science+fiction

Johnson looked at his watch,it said 8:00 A.M October 8, 2067, I`d better hurry, he thought. He ran through the doors of the BTSTA (the British Time and Space Travel Association) as a mechanical voice on the speaker said, "Dr. Johnson please report to briefing room 21."  He walked into the briefing room, where there were four men. The director of the operation, Bucky, said in a calm voice, “Johnson this is Benson, he is our technical man for this mission. This is Donny, the backup scientist in case you cannot perform your duties during the mission, and this is Billy he was appointed by the Royal British Army to assist you in case there is...,” “Is what?” snapped Johnson, "What where you going to say?” “Trouble.” Bucky finished in a quiet voice. “Trouble? What do you mean trouble Bucky? Are we going in the middle of a war zone or something?” yelled Johnson. “Don’t worry Johnson”, said Benson, “according my calculations the chances of entering a universe with intelligent, potentially dangerous hostiles is about 1 to 100.” “Look Johnson,” Bucky said, “all I am saying is we do not know what the other universe is like, and there could be some dangerous things in it. Besides you will only be in the other world for 12 hours then you will all be teleported back to this world no matter where each of you are.” Just then the mechanical voice blared, “Please report to teleportation area in T-180 seconds.” “Time to go,” said Bucky, “I’ll be here running the teleportation device while the four of you will be in it.” When they walked into the teleportation area, alarms flashed and sirens wailed, as if the teleportation machine being started up was some kind of emergency. Over the intercom they heard Bucky’s voice. “Please step into the booths, only one person per booth unless you want to become conjoined twins.” Johnson walked into his booth. The booth looked like a metal bunker, and on the inside it was filled with cameras, and emergency machine failure equipment. Over the speaker Bucky said, “Stand still in the red dot in the center of the booth”. Johnson quickly walked into the center. Then Bucky said, “Teleportation in T-20 seconds.” Metallic clanging and beeping seemed to surround Johnson, he almost had to cover his ears and the booth even smelled funny from the gases they were using to run some of the machines. “T-5 seconds.” said Bucky. The last thing Johnson heard was one of the loudest alarms that signaled that they were teleporting.

