Twin Earth

Chapter 12

"Oh my God I think I'm going to be sick," Rachel cried as the helicopter we were now flying in took a steep nose dive towards the jungle floor. "Should we even be flying in this weather?"

"I agree, couldn't we have stayed in San Juan, visit a few casinos and have a few beers instead?" James shouted as he too clung on as if his life depended on it.

"We are not far now. This is the only time we can get to Hayden and his team before it becomes too dangerous to fly," my father shouted back.

"It's already too dangerous," Rachel cried, closing her eyes and holding her chest tightly.

"A category five hurricane is heading towards us and there are two more building up further out at sea. It is unprecedented weather even for the Caribbean."

Feeling nauseous myself, I stared out the window to the never-ending mountainous forest below and struggled to see any sign of civilisation through the torrential rain and mist. Except for the occasional water fall trying to go down instead of up, there was nothing else but trees blowing erratically in every direction. Even if San Juan had been a better option, everyone had been boarding up their windows or trying to leave town. I was suddenly missing the cold of a wintery Britain.

As my stomach churned as we once again took a nose dive deeper towards the forest floor, I was relieved to finally see a structure appear amongst the trees. It looked like a giant disc surrounded by three tall structures that connected in the middle and if you weren't a scientist like myself you could easily assume it was a giant sling shot of some kind, but thankfully I knew it was one of the biggest radio telescopes in the world.

The helicopter finally came to a very bumpy landing a few metres from the huge dome and we all happily jumped out and ran towards a single-story building where a short middle-aged Puerto Rican man with crazy black hair waited patiently trying to keep his balance in the wind.

"Welcome to the Karst Hills," the man shouted to us all as he beckoned us all through a door, hurriedly closing it behind us. "I was worried you wouldn't make it. I'm Hayden."

"Pleased to meet you Professor," I smiled, shaking his hand and brushing down my own dishevelled mop of hair. "My name is Tom Takahashi. I assume you know my father and Doctor Yamamoto?"

"Yes, yes. Welcome. It's good to see you all."

"This is Miss Jenkins from University College London and my colleague Doctor Morgan," I added.

"You can call me James," James smiled also shaking Hayden's hand.

"Rachel," Rachel smiled shyly stepping forward and doing the same.

"It's great to have you all hear. Thank you so much for coming."

"Do you have any new updates for us old friend?" my father asked, clearly keen to get past the formalities.

"Yes, lots. Follow me."

We followed Hayden down a short corridor and into a small office where a team of people were working. Yuki and James immediately hurried off together to investigate whatever was being worked on, however we were all interrupted by the lights flicking on and off for a few seconds and the computer screens glitching before everything returned to normal.

"Not again," Hayden whispered tapping at a screen that had remained black. "The weather is affecting us greatly and the generators can only do so much. We've already had a tropical cyclone and a category three hurricane hit us in the past week and now this."

"I see you've boarded up the windows? Do you expect it to get worse?" Rachel asked nervously.

"We just don't know. We believe these unusual weather patterns are linked to the anomaly, but my main concern is the telescope. There has been some damage to the dome and our team is desperately trying to fix it, but what I can show you is the data signal we picked up in the last hour."