“The Gemini Project”
Stephen Ciesla
All rights reserved by the author
Home Earth 11436-a
10.12.2006
It
was
Earth Prime
10.12.2006
Beep. Beep.
Beep. Zach’s alarm was going off
telling him it was time to get up for school.
If he didn’t get up soon, he knew his mom would come walking down the
hall telling he’d be late, just like every other day. Sure enough, just like clockwork, Zach heard
his mother’s footsteps heading down the hallway towards his room.
“Zach, you better be up cause I sure don’t wanna go in
there and make you get up,” shouted his mother while she pounded on the door,
just like she did every morning.
“Yeah, mom, I’m up. I’ll be out in a few minutes,” he said. Just like yesterday, but five more minutes
sounded like a nice compromise. As he was
lying in bed for those dreamy five minutes, not really awake, but not really
sleeping, he found his thoughts drifting to Laura, who would be coming home
this afternoon from a trip with her parents.
He couldn’t wait to see her; he had the whole weekend planned out. She’d get home and they’d go out to dinner on
Friday to a romantic restaurant then they would come back to his house and-
“Zach!” Shouted his mother as she
came stomping down the hall. “I told you
15 minutes ago to get up, now GET UP!
I’m heading out now, you better get moving or you’ll be late. I’ll be back tomorrow morning.”
“Shit!” He whispered under his
breath, he was going to be late for school.
He jumped out of bed, took a quick shower, grabbed something to eat and
rushed out to his car. He put the key in
the ignition, turned it, and waited for the engine to start, but it wouldn’t
turn over. He started to panic now, he
couldn’t be late to school again, if he was, he’d get in major trouble, and
they’d end up sending a note home. If
his mom found out he was late again, she would ground him and his plans for
this weekend would be ruined.
He turned the key again, hoping it
would turn over, but once again, no luck.
He slammed his fists into the wheel, and forcibly turned the key
again. Still nothing. Frustrated, he got out of the car, opened the
engine, and started to bang the battery with a metal pole he found lying on the
ground. After the pole was too bent to
be of much use, he got back in the car, laid his head down onto the steering
wheel and prayed it would start as he turned the key once more. The engine started to whine and he pumped the
gas pedal a few times and slammed his head into the wheel just as the car
started up. He breathed a sigh of relief
and glanced at his watch, it was now 7:30, school started at
He was driving to school when all of
a sudden, he spied a man walking out of the woods right in the path of his
car. The tires squealed as he slammed on
the breaks causing him to lose control of the car. The car went careening out of control and the
last thing he remembered was lying on the ground in the woods next to the car
with the man standing over him.
Earth Prime
10.13.2006
Zach woke up lying flat in a
hospital bed the next day. His prone
body was lying just over six feet long.
He was relatively thin for his height at a meager 160 pounds. Most of his weight was muscle though, without
an inch of fat on him. He had wavy light
brown hair which was strewn all over the hospital pillow. A patch of hair just above his right eye was
matted with dried blood, but other than that there was only one other
noticeable injury, a cut under his left brown eye which had been bandaged by a
nurse the night before.
As he opened his eyes, his vision
was slightly blurred, but he could make out two figures. As his vision corrected, he realized one was
a nurse, and the second was a man he didn’t know, but recognized as the man he
almost hit the night before. He was
sitting in a chair about six feet from the bed, his head resting in his hand,
half asleep. At about 6’2” he weighed
200 pounds, but was well built. He had
dark brown hair with deep brown eyes that if looked into, would appear to have
been troubled both by recent events, but also by events hidden in the past.
The man looked up as Zach was
beginning to move around and signaled the nurse. The nurse came over and began asking some
questions such as what happened, what was his phone number, did he have any
family to contact where did he live. It
was at that time that Zach realized that in his rush to get out of the house,
he left his wallet with his I.D. lying on his bedroom table.
“How
could I have been so stupid?” he thought to himself. He told the nurse his information and then
asked her who the other man was.
“I’ll
let you ask him that. Personally, I think he’s kind of strange,” she said. “Well, I’ll try to get a hold of your
parents, I’m sure they’re worried sick about you. I’ll be back later to check up on you and
give you more medicine if you need it.”
As
the nurse left, the man got up and walked over to the bed. He introduced himself as John.
“What
were you doing in the middle of the road?” I questioned.
“I
was lost and trying to find the nearest city to get my bearings,” he replied.
“If
you were lost, then where are you from?”
He
glanced over his shoulder to make sure no one was listening, “I am from a
parallel universe,” he said with a smile.
“What?”
“Last
night I used a machine I created to travel to this earth.”
“What, what? From where?”
“I
came from my home Earth, Earth 11436-a according to Pollux,
my reader machine.”
At
that moment, Zach’s mother, Ann, his father, Joe, girlfriend, Laura, and best
friend, Alex, walked in the door. His
mother rushed over to him and started to smother him in kisses.
“I
was so worried when I got back this morning and you weren’t there, I figured
you might have left for school early, but when you didn’t come home this
afternoon, I got worried and called the police,” she said. “They said they had a John Doe at the
hospital, who got in a car crash with a car that fit
your description, so I told Laura and Alex and we got here as soon as we
could.”
“Well,
I should be going,” the man said as he emerged from the shadows.
“Wait!”
Zach said, “What’s your name? Are you
coming back tomorrow?”
“My
name is John, and I may stop by in a few days to see how you are.”
