ch8: [ screwdriver ]

In darkness, Walter awoke face down on a pile of something. His hand immediately went to a sharp pain on his shoulder. With a muffled grunt, he rolled over the unseen objects onto his back. As he did, a red light came on momentarily and then went off again. Startled, Walter froze.

A second or so later, the light came on again for a moment, accompanied by one or two other lights in the distance. Several moments later, the red lights were blinking at regular interverals, which allowed Walter to see the space he was in.

Scattered haphazardly all over a floor, the pile of objects that Walter had awoken on seemed to be books and instruments. In the mess, there was a framed photograph of a group of people standing in front of a lake. Walter had noticed the photograph because he recognized his likeness in the image. Everyone else in the group he could not place, nor where the photograph was taken. Still seated on the floor, all around him were the bottoms of desks and electrical panels. Holding on to the photograph, Walter stood up. Surrounded by technology, he seemed to be in a control room of some sort. One of the walls had a glass window, which revealed a horizon less night sky. While he was inspecting three monitors to the left of him, a computer voice came on, “"Temporal destination acquired... Please enter new orbital coordinate.” In one of the monitors, he saw a blinking prompt reading the same thing the computer had just said.

All three monitors displayed what he recognized as a graphic of the solar system. If he was correct, the two planets that were actively blinking in the graphic were Pluto and UB313. “Temporal destination acquired... Please enter new orbital coordinate…”, informed the computer, as Walter sat down at the desk in front of the monitors. Looking at the keyboard, Walter noticed that there was a screwdriver jammed into the keypad. He grabbed the handle of the screwdriver, which lifted the keyboard momentarily, but then dropped back to the desk, as the screwdriver became dislodged into Walter's grip. “New temporal coordinate recorded… Stand-by for hyper-jump…”, said the computer suddenly. Walter’s attention went to the four animated transparent cubes, now being displayed in the monitors. “FA-291 shifting into hyper-fold, C3...C2... C1..."


Somewhere in deepspace, between Jupiter and Saturn, there was a sudden knot in space-time, distorting all the starlight around it, and revealing a metallic machine.


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