Storiesonline.net ------- Life In The Tesseract by hammingbyrd7 Copyright© 2004 by hammingbyrd7 ------- Description: VGAVoy pointed out to me that I had left the door open for a sequel to Undiscovered Countries Codes: MF TimeTr ScFi rom cons het ------- ------- Copyright 2004 Author's note: This story is a continuation of Undiscovered Countries ... Matt and Kathy kissed, and then each placed a hand on the door's horizontal bar, pushed down together, and heard a resounding click! ------- Chapter 1 The first thing they noticed, even before pushing the door open, was that the lights of the stairwell dimmed to half-power, and then toggled between normal brightness and half-power every second. During every transition, there was also a brief but distinct horn sound. Turning back to the last escalator flight, Kathy and Matt were amazed to see that the stairs had stopped moving... "Don't even think about it, Matt. We could never climb 200 miles of stairs, even under the best of conditions. And these flashing lights and horns have the distinct urgency of an evacuation warning..." "My gosh, Kathy! Look at the top of the stairs! Let's get out of here!" Slowly cascading down the stairs was a deep black ink, reflecting no light at all, even in the flashing lights. Kathy and Matt quickly pushed open the door and went through, closing the door behind them. They found themselves in a hexagonal tube, about six feet per side, fortunately oriented with a flat floor. The flashing lights and horn sound were still present, and Matt and Kathy began to run down the tube. They exited after a minute of running, entering the corner of a large cubical room. Turning around, they watched the tube's hexagonal aperture smoothly shrink to nothing, leaving a smooth wall in its place. The horn sound and flashing lights were no longer present. "Well" said Kathy, looking around. "After 12 days of gray, I guess it's nice to see a little color, and some open space. Get a load of the height of this ceiling! This whole room looks like a perfect cube!" Kathy and Matt were standing in the corner of large cubical room, about 45 feet on each side, providing over 2000 sq ft of floor space. The room was moderately lit, with a cream color ceiling, floor, and three walls. The fourth wall opposite them was a light orange color. Halfway between each corner, along the center of each of the four walls, was a closed dark-brown door. In the center of the room was a gold spiral staircase, extending both up and down. Otherwise, the room was empty. "Well, not quite what I was expecting, Kathy. Coming into an empty cube. Actually, I take that back, I don't know what I was expecting... The orange color is useful for orientation. Let's call that north. It seems we have a choice of going north, east, south, west, up, or down, assuming all these doors are unlocked. Any preference on which one you want to try first?" "None at all. I'm standing closest to east. How about we try that? The spiral staircase is pretty, but I think I've had enough of stairs over the last 12 days." Kathy and Matt walked over to the east door. There was a small sliding lever adjacent to it on the wall, and Matt found he could control the room lighting, from quite bright to pitch dark. "Wow. It feels nice to be able to control the environment again, at least a little bit..." Kathy smiled and slid open the door, glanced at the next room, and shouted "Yes!" Before them was laid out a large kitchen area, with the same cubical proportions and color scheme as the empty room they were exiting. Walking in, they saw the kitchen also had a door in each of its four walls, plus another spiral staircase at its center. Ignoring the six exits for the moment, they both walked briskly to a large refrigerator... "Excellent!" said Matt. "This thing is packed with food. I see eggs, green peppers, mushrooms, cheese, bacon... I can make a wicked Western omelet, care for one?" "Sounds great!" I'll find some glasses for the milk and OJ. There's also a large plate of bagels here, and the bowl of spinach leaves looks delicious too." While Matt ate an apple and cooked the omelets, Kathy munched the spinach and set the table. She then began to explore the great number of kitchen cabinets. "There's a huge amount of food in this kitchen, Matt. All these cabinets are packed! At least the ones I've opened are. It's so amazing to see them go right up to the ceiling. It must be 40 to 50 feet high. How would we ever get to the top ones? I don't see any ladders..." Kathy and Matt had a great time enjoying their first real meal in 12 days. "All this food was terrific!" said Matt. "Super fresh. This kitchen is so amazing. It looks so much like home, except for its size. Any guesses, Kathy? Is this Earth, or not Earth?" "Gravity feels like Earth. Actually, if we traveled down 200 miles, gravity should be 5% less. My guess is not Earth. How about you?" "My gut says not Earth, too. Though this kitchen does feel a bit like home, despite its size... Look, it even has its own dishwasher." Matt loaded the dishes into the dishwasher, and was then was puzzled by the lack of controls, just a single button near the top. Pressing it, he heard the soft ding of a bell, but nothing else. Kathy opened the unit, and they were both surprised to see the dishes spotlessly clean. "Wow" said Kathy, "I'd love to have this in my apartment in Chicago." After a brief discussion, they decided to continue heading east, keeping the kitchen's orange wall to their left as they exited. The next room was a large bedroom area, keeping the same color scheme, and with closets vaulting to the ceiling. Continuing eastward, they were delighted to find a super-sized bathroom, complete with his and her showers, plus an oversized Jacuzzi in the shape of a 20-foot radius quarter-circle, taking up nearly a quarter of the room. Both the new rooms also had the four side exit doors, plus their own spiral staircases in their centers. "Matt, these showers look really tempting; as did that king-sized bed in the room we just left. My great curiosity is competing with my great fatigue. How about you?" "You're right. We need rest, and the chance for a hot shower after 12 days of escalators is very appealing. Remember to be careful with the controls. If they are like the sinks, they'll give you the option of showering in boiling hot water. Let me satisfy just one last bit of my curiosity." Matt walked across the room to the east door and opened it. "Ah, this one is empty, just like the first room we entered. With all these doors and stairs, who knows how many rooms there are, thousand maybe... But you're right, a shower and bed would be delightful." Within a half hour, Kathy and Matt were sacked out for the night. ------- Chapter 2 Matt was having the most delightful of dreams. Kathy was naked and smiling in delight as Matt mounted and entered her. They rolled coupled to each other in laughter and love, the sexuality so intense Matt could feel his orgasm building. His desire to orgasm became so overwhelming that it began to drive Matt from his sleep. He awoke lying on his back, opening his eyes to the beautiful sight of Kathy's labia right before him. Kathy had reverse mounted him in his sleep, and Matt could feel his erect penis sliding against the far back of her throat. Her gentleness and sexuality were exquisite. Matt felt that his penis was buried in warm, wet feathers, and even in his sleep Matt's hips had