

"I think an algorithm probably switched creature with a ceramic model once the arrow hit, for a more spectacular effect. This whole world probably was created by some really complex code," Terri replied.

The knights had walked over to the cage that held the fair maiden Wendy. I could hear her yelling for help. I walked over to help them open the cage.

Wendy's face had an expression of visible relief on it.

"Oh thank god! Get me out of here!" She yelled.

The cage didn't have a door, I looked inside and it seemed quite comfortable, it was sheltered and looked like it had a small kitchen and bathroom.

I turned my back to the knights and flipped through my PDA for a suitable app and found it. I pressed the icon and a knife appeared floating in air. I put the PDA away and grabbed the knife by the handle. I walked over to the cage and put the edge of the blade against one of the bars and pressed. It cut through it like it was air.

It took seconds to cut four bars and make a space big enough for Wendy to walk through. The knights looked impressed.

"Infinitely sharp knife," I said to them.

I pressed a button on the end of the handle and the knife disappeared. A knife that cuts anything would be impossible to store or even put down so it had a built in disposal algorithm.

I suspected the blade was a camouflaged TSW, since it's truly two dimensional it would be the perfect cutting tool.

I heard the knights talking to Wendy.

"How did you get here?" Peter asked.

"Jose kidnapped me, he's some kind of magician, one second I was in the office then I walked through a door and I was in here. When I turned around the door was gone. Jose made me wear this stupid dress too he said I wouldn't get any food until I wore it."

"Well your safe now."

"Am I? How do I defend myself against magic?" Wendy started crying.

"We should get going," Cyrus said, as he seemed to be looking for something in the crater.

I heard Peter suddenly shout, "There it is."

I looked at what he was pointing at, it was a door standing next to a pile of treasure. It had exit written on it in large yellow letters.

"Aren't we going to look for magical items?" I heard Ed say, he then looked at Wendy crying and said, "never mind."

I walked over to Terri.

"We have to go back, that door probably leads to their world, we have to go through ours," I said.

"We can use the flyer I found in the PDA, I doubt the giants can outrun it," she replied.

# Chapter ten

We said goodbye to the knights and Wendy as they went through the exit door. Terri kissed each of the knights on the cheek causing them all to blush.

After they left and closed the door Terri whipped out her PDA and started thumbing through the apps. She pressed a final icon and a fully functional shower suddenly appeared in front of her complete with a towel warmer and towels.

"Turn around please, I'm taking a shower," she said.

I turned and walked towards one of the piles of treasure in the crater as she turned on the water and undressed.

The pile consisted of numerous objects made of precious medals and jewels, there were goblets and what looked like religious artefacts as well as chests full of coins. I also noticed the odd plain looking object mixed in with the treasure. I picked up a pair of gauntlets made of steel and examined them.

There was transcendent code written on them. I decided to put them on to see what they did. I didn't notice anything happening so I tried picking a small chest up with them on.

It felt weightless. I tried picking up a much larger chest full of gold coins. It felt weightless as well. I tried lifting the chest without the gloves. I couldn't budge it, it must have weighed close to five hundred pounds with all the gold in it.

The gloves were designed to give people incredible strength. Jose must have fabricated these and the other magical items the knights had picked up during their quests.

I tried a few other objects I found. I found a ring, which made me not only invisible but ethereal as well. I thought about taking a peek inside Terri's shower but decided against it. She was a sorceress after all.

Terri emerged from the shower wrapped in towels after twenty minutes. I showed her the objects I found and explained what they did.

"You didn't peek did you?" She asked when I described the rings function.

"No," I said with confidence, relieved I hadn't succumbed to curiosity.

"Do you want to take a shower? There are lots of towels left."

I was pretty filthy so I said yes.

The shower was pretty spectacular, it was made of expensive looking ceramic tile and the water pressure was like a fire hose. There was a shelf with bars of soap and bottles of shampoo on it.

I felt very clean after washing myself in it. I reached through the curtain after I was done and grabbed a towel.

I put on my original clothes I had brought with me after I had dried myself off.

I looked for Terri when I was done, I saw her examining the plies of treasure, she was dressed in jeans, T-shirt and running shoes now.

