Time Lapse

Chapter 5: Earth

..."You know I do," She says with a smile, "Let's get a-packin' Ricky!"

Spending only about 15 minutes packing some money and some bear necessities (*cough* Jungle Book *cough*), Cleo and I headed back into the ship. On the way she said,

"Wait a minute, how are we going to get back to Earth?"

"You know," I said after a second or two, "I have absolutely no idea. I guess we'll just have to ask good ol' Matt."

"Pfffff." Cleo says, rolling her eyes. When we walk onto the cortex, we are greeted by a cheery 'good morning' from Gus. Almost simultaneously, we get a call from Matt. As we answer it, he quickly says, 

"Okay, c'mon... Oh, hi Rick. Okay, so a rift should be appearing right outside your ship right...now! Cleo, go outside and see if the rift opened. Rick I need you to turn on the ship right now! Go, go, go!" When we finish doing our parts, he says, "Okay, strap in Cleo. Rick, just fly the ship right into the portal, and you should be ending up right above my house, oh, and turn your optical camo on please." I quickly take off, and fly right into the portal. It was not what I expected. It looked rather like the inside of a tubular slide, except images from all times were flashing by in some sort of membrane on the sides of the... well, I guess it's a wormhole. Anyway, after only about five minutes in the wormhole, we popped out right above this massive mansion in the middle of a forest.

"It looks like our house, but... bigger" Cleo says in astonishment.

"The only part that's the same is that it's in the middle of a forest. That thing is HUGE!" I reply. As we land in the clearing, we are greeted by a rather tall man who I assumed to be Matt. By my guess he was a little over six feet tall, he had longish brown hair, and a full beard. Following behind him was an English mastiff who trotted up to Matt and sat at his side.

"Hey guys! How was the trip?" Before we could answer he said, "This is Buddy. He won't bite. You can pet him if you like." Cleo, being the dog-lover that she is, ran over and started playing with Buddy. 

"Well, the trip was interesting to say the least. How exactly did you manage to create the rift?" I say after laughing when Cleo falls over when Buddy jumps on her.

"Come on inside and we can talk about it there." He says, glancing at Cleo. We follow him inside and are immediately amazed by how lavish his house is.

"What exactly did you say you worked as?" Cleo says with a dumbfounded look.

"I said I worked as a particle physicist. It's a very fun job, and it pays well."

"How well?" Cleo says, visibly excited.

"I can't tell you that." Matt replies with an impish smile.

"So how did you create that portal?" I ask interrupting their conversation.

"Well, uh, I don't know how to explain it in common folk words, so I'll just have to show you." As we walk into one of the back rooms, I say to Matt, 

"I'll have you know, I could understand anything you said about how you created that portal. I built a time ship remember?"

"Yeah, yeah, fine I'll explain it using smart people words." Cleo and I let out a gasp as we see the device that created the portal. It was about 10 feet tall and about 50 feet around, "So, what you see here is Graviton Phase Converter. In case you didn't know, a Graviton is the exchange particle that carries the force of gravity to other particles, but that's not important (That information is hypothetical). What's important is that the Graviton phases, or shifts it's state of reality between our reality, and the fabric of space-time (This isn't even hypothetical. I just made this up for story purposes). This Graviton Phase Converter captures Gravitons in our reality and waits until it shifts into the fabric of space-time. When it does that, the Converter then has access to space-time and then can access any dimension. Then comes the hard part. Creating the portal. I achieved that by sending a barrage of antimatter at the dimensional walls of Limbo. That creates a portal, which I can then connect to anywhere in any dimension. Since the dimensional walls are self-healing, as soon as I stop the barrage, the portal closes. That's how I created the portal and got you guys. I can also do that to go back to Limbo, if you choose."

"I did't understand a single word you said there" Cleo says with a confused  look on her face. Matt and I laugh for a while before he says, 

"Any of you want some coffee or hot chocolate?"

"I'd love some coffee." I say quickly.

"Oh, and before I forget, you guys can stay in one of the guest rooms upstairs. You can go unpack your things as a make el beverages." Cleo playfully runs up the stairs motioning me to follow her. She skips all the way down the hall to room we're staying in. As we start unpacking, I say, 

"Well you certainly seem happy."

"It's just so huge!" she says, immediately realizing her mistake. I stifle a laugh and say,

"That's what she said," I fall onto the floor laughing and she gives me a light kick in the side and plops down on the bed. 

"How long do you think we're gonna stay here?" Cleo says thoughtfully. 

"I don't know, really," I reply, jumping on the bed next to her, "But we'll probably stay here until our government problem is solved." Soon after, we hear Matt shout, 

"EL BEVERAGES ARE READY Y'ALL PEOPLE!!!" Cleo jumps out of the bed and races down the stairs. Giving a little chuckle, I jog after her. I see Cleo sitting on a stool next to a bar table with Matt leaning on the table asking her questions. 

"Hey," I say, interrupting their conversation again, "what year is it?"

"It's 3025, and we just got another president elected, and she's going to wreck the economy." Matt says

"Well then let's get us a plan." I say with a devilish smirk.