Intro
It was six a.m. when I slowly woke up from my deep slumber. I hit the snooze button to turn the alarm off, else it would have gone off in the next ten minutes. I stepped into the shower, set it to the right temperature, and cleaned my body for the upcoming day. After completion, I stepped out right in front of the mirror, seeing condensation from the effect of the hot shower. I wiped the condensation and there I saw my reflection. My name was Darwin Maximus and I was a human being.
I lived in Baltimore, Maryland in the year 2665. The date was October fifteenth. It was just a normal day, but in a short time, an event would occur that would change my life forever. Let me tell you my story starting from the day I received the phone call.
Act I
Elements
CHAPTER ONE: IT WORKS!
After I groomed myself in the bathroom by brushing my teeth, combing my hair, and shaving, I returned to the living room to turn on the television and continue to the bedroom to put on some clothing. From the bedroom, I could hear the global channel news talking about the usual: the war, poverty, hunger, depressing stories, and a somewhat good story that barely makes up for the rest. I could remember when my grandparents were still alive. I see my grandfather watching the news when I wanted to watch cartoons. I could still remember the most common and repetitive line he said every time he was watching.
“Can you believe the shit that’s happening to this world? I can remember back in my day when crime was not nearly as bad as it was recently, where China knew their place in the world, and when jobs were just handed to ever good-old, hard-working Americans who needed it. I remembered when it was like, ‘Hello, my good sir. I need a good, well-paying job with benefits and pay vacation.’ ‘Well my good sir who needs an interview when you’re white, so the job is yours.” Oh right, I forgot that my grandpa got racist when he was not taking his pills. He also couldn’t afford them at the time, when his insurance stopped paying for them. Hell, no one could really afford anything good if you weren’t an upper-middle American. But excuse me for getting side tracked.
As I returned to the living room with my casual clothing, I placed a slice of bread into the toaster for some breakfast. I began to tie my shoes when I heard the phone ring. I looked at the screen of my phone to find it was Mark, my closest and best friend. As I pick up the phone I wondered what he wanted. Probably just his wing man for the night. But without another thought I answered him.
“Hey, Mark what’s up?” I asked casually with my gruff and tired voice.
There was chatter over the line.
“Hey! Hey!” I exclaimed, trying to calm him down, “Slow down, what’s the big hurry? You know what happens when you hyperventilate.”
More chatter, but he was still obviously frantic.
“Look, just calm down and tell me what’s wrong,” I request, hoping he would listen for once.
He did, and he spoke with a clearer tone.
“What?” I said, looking at the phone for a second in confusion before putting back against my ear. “What big news?”
He explained to me what the ‘big news’ was, causing me to be blink in shock.
“You… You’re not messing with me, right?” I asked with a nervous laugh; it couldn’t be true.
His voice is so cheery, I was lucky to make out the words.
“You’re serious?” I reply, my heart soaring, “Wait, this isn’t another false alarm or any bull from the others, is it?”
As I hear the news, a smile came to my face as I dropped the phone. I could still hear Mark talking through it. “Hello? Darwin are you there? Hello? Look, the project works! It really works! Darwin?” Without another thought, I headed straight to the lab, leaving behind my phone in my rush and my bread in the toaster. Thank god the toaster has an auto safety if the toast was burnt.
***
With my shoelaces completely tied and my coat on, I sprinted out of my apartment and headed straight to the lab. As I ran, I passed the skyscraper monuments, five level traffic lanes - with a crew working on a sixth - and many pedestrians, but I hardly cared. The lab was all I could think of as I headed there. After five years, it finally worked.
