A Timeless Journey (2 page)

3

The ghostly image before my eyes had a paralytic effect on my body. It took a few seconds to gather my thoughts and regain control of my muscles. After the initial shock, I stood slowly up and with my legs shaking, looked towards the spiralling cone-shaped continuous string of light which seemed to me more like a wormhole or visible radio waves emitting from some invisible transmission point over the sea water.

The first loop, the larger one, seemed to be suspended in the air on the shore, whilst the pointed end of the spiral cone hovered somewhere above the ocean waters. My first instinct was to stay clear of this strange anomaly and run away as fast as I could towards the hotel, but my strong curiosity overcame my fears and pushed me to find out what this strange light was. Torn between the euphoria to learn at all cost about the most unusual anomaly I had come across and the insecurity created by the natural fear feeding my brain, I started to drag my feet slowly towards this strange phenomenon.

I wasn’t sure if what was happening in front of my eyes had to do with the Bermuda Triangle myth, or if it was that of an extra-terrestrial origin. My imagination ran wild and, at this point, I didn’t have a clue what to make of this. The only way to learn the truth was to get a closer look.

As I moved closer, I started to believe this anomaly might be something not from our world. My chest filled with untold emotions. The thought that I might be witnessing the first alien coming out of this anomaly and landing on earth, thrilled me. I would be the first human they’ll see!

On the other hand, there was this doubt in my mind that this anomaly might be of a human origin. It occurred to me that probably this could be the phenomenon responsible for the disappearance of so many vessels and people in the area, an experiment gone wrong long time ago.

Was I really looking at the ‘big answer’ which explained one of the conspiracy theories of the last century?

Once I was close enough, and at arm’s length, it became clearer that this anomaly was a kind of portal to somewhere different from here. The surface of the larger loop was entirely covered by this white misty whirl and all I could see was a grey spiral line twisting inwards and a spherical bright light the size of a golf ball in the middle of the surface. The small bright light seemed to be at a quite a distance from the surface creating the impression of a long foggy tunnel. Earlier, when I glanced at it sideways and, from a distance, it looked like a continuous spiralling blue line that formed a conic shape as it circled around in a whirl, however, when I stood in front of it, all I could see was the flat surface of the white fog twisting inwards.

I kept standing in front of the anomaly a little scared and emotionally insecure, but with the hope to see an extra-terrestrial of some sorts appearing. Despite my expectations and the anxious wait, nothing happened for the next few minutes. Still shaking due to my strong uncontrolled emotions, I decided to touch the surface of the outer loop to feel with what kind of material it was made of. I was curious to see what would happen if I put my hand through it.

I raised my arm to touch the surface of the white fog and, as I did so, my heart seemed as though it was going to rip open my chest, resulting from the intense beating that it was experiencing due to the adrenaline rush.

It wasn’t as smoky a texture as it looked. Despite its visibility it had nothing different from the ordinary air that surrounds us. My right hand disappeared as soon as it came into contact with the foggy-looking air. Frightened by the void I felt where my right hand was supposed to be attached to my arm, I retrieved my arm with urgency as quickly as I could, just as an unusual energy field tried to pull my arm with an unexplained strong magnetic force.

Not being able to understand what kind of force had just pulled my arm, I moved back a few steps and stared into the middle of the anomaly. However, except for the swirling white fog and the darkness surrounding the anomaly I was unable neither to see through it, nor to determine if it was safe.

The desire to find out if this was a portal to another planet or to some unknown future, gave me the courage to defy my fears and I stepped forward again, standing just inches away from the white foggy surface. Pushed by a wild streak of curiosity to find out what would happen if I went through the anomaly, I leaned my head and the upper body forward into the fog. I made sure to keep my feet dug into the sand as to convince myself I was safe.

All my intentions were to have a peek inside the anomaly and quickly retrieve back. I could feel an invisible force pulling me in. I managed to keep my feet unmoved on the sand, or at least this is what I thought at the time. My eyes had shut spontaneously due to a frightful reaction as my upper body was pulled inside the anomaly. At some point, I felt a bright light hitting my eyelids.