I walked over to her.

"I'm done," I said.

"Oh'," she said as she pulled her PDA out of her pocket. She pointed it at the shower and pressed an icon. The shower disappeared.

"This thing is so cool.'

"Can you get a pad of paper and a pen out of it," I asked.

"Why?"

"I want to write some code down as a precaution."

"Again why?"

"Just in case these things stop working and we have an emergency."

"Ok," Terri said as she started thumbing through the menus. She brought up the supply matrix we had used to get her clothes and then produced a small pad of lined paper and an expensive looking pen.

I opened my copy of the principles of sorcery and used it to write a very short algorithm I thought would be very useful.

I left one of the numbers out of the footer code so it wouldn't activate. It was a one, all I would have to do was write the one in the space I left in the footer code and the algorithm should activate.

I put the pad and pen in my shirt pocket.

"Well that's it lets go," I said to Terri.

"We have to stop Jose you know," Terri said looking at me.

"Um well, the guy is like a god, maybe it would be wiser to just avoid him."

"He's never going to be more vulnerable then he is now, he's in a hospital bed."

"Lets get back first and then discuss this."

"Ok."

I had no desire to ever confront Jose. I had seen the things he had accomplished so far with transcendent technology and knew he was way out of our league.

Terri conjured up the same flying vehicle I had seen in my apartment with her PDA. It hung noiselessly about a foot of the ground.

I noticed the seat was large enough for two people. We decided it was probably better to share one vehicle to prevent us being separated. I got on first and Terri jumped on behind me and wrapped her arms around my waist. I felt myself getting aroused when she pressed her boobs against my back.

The controls of the vehicle were similar to a motorcycle. It only took a few minutes of practise before I could manoeuvre it with ease.

"Ready or not here we go," I said over my shoulder.

Terri squeezed me a bit harder arousing me even more.

I gunned the vehicle and pulled up so that we whizzed over the edge of the crater. I felt a bit of vertigo, as the plain we had galloped over appeared a mile below us. I saw the giants walking around barely visible.

I steered towards the forest we had emerged from. I saw the castle where we had met the knights after a few minutes of travel.

The vehicle was capable of way more speed then I was willing to go. I kept it slow enough so that Terri and I could still hear each other over the wind.

It took only a few minutes before we arrived at the castle and landed.

"We should have used this in the first place," I said as we dismounted.

"Wouldn't have been as much fun," she said smiling.

Terri was true to her word when she had said that she never got lost. She walked right back to the door we had come through without hesitation. She produced the key and opened it. We both walked through and into the corridor. She closed the door behind her.

"Do you want to try another door?" she asked.

"I think I'm good, besides Jose is going to get out of the hospital at some point. I think we should get out of here."

"We have to stop him, he's hurt a lot of people. I think he's only going to get worse."

"I still think we should leave him alone."

We started walking down the corridor back to the TSW to my apartment. I looked down the corridor and thought I saw one of the hyper realistic statues moving in the distance.

We kept walking curious if one of the plaques under the statues had malfunctioned. We got to within fifty feet of the statue when with a start I realized it was Jose. He was using a crutch too walk and had bandages wrapped around his head.

I saw the unmistakable glint of a pistol in his right hand.

"Oh shit!" Terri said fumbling for the key to the doors.

Jose noticed us now and raised the pistol in our direction.

"Stop!" he yelled.

Terri finally managed to get the door closest to us opened. She grabbed my arm and pulled me through with her, then slammed the door shut and locked it.

I looked around to see where we were.

It was nighttime, I could see the stars glinting above us in the sky. We were standing on a beautifully manicured lawn surrounded by a twenty-foot high stone fence. The lawn had large stone blocks on it at various spots. I could see words boldly carved into the tops of the blocks. I recognized loop, else if, and goto, written on the closest ones.

They all seemed to be different bits of transcendent code. Everything was subtly lit with an unidentifiable light source.

"There's no way out, we're trapped," Terri said while thumbing through her PDA.

She was right, the only door in the stone fence was the one we had just come through. I took my own PDA out and got the shockwave app ready.

Terri and I both pointed our PDA's at the locked door and waited for Jose.