Within forty minutes of running, plus the resting period, I finally made it to the Johns Hopkins University, where I did research and conducted my experiments in my project. It really was amazing that this place was one of the only a few areas in the world with green around that not in a preservative dome. The students were giving me stares as I dashed towards the science department. As I entered the building, I shoved through a crowd of students getting out of their lessons and made it to the elevator. When I reached it, I found it was empty. Thank God, too, as I could go straight down, all the way to the 120th floor below. After a minute, I was at my lab, with its pristine white walls, where my coworkers were waiting for me. They were Amanda, who was a blonde with a ponytail, Kyle, a buzzed-cut Asian, May the youngest in our group, and Mark, who I could easily find with his gold spiky hair. All of them were wearing lab coats realizing that I forgot to bring my from home, but I didn’t really care at the time. I was greeted with warm smiles from my team as I went right to Mark with a large smile on my face.
“Mark,” I started desperately, “It really, really worked?”
“Yes” he replied, giving a small chuckle to my behavior, “Your formula was correct. You are the first human being to create a real worm hole.”
“I prefer to call it a Dimensional Space Rift Hole,” I correct to mark with a smug grin. Then, in a display of aggression, I flicked him on the head.
“What the hell was that for?” he whined, rubbing his forehead.
“That was for doing the experiment while I wasn’t here,” I explained irritably, giving him a glare. But then my frown quickly turned to a happy grin as I hugged him, “And this is for telling me first.”
“So can I see it work with my own eyes?” I asked the room, my excitement rising. Suddenly, however, Mark’s grin turned into a sad frown as he looked away with a distant expression. It worried me that he was acting that way. “Mark, what’s wrong?”
“Darwin,” he started slowly, choosing her words carefully. “There’s a reason why I called you here.”
“Mark, what’s going on?” I asked with a serious expression, tired of him beating around the bush.
“Well, I didn’t call you first,” he admitted apologetically, “I actually called the executives first.” When I heard that, I couldn’t do anything but cringe. As most people knew in the world, the big corporations were the main reason for many problems: the middle to lower class economy, the huge decline in the world forests and environment, and of course, the war. But the worst part, for me, was that they were funding my project.
***
As I was sitting in a conference room, with its long table and multitude of chairs, waiting for the executives to enter, I could only imagine what they were going to ask of me. They knew that my project was just a theory, but with dwindling resources and the war over what was left, my first guess was that this group was getting desperate enough to fund a project that only worked in theory. Before I could go too deep in thought, three men, clad in black business suits, entered the room. One had a needle like body, one had a face that looked beaten repeatedly until you couldn’t even recognize him, and the last one was an old obese man who had let gluttony take over him. As all three sat down across from me, they waited a few seconds before they spoke, probably to build up the suspension.
“Well, Mr. Maximus,” the old man said first with an air of authority, “You have really impressed us with your results. I thought it would have taken you far longer than five years. But now I see that-”
“Just tell me what you want,” I interrupted as I crossed my arms, wanting this to be over.
“Well straight to the point. I like that. Now before you open that portal thing...?”
“Dimensional Space Rift Hole” I corrected him, almost feeling like they were insulting my work.
“Sounds too long. It should be shorter,” the ugly guy commented, making me roll my eyes.
“Well talk about that later,” the old man waved off. Now then… where’s that intern?”
“I just paged him five minutes ago,” the needle man announced glancing around, obviously annoyed.
Then, a young boy, wearing the same suit as the men in front of me, opened the door with a briefcase, breathing hard. Gasping for breath, the boy wheezed, “I’m sorry, sir. Traffic was bad and-”
“I don’t want to hear your damn excuses!” the needle man shouted harshly, “Now put the case on the table and leave at once.”
The boy nodded nervously, putting the case between us as instructed and soon left the room. I could only imagine what crap he had to put up with from those assholes every day. When the old man opened the case, he took out a tablet containing the virtual documents that would tell me the terms of our new contract.
“Now, just read over this,” he instructed, placing the tablet right in front of me, “The bold sections are the most important. When you’re finished, sign it, and we should be ready to open the portal by tomorrow.”
“Tomorrow?” I questioned with a tinge of worry and surprise, “But we just tested it once. We need more time.”
