Chapter 2
Chapter 2
Dan didn’t get a lot of time to consider his options. He had about ten seconds of brain-crippling confusion, followed by another ten seconds of panicked button mashing as he searched for a way to decelerate. Crashing into a space station was not a great way to introduce yourself.
Fortunately for Dan, he was interrupted by a man’s voice, crackling like a radio transmission. “Hello hello? Is there anybody alive in there?”
Dan froze, staring at the console. There was no visible speaker, but the voice was clearly coming from…
“Hello?” he tried, tentatively.
“Oh good, you are alive!” the voice replied cheerfully. A moment passed and quiet static filled the silence.
“Uh,” Dan began.
“Just a moment, I’m washing the blood out of the holding cell.”
Dan processed that.
“UH,” he tried again, more urgently this time.
“And done! Transferring now,” the man interrupted.
Dan yelped as a golden beam of light surrounded him, wiping away his surroundings. The floor lurched beneath his feet, and Dan’s ass met the floor. The light faded, revealing brand new surroundings.
Gone was the ship, with its smooth walls and electric heartbeat. Gone was the comfy chair and shiny console and big, open window into space. Dan was in a cage. Metal bars and metal chains and a big metal lock. Around the cage, four solid walls and a few dim lights pointing at him. He felt like a lab rat. His only comfort was that the manacles in the corner weren’t currently attached to him. Nor, thankfully, were they sized for him, at least at first glance.
The floor was smooth, and slick with a liquid that Dan desperately hoped was water. It soaked through his slacks in seconds, cold liquid running down the back of his legs as he clumsily staggered to his feet.
He did not want to be here. He really really did not. Dying of starvation was one thing, dying as an alien’s science project was quite another. Dan slid his way across the wet floor, up to the bars at the front of the cage. A hefty padlock kept the door from swinging open. He gave it a few halfhearted tugs before conceding defeat. He hadn’t the slightest clue how to pick locks, nor could he pull a strongman and simply rip the bars apart.
Something hissed in the distance, that cliche sound of a pneumatic air compressor, or an airlock, or an animated snake. A phwoosh followed, and an opening appeared in what Dan had presumed was a smooth wall. Bright light streamed in, nearly blinding Dan, and a humanoid form stood silhouetted against the doorway. The hairs rose on the back of Dan’s neck, bile crawled up in his throat, and the cold grip of fear seized his heart.
The figure stepped forward, Dan’s eyes adjusted, and the bad feelings fell away. A positively ancient little man in a labcoat squinted at Dan, one hand adjusting his thick spectacles. In retrospect, the cage looked an awful lot like a large dog’s kennel, and the padlock looked like, well, a padlock. And, of course, they’d spoken to each other in English.
“You’re not an alien,” the old man stated accusingly.
Dan blinked. “No, I’m not. Wasn’t the English a bit of a giveaway?” Let no one say that Dan couldn’t pretend to be clever.
“Bah!” The man waved a dismissive hand. “Haven’t you heard of universal translators? You could’ve been speaking Klingon for all I knew.”
Dan scratched his head. What a terribly odd accusation. “Was that likely?”
“Not particularly,” the old man said, his shoulders visibly slumping. “One day, one day, I’ll catch me another alien. Till then I’ll have to deal with,” he ran his eyes over Dan’s bedraggled self, “disappointment.”
The more things change, the more they stay the same. Dan relaxed a fraction, finally finding himself in familiar territory.
“I’m sorry,” Dan began, “but I seem to be extremely lost. Could you maybe give me directions to Earth?” And a ship with an autopilot, but that could be negotiated later.
“Earth? Sure.” The old man rolled his eyes and pointed off to the side. “It’s two point seven billion miles that way. Your Earth though, not likely.”
“I see,” Dan replied automatically. He cursed his corporate conditioning a moment later. With the straightest of faces he added, “But perhaps you should explain anyway.”
The old man snorted in disbelief. What a tricky customer. “Listen kid, you ain’t in Nebraska no more.”
“Kansas,” Dan interrupted with a growing feeling a dread.
“Come again?”