started a rocking motion into Kathy's mouth. Sensing that Matt was awake, Kathy focused her attention on the head of his penis. Matt gasped as his hips thrust forward, and he started to ejaculate. Kathy switched her oral caress to a strong suckle. After Matt finished his orgasm, Kathy rested the side of her head against his hip, sighing and relaxing. Matt gently began kissing the back of her legs, just where the thighs merged with her buttocks. Sensing Kathy's complete relaxation, Matt separated her buttocks and playfully began to lick her anus. Kathy tensed for a moment, but held her position, accepting the stimulation and the probing of Matt's tongue. In the following minutes, Kathy began to shiver and breathe in soft gasps, as her anus became slick and dilated with the continued probing. Matt felt driven by feelings of tenderness, realizing Kathy was actively supporting his access into her rectum. He thought he should ask about her desire before taking this any further... "A dollar for your thoughts?" "Oh, the loose change is all over! Ninety cents wants me to get on all fours, present my rump to you, and eagerly accept you to anal mount me. Nine cents is wondering how much it would hurt..." "Katherine, I would never want pain to be part of our sexuality. I trust you for complete and honest feedback, to make sure it never happens..." "I know. Dearest Matthew, I know..." "... And the last penny?" "... is me as a small child, ringing a school bell with my arm, and calling out: Where are you!?" Matt glanced at the cavernous ceiling over 40 feet above his head. Suddenly he felt a little embarrassed for focusing on sexuality when so much of their situation was still unknown. "You've quite right, we should be paying attention to where we are..." "Yes... Don't be embarrassed, Matt. I'm the one who started this. And this is the first time we've coupled sexually as husband and wife. I'll remember this moment forever!" Kathy and Matt began exploring their giant bedroom and soon found numerous wardrobes in the closets and dressers. After selecting comfortable travel clothes, they headed west to the kitchen for breakfast, both commenting how restful it had been to get a solid 10 hours sleep in such a great bed, much more comfortable than metal floors! Finishing breakfast, they decided to continue traveling westward to begin their exploration. "It's interesting how each room is so cubical; it provides a certain symmetry..." Matt commented, as he and Kathy walked across the empty room after leaving west from the kitchen. Opening the empty room's west door, they both stood quietly as they looked at the large bathroom, identical to the one they were in the previous night. "Matt, you mentioned last night there was an empty room east of the other bathroom. This would make two duplicate rooms in a row. Do you think we'll find a duplicate bedroom if we continue west?" "I'm trying to remember something my roommate Harold once told me about cubes, in my first year at Harvard. He was a math major. It might not be a duplicate... Let's take a look." Matt and Kathy walked west across the room and went through the door." "It is a duplicate bedroom!" "Not quite, Kathy. Look! The bed is ruffled exactly as we left it. And here's the dress you wore in the escalators. This isn't a duplicate bedroom, it's the same room!" "How is that possible? We didn't make any turns. Are you saying we traveled in a circle?" "Yes, sort of. Did you ever hear of a tesseract?" "Vaguely. Is it like a dodecahedron, or something?" "Ha! A bit, I guess. It's a cube with four spatial dimensions." "What?" "Think of a line as a set of points between 0 and 1. Think of a square as a set of points between (0,0) and (1,1). Think of a cube as a set of points between (0,0,0) and (1,1,1). Think of a tesseract as a set of points between (0,0,0,0) and (1,1,1,1). See?" "I guess. But Matt, that's pure math. This is physical. There are only three physical spatial dimensions..." "Not here. These rooms, the escalator well, that hexagonal access tube we ran through yesterday, perhaps they all exist in extra spatial dimensions. It all hangs together with the joining of the escalator well with the Morningstar tower. You don't have to tear the whole building apart. You just have to push the top tip of the escalator well to the 3-D coordinates of the top of the tower, to make the connection." "So we're still only 200 miles from Earth?" "Sort of. 200 miles distant from Earth, 200 miles from our entire universe... Or maybe not, I don't know... The technology to do this seems like complete magic to me..." "Matt, what's a tesseract like?" "Think first of a square and a cube. A square has four one-dimensional surfaces, lines, at its boundaries. If you move along the four lines, you get back to where you started. A cube has six two-dimensional surfaces, squares, at its boundaries. If you move along the squares, in either north-south or east-west directions, you can navigate the surface of the cube. After four jumps in the same direction, you're always back to the same square. The tesseract is the next level, with four spatial dimensions. It has eight three-dimensional cubes as its boundaries. If you move along the cubes, in either north-south, east-west, or up-down directions, you can navigate the surface of the tesseract. After four jumps in the same direction, you're always back in the same cube." "But Matt, how do we ever leave the tesseract?" "We don't, if we just keep moving in three dimensions. We'll always be on the 3-D surface of the tesseract. We'll need something like that hexagonal access tube to leave. The entity who brought us here will have to provide it..." "So we're prisoners?" "Yeah. It's a prison without walls, but a bounded 3-D space. We'll need help to leave. I remember reading a story by Heinlein called "And He Built A Crooked House" when I was a boy, about living in a tesseract. Heinlein wasn't quite right in his story, he had windows looking out on some walls. In a real tesseract, each wall of each cube joins with the wall of another cube... There's something else about tesseracts I'm trying to remember, something about them being very unfriendly to lifeforms, but I can't remember quite what it was. We'll just have to trust the entity to keep us safe. With the nice rooms we've found so far, I feel it is trying to be kind to us." "I'm beginning to get a feel for how this works, Matt. We'll find the other four rooms by going north-south and up-down, right?" "Yeah. Either north-south or up-down will reveal the rest of the rooms. Going north and east will be the same as going up or down, you'll see... There's still something about this I'm forgetting, Kathy..." "Well, keep thinking! Meanwhile, how about we head north? Will you take my diary? I think you have a better spatial picture of what's going on here, compared to me. Thanks. Please try to draw a map of how these rooms are connected to each other..." Matt and Kathy exited their bedroom through the room's northern orange wall. They entered a large living area; filled with couches, play tables, reclining chairs, a huge multimedia center, and a library whose books, games, CDs, and DVDs stretched to the ceiling. "Wow, what a great place to relax. You're right, Matt, the entity is trying to be very kind to us..." Kathy and Matt continued north from the living room, and entered the south side of the empty cube. "Of course!" said Matt. "The empty