“Look, if it works once, then that’s good enough for us,” the ugly man explained coldly, cutting me off, “We’re on a tight schedule, and we need this done now.”
“And besides” the old man continued, a creepy smile growing, “You haven’t finished reading you’re new contract. You might like what you see.” As I read over the contract, feeling unsure about the situation, I realized that my team and I would be going through the portal. We would be traveling to another world. But then I read that there would be hired mercenaries that would be keeping an eye for any hostile natives. More like keeping an eye on us. But I knew that if I wanted to get away from this world, I would have to do what these bastards wanted. So I pressed my thumb on the tablet and my name appeared across the screen, indicating that it was signed. When it was finished, I handed the tablet back to the old executive.
“Excellent,” he said, putting the tablet back in the briefcase, “Now, we’ll be seeing you off. Gather what you will need for the trip and say your goodbyes. Have a nice day, Mr. Maximus” All three of the executive stood simultaneously, and left the room. I remained where I sat for a while, rubbing my head and wondering how things would go the next day. Eventually, I got up and left the room as well, intending to head home.
***
The next day, I returned to the lab, bringing a backpack full of supplies, clothes, books, and many other trinkets. Using the elevator, I reached the 120th basement floor, where I met my team’s “security”. I saw a big guy with a Gatling gun in his grip. An African was holding a scatter gun while smoking a cigar, leaning against the wall. One person was holding a sniper rifle, with his face covered by a mask. A medic with a pair of round glasses and a white cloak and a technician, who had a bunch of tools on his dark blue vest, stood by each other indifferently. They both had assault rifles, but what concerned me was that they looked nearly identical. They must have been biological twins. Finally, there was their leader, a tall female with an eye patch over her right eye, looking confident and ready for anything. Strangely, I found her rather attractive, what with her long black hair tied in a ponytail and emerald eyes. Then someone came out of an adjacent room was a guy looking like he was ready for camping, with the large backpack and sleeping bag.
“Alright,” the backpack-wearing man said, catching our attention. “My name is Charlie Debt, and I’m a representative of the Arch Corporation, section seven. I’ll be supervising this project for my superiors. The rest of the team is in the portal room, ready for the journey. You all should have everything with you, so follow me and we’ll be on our way.”
All the mercenaries looked to the female, who I guessed was their leader, and she gave a nod. When she did, they all got up and entered to another room, where the portal mechanism would be. I was going to follow them, but the female blocked my path, gazing at me intently.
“You must be one who invented this thing” she assumed, jabbing a thumb over her shoulder as she glared at me. “Let’s get things clear” you do you science crap, and let my men worry about the rest. Just stay out of our way. Do you understand?”
Before I could answer Charlie poked his head back in. “Hey, what are you two doing?” he asked critically. “We’re about to leave. Let’s go.” The female stared at me for a few more seconds before turning her back to me and walking through the door. Sighing at her behavior, I followed after, wondering if she would be a problem in the future. We were in the testing room, where Amanda, Kyle, May, and Mark were conversing with each other. Amanda was scared; leaving our home world and traveling to another, unknown world in a different dimension can be terrifying. Kyle was trying to cheer her up, telling her it wasn’t that bad, and thankful it was working. May stood there, looking over her notes on her personal table, stuck in her fixed little world of work. Mark spotted me and came to me to engage in conversation.
“I knew that they were going to hire mercenaries,” he said, glancing menacingly over to Charlie, “But I didn’t know that they’d bring one of their own lackeys to be a spy.”
I understood, but didn’t reply, not seeing the point of complaining about something that we couldn’t change. I soon turned my attention to the attractive female leader, who was talking with one of her mercenary members. Unfortunately, Mark caught me the act, and gave a knowing grin. “Well, well, well. Looks like you have a thing for that lady.”
“N… No I don’t” I replied a little too quickly with shock. I scratched the back of neck as I looked to the ground embarrassingly.
“I don’t know anything about her,” Mark commented, tapping his chin, still smiling. “She might be a lesbian, or one of those single-for-life types. Maybe she even has, like, eight kids.”