“The line from The Wizard of Oz? It’s ‘Toto, I have a feeling we’re not in Kansas anymore.'” Dan insisted.
Something almost resembling pity appeared in the old man’s eyes. “Not here it isn’t.”
An instant of numb clarity flashed through Dan’s mind. Habit caused him to vocalize his understanding. “Ah, so that’s how it is. A parallel dimension, then?”
His jailor smiled widely, revealing a full set of sparkly whites. “Quite right! I’m pleased that you’re familiar with the concept. Saves me a lot of time.”
Dan suddenly felt very light-headed. “I probably should have realized something was up when the walls of reality started vomiting geometric shapes.” And when he landed on a space station orbiting Neptune. And pretty much everything that had led up to that point.
The old man’s smile faded. He sighed and reached into his pocket. “Yes, I’m told that jumping through dimensions is a singularly unpleasant experience.” His hand withdrew, holding up a rusted key.
“I don’t suppose you know what happened to the ship I was on?” Dan asked as the old man unlocked the padlock.
“Spackle? She’s parked in the hangar.”
What?
“Spackle?” Dan repeated.
“The space ship?” The old man turned away from Dan and ambled towards the exit. “Her name is Spackle. Don’t ask why. She chose it, not me.”
“Oh,” Dan said numbly. “I guess I’ll introduce myself next time I see her, then.”
Dan’s companion started. “Oh! Where are my manners?” He spun on his heel, surprisingly agile given his frail appearance. “I am Doctor Mercury, scientist and researcher, at your service.” A shallow bow, and he resumed his stroll.
“Daniel Newman,” Dan offered to the man’s back. The doctor continued walking and Dan followed, mind still spinning. The doorway led to a long hall, with large glass windows spaced every few feet. Neptune sat in the distance, visible, real. Dan glanced at his companion, then back to the gas giant.
“Doctor… Mercury you said?” A question hid in his tone.
“That’s my name, don’t wear it out,” the good doctor replied, utterly unperturbed.
With that line of questioning stonewalled before it had even begun, Dan moved on. “How did you know that I’m not from, um,” Dan flailed an arm at his surroundings, “around here?”
Mercury shrugged. “You were with Spackle.”
“Spackle the space ship?” Dan clarified.
“Quite.” The doctor nodded. “She’s very mysterious, but from what little I’ve deciphered, her actions can have great purpose behind them. You see, very very occasionally, during times of extraordinary need, Spackle will go on a bit of a scavenger hunt through dimensions. She’ll search for that one person, that perfect person, to fix whatever problem she feels needs fixing. It’s a great honor and privilege, really.”
Dan felt something akin to hope stirring in his chest. Soft embers of pure, unadulterated excitement, glowing brighter and brighter—
“But most days she just grabs some random idiot and throws him into another dimension on what appears to be a whim,” the doctor finished.
—and reality pissed on Dan’s fire, snuffing it out instantly. Something inside him snapped.
“You let her do that? Why!?” he demanded, feeling something other than dull shock for the first time since he stepped into Spackle’s demented belly.
The doctor hummed, unfazed by Dan’s outrage. “Don’t blame me. She’s her own person. Though I suppose I could ban her from docking…” He considered the question. “It’s pretty entertaining though. Humans have a tendency to lose their minds once they spot Earth in the window, and she has cameras inside of her. I sell the recordings, sometimes. People do the silliest things when they are frightened. Also, I’d like to point out that interdimensional kidnapping is not, strictly speaking, illegal.”
“That does not make it okay!” Dan snarled.
“And it’s not like her victims passengers go uncompensated. She usually gives them a good dose of radiation before dumping them somewhere,” the doctor continued, his amusement unabated.
“Radiation kills people in my dimension!” Dan shouted, his restraint well and truly gone. He would’ve throttled the bastard in front of him if he’d known a single other person in this universe.
Doctor Mercury frowned at Dan. “Kills people? No, not that kind of radiation, you buffoon. The good kind of radiation. The kind that gives you superpowers, not cancer.”
A pause, as that tiny ember of excitement flared once again.
“Except for when it gives you superpowered cancer.”
Dan screamed.