cube is the cube that's on the opposite side of the tesseract, relative to the bedroom. Each cube joins to six other cubes, with the north, south, east, west, up, and down exits. For each cube, there's one cube that it doesn't directly touch, but can be reached by traveling two cubes in any direction. For example, from the bedroom, we can travel down two cubes to enter the top of the empty room, south two cubes to enter the north of the empty room, etc. This means the kitchen is the opposite room of the bathroom, and this living room is the opposite room to whatever is south of the bedroom..." Matt started taking notes in the diary. "Let's pick names for each room, Matt. Each one starting with a different letter. So far we have the Living Room, Kitchen, Bedroom... Let's call the bathroom the Jacuzzi room... The letter E is okay, but I don't like empty as a name, let's call this room the Entrance hall." "Sounds good." "You know, Matt, the spiral staircase in this Entrance hall room is a bit different from the others. See the storage box along its base? The other stairwells don't have it. I wonder what's inside?" Kathy opened the box and was surprised to see two sets of wings, one set to fit her arms and another to fit Matt. There were even two sets of shoes with controllable web fans in the front and back. "There's also a level in here" Kathy commented, as she flipped the switch inside the box. Immediately her stomach gave a lurch, she had turned off the room's gravity. "This is so amazing, Matt!" Matt reached into his pocket and held out a penny, gently releasing it at eye level. The penny gently hit the floor 10 seconds later. "Not quite zero gravity, but I think it's down over 99%. I've always wanted to fly! Want to try the wings?" Matt and Kathy had a wonderful time in the next several hours, practicing how to fly. They would perch along the spiral staircase and launch themselves, laughing with the fun of learning to fly and steering with their arm-wings and foot-rudders. They only stopped when they decided to break for lunch, heading east to the kitchen. "Tesseracts are really nice places to live, in a way," said Kathy, as she munched her sandwich and salad, "everything is so close to everything else. Very convenient! I love these spinach leaves, they're so fresh, even after being in the fridge overnight... Matt, I have an idea. Can I borrow your watch?" Kathy placed the watch in the fridge, watched it run normally for a moment, then closed the door and looked at her own watch. After a minute, she opened the fridge and looked closely at Matt's watch. She then repeated the experiment with two of the kitchen cabinets. Matt had no idea what she was doing. "Amazing, Matt! When the doors to the fridge or these cabinets are closed, your watch stops completely. There's no passing of time at all. Be careful never to get completely inside a cabinet. If the door closes behind you, you might wait for eternity to be let out." "Heading north from the kitchen, Kathy and Matt were quite surprised about what they found next. "Look at this beautiful pool table, Matt! It's magnificent! My parents used to have one, rather than having a dining room, but nothing this grand. Let's call this the Poolroom. I used to love shooting pool with my mom and dad when I was a girl. Poison was one of my favorite games... But what's this?" The room was divided into four quadrants. One quadrant held the pool table, the next two held tables of similar size, but one with a huge cube floating above it, and the other with a much more complicated geometric shape. The fourth quadrant held three sets of tables and chairs with various chessboards on them. "Wow!" said Matt. This table is three-dimensional pool! I don't think there's any gravity at all inside the cube. Look! The cue-stick passes through without resistance, but the ball bounce off the inside surface of the cube. Here are the controls to rotate the cube in each of the three axes. This will be an incredible game to play. And this..." Matt stared at the next table "... is a four-dimensional pool table. This is so incredible. Look, here are the controls for rotating the tesseract along each of the four axes. Do you see the eight cubes, Kathy?" "They look like prisms, not cubes." "Exactly! The perspective frame of a simple cube will have prisms too. See? As I rotate the shape, you can see the underlying cubical structure along each of the four dimensions..." "I see it, Matt! I'm a little surprised that I can. I was never that great with spatial issues. But I can see it clearly! Somehow my mind is learning how to see it..." "These last three tables contain an 8 x 8 standard chess board, with 32 pieces, a cubic chessboard of 5 x 5 x 5, with 40 pieces, and a 4-D chess board, four towers of 4 x 4 x 4, with 64 pieces. This is really a good way to visualize the fourth dimension. Take the rook in the cubic chessboard. I once read a book on 3-D chess as a boy. This rook can go in one dimension, straight forward or back, straight left of right, or straight up and down. It passes through the six surfaces of the cells of the cubic board. The 2-D bishop passes through the edges of the cells, making XY, XZ, or YZ movements. This piece here is called a unicorn. It's a 3-D bishop. It passes through the eight corners of the cells, not the twelve edges. It makes XYZ movements only. The queen has the power of the rook, bishop, and unicorn. For tesseract chess, there's has to be an extra piece. Yes, here it is. Call it, well, how about a zebra? It's a fourth dimensional bishop. For very XYZ step, it also has to make one step to the next tower, making a WXYZ step. See how each tower is 3-D, and stepping to the next tower is moving in the fourth spatial dimension?" "Yep. I used to love chess as a girl. I was one of the best players in my primary school. Let's plan on having some games sometime." Moving north from the poolroom, Kathy and Matt entered the south side of the Jacuzzi room. Matt continued to make notes in the diary. Moving further north, they entered a large gym. "Wow, Matt, this room is packed! Rowing machines, weight trainers, bikes... I think I'll pass on the Stairmaster for a while, but the elliptical cross trainer looks nice. Let's call this the Gym room. It's nice that the showers are just south of here. We've taken three jumps north since the kitchen, so north again should get us to the kitchen again, right?" "Yep," Mike answered, and confirmed it by opening the north door and showing the kitchen. "And here to the east is the Living Room," opening the eastern door. "Wait a minute," said Kathy, "shouldn't that be to the west?" "Why do you say that?" "Well, think of starting from the Bedroom. North of the Bedroom is the Living room. From the Bedroom, you go east to the Jacuzzi, then north to here, the Gym. So the Living room should be west of here, not east." "Ah, now I know what I've been trying to remember! In a tesseract, there's a fold in space. Any two orthogonal jumps will take you to the opposite rooms, if you reverse the order in which the jumps are taken. For example, let's say we both start in the same room. You go first north, then west. I go first west, then north. We'll be at opposite ends of the tesseract, not in the same room at all. It's true for any room, with any two directions. Up and east from here will be the opposite room, compared to traveling east and up." "Wow! So what's west of this Gym room?" "The