“Mark, shut up,” I said plainly to him, knowing he would go on forever if no one stopped him. Though what he said might be right. For all I knew she could see me, I mean, my team as just a another job to her. Before I could think on it further, I heard the intercom activating.
“Alright, now that everything is in order, activate the device,” an old voice ordered, and I recognized it as the obese executive. With a deep breath, I pulled the large lever, and soon the Dimensional Space Rift Hole was creating a swirling mass the resembled a black hole, except the center was bright. I knew it would work, but I couldn't help but feel amazed that it actually made the portal. Looking over, I could see that my team, even though they saw it the first time, were as surprised as I was. I took a step forward, bracing myself for the interdimensional travel, but I was stopped by the female leader who took a hold of my shoulder, causing me to wince from the pressure. She looked at me with a donating look, one that told me to not even try it. “Brick,” she called to one of her mercenaries, still staring at me. “Go in and see if the coast is clear.”
“Yes, mom,” The big guy with the Gatling gun replied sarcastically. I assumed that he was Brick. He grasped his gun tightly and walked through the portal. I was a little upset that I wasn’t the first living thing to go into the portal. But I remembered that the contract stated that the mercenaries were in charge of protecting my team, and must enter first, in case of dangerous activity on the other side. After a few tense moments, a small radio that the female leader at on her side came to life with static, and a deep male voice spoke through it. “The coast is clear. You can come in now.”
“Alright, listen up,” she shouted to my team, causing us to stand up straight to attention. “You geeks will do exactly what I say. If I say move, you move. If I say stop, you stop. If I say jump, what do you do?”
“Generic move quote,” Mark smirked, trying to be funny, but he only managed to piss her off. But she simply glared at him for half a second before turning her gaze to her men.
“Grass Snake, you’re up,” The sniper gave a curt nod, and charged through the portal without hesitation.
“Matt, Data, your next,” The twins stepped up and went through the portal as well.
“Dodge, now,” The scatter shooter concentrated on the portal and rushed through it.
With the all mercenaries through, the female leader turned to us. “After I go through the portal,” she explained, looking at each of us in turn, “I’ll call you. Then you can come through.” She then turned her back to us, but before she did anything, she faced me with a small smile and winked. I was taken back by the move that I hardly noticed that she was already gone. At least now I know that she isn’t a lesbian. After a few short seconds, I hear the radio on our backpacks as she spoke. “All’s good. You can come in now.”
“Here goes,” Charlie muttered as he walked to the portal, only to be interrupted by Amanda to scream at the top of her lungs and rush right through the portal.
“Amanda, wait!” Kyle yelled, as he ran after her.
“Damn it, don’t you people know how to wait!?” Charlie shouted at them, not knowing they can’t hear him. But after that, he sighed, and he too, went through.
“You think they’ll have internet on the otherside?” May asked the two of us.
Mark scoffed, “You say the footage thought are first testing. What do you think?”
“Well, this trip is going to suck,” she mumbled, stepping through the portal. At that point, it was just Mark and I, the last ones left in the room. We both prepared to charge through the portal, and then Mark looked at me and smiled.
“Ten years of planning, and five years of experimenting. Now, it’s time for the results,” he said, and I returned his smile. Suddenly, he turned his back to the portal and gave a big excited cheer as he jumped back first into it. Leave it to Mark to make any serious thing fun. I took one last look to the three business men, standing behind the glass window of the observatory. They stared at me with creepy waves as the old man spoke through the intercom.
“Don’t disappoint us.”
I was really tired of their controlling ways, and thinking I wouldn’t have to deal with them for a long while, I decided to give all three of them the one thing I wanted to do when I first met them. I raised my hand and gave them my middle finger, essentially flipping the bird. And after that, I turned to the portal, took a deep breath, closed my eyes, and walked though. Little did I know, that those last moments would be my last time on Earth, my home.