I have no idea how long I stayed with my eyes closed, seconds, minutes, or maybe more, but when I dared to open my eyes, what I saw changed my perception of our supposedly unique reality forever. The landscape in front of me took my breath away with its surrealistic view. For as far as I could see, from my left to my right, opposite the ocean shore, there were these thousands of feet high shiny cylindrical shape tall structures, which I perceived to be modern apartment buildings. I looked up with amazement to see how tall these buildings were and my mind spun. This giant wall of buildings in front of me brought up a vertigo state and I nearly lost my footing. I felt dizzy and a sick feeling aroused from within my stomach. Never in my life I had experienced vertigo by looking up at a height whilst my feet firmly on the ground. It had always been the opposite way, when I looked down from high up.

I observed the surroundings and it seemed I was standing on the same beach, but somehow the landscape was a lot different. The surroundings were neatly taken care of and I had never seen such a sterile environment. To make matters even more confusing for me, it was daytime instead of the night time I had left behind.

Without realizing, I had fully stepped inside this new world and the portal behind me disappeared before I had a chance to look back. I felt lost and confused as to where or when I had travelled. The fear of not being able to return back home captured my brain allowing a justified panic to grow inside me.

Once the first shock of what lay before my eyes had partially subdued, the fact that I had foolishly gone through something I didn’t understand, hit me. My intentions were to have a quick look on what was in the other side and return at once. Now it seemed I was stuck in this unknown place. The thought of being lost without the possibility to return home, just as it had happened to those in the Bermuda Triangle, and also the prospect of facing an unfamiliar world, impossible to understand at first glance, gave me shivers. I felt the need to make contact with someone just for the sake of hearing some good news.

Unsure if I was experiencing a faraway future or an alien planet, I turned the attention at the strange high buildings located along the coastline with the hope for clues. Failing to spot any familiarities with the world I came from, I turned my eyes towards the sky in desperation. The view managed to shock me even more. A massive structure resembling a flat metal platform seemingly holding very tall buildings on it, floated about ten thousand feet above the ocean waters in front of me.

It has to be another planet, I thought to myself, there was no possibility this kind of technology exists on earth. Instinctively, took a deep breath to check if the atmosphere was suitable for me to breathe freely, regardless that I had been doing just that since I stepped in. The air was fresh and rich with oxygen. The natural smell of the beach and the surroundings, strongly hit my nostrils enhancing the perception of this beautiful world in my brain. Whatever this world was, a different planet or a distant future, surely it had a special way to make me feel good being a part of it.

The height of the skyscrapers along the beach didn’t allow me to see what was behind these structures. As I stood rooted to the spot, with my feet dug into the sand, I was unable to figure out the direction I needed to go. The shape of the coastline looked virtually the same as the one I was standing before walking through the anomaly. Since everything around appeared to be advanced beyond my general knowledge, it made me question if I had travelled in time, instead of a different planet.

I started to walk away from the shore towards the buildings, which appeared to be hundreds and hundreds of storeys high. These buildings were so high that I unable to see its tops with my naked eye. In between every so many floors, the structures seemed to be cut and something like a round dark coloured mechanism which I couldn’t explain at the time, held each piece together. Looking at the buildings as a whole, it gave the impression that someone had physically taken several cylindrical skyscrapers, put them on top of each other and held them together with this black round mechanism. It was an unbelievable sight for someone like me who had just arrived from a far less developed world.

Suddenly, my chest lightened with happiness when I read an illuminated sign on one of the buildings. Although in a slightly bizarre way of putting words together, it was in English. Luckily for me, at least wherever or whenever I was, I knew there wasn’t going to be a language barrier.

My phone vibrated in my pocket and I remembered I had a piece of technology from my world. The fact my phone was working, filled me with hope that perhaps it could tell where I was. I took my android phone out of the pocket and looked at the time displayed on the touch screen. It showed seventeen minutes past five in the morning, instead of the three o’clock before the anomaly.

Judging from the lack of the movement around and the fresh breeze, it seemed it was indeed five in the morning. If my phone was able to work in this world and the time was correct, what happened to the missing two hours while crossing through the anomaly? Maybe in real time it took two hours to cross over, which I hadn’t felt due to the speed of travel, or maybe I had entered at a precise time and point and exited the anomaly at another precise time and point.

I couldn’t be sure about anything at this point. The most important thing was my phone somehow still appeared to show signs of working in this new place. The date on it showed June 18
th
2012 which was the correct one in the reality I came from. This confused me even more. It made me think I was at the same place and at the same time, but in a different parallel universe.