The handle of the door started to move and then the door slowly swung open revealing Jose standing in the doorframe pointing his pistol at us.

Terri and I both pressed our PDA screens at the same time expecting Jose to either fly back thirty feet or blow up as a result of an RPG.

Nothing happened. I looked down at my PDA expecting to see the icon for the shockwave app. All that I saw on the now totally blue screen was a small rotating hourglass.

I heard Jose start to laugh.

"They're Wifi enabled don't you know, which makes it very easy for them to be disabled remotely," he said after chuckling.

Terri threw her PDA at Jose, it missed and smashed into the wall behind him breaking into pieces.

"Ah.. The beautiful Ms. Webersnide, I sure am surprised to see you here."

"Well I am here, and I'll make you pay for the way you used me," she replied.

"You're hardly in any position to be making threats, besides all I did was manipulate you the same way all other the men in your life have. I was hardly the first."

I could see Terri's eyes narrow and turn dark.

"I would actually like to thank you both actually, James here especially. You have shown me how tenuous my existence really is. It has motivated me to implement my master plan way ahead of schedule."

"What plan is that?" I asked.

Jose pulled out a foot long cardboard tube from his jacket pocket, he reached inside the tube with his free hand while holding it in the same hand as his pistol. He never took his eyes off us.

He pulled out what looked like a long roll of paper, I could see it had writing on it, writing that looked a lot like transcendent code.

"I am holding the equation for the Big Bang, or should I say the new Big Bang. This one has a subtle difference," Jose said waving the roll of paper.

"What difference?" I asked.

"Well this Big Bang will create a new universe much like this one, except all the laws of physics will reveal the existence of a god, that god being me. My picture will emerge when calculating numerical constants, my name will be in the structure of molecules, everything in the new universe will point to me as the greatest being to ever exist."

It occurred to me that Jose had completely lost his marbles, his megalomania had reached Everest like heights.

"How does it work," I asked trying to keep him talking in order to prevent him from doing anything drastic.

"It's ironic that the two of you picked this door to go through, this place is the going to be the centre of the new universe. How does it work you ask, it works by self-modifying transcendent code. This code," He waved the roll of paper," uses the coordinates of all the command blocks you see around you to create more code. It opens a TSW over each block and assembles lines of code in another universe, much like Lego.

I just use the seed code which I have here to start the process."

"Won't that take a while? The universe is huge and things can only propagate at the speed of light," I asked.

"TSW's are planar wave fronts, they propagate instantaneously. Transcendent code propagates instantaneously because of this. The entire universe is just the interaction of these wave fronts."

"What about particles, like quarks?"

"A particle is just a two dimensional circular wave front which rotates instantaneously in a third dimension."

"How does that give it substance?"

"You just stack two TSW's together so that the entrance of the first is in the same place as the exit of the second so every time you try to enter the TSW you are met by yourself, a perfect reflection. TSW's are two dimensional, they have no thickness so you can stack them in the exact same spot." Jose said looking smug.

"How do you know this will work?"

"Oh I had a braniac from silicon valley write this up for me, I went back to a time when he was working on his PhD, it's amazing what these guys will do for a bit of grant money."

"So you're trusting that he knew what he was doing rather then write it yourself?" I asked.

"Hey, do you think Jerry Bruckheimer writes his own scripts."

I noticed Terri was slowly moving towards Jose, I could see she was trying her best to look non-threatening.

"I want to see it," Terri said.

"Oh I suppose one look couldn't hurt before you die," Jose said looking quite proud of himself in a nerdy sort of way.

Terri walked over to Jose until she stood about two feet in front of him, then I saw her leg kick as hard she could, her foot hitting Jose squarely in the genitals.

Jose bent over and grunted in pain. The roll of paper with the code written on it flew out of his hand and landed in front of me.

Unfortunately his pistol was still firmly in his grasp. He stood up quickly swinging it at Terri. I heard a sickening crack as it struck her across the head. Terri stumbled backwards about ten feet and fell to the ground unmoving.

A feeling of rage rose up in me as I started to go forward, but Jose had the pistol trained on me in an instant, forcing me to stop.

