Gravity ~~~ Book Three | Blix's Bond

Chapter Four - Shuttling

Beginning of Part Two
Bastet opened the door at the end of the hallway. He had said it led to the Shuttle. I later realized that was just a code name for their dimension-hop project.
People were running everywhere, looking busy, takin notes. Some people were crowded around a control console. A scientist jogged over to us, her blonde hair bobbing everywhere.
"Authentication?"
Bastet removed his goggles, "Bastet Autawind. Watch for the pigeons."
The woman nodded.
"Shuttle's waiting."

I hauled myself onto the bench beside Bastet.
"Bastet?"
"Hmm?"
"Where's my mother? Did you tell her I'd be leaving?"
He was silent for a long time before he answered, suddenly focused on entering the coordinates for the Loncro.
"She's been notified. We'll be back soon. We just have to get you somewhere safe...for a while."
He looked through the radiation screen at the operators. They gave him a thumbs-up.
"Ready?"
I took out the muzzle of my pet project.
"Ready."
He slammed his fist on a button, and we were rocketing away from the lab, toward the wall...
I waited for the impact that never came. We had made it. Through the rad-screen, colors were flashing by in an extremely disorienting way.
I decided to turn around and keep working on the muzzle. After about an hour, Bastet turned around and rolled his seat over to me.
"How's your experience with dimension-hopping so far?"
I stared at him. I could still see the colors in my eyes.
"Nauseous. You?"
"I've done this before. I'm fine," he paused and thought for a second before continuing, "Did Alecnemeer ever finish explaining how Shuttling works?"
"We called him Alec, and not really."
He fished around in his pocket for a few minutes before he finally pulled out a quarter.
"It's quite simple, really," He positioned the quarter on his hand like he was going to flip it, "our dimension has barriers that stop things from the next world from crossing over. This stops paradoxes and the like. The barriers protect us. Let's say a dimension collapses, well, it ain't our problem. The barriers contain the collapse. But some dimensions have cracks in their barriers."
He opened his hand a bit, and the quarter slipped between his fingers. He caught it before it hit the floor.
"People figure out where the cracks are and try to break them open further, letting things fit through. Only problem is, that's not the best thing for the barriers. Luckily, our hole was already big enough for one of our Shuttles to move through, and that's how we started our program. I assume you still have that strange piece of metal we gifted you? The one we found on your father?"
I pulled the hunk of steel from my bag and handed it to him. He turned it over and showed me some charred lettering.
Dean
"Wait, like, my Uncle Dean?"
He shook his head. "This was an alternate Dean from a different reality. He fled his universe, probably after it gave him this. This was a prosthetic leg."
He gave the metal back to me, and I tucked it away.
"I'd better-" Bastet was interrupted as the whole Shuttle shook.
"Oh, hell. Not this again. Please not this again," He ran to the controls and tried to boost away from whatever had shaken us.
"What the hell is this thing?!"
It definitely wasn't just some kind of fissure. This was a creature. It had wrapped its tentacles around our Shuttle and was holding tight.
"No, no, no, no no no!" Bastet finally managed to gun the boosters enough to dislodge us from the beast.
"What is this thing?!"
"A Multibeast! They live in the cracks between realities!"
The muzzle I was working on fell from the desk and slid somewhere in the darkness.
"I'm gonna take us down, nice and easy, through the nearest fissure. We should be able to-"
The lights went out.
"It took out our main generator! Damn it, I'll get the backup!"
The ship shook again just before the lights came back. Bastet yelled for me to press the green button in the corner of the control panel. The ship blasted forward, straight through a moving purple rift. We careened into the wilderness, the colors blinding me, the Multibeast nowhere to be seen.
Bastet shoved a barrel of fuel off his legs. "At least the damn things can't get through fissures."
"Where are we?"
He looked at his wrist. The panel lit up.
"Dimension A52408. No chance of finding a repairman."
"Or civilization?"
He shook his head.
"Damn it."