room that's opposite the Living room on the tesseract," said Matt, studying the map that he had been making. "It's the room south of the Bedroom, and north of the Entrance hall. It's the one room we haven't entered yet." Kathy and Matt went over to the west door and walked through it. Except for the common spiral stairwell and four side exit doors, the room looked very different from any of the others, filled with unknown high tech equipment and control consoles. Kathy sat down in one of the control chairs... "Careful, my love. Don't accidentally engage the auto-destruct sequence..." "Right..." said Kathy with a smile. "Look, Matt. It's a huge menu selection. Categories for everything I can think of, plus others I don't understand... Let's try food, I know about that... Descending into vegetables... Descending into fresh produce... Oh, look! There's my bowl of fresh spinach. I wonder what SELECT means?" Kathy tapped the select key, a few seconds later a door opened in a nearby cabinet, revealing a bowl of spinach. Kathy slowly walked over and took a bite. "My gosh, Matt. Super fresh! The implications of this room are staggering! I think we can make anything we want. The power is almost godlike... Let's call this the Manufacturing room." Matt and Kathy spent the rest of the afternoon climbing the staircases and completing their map of how each room was connected to the others. By the end of the day, Matt had the following maps drawn up for the tesseract. For each of the three orthogonal directions: north, east, and up; there where two series of four rooms each. For example, from the Gym on row U1, you could go up the Entrance Hall, then up to the Poolroom, then up to the Bedroom, then up again to return to the Gym. N1 B L E M B L E M N2 J G K P J G K P E1 B J E K B J E K E2 M G L P M G L P U1 B G E P B G E P U2 J M K L J M K L The complete grid for movement was written as the direction needed to go from a row location to a column location in the following table. Each room has an Opposite room, which is not directly accessible. G L E K J B M P Gym room G - E U N S D W O Living room L W - N D U S O E Entrance Hall E D S - E W O N U Kitchen K S U W - O E D N Jacuzzi J N D E O - W U S Bedroom B U N O W E - S D Manufacturing M E O S U D N - W Pool room P O W D S N U E - The following is a map of the X-Y layout of the connections, showing the twist in space that occurs in tesseract navigation. For example, the Playroom is east of the Living room, west of the Manufacturing room, south of the Jacuzzi, and north of the Kitchen. The Gym is east of the Manufacturing room, west of the Living room, south of the Kitchen, and north of the Jacuzzi. The Gym and Poolroom are on opposite sides of the tesseract. B . . . J . . . E . . . K . . . B. . . J . . . E . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . P . G . P . M . . G X G . . L . . P X P . . M . .G X G . . L . P . G . P . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . E . . . K . . . B . . . J . . . E. . . K. . . B . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . G . P . G . L . . P X P . . M . . G X G . . L . .P X P . . M . G . P . G . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . B . . . J . . . E . . . K . . . B . . . J. . . E . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . P . G . P . M . . G X G . . L . . P X P . . M. . G X G . . L . P . G . P . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . E . . . K . . . B . . . J . . . E. . . K . . . B One floor up from the above map, the floor plan is as follows, vertically aligned with the previous map: G . . . L . . . P . . . M . . . G . . . L . . . P . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . B . E . B . J . . E X E . . K . . B X B . . J . . E X E . . K . B . E . B . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . P . . . M . . . G . . . L . . . P . . . M . . . G . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . E . B . E . K . . B X B . . J . . E X E . . K . . B X B . . J . E . B . E . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . G . . . L . . . P . . . M . . . G . . . L . . . P . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . B . E . B . J . . E X E . . K . . B X B . . J . . E X E . . K . B . E . B . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . P . . . M . . . G . . . L . . . P . . . M . . . G Kathy and Matt had a brief discussion about safety, and agreed to treat the tesseract as a safe home and not insist on always staying together in the same cube. They prepared a fine dinner, and then relaxed on the couch and watched a movie. Afterwards they showered and swam in the Jacuzzi for a while, before retiring to bed. Kathy had wandered off down the staircase from the Jacuzzi. Matt had turned west from the Jacuzzi room to the Bedroom, and was lying in bed engrossed in a spy novel from the huge Living room library. Matt was just starting to wonder what Kathy was doing, when she wandered into the bedroom from the south door. "Hi, Sweetie! Ready for bed?" asked Matt. "I am now! This place is so amazing Matt! You turned west from the Jacuzzi to come here; I went down the spiral staircase from the Jacuzzi to the Manufacturing room, and then north directly to here. It all seems so natural! I can't believe I'm adapting to this as quickly as I am." "You're right. The layout seems simple and obvious to me too. I don't know why I'm adapting this quickly either... What took you to the Manufacturing room?" "Something really important! It took me a while to figure out the right way to index it, but I finally found it. Look!" Kathy smiled in delight and pulled from behind her back a box of condoms... ------- Chapter 3 Kathy woke slowly from a sound sleep, feeling loved and secure. Opening her eyes, she realized why. Matt was lying by her side, gently stroking her pubic fur. "That feels so nice, Matt, what a wonderful way to wake up!" "You feeling okay? You did bleed a bit last night, when I first entered you." "I feel fine. It was just a prick. Ha, pun intended! You okay? I'm sorry I scared you last night, when I screamed." "Dearest Katherine, you are so beautiful. I'll know not to worry next time." "I had no idea having sex could be this intense. I had no idea. Amanda my senior roommate at Holyoke once told me she could feel her uterus tenting during a really intense orgasm. I had no idea what she meant... In all the positions we tried last night, doggie was one of my favorites. I love being in submissive positions with you! And I'm amazed I love the anal stimulation so much. At the end, when you were doggie thrusting me and then I felt your thumb starting to caress my rectum, I just lost it. I could feel my uterus tent, dropping the cervix to slide along your penis. The orgasm was incredible! I'm so glad we're having our honeymoon in this tesseract, it'd be embarrassing to scream like that if other people could hear me..." "It is our honeymoon, isn't it? I wonder how long it will last?" "Matthew, it might last a long time... When I was in the Manufacturing room last night, I wasn't just searching for condoms, I was exploring. Another name for that room might be the Medical bay. There are selections for growing new limbs, repairing spinal and neural damage, even something listed under medical called quantum cleansing, with a recommended minimum annual frequency. I think it purges toxins and repairs and rejuvenates DNA at the atomic level. With this level of