Johnson fell to the ground, when he looked up there was a crowd around him jumping and shouting. He got up and there was a stage. On the stage there were three people in kilts playing bag pipes. The music sounded like someone filled a room with crying and screaming little kids. Suddenly a voice on a speaker said, “British alert, British alert, British alert.” Several people screamed and dropped to the floor while others ran out of the room. Suddenly soldiers wearing kilts break down the door and fired their machine guns at Johnson and the other Scientists. Johnson heard Billy yell, “Get down!” Billy crawled on the floor and threw a smoke grenade. Johnson ran to an emergency exit, when an RPG flew an inch away from his head. The rocket hit the emergency exit door which blew it off its hinges. Through the empty frame of the emergency exit door Johnson could make out a figure wearing a skin tight rubber suit, with a gas mask, and holding some type of weird gun. Johnson jumped to the side and fell on the floor. The figure fired the strange gun and it shot a stream of purple electricity into where he was a second ago. It missed him and hit the lights above them, the lights shattered and the whole room went dark. Johnson made his way toward the emergency exit hoping that the soldier with the electric gun would not see him. Then a bright red flash startled Johnson, for a second Johnson could not see then he realized that the emergency power was being turned on. The soldier with the mask turned and pointed his gun at Johnson. But before he could fire, Billy shot a small dart into the soldier’s chest and the soldier collapsed unconscious. Billy and the others ran towards where Johnson was. Billy picked up the unconscious soldier`s gun and aimed it at the soldiers in kilts. “Wait, no!” yelled Benson. But he was too late. After Billy pulled the trigger, electricity arced through him and he fell to the ground. Luckily for the three scientists Billy also took out the soldiers in kilts with his shot. Johnson and Donny picked up Billy and ran down the stair well. As they opened the door out of the building they saw their first view of the city. What they saw was almost incomprehensible to them. It looked like a city except it was filled with satellite dishes, anti aircraft guns, cannons, and huge factories. The roads were filled with humvees, tanks and supply trucks, and on almost every sidewalk there were soldiers. Benson said, “We can’t walk through city holding Billy. We have to leave him somewhere.”  “Where?” asked Donny. “It’s not like we can just leave him in the bushes.” “We can leave him in the janitorial supplies closet." suggested Benson. <span style="font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;">“What if someone opens it?” asked Johnson. <span style="font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;">“Then we will lock it and break the knob off.” replied Benson. <span style="font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;">“Sounds good to me.“ said Donnie. <span style="font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;">After they put Billy in the closet, the scientists ran through the streets, until they were stopped by a sentry holding an assault rifle. <span style="font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;">”Identification please." said the sentry in a rough Scottish accent. <span style="font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;">“What?” said Johnson. <span style="font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;">“You heard me, identification please.” the sentry said with an annoyed tone. <span style="font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;">“Um, I don’t know what that is. “ said Johnson. <span style="font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;">Then from across the street a soldier manning the machine gun turret on a humvee yelled, <span style="font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;">“They`re part of the rebellion don’t let them escape!” Before the sentry could do anything, Donny threw dirt that he had picked up from the ground into the sentry’s eyes, knocked him to the ground, and took his assault rifle. The soldier manning the machine gun turret fired at them. The scientists crouched behind a road block. Donny lifted up the assault rifle and aimed at the humvee, but before he could fire, the machine gun’s bullets ripped the gun Donny had to pieces. They ran into an alley to get away from the humvee, but it lead to a dead end Johnson jumped as he heard a loud slamming sound behind him; he looked back and saw that the entrance to the alley had been replaced by a metal wall. Then they started moving forward and Johnson realized he was in a truck. After a few minutes of being driven around in the truck the three scientists were let out. The kidnappers put bags over their heads and Johnson felt cold metal against the back of his head, he figured it was a gun, and his best chance was to listen to the kidnapper. <span style="font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;">“Move forward!” said whoever had the gun up to his head. Johnson noticed that he had a British accent instead of a rough Scottish accent like the sentry, and the person who manned the turret on the humvee. They were led into a room where their bags were taken off and in front of them was the man holding the pistol. He was short and had greasy black hair. “Hello my name is Dagar,” he said, “The commander will be seeing you shortly.” He said nothing more and walked out of the room. <span style="font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;">A few seconds passed, then another person came through the doorway. His clothes and helmet were so battle scarred, that it seemed like you needed to make an identification guide for a person to know what made every stain, dent, tear, or mark on his clothes. His face was covered in scars and his head was half bald because the hair on one side of his head was burned off of his head. <span style="font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;">“Hello. I’m General Bob, leader of the rebellion against the Scottish.” Our scientists have been able to figure out that you’re from another dimension, so I will explain what is going on in our universe. You can ask questions later, okay?” The three scientists nodded their heads, too stunned at the fact that he figured out who they really were to say anything. “Now it all started in medieval Scotland, the British were invading Scotland, and a man named William Wallace led a rebellion against the British, The rebellion crushed the British armies--". <span style="font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;">“But William Wallace was killed by the British and they successfully took over Scotland” interrupted Benson. <span style="font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;">“No that’s what happened in your universe, but in ours he won” Bob said back. He continued. <span style="font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;">“The Scottish then captured the British warships. After years of training, and studying the boats the Scottish built a navy. They used this navy to conquer England. With Britain’s military power they were able to capture large areas of Europe, Asia, Australia, North America, and South America.” <span style="font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;">“But what about those soldiers with the electricity guns?” asked Donny. <span style="font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;">“Ah yes." said Bob. "During the early 1900’s a young man named Thomas Edison was working on a new invention called the light bulb that would give us a technological advantage against the Scottish. We could stay out at night as long as we wanted with this new invention, unlike the Scottish who at that time had very strict curfews. But his teenage apprentice weapon maker, Nikola Tesla used one of the weapons he had made to murder Thomas Edison. Then he stole his blue prints for the light bulb and sold them to the Scottish military. He continued to work for the Scottish military by developing new electrical weapons and selling them to the Scottish military. To thank him the Scottish made him the leader of a small chain of islands in the Pacific Ocean. There he made an army that specialized in using the electrical weapons he had invented. Since we have been making bigger and bigger strikes against the Scottish military, they have assigned large amounts of personnel from all over the world including that chain of islands to protect the Scottish capital here in Britain. Now we have brought you here so that we can end the Scottish oppression.”