“Wait,
I want to ask you some questions!”
“All
in due time,” he stated as he walked out of the door.
“Who
was that?” asked Zach’s mother.
“That’s
the guy that I swerved to avoid hitting on the road, he says he’s not from
around here, he’s kinda weird.”
Earth Prime
10.15.2006
Zach
was finishing up his dinner, which was comprised of a greasy cheeseburger,
salty fries, and a Coke when John walked into his hospital room. The only other two people there were Laura
and Alex. His mom had to leave to do
some things for work. Everyone looked up
as the door opened and John entered. He
closed the door behind him and pulled up a chair.
“Mom
due back anytime soon?” he asked.
“Not
for an hour or so,” Zach replied.
“So
what was it Zach was trying to tell us that you told him?” Alex asked.
“You
told them?” John replied.
“Of
course,” Zach said, “Even though I had no clue what you were talking about.”
“Ok. Let me explain. I created two devices on my home world, I
named the first Castor. It creates little
earth like balls. The second device,
named Pollux, analyzes the ball and if I choose to
visit this earth allows me to travel to this world. Both devices are relatively small,” he said
as he pointed to his pocket where it was obvious the devices were held. “Pollux also holds
all the information that I’ve entered on other worlds on it.”
“You
mean this isn’t the first, other, uh, earth that you’ve visited?” Laura asked.
“No,
but it has been a long time since I did visit other worlds.”
“What
made you stop? It sounds like it would
never get old, seeing different cultures and people.”
“It’s
not that easy. Some worlds have been
devastated by a deadly virus that Pollux doesn’t pick
up, or the earth might come out of Castor as a pile of dust, or I might get to
the world and realize that Hitler won, and get captured cause…” His voice trailed off as he finished the
sentence in a mumble. “Anyways, I did
get to see some good things and help out some people.”
“Wait,
you said that you haven’t visited a world in a long time, what made you decide
to come here?” Zach asked.
“Well,
to tell you the truth, Pollux here told me that this
world was named Earth Prime. And to be
honest, the search of Earth Prime is what made me pursue the development of
this device, even after all the criticism I got on my home world, Earth 11436-a
according to Pollux.”
“So,
how is this world different than your world?” Zach asked.
“Well,
I can’t really answer that at the moment, because I haven’t had time to do any
research, and as soon as Castor creates my home world again, I’m outta here.”
“Can
we come with you?” Zach, Laura, and Alex asked.
“Why
would you want to? It’s nothing all that
spectacular.”
“Well,
then how about we go to a different world, just to see it.” Zach said, his
voice suggested that there was no choice in the matter.
Number:
110-c Air:
Breathable Dominant Species: Homo Sapien Land Coverage: 45% Colonized: 14% Danger Level: Low Hostility Level: Medium Location: 36N Latitude 42W Longitude Climate: 54ºF – 78º Rain pH – 5 Precipitation – 3” Humidity – 79%
“I suppose, you guys
could come once. Castor created a world this
afternoon for an Earth 110-c and it seems habitable enough.” He pulled the two devices. He pressed a red button on the side of Castor
and the top opened up. From it he pulled
out a miniature earth-ball. He popped it
into Pollux and showed them the readout:
“How
does it work?” asked Alex.
“Well,
it links to a parallel universe, which is an immense distance away from here. How?
I’m not entirely sure. I didn’t
invent it. Quite a while back, a man by
the name of Jack traveled to my home earth and was killed and I took the device
from him. But it does work. It creates a sort of prototype-link to this
other world. When I put it into Pollux and press the right buttons, it envelops me, and
others, in some sort of bubble. I am
then transported through what I believe to be a wormhole and end up in the
parallel universe on their earth. The
only thing I know is that if a created world isn’t visited in a few hours,
meaning soon, then the window is closed, and we’re stuck for a long time before
another ball is created.”
“Well
then we need to get going, right?” asked Zach.
“We
have about half an hour before the window closes. I was gonna go home,
but I suppose we could take a slight detour.
Ok, everyone make sure you are touching Pollux,
and off we go.” John said as he put the earth in the hole and pressed some
buttons. All of a sudden, they were
enveloped in a bubble, began to shrink, and were gone.
Earth 110-c
They
arrived in the middle of a field at the base of a hill; they were lying there
for a few minutes when all of a sudden, the ground started to shake violently.
“Earthquake!”
cried John. “Everyone get over here!”
As
they all huddled in a group, a hail of rocks was sent at them from up the hill,
they huddled closer for protection and safety.
A few minutes later, the rock slide was over and they stood up. The first thing John did was look at his
devices. At once his face dropped.
He
started to push buttons rapidly and Zach asked him “What’s wrong, does the
machine not work?”
“What?
What happened?” asked Alex
“Pollux was damaged in the rockslide, the screen’s all
messed up and it won’t turn on,” said John.
“So
are we stuck here?” asked Laura.
“I
think so, for a while, at least until I can figure out how to fix it.”
“Wait,
you don’t know how to fix it, yet you created it?” asked Zach.
“No,
I didn’t make it, it was given to me by someone else a long time ago, that’s what
I was planning on doing with you guys if you liked it, but now, we’re stuck
here together for a while.”
“Well,
we better find someplace to spend the night and get food, we may be stuck here
for awhile,” said Laura.
“Let’s
go,” said Zach.
© 2003 by the author
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