"Pick up the code and give it to me," Jose said waving his pistol at the roll of paper.

I looked down at my feet seeing it there, I bent over to pick it up which caused my pad of paper and pen to fall out of my shirt pocket and land right beside it.

I saw the code I had written in the pad and I noticed my pen right beside the pad. I stared at the space I had left in the footer code of the algorithm.

I carefully oriented the code towards Jose, trying to make it look like I was picking up the pen and had moved the pad accidentally.

I held my breath and stroked the number one in the footer code.

"Hey what..." I heard Jose start to speak.

I looked up to see Jose standing in the middle of a circular TSW. Inertia held him in position for a few milliseconds, which seemed like minutes to me.

I saw the finger on the trigger of his pistol start to move, and then he was gone, dropping from sight.

I frantically ripped up the piece of paper I had written the transcendent code on and the TSW snapped out of existence. Jose was gone.

# Chapter eleven

I quickly walked over to Terri to see how she was. She was breathing and had a large gash on her face from the pistol barrel. I ripped off a chunk of my shirt and pressed it against it to try and stop the bleeding.

"Ow! That hurts," Terri said regaining consciousness.

"How do you feel?" I asked.

Terri sat up and felt her face.

"You're bleeding," I said as I offered her my makeshift bandage.

"Man do I have a headache," she said as she took the cloth from my hand and pressed it against her face," Where's Jose?"

"I don't really know, I think probably about ten thousand years in the past."

I explained to her what I had done.

"So you just randomly picked the time and space co-ordinates when you wrote the code originally?" She asked when I was finished speaking.

"It was just for an emergency, I didn't think I would actually use it."

"Can't we just piece the ripped pieces of paper together," she asked.

Which we did, very carefully. We figured out that Jose was somewhere in 8235 BC, we weren't able to discern his latitude, longitude or elevation without access to an atlas.

Terri took the bits of paper put them in a small pile and lit them with a match.

"There he's gone for good," she said as the pile burned.

I walked over to the roll of paper with Jose's seed code for a new universe written on it and picked it up.

"What about this, should we burn it as well?" I asked.

"Let me see it," she replied.

She lifted a small bit of tape that had kept the paper from unrolling and started to unroll it.

"Hmm.. Well there's one big difference between Jerry Bruckheimer and Jose."

"What," I asked.

"Well Jerry might not write his own scripts but I'm pretty sure he reads them. Look at this," Terri peeled off a large yellow sticky note affixed to the bottom of the roll. It had a hand written message on it.

It said:

Mr Froggette, I have tried to write this program as per our conversation and the written outline that you provided me.

I was however unable to include your requirement to have your image inserted into the fabric of this theoretical universe.

I realize that this is supposed to be merely experimental code and that it won't be used for anything practical, however I still tried (and succeeded in my opinion) to incorporate the idea that computer code could propagate instantaneously.

I was able to simulate the resulting expansion of this theoretical universe in a conventional computer using a very complex process that I won't bore you with.

The requirement of putting in a fixed pattern (such as your image) completely screwed up the expansion process resulting in endless static loops, so I left it out.

If you are not satisfied with the result I am sad to say that because of a conjunction of very large bills I will be unable to refund your five thousand dollars.

If you still want your money returned I would be willing to provide you with some shares in a company I am currently starting up if you are willing to invest a further five thousand dollars.

Sincerely, Sergei.

"Jose really was nuts, who knows what this would have done," I said to Terri pointing to the role of paper.

"This Sergei guy may have actually found out the actual Big Bang equation and not even know it," Terri replied.

"And maybe not. I think we should burn it."

Terri looked at the roll and turned it around in her hand. "You're right," she unrolled it by grabbing the free end and yanking it then she grabbed the unrolled paper and crumpled it into a big pile and lit it on fire.

We watched as the flames spread over the pile of paper.

"This is like destroying the philosophers stone," I said.

"Or a closed Pandora's box," she replied.

"We have to get you to a hospital. You need stitches and you probably have a concussion," I said looking at the cut on her face.

After the fire had burned out we walked back into the corridor and shut the door behind us. Terri gave me the key to put in my pocket.

