Part 2: http://aroundgray.blogspot.ca/2013/03/no-327-cyoa2-part-2.html
Part 3: http://aroundgray.blogspot.ca/2013/03/no-328a-cyoa2-part-3-ridgeway-is-ally.html
Part 4: http://aroundgray.blogspot.ca/2013/03/no-329a-cyoa2-part-4-martin-doesnt-know.html
Part 5: http://aroundgray.blogspot.ca/2013/03/no-330a-cyoa2-part-5-martin-plays-along.html
Part 6: http://aroundgray.blogspot.ca/2013/03/no-331a-cyoa2-part-6-everything-is.html
“Did you know about this?” Martin whispered to Ridgeway.
“Some,” she admitted. “But about the program. Not you.”
Martin raised his voice to address the Captain. “Was I the
only one?” he asked.
“No,” said Land. “There were three children. You and another
stayed here, and the other one went back before the accident. The little girl
who remained died in a car accident when she was seventeen.”
Martin took a moment to process the information. “Why did we
end up here?” he said. “Why us?”
Hodge answered. “We don’t know. Like I said, we didn’t know
much about the barrier. The machine was on for a total of five minutes. We sent
one man through, and the three children arrived on our side.”
“What happened to your man?” asked Ridgeway.
Land shook her head.
“Then we had an energy spike,” continued Hodge. “And the
machine destroyed itself.”
One more thing occurred to Martin. “How far into the future
am I from?”
“We don’t know,” said Land. “But if you let us, we can try
to find out.”
Martin and Ridgeway exchanged glances.
“Alright,” said Martin. “Take me to the core.”
The team passed through an entire array of security zones.
Martin observed Land using a number pad, her fingerprints, a pass-card, an iris
scan, and, lastly, a key from a chain around her neck to reach the inner bay of
the core.
They stepped onto a platform that hung over a vast empty
space. The walls were smooth and white, and there was nothing to indicate
scale. Martin got dizzy looking at it.
“It’ll take a second,” said Land, who seemed unsteady
herself. “It happens every time. Hodge?”
“It’s almost two million cubic meters,” the scientist
confirmed.
“There’s no machine,” observed Martin when he regained his
bearings.
“The machine is built around the Core,” said Ridgeway. “The
control room, if I recall correctly, should be directly below us.”
Hodge held out his hand to show the way. “Down here.”
They followed his direction and arrived in the nerve center
of Nautilus Base. The room was filled with computer screens, but there was no
sign of human activity at the moment.
“Where is the crew?” asked Ridgeway.
“They’ve been kept in the dark about the next step,” said
Land. “The fewer people who know about Lt. Martin, the better.”
“I feel safer already,” said Martin, with his eyes locked on
a metal chair in the corner of the lab. It was set on a raised platform, and
there were white ceramic shackles on the arms and legs. “That’s where the calibration happens, I’m
guessing,” he said, pointing with his chin.
“It’s perfectly painless,” said Hodge.
“Think of an ultrasound,” said Land.
“Would you, please?” asked Hodge, indicating toward the
chair.
“Alright,” said Martin. “Here goes nothing.”
He sat down, and Hodge drew closer to latch the restraints
closed.
“No,” Martin interrupted. “If you don’t mind, Ridgeway, I’d
like you to strap me in.”
Ridgeway laughed nervously, but performed the task. “All
good?” she asked when she was finished.
Martin wriggled his hands and feet against the straps. “All
good.”
“This is just the first part of the experiment,” said Land. “Nothing
will happen in the core, and we won’t run the machine. We’re just going to get
some readouts on the screen here.”
Martin realized, suddenly, that even though he was here,
confined to a chair in the heart of a top secret lab that was floating as far
from land as somebody could get, he didn’t have any more questions. He began to
feel a measure of excitement, even.
“Let’s go,” he told the others.
Hodge pressed a button. For almost a second, nothing
happened. Then a high-pitched whine began, coming from something hidden behind
the bank of computers.
“Shut it down!” said Land urgently. “Cut the power!”
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