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| Tsv-05-100 Alternatives Chapter 1: Knight to king's Base 4.5 Chapter 2: What Reality is this? Chapter 3: The Hisorian Way Chapter 4: Fresh Air and Exercise Chapter 5: Stranger in a Strange Land Chapter 6: Point Man Put to the Test Chapter 7: The VR and the Videodrome Chapter 8: The Tem-Space Variant Returns Chapter 9: The Amazing R-Wing Chapter 10: The Lunaside Vacation Chapter 11: The Lunaside Hiso-Courts |
Tem-Space Variant 5:
Alternatives
2.
What Reality is This?
Madkro had a strange dream, which turned into a bit of a nightmare. He was attacked by a man with dark hair and a moustache, in the midst of a dimly lit countryside, with sparsely scattered trees. The Moon was bright over the trees, and shone on the man as he was attacked. He seemed vaguely familiar, but he was not sure who the man was. The man pushed him and he fell back, but recovered, and they fought for a bit. Before he could escape the man, they were both struggling at the top of a high cliff, over a precipice. He stumbled at the edge, and they both fell over, still struggling. They fell a long way, and lost each other, just seconds before he plunged into the sea. He was struggling to escape the water, but the waves were rough, as if breaking on a rocky coast, and he feared he would drown. Suddenly, he awoke with a gasp for air, and a slight sweat, in the room, in the bed where he had fallen asleep earlier. By the light in the window, it was early morning, just around sunrise. "Still here," he said to himself, hopefully. He looked about the room and saw his blue and gray uniform on the chair by the wall where he had left it, along with the gun in the black holster. As he sat up, he looked back at the holster and took note of the gun. It was different than the gun he had before the fall. Curious about it, he slowly sat up, put his legs over the side, and reached for the holster. He took it, pulled it away with the belt, and removed the gun. It was like no gun he'd ever seen. It reminded him of something from a sci-fi movie, shaped more like a ray-gun than a ballistic pistol. He studied it closely, found a small lever on the side of the firing chamber, with tiny decimal-placed notches, and a positive sign at the forward end and negative sign at the back end, near the handle. Some kind of power-lever, perhaps. At the back of the firing chamber, at the top of the handle, within easy access of his thumb, were 2 square buttons, one red and one blue. At the bottom of the handle was another button. It was dark gray, the same color as the metal of the gun. There was also a thin line around the bottom of the handle, like a seam separating two pieces. He pressed the gray button and the seam widened, and the bottom of the handle separated from the handle itself. He turned the gun over, and pulled the piece away from the handle. It opened on a small hinge, and inside, were 2 gray circles. One had a circle on it, the other had a star. On each side of the circles was a small silver of metal, like a large pinhead. He pulled on one with his fore-finger and thumb, and it moved outward from the handle, along with the circle with the star on it. He thought it was some kind of small tubular battery, but once it was removed, he saw that it was a transparent tube with a red liquid in it. While he was examining this, Lisa stepped into the room. "Ready for breakfast, Mak?" she said. He looked up, seeing it was her, suspended with wonder for the new reality he was a part in. "Breakfast? Coffee and a doughnut sounds good," he said, and attempted a smile. "All right, continental it is," she agreed, with a nod, and left again. Minutes later, she returned with a tray and set it on the table by the bed against the wall, and sat down. "Recall anything?" she said, and poured some coffee into a cup. "No, but I had a very strange dream," he admitted, and told her about it, as he set the gun down and accepted the cup of coffee. "Sounds like your subconscious," she said, "was trying to tell you something. How's the head?" "Better," he said. "I mean, I haven't had any head-aches since I took that medicine last night. But I still think I'm in some kind of parallel reality." "Parallel reality?" she said, with interest. "Yes, I mean," he began to explain, "there's a lot about this reality that is the same as the one I was in, such as the USA and New York, but this Hiso thing, and these uniforms and ray-guns... it's like nothing I've ever seen before. That reminds me, I forgot to ask you what time it is." She looked at her time-piece, and he added, "Not the hour. The year." She looked at him oddly, and said, "2005." He sighed with some relief and said, "Well, at least the time is right." They ate doughnuts and drank coffee quietly for a minute, and then Madkro looked at the gun again. "What about this thing? I've never seen anything like it. Some kind of ray-gun?" "Yes," she said. "The red fluid is a fast-acting tranquilizer. The blue is an electrolytic- neutralizer. Both are converted to rays and fired at various targets and tagnets. But hold the questions, Mak. I've got some books and some com-files you can learn everything from. I'll get them after breakfast. CQ has authorized it. They want you to recover as soon as possible. The House is conducting an investigation and wants to ask you some questions, and CQ wants you back on the job." "Sounds serious," he said. "What house are you referring to?" "The Justice House," she said, with a slight tone of frustration. "It appears our predecessors are filing grounds for a mismatch. Nalten claims at least 2 of our tagnets malfunctioned." "What does that mean?" he said, in confusion. "It means we won't have official status," she said, "until the mess is cleared up. The Republicans will be holding the court for at least another 2 weeks." "The Republicans?" he said. "Why?" "Because whenever a Republican team cries 'foul'," she explained, "they always get an investigation and a trial. Sorry, Mak. There's no way to avoid it. But I don't think they'll get a rematch." "No?" he said, hoping as much. "There's nothing wrong with those tagnets," she said. "They're just being sore losers." "Sounds like repugs to me," he agreed. "Tell me, do they also blame you for everything that goes wrong?" "That's them, all right," she said. "They never take the responsibility for anything that goes wrong. How'd you know that? Is your memory coming back?" "No, it's another parallel," he said. "So, if they're the Republicans, who are we? The Democrats?" "Well, that's our party," she said. "But our particular team is in the Socialist class. We're supporting more cooperative sharing of the wealth and less capitalist competition. We've got a lot of people on our side. Rem says that capitalism has to be detracted before it destroys everything it created. It has had its time, but now it’s obsolete because progress has gone through the roof. Just take a look at technology and it's obvious he's making a good point." "Rem?" he said. "Who's Rem?" "Zephron Rem is one of our leading socialist philosophers," she said. "I'll bring you one of his books. The man's a genius. You can learn a lot from him." "Well, since it seems I'm here to stay," he said, "at least for now, I would like to learn everything I can." "Good," she said, and stepped up. "I'll go and get those books. See you in about 20 minutes." "Lisa," he said, before she left the room. She stopped and looked back. "Thanks for everything." She smiled and left. He climbed into his wheelchair, rolled over to the window, and looked through the curtains. For the first time, he looked upon the city, from around 4 or 5 levels high. There was a parkway below, with a street winding through it, and many trees scattered about. Across the wide green, perhaps a quarter of a mile away, were city towers, the tallest no higher than 12 levels, and surprisingly enough, a couple of pyramids. "Pyramids in New York?" he said to himself. He noted also that there were no sky- scrapers. Either this was not the main hive of the business district of the city he was looking at, or this parallel simply had no hundred-story structures. As the sun rose behind the city structures, it was a silhouette casting a shadow over the far side of the parkway. He returned to the bedside, looked at his uniform, and decided to get dressed before Lisa returned. He didn't like being confined to the wheelchair or the room, and wanted to see more of this strange reality. |
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