<span style="font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;">A short time after they had perfected the invasion plan, Johnson and the others had been led to a hidden hangar with flying machines, and flew towards the Scottish capital building. Now Johnson looked out the window of flying machine, to him it looked like someone took a semi truck took the wheels off and covered it with a feather like fuzz so it could fly. <span style="font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;">“What’s the name of this flying garbage truck again?” Johnson yelled to the pilot. <span style="font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;">“For the hundredth time it’s called a Gravisratis”, replied the pilot. <span style="font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;">That’s right, thought Johnson, we`re flying in a Gravisratis. Johnson looked at Donny and Benson, then he recited the plan in his head, first they were going to parachute onto the top of the Scottish capital building. The next part Johnson had helped them with. Instead of using anti aircraft guns like the rest of the buildings, the Scottish capital building uses giant Tesla coils for defense because they are much less likely to miss their target. The rebellion thought the only thing that could block electricity was rubber and the only known place in their world that had that was the small chain of islands owned by Tesla. Johnson explained to them that glass could also block electricity. So the rebellion immediately made glass shields. From there Benson would make his way to the control room inside the teslacoil while the rest covered him. Then he could cause an electrical implosion that would destroy the Scottish capital building and so the Scottish soldiers could not get orders from the Scottish capital building, and rebellions all over the world would attack the confused armies. <span style="font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;">The pilot yelled, “It’s jumping time!” <span style="font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;">Johnson grabbed his glass shield and jumped out. He pulled the string and nothing happened. Still he kept on trying to pull it. He tried to manually open it, but because he was holding the shield he could not do that either. He saw huge flashes of electricity shooting at the men around him, but they were being stopped by their glass shields. Then he dropped the shield so he could manually open it. He barely opened the chute before he saw the arc of electricity coming towards him, then his vision went dark. When he opened his eyes, his vision was blurry, he looked around then looked down. He saw that below him there were emergency vehicles rushing around the streets. He realized he was laying on the edge of a maintenance walkway for the roof. As he tried to get up a bullet grazed his hand and he slipped off the railing. He slammed into something moving before he hit the ground. at first he thought it was the gravisratis then he realized it was a Scottish army drone, its red eye looked at him then the drone started flipping over and over, trying to make Johnson fall off. Johnson counted in his head so he could calculate when to let go. He let go and flew sideways towards a teslacoil and he landed onto a walkway around the teslacoil. The drone flew at him shooting bullets all around Johnson. Johnson took off his overcoat and helmet and threw them in the air the drone flew after what it thought was Johnson and flew above the teslacoil. A streak of electricity from the Tesla coil lashed towards the drone and it burst in a shower of sparks. <span style="font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;">Then a mechanic wearing a helmet yelled, “Who are you?” Johnson realized that from the stress of battle the mechanic could not recognize who he was. Johnson said in his best Scottish voice <span style="font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;">“I am a commander.” I want you to get all the soldiers out of these teslacoils and move them to defend the bottom levels.” <span style="font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;">”But sir.” said the mechanic, <span style="font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;">"I said do it now!” yelled Johnson. <span style="font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;">"Yes sir!“ yelled the soldier and he ran off. <span style="font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;">Johnson pulled out his walkie talkie and spoke to Benson.“Benson what tower are you in?” asked Johnson. <span style="font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;">"We`re not in a tower”, Benson yelled back, “we decided to go to the bottom levels and find the emergency override”. <span style="font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;">“What?" yelled Johnson, “You can’t do that.” <span style="font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;">"Why not?” asked Benson. <span style="font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;">“Because I acted like a Scottish commander and ordered the soldiers to get to the bottom levels.” <span style="font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;">“Where are you?” asked Benson. <span style="font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;">"I’m in the Tesla coil." answered Johnson. <span style="font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;">"Well you need to shut it down it yourself and I will walk you through it", said Benson. <span style="font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;">"OK", said Johnson. <span style="font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;">He opened the door and walked into the control room, the people were too engrossed on defending the building to notice Johnson. He threw a knock out gas grenade into the room, there was a loud bang and a spray of machine gun fire rickashayed off the steel wall next to Johnson then there was nothing. <span style="font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;">“Okay, I’m in.” said Johnson. <span style="font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;">“Now walk to the computer next to you, on your left.” Instructed Benson. Johnson walked to the chair and knocked the unconscious programmer out of the seat and sat down in it. “Now,” said Benson, “to override the entrance code type in the pi symbol then put -1 after the pi symbol since this is not possible the computer should focus all its energy into figuring this out and grant you access to everything.” Johnson did this.“Now,” said Benson, “type in emergency destruct code.” Johnson typed it in. <span style="font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;">The words access denied flashed on the screen then were replaced by the words override accepted. A clock started counting down from t- 20 seconds. “Now, you have one minute to get out of there.” said Benson. <span style="font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;">“No I don’t,” said Johnson, “I have 20 seconds. Now get out of the lower levels, I`ll go down with this tower.” <span style="font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;">“No!” exclaimed Benson, “There must be another way!” Johnson smashed the walkie talkie, and prepared for the blast.

<span style="font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;">It did not come. What he did hear was an extremely loud siren, beeps, and metallic clanging as he opened his eyes. He was back in the travel booth, He had forgotten all about Bucky saying that they would teleport out of the other universe in 12 hours no matter where they were. He breathed a sigh of relief. Bucky’s voice was on the intercom it said, “Please exit the booth now.” Johnson walked into the control room and Bucky was smiling. <span style="font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;">“It’s great to see you Johnson.” Bucky said in a cheerful voice. The other three men were all sitting in chairs. “I hope you guys are ready to go to another universe we discovered, tomorrow.” <span style="font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;">“Go to another one!” yelled Johnson. "I was lucky to survive the one we were in! That place was a horrible universe and I never want to go there again!” <span style="font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;">“But what about the discoveries we could make?” said Bucky. “This is a major stepping stone in science.” <span style="font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;">Somebody yelled, “Sir the portal is opening up again!” <span style="font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;">”What’s coming through?" yelled Bucky. <span style="font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;">"We don’t know!” yelled the scientist. <span style="font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;">Suddenly all the equipment in the teleportation chamber exploded. Johnson smiled; it was the implosion from the Tesla coil. Johnson said in a happy voice, “It __was__ a major stepping stone”. <span style="font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;">And he walked out of the room.

<span style="font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;">sources for photos

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