If this was true, how was it possible that a parallel reality could be as advanced as this one?

How did they succeed to be so much more advanced than my old reality when we had the same amount of years to evolve?

What had they done better than us?

A disturbing final question arose in my mind, a paradox related one. What if this was the same beach and I came across my other self and what I would say to myself once face to face? 

All these strange questions hovering inside my mind needed answering. The main priority remained the contact with an intelligent being, but there was no one around to ask. I made my way to the nearest skyscraper. The entrance of the building in front of me was locked and I wasn’t able to figure out how it opened. I did however, noticed two very thin glass screens, about seven feet high, on both sides of the entrance. I decided to stand in between the screens with the hope these were some kind of sensors enabling the doors to open for me.

I kept pacing in front of the entrance with the hope someone inside, doing his guard duties, would notice me and come out to assist. Instead, a red line appeared across the top of both screens and started to flash. Not knowing what to do, I stood still waiting for someone to appear and indeed it didn’t take long!

However assistance didn’t arrive from within the building as I was expecting, but from above. A shadow of something big flying above me, showed up in the distance slightly to my right. I turned around and looked up at the skies in disbelief as a strange object started to grow bigger as it descended quietly towards me.

Mixed feelings captured me instantly. My head felt as if it was going to explode by this surreal experience on one hand, and the fear of not knowing what was going to happen to me on the other hand. I wasn’t sure if this vehicle was driven by humans, or some kind of extra-terrestrial species. I wasn’t sure if this was going to be a friendly encounter, or a hostile one.

The truth was that no matter who came out of this peculiar flying machine, I had nowhere to hide. My heartbeat intensified beyond control and my mouth became dry as I waited for the first contact with the unknown.

4

A white shiny diamond shaped vehicle descended slowly a few yards away from the shore, scattering some sand around as it landed. The noiseless strange vehicle had no wheels, just a flat, smooth surface underneath, unlike the roof, which aroused like a pyramid with a red light on top. It had smooth round edges and there was no visible entrance, until the surface at the back of vehicle slid open upwards.

At this point, it was uncertain to me, who or what was coming out of this flying vehicle. I prepared myself for anything, from little grey or green aliens, to robots and even men from the future. Whoever came out, I hoped didn’t show signs of hostility. From what I observed around, this appeared to be a peaceful place.

It didn’t take long for my questions to get answered. Two tall men wearing what seemed to be some kind of synthetic grey body suits with logos on chest and on both sides of their upper arms, appeared out of the back of vehicle. It was clear to me they were humans, probably advanced humans, unless there was another planet out there with human-like species.

They pointed a small wrist held device in my direction while walking slowly with caution towards me. The men stopped about three feet away from where I was standing and kept staring at the device with a confused expression on their faces. Relieved that I wasn’t attacked by some annihilating weapon, I decided to break the ice and talk to these straight-faced men who seemed to not know what a smile was.

“Hi there, I’m Scott. Are you some kind of police officers?”

One of the men eyed me from head to toe with a puzzled look on his face and, in a weird accent, coldly replied to me in English.

“Scott! A strange old name not used for centuries and so is your accent.”

“My accent, seriously! Have you heard yourself talk?”

“Please define the meaning of ‘police officer’.”

It was my turn to be stunned and I couldn’t contain myself. It felt I had landed in some weird parallel reality where naivety is a norm.

“What, are you kidding me?” I asked raising my voice and hands in astonishment. “You don’t know what ‘police officer’ means?”

“Strange use of language and your attire is unusual. Our scanner has refused to identify you, please explain!” One of men said in a firm voice.

“I wish it was simple to explain, I am confused about everything what I have witnessed so far. I am from planet Earth and, after going through a spiral of blue light, I found myself here in this planet. What is this place called?”

“We are on planet Earth and your sarcasm is not welcomed,” said the same man who seemed to be in charge.

“I’m not being sarcastic, really! I don’t know where I have landed.”

The other guy, who held the strange device, put his index finger on it, pressed something and both of them stood still as if they were waiting for someone else to arrive or something to happen, I wasn’t sure at that point.