technology, our life-spans might be quite open ended..." "My gosh. This is a lot to think about..." "Yeah... Here, let me go south to Manufacturing, then up to Kitchen. I can prepare you something really unique for breakfast!" After breakfast, Matt and Kathy went north to the Poolroom to try out the chess games. Kathy trounced Matt at 2-D. Matt won the 3-D game, but only because of an opening blunder by Kathy. Matt could see Kathy's play improving during the game, taking a hopeless position and almost turning it into a draw. Kathy then won the 4-D game. After the games, Matt hiked over two cubes to the other end of the tesseract to work out in the Gym, while Kathy wandered around. After about an hour's workout, Matt was just thinking of heading south to the Jacuzzi, when Kathy appeared from the top of the spiral staircase. "Matt, can you come up and join me in the Entrance hall? There's something new here." Matt climbed up to the Entrance hall. He and Kathy both stared for a moment, then Matt said, "Why don't we fly up and take a closer look?" They donned their wings, and after shutting off the room's gravity, flew up to a sphere that was floating near one of the top corners of the room. "A very smooth surface, Matt. I can't budge it at all, though it is hard to push against it with just wing power. But it was floating even with the gravity on. There's no visible support for it... This sphere wasn't here after breakfast. I went through here from the Kitchen to the Jacuzzi then, and it wasn't here. It must have showed up within the last hour or two... What do you think, about 4 feet in diameter?" "Gratitude. Gratitude and appreciation," said the sphere, before Matt could reply. Kathy and Matt were silent for several moments. "Are you the entity that brought us here?" asked Matt at last. "Logically but not physically. It would be the death of your spacetime for me to enter directly. The adversary. Watch the movie. Think of this sphere as a phone." "What movie? Will you someday return us to Earth?" asked Kathy quietly. "In the Living room player now. Temporal if desired, but not spatial only. Spatial decision already transferred, 34,194 increments completed, the minimum required. Spatial decision already transferred, gravitational entanglement already merged with electromagnetic entanglement. Genetically encoded in you for progeny propagation also. Both needed at first, then either after first. But, you need to practice!" "What?" asked Matt. "What are you talking about? Are you a machine or alive? Do you think like us? Like humans? Or are your thoughts computations? How old are you, anyway?" "Freedom of choice already granted, but you need to practice. Neither and both. Somewhat. No. No again, but certainly incomputable for all three. But you need to practice! From before your Earth was formed, and your sun grew hot. I will return shortly. Again, you need to practice, gravity with electromagnetism! Again, gratitude and appreciation!" The sphere shrank to nothing. Kathy and Matt hovered for a few minutes in silence, trying to absorb what had just happened. "Come, Matt. Let's head south to the Living room and discuss this." "What if it comes back? It said it would be back shortly..." "Yeah... But you asked it how old it was, and I think its answer was from before the sun grew hot. What does shortly mean for a creature who lives on that timescale?" Kathy and Matt put away their wings and then exited through the south door to the Living room. They sat down on a couch together and just remained quiet, each lost in their own thoughts. After a while, Matt got up and went to the multimedia center. "There's an unlabeled DVD here, Kathy. Let's see what's on it..." For the first 15 minutes, there were panoramic videos of galaxy formations, gaseous hydrogen collapsing to stars, stars organizing into great galactic arms. While watching a particularly beautiful galaxy rotate in its majestic spin, something suddenly happened. There appeared black splotches in the galaxy, small at first, but growing rapidly, pulling the stars into them. On a timescale much faster than the galactic rotation, the galaxy collapsed to blackness, the view switching to schematic, designations for black masses within the galaxy coming together, symbols for other collapsed galaxies coming together, symbols for collapsed galactic clusters and super-clusters coming together. The series finally ended with a simple symbol in the center of the screen. Then the whole series repeated with the view of another universe's life and death. "What does in mean, Matt? Is it a description of how the universe evolves?" "I don't think so. The blackness seems to hit like a cancer. Remember the galactic rotations? I think our galaxy rotates completely every 26 million years. Once those black splotches hit, the galaxy is gone in much less than one rotation time. Maybe less than a million years. Galaxies don't die that fast." "My gosh, Matt! The sphere talked about the death of our spacetime! Something about an adversary... The black ink in the escalators! Does it need our help to battle something that can destroy our universe? What can we possibly do to stop something like that?" "Whatever it needs us for, it's not to repair its TV set..." "What!?" "Oh? Sorry! I was being too cryptic. It doesn't need us for help with technology. We're dealing with understanding that's billions of years ahead of us. It does want us for something, though... The entity seems kind and gentle, though I'll admit difficult to understand. I think our purpose will be a good purpose. Just what it will be though, I can't imagine..." "The entity kept telling us to practice, Matt. Practice what?" "Yeah... Let's try to remember exactly what we all said. I recall the command to practice was part of a description of gravity and electromagnetic entanglement. The entity was in the middle of answering a question. What question was it answering?" "I asked it if it would return us the Earth. Somehow the answer to that question has to do with gravity and electromagnetism. I'm trying to remember... The decision to return to Earth had already been made? No, not made, transferred. In 34,194 increments... What does that mean?" "You know, Kathy, 34,194 is just about the number of escalator flights we had. Maybe it's exactly the right number. Didn't it say it was the minimum required?" "Yes! Where are we going with this line of thought? That the escalator travel was part of transferring the decision, or transferring the ability, for us to get back to Earth? Transferring it to whom?" "The only players are the entity, the adversary, and the two of us, Kathy. I don't think it's been given to the adversary. Could the entity mean we were given the choice? How? Did it say something about our genes being encoded?" "Yes... These are very dark waters... Thinking... Thinking? Matt! Thinking! You asked it a bunch of questions about thinking. It gave you a bunch of answers, all clumped together. It doesn't know you're not supposed to give answers like that. Let's try to match each of its answers to each question you gave!" Kathy got up and returned with a pen and a notepad. She and Matt talked for a while, trying to remember the exact conversation. They produced the following notes on the notepad: Question #1: What are you talking about? (This question points back to Kathy's question of returning to Earth). Answer #1: Freedom of choice transferred (or already