Fantastica

Prologue: Genesis, 1892

   Late one night in London, a man made his way to a clearing in Hyde park, shortly after it had been closed to the public. Though the gate was locked, he had the foresight to bring bolt cutters. It was dark that night, the smog smothering the stars above and streetlights growing farther and farther away. The man regretted this. He loved the stars and wanted to see them one more time before...well before he did this.

   The man (though he was barely more than a boy at only twenty) dragged behind him a bulky cart which he had covered with a gray cloth tarp. He looked around, grayish-green eyes darting and searching for anyone who might interrupt his impending experiment. He almost wished someone would. Then he'd have an excuse to stop this.

   To say Lance Malius was nervous would be an understatement. His nerves were electrified and on his midnight walk to the park he considered dropping his cart and running all the way back to his lab several times. But he could not. He'd discovered this possibility and could not leave it untested.

   Hands shaking, the young man moved forward, wishing he had thought to bring someone-anyone- along. But he hadn't for in the midst of his scientific fervor he'd shut himself in. Lance Malius was not a bad person per se, but rather a curious and naïve one who found himself to be the best company.

   Finally, he found a clearing large enough; he had estimated that his experiment might require up to 10 meters of clearance. This was it.

   He pulled off the tarp, grabbing the corner and then flicking his wrist so the fabric made that satisfying snap. Lance Malius looked at the device, letting out a low whistle as he ran a slender hand through almost-brown blond hair. The machine was made mostly of clockwork with some use of the fascinating, newly widespread electricity. At the center of the masterpiece was a crystal of brilliant orangish gold.

   This machine was what he had spent his time on more and more over the past five years. In his mind it was the second most beautiful thing he'd ever seen (second only to a girl named Henrietta, who he had been absolutely in love with when he was 15.)

   This machine, Lance's beautiful machine, according to his very careful calculations, had the capability to create. It did not have the capability to create something so simple as a carriage, or a building, or even just a whole city. No, this machine had the power to create an entire world. No, not just a world but a universe. An entire dimension.

   Lance Malius was acutely aware of how huge this could be. This could change everything: physics, philosophy, theology, biology, astronomy. He looked up and saw a few lonely pinpoints of cold light hanging up there past the atmosphere. He wondered if he would ever see these stars again. If he would ever see this park or these streets again.

   The scientist steadied his shaking hands and began flipping switches and preparing his machine. Soon the thing began to hum gently, almost soothingly. The crystal in the center began to pulse and glow, first slowly but gradually faster and faster until it was like an orange-gold strobe light. The world around Lance began to pulse as well, and in the seconds when the crystal lit up, the world around the young man turned from Hyde Park to pure emptiness. Not even an empty landscape or an expanse of stars or galaxies or actually anything at all.

   In those moments, the man standing alone was petrified and filled with regret at what he had built, what he had done. All the lost moments within the years that he had shut himself into his work and out of the world around him in his mad reaching towards what world he could create rushed back to him. But beyond fear and beyond any regret his mind could fill itself with, Lance was filled with this energy that shocked itself into his very veins and soul and being, almost painfully.

   Out of his fingertips seemed to stream orange-gold light that did not exist in Hyde Park, London, England, Europe on the Planet Earth in the Milky Way Galaxy in the universe that Lance Malius was being pulled out of. The crystal, stretching out of its original form, reached out into Lance's mind like a child trying to walk for the first time and there was light in a universe which prior to even half a minute had not existed. And it was brilliant. And it was the beginning.