“What’s happening now, what did you press?” I asked, but they refused to interact with me again and I eventually gave up waiting for an answer.

If I was on Earth as the guy said, I must have been travelling to the future and not to a different planet as I had first suspected and this realization gave me immense joy. At least, I wasn’t going to get stuck in some faraway planet. Being on Earth meant I had a better chance returning to my time.

I had all the reasons to be excited. I’ve just had experienced the first glimpse of the future and, possibly, if people in the future were a little bit more friendly and not like these two, I was going to learn a lot more about it. However, there was one thought that clouded my enthusiasm, the worry that I wouldn’t be able to return to my time again. If the anomaly happened to be an uncontrolled event, my chances of returning to the same timeline were going to be very slim.

Everything in this future appeared to have evolved beyond imagination, making it impossible for me to understand it or even to adapt if I had to stay here. Besides, if I was to be stuck in this reality, I was going to miss my family, my friends and everything else I had been used to have around me.    

After a few minutes, two more of the same vehicles appeared from the sky and I found myself surrounded by six of them, two women and four men all being substantially taller and more muscular than your average man on earth. I am just short of six feet tall with an athletic physique, but compare to the six people around me, I seemed to appear just an average, common-looking human. Their looks and their hairstyle told me the human race had evolved substantially for the better. 

One of the guys pointed another of those wrist-held devices at me and pressed softly its surface with his index finger. The device looked more like a small thin piece of glass with nothing showing on it, not from where I was standing, anyway. Although not one of the men in front of me moved their lips, a metallic voice sounded inside my head instructing me what to do next.

At first, I showed signs of confusion and fear, as I looked desperately around to see who was speaking to me. Eventually, I figured it out. The voice inside my head had to generate from the device itself. The idea of being mentally controlled by some machine I didn’t understand put some fear in me. I didn’t relish the prospect of doing anything against my will. At the time, I had no idea how this device was able to connect with my mind and didn’t know how to react.

The voice from the device politely asked me to enter the Emze in the middle. I was confused as to what an ‘Emze’ meant, but somehow the device figured out that my mind was unaware of such information. The voice inside my head explained the diamond shaped vehicles in front of me were called Electro Magnetic Zero-point Energy Carriers or Emze for short.

Once I moved closer to where the Emzes were parked, I noticed these vehicles had a white shiny colour surface and to me, it looked like they were made of a stretched shiny plastic sheet. From where I was standing, as accurately as my observation goes, all three Emzes seemed to be at around ten feet long and five feet in height.

A surface slid open at the back in one of the machines and I guessed it was the one the device wanted me to get into. The strange wrist-held device instructed me to sit on one of the two chairs behind the centre chair and rest. As soon as I sat down, I felt my body getting sucked in and I was unable to move. Instead of resting as requested by the device, I started to struggle, mostly due not knowing what was happening. Now that I recall this episode, it makes me giggle with the way I reacted. Seeing as it was impossible to move I stopped trying to get out of the chair and decided to let them transport me wherever they needed to go.

One of the men sat in the chair in front of me and directed the same wrist-held device to a blue dot hovering above a small black box the size of a dice. A virtual screen of some sort popped out of the blue light showing a map with symbols that I couldn’t understand. As soon as the blue screen came up, the vehicle started to elevate and the inner surroundings of the Emze became see-through. It appeared as if all of us were suspended in the air without support.

While the chairs where we sat appeared to float above the ground without any support, as we ascended higher and higher, my heart trembled by the sight of the beach diminishing under my feet. To tell you the truth, being scared of heights as I have found out from the past experiences in amusement parks, this ride definitely beats them all. I was covered in cold sweat and my mind started to spin the higher we went, despite the safe and smooth vertical ride.

It wasn’t easy to regain control of my mind the higher we went, but I thought of being on a plane, looking from a window and how safe the flight was despite the height. Slowly, I started to gain back control of my mind and with it, the ability to observe where we were directed. The Emze was flying towards the same platform in the sky I had seen earlier. Behind the skyscrapers along the north Atlantic shore, a huge city started to reveal underneath. In front of my eyes a majestic city took shape and the immaculate architecture of it, left me breathless.