given, or some similar word?) But you need to practice. Question #2: Are you alive or a machine? Answer #2: Kathy thinks: Neither and both. Matt thinks: Neither or both. Question #3: Do you think like us? Answer #3: Somewhat. Question #4: Do you think like humans? Answer #4: No. Question #5: Are your thoughts computations? Answer #5: No again, incomputable for all three. Question #6: How old are you? (Matt thinks he added the word anyway at the end) Answer #6: From before the Earth was formed, and the sun grew hot. Kathy and Matt stared at the notepad for a while. "After the last question, Matt, it told us to practice with gravity and electromagnetism again. I'm sure of it..." "I think a key point here, Kathy, is the difference between questions 3 and 4. Are we reading this right? The entity thinks somewhat like us, but not like humans? That would imply that we're not human..." "Did it misunderstand us? No, wait! It also talked about encoding our genes! Maybe it doesn't consider us human anymore. Each flight of escalators changing our genes, changing the way we... We what? Practice what? The topic is thinking... Practice thinking? What does that mean? How can you practice thinking? Did the escalators change the way we think?" "I think you might have something here, Kathy. I've noticed how easily I can visualize the tesseract geometry. It seems trivial. I'm sure these spatial twists would have stymied me before..." "Yes, me too. I see beautiful simplicity and symmetry in the tesseract. I never would have felt this way before about something so abstract. And this fits in with gravity and electromagnetism... How?" "Got it! Well, maybe... Try this for an idea, Kathy. Human consciousness is based on quantum entanglement, which can be incomputable. I read a couple of books by Roger Penrose on this when I was a boy, back in the 1990's. Great stuff. Humans use electromagnetic entanglement as the basis of their free will. What if the entity uses gravitational entanglement for its free will? And, somehow, it added gravitational entanglement to our free will, even encoding the ability for this in our genes. It wants us to practice thinking with gravity entanglement... We both observed how improved our mental visualizations are, especially in 4-D. Maybe we should practice with the 4-D pool table?" "Okay, I guess. It kind of hangs together, though I still can't imagine how this will stop the destruction of the universe. We're still missing something. Well, let's practice thinking in 4-D, and practice what questions to ask the entity when it returns. Care to try the 4-D pool table now?" Interlude: FBI Chicago Field Office, Special Investigations Branch "Ladies and Gentlemen, thank you for all coming on such short notice. I'd like to remind everyone here that we have three guests from Morningstar security with us today. I also remind everyone here that nothing in this meeting can be discussed with anyone who is not cleared by a task-force officer, level-five or above. And now, let's get down to business. Jack, can you show the first slide? Thank you. Everyone, this photo was taken approximately 12:40 PM on the top floor of the MCT, two weeks ago, about 25 minutes before the disappearance. The photo was taken by two Japanese tourists. The closet the woman is standing in front of is our infamous janitor closet. To the left is clearly a narrow hall adjacent to the closet. Next slide please... This is a photo-enhanced blow-up of the narrow hall. It measures approximately 40 inches across, and extends at least 28 feet. We lose the camera angle to see any further. Along the wall is a faint diamond pattern, estimated to be 6 inches by 8 inches. The photo analysis technicians say the wall appears metallic." "Sir," said the Morningstar captain, "We were all over that wall 10 hours later. There was no evidence of such a hall, even one that narrow. The wall showed no sign of recent construction; the paint and plaster were completely dry. A hall there would cut right through the elevator hardware. The elevators were working without trouble that day. It seems impossible for that corridor to be there!" "Exactly! The evidence suggests an extraordinary ability by agents unknown to kidnap people and then cover their tracks. Even the secret service is interested in this. In agreement with the Morningstar executive board, I plan to have a 24/7 rapid response team based on both the top and bottom floors of the MCT, and extensive monitoring of the video feeds. If it happened once, it may happen again. And the next time gentlemen, whoever is doing this is not going to get away with it!" ------- Chapter 4 "Nice shooting, Matt! That makes five games to three, your lead." Kathy and Matt were just starting the third week of their honeymoon, and had started shooting 4-D pool after breakfast. Matt had just won the latest game, sinking the last 27 balls in a row. "I would never have guessed that playing this game would have become so easy in just two weeks," said Matt. "We're both at a point now where one shooting error by either of us usually lets the other run the table. I still love the 5-D chess board you made in Manufacturing, though. Man, what a challenge! Taking that quantum cleansing treatment with you did more than just make DNA repairs. My mind and body feel superb! We're both Olympic athletes now, maybe better. I saw you do your 10 mile run on the treadmill yesterday in less than 40 minutes... You are so beautiful when you're exercising..." "Thanks. I like to watch you when you're working out too, you look so sexy... Matt, have you noticed something while shooting pool? I find myself not wanting to rotate the board, I find myself wanting to rotate me! This probably doesn't make a whole lot of sense..." "No, it makes a lot of sense. I feel the same urge, that I can get in position for the shot much faster by... By what? By taking a step... By taking a 4-D step... I can feel it. Feel it in my balance..." "Me too! Well put! I didn't know how to describe it, you did great. Matt, I want to try to take a 4-D step. It seems so natural. Will you watch me when I do? Help me if I need help?" "Sure, want to do it now?" "Yep. Here goes!" Kathy popped from view, instantaneously appearing on the other side of the pool table, in the correct position for her opening shot. "Wow! Try it, Matt! It's easier than walking!" Matt popped into view by Kathy's side a second later. "Unbelievable! This is so easy! Let's try somewhere else! I'm thinking of standing by our bed..." He popped out of sight. Kathy thought about the Bedroom too, and was standing next to Matt a second later. "My gosh, Matt! We can teleport! The entity gave us the power to teleport! That's what it meant, when it said the decision to go back to Earth had already been transferred. What an incredible gift!" "Can we go back to Earth now, do you think? Can we return here if we do?" "I don't know. This is going to take some experimenting... Are there any restrictions at all to where we can jump? I remembered a clear picture in my mind of this spot by the bed. It felt important to have that clear picture before I jumped. Let me try to jump to the northwest corner of the Gym, I've never really wandered into that area..." Kathy concentrated a few moments. "Nothing, I can't do it. Now let me try the Gym room by the cross trainer." Kathy popped from Matt's view. She returned about 10 seconds later. "Interesting. I just spent a few