Twin Earth

Chapter 54

My heart racing, I slowed the jet to an almost standstill and fidgeted in my seat nervously, unsure of what to do next. The two black holes, one much larger than the other filled the view in front of me in a space that was almost void of any stars. At any other time that in itself would have been unnerving, but I was too preoccupied with why neither of the black holes were having any effect on my tiny craft.

'Surely even the protective bubble I'm in would succumb to such forces, dragging me slowly to my death beyond the event horizon to inevitable doom,' I moaned to myself.

Wiping my brow for the hundredth time I realised one thing, the temperature was rising. I wasn't just nervous, the craft was heating up.

'Protected my arse,' I moaned, looking around for anything to help me. 'So what the hell do I do? Do I just pick a black hole, fly into it and hope for the best?' That idea didn't warrant thinking about, but I was stuck for any other ideas.

To gain a better understanding of my surroundings and to try and cool down, I swung the jet around, grateful that at least the engines were still working, and looked at the hive of hexagons flashing behind me. I was surprised to see there were more this side, at least twenty or thirty, each leading to an unusual and probably faraway place.

'Are these gateways?' I wondered, edging closer to the nearest one. It couldn't have been much bigger than a foot in diameter, but I was amazed to see it led to an egg shaped galaxy filled with stars and planets. For a moment I became lost in thought as I slowly edged my jet around the different gates, peering in like an alien voyeur to distant worlds. Then to my amazement I stopped in front of a hexagon doorway not much bigger than my jet, which seemed to lead to a desert landscape, arid and dry, yet could easily have been somewhere on Earth with its rocky outcrop and blue sky.

'Where the hell is this place?' I wondered as the image faded in and out as if there was a bad television signal, but before I could analyse it further something suddenly pounded the side of my jet causing it to fly uncontrollably back towards the two black holes. Shrieking in surprise and my heart suddenly racing, I tried to regain control as the image of the black holes and hexagon gateways flashed repeatedly in sequence before my eyes. Grabbing the controls I yanked hard and was relieved to slowly regain control of the spiralling aircraft. I realised I had been hit, or the bubble surrounding me at least had been hit, by something that had flown out of one of the gateways. A large asteroid, now smashed to pieces was flying uncontrollably towards the smaller black hole. As it did so, it gained speed until eventually it broke up and disappeared into a million pieces, stretching out and swirling along the edge of the black hole until every piece was unrecognisable.

"Well that confirms my decision to stay as far away as possible," I muttered aloud, but my words became wishful thinking because I too was now moving slowly towards the smaller black hole. Staring down at the dashboard in front of me I saw it was reading faster and faster speeds, with the front of the jet becoming increasingly hotter, glowing now as the pressure around me increased.

"Shit," I mumbled, frantically playing with the controls to try and manoeuvre myself away, but it was hopeless. The more I tried to pull away, the faster I was pulled in. Even the protective bubble around me had become opaque and clearly defined, with the damage from the asteroid stretched across it like a huge scar with the black box seemingly dead, neither vibrating or flashing in anyway helpful.

As the engines began to smoke around me, the cockpit filled with alarm sounds and warning lights, each declaring some fault I was supposed to rectify. Banging them helplessly I became like a madman.

"This is it, this is how I die. This is how we all die. Everything was a complete fucking waste of..." I shouted out loud, but was I interrupted by the black box, which had now slowly begun to float up in front of my face. Whacking it away like a useless shoebox I realised the gravity controls weren't working and even though I was strapped in, my head still managed to bang repeatedly on the ceiling and door.

Then everything stopped. Silence. Only my heavy breathing emanated around the tiny space craft as I half sat, half floated in my seat. Swinging my head around, I looked at the engines and saw that they had broken away, smashed into tiny pieces, which now, like myself, hung in a deathly silence around me. The dashboard too had completely cut out and the view all around me was black, so black that I felt the need to blink harder to try and see something. Except I could see something. The black box was glowing eerily green along the DNA markings Anoxia had shown me only hours before.

Picking the discarded box back up I moved it around in my hands, watching the strange symbols glow almost blindingly in my face.

Then to my horror the windscreen in front of me began to crack. Slowly at first, then faster, like cracks in ice as if something unseen and heavy was pushing on it. Then it was gone, yanked away until it too hung suspended in various shards around me. Realising I could still breath, I curled up in my chair and stared in disbelief as the craft around me also began to bend and warp until it too was crushed into varying sized balls of hot metal. Hugging the small black box, I sat in my seat unable to move, my heartbeat pounding in my ears. I could still see the protective bubble around me, encasing not just me but the remnants of my craft, but I felt nothing, no sense of speed or direction and I was no longer burning up. Except for the chair. Screaming in pain I realised the chair was glowing redder and hotter, burning my bottom like an electric blanket out of control. Pulling at the seat belt I had so willingly checked before, I yanked myself out of the chair and pushed it away as hard as I could until it too was suspended alongside the other remnants of my craft.

And there I floated, alone, in the dark, in a strange opaque bubble surrounded by shards of glass and crushed balls of burning metal. I could breath. I could move. Yet I had no idea how or why.

Holding the box out in front of me I watched it as it continued to glow green as if somehow it magically knew what to do and how to protect me, even if I didn't. Whatever it was doing, it was saving my life that was for sure. I was the first person to ever survive a black hole encounter.

'But how do I get out? And what the hell do I do now?' I thought nervously, with the image of me being forever stuck here until I starved to death or died from exposure filling me with absolute horror.