It was extremely quiet inside the vehicle. There was no noise to suggest this flying vehicle operated on a conventional gasoline engine. It seemed the little wrist-held device controlled and directed the Emze’s destination, so all of us aboard were simply passengers. Judging by the name of the vehicle, electromagnetic field and zero-point energy had a major say in the defiance of the gravity and the energy feeding of the vehicles mechanics. The rest was just advanced computer technology controlling the movement and direction. However, one thing appeared to be beyond my humble intelligence.

How could this piece of machinery, be powered by the elusive zero-point energy, which to my knowledge, is not only impossible to harness but also dangerous to contain? Where was the power source situated? I remembered from when I studied physics in school, that zero-point energy was only a theoretical probability and impossible to be kept contained inside a vessel or line. Even if someone, thanks to the advanced technology, had figured out how to produce such energy, I am sure it would be very dangerous to store it inside a moving vehicle. 

We finally reached the floating platform in the sky which I mentioned earlier. Indeed, it was a floating city and from my 21
st
century prospective, it was a big city actually. I couldn’t believe my eyes what I was seeing. There is no logical explanation as to how such a massive structure with so many heavy buildings on it, would float so high without the force of gravity pulling it down. Surely they had found a way to control the planet’s gravity, there was no other explanation. The black mechanism cutting through the tall skyscrapers, this floating city and the way the Emze navigated, defined the laws of physics regarding the gravity field. Every structure floated in the air the same way a plank of wood would float in the still waters and to achieve this, I guessed at least it needed a limitless power of energy.

My mind was already overloaded by the strange images that my eyes continuously captured and by the effort to guess how it all worked. I had to give up in the end trying to perceive or think of a scientific explanation about everything I saw.

I laid back observing the surroundings in amazement as we floated between the shiny skyscrapers and the neat green spaces in between, until the Emze stopped on a landing platform half way up a huge building. The platform then slid into the building with the Emze on it and inside appeared to be shelf-like parking spaces.

The blue screen disappeared and the voice of the device intruded my head again, instructing me to leave the vehicle and follow the two men. Once outside the Emze, a door slid open upwards on the wall in front of us. It was a kind of elevator. The parking shelfs were situated on the outer wall around the inside of the building in a circle. The parking space as a whole had a height of roughly five stories. Almost all the vertical surfaces of the parking area were covered by these square boxes, the parking shelfs, big enough to feet an Emze. The guy, who navigated us there, with the help of the wrist-held device, guided the Emze remotely in one of those boxes and then joined the rest of us who were waiting in front of the elevator.

I was asked to take a seat in the square space inside this elevator. I gathered we were going to travel up or down the huge building. Again, as soon as I sat down, the chair, took charge of my body and muscles and I wasn’t able to move. One of the men directed the device to a blue dot just like the one in the previous vehicle and suddenly we flew up at least fifty stories in an incredible speed. Normally the human body would feel the G-force and there would be a pressure in the ears and in the stomach riding in this kind of speed, but strangely, it wasn’t the case in this ride. Once it stopped, I was free to move again and the door slid open upwards while the voice of the wrist-held device sounded inside my head welcoming me to the Intellectual Enhancement Facility or IEF as they called it.

At first, I thought this place was something equivalent to secret services or some other secret organization, but the mechanical voice, always present inside my head, explained there were no secrets in the modern world and IEF was a facility erected to correct thoughts of a threatening nature before they materialised into harm to other individuals and the society.

After this explanation my understanding was that in the future, there was no hard crime just the thought of committing a crime and, if the wrist-held device could get into your head to read your thoughts like it was doing with me, for sure it could capture any thoughts of committing an illegal act, therefore referring you to this institute. Basically, this place was a prison of the future, if this was the future and not some weird parallel universe.

It worried me that I wasn’t going to get out of this place ever again, since I was an alien entity to them. The device’s metallic voice interfered again, explaining to me in details how this place really worked.

“You are transported here as a precaution, due to the Link not being unable to identify you as one of the eight hundred and forty billion people of this planet.”

“What is Link?” I questioned the device by thinking half aloud.

The device’s monotonic voice explained again. “Link, or the World Human Link, is a multifunctional network, which reads and stores data of every human and intelligent non-human interplanetary living on planet Earth. Such apparatus, ‘a wrist-held device’ as you call it, is the main communication tool of this network. Link also is designed to hold and share any information available there is to know about every individual within the privacy laws.”