moments staring at the northwest corner of the Gym; I think I have a visual lock on it. Let me try again." Kathy popped from view. Matt popped into the Gym a few seconds later. "It worked!" said Kathy. Having a clear visual image of your destination is critical." "The gravitational entanglement," said Matt. "It's letting us fold space, creating a tunnel between the origin and destination points. It's letting us pop through from one point to the next." "But what if you were attached to something, Matt? What if you were, I don't know, handcuffed to a railing or something?" "Wow, that's a really good point... Hold me, and I'll try to teleport into the Living room." Kathy held onto Matt, Matt tried to teleport, and succeeded, feeling a brief sharp pull on his body when he did. Kathy joined him in the Living room a few seconds later. "Sorry, Matt. You were like a bar of soap. I couldn't hang on. Let me get a really good grip!" Kathy jumped on Matt's back, locked her legs around his hips, and crossed her arms around his chest. "Wow, this feels kind of sexy! Try again, Matt." Matt jumped into Kitchen, with Kathy still on his back. "Ah, interesting" Kathy said, as she dismounted. "Matt, will you jump into the Entrance Hall? I'll meet you there in a few minutes." Kathy walked south into the Entrance Hall a few minutes later from Manufacturing, carrying a pair of handcuffs with keys. "I thought I'd walk for the exercise. Jumping all the time seems a bit decadent. Here, Matt, will you hold the key?" Kathy locked her wrist to the spiral staircase. "I'm going to try to jump to the Kitchen now." Matt blinked as his eyes lost focus on Kathy for an instant. Then Kathy was before him with tears in her eyes. "Ouch, ouch, ouch! Oh Matt, unlock me please!" Matt spent the next several minutes rubbing Kathy's sore shoulder. "I could see it, Matt. For an instant I could see the Kitchen. And then I was yanked back here. We'll have to remember this. Being chained to something takes away our ability to teleport..." Kathy stared at the spiral staircase she had just been chained to. "You know, there's something about this I don't understand. It reminds me of a dream I had about a bowling ball last night..." Kathy climbed two stairs of the staircase, and then hopped off. Just before she hit the floor, she teleported to Matt's side, standing erect and still. She then climbed 5 steps, and repeated the maneuver. She finally climbed up 40 feet, near the ceiling, and leaped off, falling rapidly and teleporting to Matt's side just before crashing into the floor. She looked up to him and said, "How does this work? It reminds me of my dream, where I start rolling a bowling ball down the staircase. After 4 flights, it's moving fast and back to where it started. What would happen if we just let it keep falling? Where's all that energy coming from? Where's the energy go when I jump and stand by your side, instead of crashing into the floor..." "I'm not sure. I remember my college physics though. It was a standard joke in Cambridge that the Harvard students couldn't count, and the MIT students couldn't read. But I actually liked my physics classes. If I remember correctly, the proofs for the conservation of momentum and energy really are just empirical observations. Perhaps in 4-D, it's just not the case, or perhaps the momentum and energy are getting exchanged with something we don't know about yet. You're right though, we should think about the implications of this. For example, can we teleport into a moving car or plane? What frame of reference will our velocity synch to? It's something we should explore sometime..." "Matt, I feel I can jump back to Earth. Somehow I feel the push will be more difficult, but I still think I can do it. How about you?" "I think so too. I have a clear picture in my mind of my apartment, my office, I feel I could just take a 4-D step and be there..." "I feel the same way about my apartment. I feel I could also step back to a lot of places at Mount Holyoke. I have a firm visual lock on a lot of places there... It would be nice to stick together, though. I could try riding you again, letting you do all the work. For our first jump outside the tesseract, though, I'd feel safer if we were both under our own power..." "I feel the same way. Do you remember my office well enough to jump to it?" "No." "How about the Top Of The Morning?" "Maybe... Well, maybe not. But I do have a very good visual lock on that janitor closet, right by that narrow hall we went into..." "Yeah, I do too. My watch says the time in Chicago is... 3:45 AM. Wow, we really have drifted away from Chicago time... Should we try jumping there?" "I don't want to abandon the entity, Matt. Will we be able to jump back here?" "I think so... I'm not sure... I do have a good visual lock on a lot of places here. I think I could jump back. Actually, I think jumping here is very easy for some reason... I would also guess the entity has the power find us on Earth, if it wanted to..." "Okay, Matt. Let's try to jump back to the hall outside the janitor closet together. Wait! First let's get our wallets and things, and the clothes we had on when we first entered the escalators." A short while later, they were ready to make their first jump out of the tesseract. "Hold my hand, Matt? On three. One. Two. Three!" An instant later Kathy and Matt were standing by the janitor closet, on the top floor of the MCT. "Wow, Matt, we made it! It's been a month but we made it! Look! There's just a blank wall here now where that narrow corridor used to be..." Kathy ran her hand along the smooth wall for several moments... Kathy and Matt walked down the hall, turned and then started walking down another. "I think the elevators are this way, Matt. I hope we don't have a problem getting out of this building so late. Maybe we should jump again, either split up or I can ride your back again..." "I'd like to stay together, Kathy. I think it'll be okay if you ride my back now. I'm glad though, that we made the first jump here independently. This last jump seemed more difficult than my earlier ones..." "Yeah, for me too... Wow, look at all these video monitors! They're all over this corridor too. Were there so many here a month ago?" "FREEZE! Don't make any sudden moves! Put your hands behind your heads and step away from the wall! DO IT NOW!" Matt and Kathy looked forward and back, and saw that both ends of the corridor were filled with security and FBI agents. Kathy saw several agents getting out handcuffs, and her lips began to tremble. She looked Matt in the eye and whispered, "Entrance hall?" Matt nodded. A second later they were both standing in the Entrance hall of the tesseract. "Well, that didn't go very well, did it?" said Kathy. "At least there's no place like home." "Yeah... And look behind you, I think our homebuilder is back." In the far corner of the room near the floor, a sphere was floating. Matt and Kathy walked quietly and sat down next to it and just collected themselves, not saying anything for several minutes. "Thank you for returning" said Kathy at last. "Thank you for returning, and for practicing." replied the sphere. "Great appreciation. I have been practicing too. My communication skills had been unused for billions of years." "You're doing fine now. Matt and I have talked about how best to communicate with you. We thought it might be easier if just one of the two of us talked to you at