Twin Earth

Chapter 10

We all stared at each other in shock, holding on to various delicate items to stop them falling over as the earthquake vibrated around us.

"What the hell?" I whispered as the vibrations eventually dissipated and finally came to a stop.

"Did you get that?" James asked Yuki as she ran over to another computer and frantically typed something into it.

"Yes. It was an earthquake, measuring 4.5, but quite deep."

"What caused it?" I asked.

"I cannot tell at the moment."

"I have just had a message from my colleagues in Japan," my father stated. "They have also reported a minor, but noticeable earthquake about thirty miles East of Tokyo."

"At the same time?" I asked surprised.

"It could just be a coincidence though, earthquakes are extremely common in Japan as you know."

"But hang on, there was also one in Brazil," Rachel stated scrolling through her phone, "and Holland!"

"Holland?" James replied. "That's random."

"They all seem to be relatively small though, but they have all appeared at the exact same time, and there's another now just being reported in Ghana."

"This cannot be a coincidence," my father replied. "I think we need to take a closer look at the anomaly. Yuki, I am going to call Hayden in Puerto Rico, maybe his radio telescope out in the jungle can give us some insight into this anomaly. In the mean-time all of you get some sleep. It has been a long day for all of us. All of the rooms are available for us in the main house, just pick one."

"What, we're going to sleep here?" Rachel asked nervously.

"Is that a problem?"

"Err... no, just asking."

"Fine, well, I will see you all in the morning. Hopefully by then we will have some more information."

"One other thing quickly before you go, I brought the meteorite samples from the lab. Maybe Yuki could find something I haven't, maybe even recreate the phenomenon."

"I can certainly run them through the scanner here," Yuki replied.

"There's was one other thing James and I noticed though. The meteorite samples have grown. Not by much, just an inch or less and I'm sure I measured and weighed them on site beforehand."

"Are you sure?" Yuki asked surprised. "That is certainly unusual. Maybe there is some organic matter on there as well."

"That was our first thought, but I couldn't detect any, plus the extra growth simply looked like more meteorite. It didn't seem to be organic in any way."

"This may sound like science fiction, but can dark matter hide things?" James asked, but frowning as he did so.

"Err... it is not something we have ever considered being possible," Yuki replied. "But then we know very little about dark matter anyway. We are not even sure if it is matter in any form that we know."

"I need to call my office. You will have to excuse me," my father stated, turning to leave.

"Yes, no of course. We should probably get some rest too," I replied.

"I will stay up and look into these samples for a while, otherwise I will see you in the morning," Yuki muttered, clearly already deep in thought.

We watched my father leave and with none of us speaking, we nodded goodnight to Yuki and made our way back down the eerie corridor and into the main house.

The change in decoration was obvious and a little jarring from being around so much technology, but the Georgian beauty of the huge property didn't fail to enthral me. A huge sweeping staircase greeted us in the entrance hall, surrounded by large ancestral paintings and delicate plaster ceilings. Rachel however was clearly uncomfortable and had an odd expression on her face as we walked up the aged carpet on the stairs.

"This place gives me the creeps," she whispered as if someone was listening to our every move.

"It's probably just the weather and the events of the day making this seem worse. Get some rest. I'm sure some sunshine will cast this place in a better light in the morning," I smiled.

"You know Tom, at first, I was excited about the opportunity of studying an asteroid up close, but now..."

"Are you not still excited? If we have detected dark matter, close enough to study, then that's huge," James replied.

"I'm just nervous. Something doesn't feel right with these earthquakes and magnetic field shifts. Aren't you guys worried? When was the last time you felt an earthquake in England?"

"Maybe," I admitted, "but we do get them from time to time. Worrying about it won't do anything. I'll call for you in the morning. Get some sleep."

I said my goodbyes to a reluctant Rachel and a tired looking James and wandered down the corridor in the opposite direction in the hope of finding somewhere to sleep. There were many bedrooms as each door opened onto a lavish room with a four-poster bed, but I didn't know which one to choose. Eventually I found a smaller room with a simpler, more modern style boutique interior at the end of the corridor and threw myself onto the bed. Even this room was lavish, but it was more to my taste with a Queen-sized bed, Egyptian cotton pillows and sheets and a modern ensuite shower-room.

'I could get used to this,' I laughed to myself.

The events of the day surprisingly weren't bothering me as much as they seem to be Rachel. The unexplained science was fascinating. The thought of discovering dark matter was so exciting that I debated bothering to sleep at all and returning to the lab downstairs, but my body ached, and my eyes were struggling to stay open so I remained where I was. The huge Georgian window rattled slightly from the howling wind outside and the blackness of the night was a little intimidating, but I was too tired to get up and close the curtains so instead I lazily pulled off my clothes and climbed under the duvet, falling asleep immediately.