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Murphy bought a paper cup of coffee from a vending machine in an alcove in the hall and tucked his tablet computer under one arm. The taste was pretty vile, but the caffeine was essential. When he got to the conference room, he hit the lights and settled down at the far end of the oval table. There were few seats in this conference room - but the walls had been entirely painted white with a paint that made them useful as a white board. The walls were less necessary today, but the room had been reserved for his use for the next two days as a contingency plan. The plan that was null and void at this point.
When Michael and Alisse arrived, Murphy leaned in, elbows on the table. "What the hell was that? What happened?"
Michael shifted in his seat. "Human technology in some kind of transport that was not completely in this dimension. Or it may have been camouflaged extremely well, as I said."
"Explain again how a ship can be neither here nor there? I'm not following." Murphy was tempted to take notes, but thought better of it. Michael was a good teacher.
"Think of it this way. It's like a sandwich. Two slices of bread with some good stuff in the middle, right?" He was helpfully waving his hands around like a sandwich. "The good stuff in the middle is your dimension. Earth. Everything you know, love, and hold dear. The slices of bread are the two adjacent dimensions. The one on top is the positive dimension. If you believe in a paradise, it is probably there. This is the dimension we use when we fold spacetime. The bottom slice of bread is the negative dimension. We don't go there because it is far more dangerous and chaotic. It feels bad." Michael paused to make sure Murphy was still with his narrative. Murphy nodded.
"Most often when we fold spacetime, we travel from one part of your dimension, through the positive dimension to our destination. Have you ever been?" Michael waited for Murphy's response.
"No. The idea kind of gives me the willies."
"Right. Now imagine that if you didn't want to go all the way into your home dimension, you decided to get lost in the mayonnaise between dimensions? You wouldn't be in either one, but both would be near at hand. I believe this is what that craft did this morning."
"What? No pickles?" Murphy liked his little jokes, but this one brought a frown from Alisse. "It is very difficult to hit the thin non-spacetime between dimensions and stay there. Usually perceived momentum would carry you through to the other side. Whoever did it was a master pilot."
"Or just lucky?" Murphy leaned back heavily in his chair.
"Nope. Not even close." Alisse had chimed into a conversation, which made this a red-letter day. "You can also look at it like this." She reached for a sheet of paper and a red whiteboard marker. "If we are here," she put a red dot near the corner of the paper, "and our destination is here, and you bend the paper, the shortest distance between those two points is to touch them together. Right?" Murphy nodded. "What you're asking for in another sense is to get between the ink and the paper. Can you?" Michel nodded, but Murphy just whistled softly. "The ink is in the paper but the paper has a known topography. I don't know. Who could have that level of talent?" the room grew still for a moment as Michael and Alisse pondered Murphy's question.
"Well, the Anunaki of course. They can do whatever they damn well please, but they have no motivation to do this. In fact, they've not been seen for thousands of years, and rumors are that they have become extinct." Michael leaned back in his chair as Alisse leaned forward.
"Ashgars have excellent pilots but craft are lacking in technology. The grays do what they're told for the most part, so it's possible that some grays are working for somebody else. The Milshanki, but they are not even operating in this galaxy, moved off to Andromeda." Alisse, eyes closed now, searching her memory.