"I'm kinda woozy, and we can't afford to loose it now that our PDA's are gone," she said.

I looked at my PDA again, it still had a blue screen with a rotating hourglass icon in the middle of it.

We walked back to the marble room and looked for the TSW back to my apartment. It was gone.

"I guess it disappeared when my PDA got wiped. I'm in the same boat as you now," I said.

"What are we gonna do?" Terri said.

"Pick another door I guess."

We carefully opened a few different doors until we found one that appeared to lead to a modern day metropolitan city in the early afternoon. We went through and closed and locked it behind us.

I wrote down the street address where the door was located.

It didn't take very long for us to determine we were in present day Miami Florida.

We managed to hail a taxi who took us too a nearby hospital, I still had my wallet with me so I had some money.

Terri was whisked away as soon as we walked through the emergency room door. I sat in the waiting room for over two hours while she was treated.

When she finally returned she had a large bandage on her cheek.

"How are you?"

"Well they said I had a mild concussion and they stitched me up. They wanted me to stay overnight but said it was just as a precaution. I'm exhausted let's find a hotel so I can go to sleep."

"Aren't you supposed to stay awake with a concussion?" I asked.

"It's been a few hours since my injury and the x-ray they did didn't show anything, so I should be fine."

We found a nearby hotel and rented a room, I was starting to worry about how I was going to pay for it when we checked out. Terri quickly took her pants and shoes off and jumped into bed. She fell asleep immediately.

It was still early so I turned the TV on with the sound down low. I was curious about what was so special about this world. I hadn't noticed anything unusual between the hospital and the hotel.

I put the TV on a local all news channel and watched.

It didn't take me very long to figure out what was special about this alternate universe.

Jose was a flamboyant sports team owner here. He controlled all the major franchises in the Miami area. With the assistance of Transcendent technology he had turned them all in dynastic champions.

I put on one of the local sports channels, it was full of clips of Jose giving outrageous quotes and being bombastic. The city was obviously overjoyed with his ownership thanks to the results of the teams, even the local sports pundits hardly criticized anything he had done.

Well he was gone now.

I turned the TV off when it started to get late. I carefully grabbed a pillow off of the bed trying not to disturb Terri. She appeared to be sleeping soundly. I could see her eyes twitching violently underneath her eyelids. She was probably having some pretty wild dreams.

I shut the lights off, lay down on the couch putting the pillow behind my head and went to sleep.

I woke up with the sun shining through the window on my face. I sat up feeling a jolt of pain from my back. The couch had been reasonably comfortable but had still not done my back any favours.

I looked at the clock on the wall, it was eight in the morning. I stood up just as Terri woke up and started stretching.

"What time is it?" she asked.

I told her.

"What now? We have no money to check out of the hotel," I said.

"I'm a sorceress remember," she said smiling, "I forgot to thank you bye the way."

"For what?"

"You saved me once again, and you stopped Jose."

"Do I get a reward?"

"I'll give you a free Polaroid at my next show," she giggled.

"They have digital cameras now, and all the cool girls are on the Internet."

"Ewww, are you serious?"

"Yup, they do live shows and chat with their fans."

"It sounds a lot safer, I had to have a bodyguard because of all the crazies."

"So what are we going to do?" I said again.

"Let me look in the book," she said taking out her copy of The Principles of Sorcery out of her pants.

I had forgotten we had them. I reached into my own back pocket and pulled mine out. These were very important now I thought since we didn't have PDA's anymore. I started flipping through it.

"I found something," Terri blurted out.

"What?"

"I found the algorithm for that flash traveller app I used at the dragons lair."

"Why didn't we keep that ethereal ring we found," I said.

"Didn't need it with the PDA's, still don't need it I think," she replied.

"That flash traveller thing doesn't bring back any warm fuzzies."

"There's no dragon this time."

"What are we going to do when we get out of here?"

"Check out some more doors I guess."

"Why don't we stay here for now, this universe is pretty normal, we've both lost our way home anyway."

"OK."

"I got a better algorithm too, It's the copier, we can use it to copy the two dollars and forty seven cents I have over and over."

"We're going to pay in change?"

"We sure are," I said, and we did.

The end.