first, and we voted for me. I'm going to try to ask just one question at a time, and wait for you the finish answering before I speak again. Will this be okay?" "Yes." "Good! First, we thank you for everything you have provided for us. You are very kind. We understand now that you have given us the ability to return to Earth by ourselves. Earlier you mentioned modifying our genes, for progeny propagation. Does that mean our children will also have the ability to teleport?" "Yes. Both needed at first, then either after first." "What?" "Both of you needed at first, afterwards the genes will breed dominant." "Kathy, if I may interrupt, I think what it's saying is that for the first generation, only you and I together can produce a child who can teleport, but our children will be able to marry other people and pass on the trait too. Is this right, entity?" "Yes." "Oh," said Kathy. "Entity, where is the tesseract?" "This Entrance hall is buried at the core of you moon. The seven other cubes are artificial constructs of folded space. It is quite stable. The tesseract can withstand a neutron star's core pressure. In comparison, the pressure at the moon's core is negligible." "And the reason you made it is what?" "As a gift of shelter for you. The folded space here would also be particularly easy for you, for your first jumps. Flying with the wings helps develop your ability for spatial orientation." "Oh..." said Kathy. "Entity, I want to ask you what your need is, and what purpose you have for us. Please, explain your need first. We saw the tapes of the universes destroyed by the blackness. Is our universe in danger?" "No. Not as long as I am careful." "You can destroy an entire universe by being careless?" "Your spacetime would be destroyed within a million years if I entered it. Not directly by me, but by the adversary. I will explain. The adversary and I are incomputable gravitational constructs, created by a race of master builders 7 billion years ago, just over half the age of your spacetime. My construct is designed to exist with negative or flat spatial curvature. In error, the builders created a second entity which thrives on positive curvature. Maximum positive gravitational curvature is achieved in any spacetime by combining all matter-energy into one singularity. Once created, the adversary was unstoppable. All organic life in my original spacetime was destroyed within a few 100,000 years of the creation of the adversary." "My gosh!" said Kathy. "So you can live in a black hole?" "No. I can live anywhere from empty space to neutron stars, but not in black holes. The unbounded positive curvature of a black hole singularity would tear by construct apart." "So how did you survive?" "By evolving. As a pure gravitational construct, I discovered a way to teleport in all 11 spatial dimensions, allowing me to tunnel to other spacetimes. In great sadness, I discovered the adversary can also use these tunnels, once I have created them. Over the last 7 billion years, I have fled to over 8,000 spacetimes, and have seen them all destroyed within a million years of my entry. After the destruction of the second spacetime, when I realized the adversary's ability, I have tunneled into spacetimes with high entropic states, no longer able to sustain life. In the last million years of searching, I have not found another such spacetime, and my current spacetime is within days of final collapse. I must flee it now or be destroyed. Already, the curvature is painful to my thoughts." "What a horrible burden! Is there some way we can help?" "In great gratitude, yes! I do not wish to destroy another spacetime with life in it, and the pain is too great to continue searching. I am about to enter a massive black hole near my current location and be destroyed. But... I do not wish to die alone..." "Oh," cried Kathy, "To save our world, I am willing to join you, and I think Matt will be too. Do you want us to die with you?" "No! What a ghastly desire! I do not want you to die with me. I want you to remember me." "Huh?" said Matt. But Kathy got the point immediately, and she started to cry. "Of course, of course! Good and gentle creature, of course! Who would ever want to die unwept, unhonored, and unsung? I will remember you, you have my word. And I will teach my children about you." "... Thank you. Infinite gratitude and appreciation." The point finally sank into Matt. "Creature, I understand you now too. I also promise to remember you... There's a widespread belief in my species, that all these spacetimes were created by God, a being of infinite mercy and justice. Our belief is that all who borrow life from Him are forever in His care. Your death might not be eternal, it is our hope. For our own deaths as well." "Then it will be my hope too. Goodbye. I will create a temporal tunnel to return you to the initiation event. Run through it quickly. I will shield it with folded space, but the tunnel will be indirectly linked to my spacetime, and there is a slight risk of the adversary finding it. You won't be able to jump while in it." Matt and Kathy saw a hexagonal shape growing in the corner of the room. "The origin of the word goodbye is God by ye," said Kathy, blinking back her tears. "Goodbye, good and gentle creature. God be by your side." "God by ye also, long life! Now go!" Kathy and Matt raced down the tunnel, quickly emerging into a dim corridor. They heard a warm familiar laugh, and turned to see Kathy#1 letting go of a metal door at the end of the corridor, and starting down her first escalator flight in delight. "Oh my gosh..." whispered Matt. Matt and Kathy walked out into the deserted hall of the Morningstar Capital Tower just as they heard the closing click of the metal door down the narrow corridor. Turning, they saw only a solid wall behind them. "Kathy," whispered Matt. "Just try to act casual. There are a few video monitors here, but I think we'll be fine if we just act normally and quietly leave..." Matt and Kathy were alone in an elevator a few minutes later. "I think we'll be okay, Kathy. There might be a few funny images on the video cameras, but without people starting to search for us, nobody will ever look at them. If there ever is a problem, let's just say we might remember wandering into a narrow hall for a few seconds, and let them worry about where the hall is now. But without the cause for an investigation, I really doubt the issue will ever come up." An hour later, Kathy was waiting in Matt's office when Matt returned. "Well, it's all set, Kathy. Stan agreed to be your official supervisor, though you can still work primarily for me. You'll start this coming Monday, at 9 AM. He was somewhat flabbergasted about my story of the both of us being smitten by love at first sight, but, ah, what the hell... He does agree with me that you're absolutely gorgeous... My next job is to remember what my 3 pm conference call is about. I'm afraid I'm going to sound like a complete idiot." "You'll be fine! I'm so glad it's Friday, we'll have the weekend to recover and plan... You know, we were lucky to avoid temporal jetlag. We jumped from 4 AM Chicago time to 1 PM Chicago time, but by chance we were already running our sleep cycle with the new timeline... Well, I should probably go now. Will you be home for dinner?" "Sure. I'll be back in the moon by six. Goodbye, Sweetie!" ------- Epilogue Kathy whimpered as she led Matt to their bed. Matt felt quite touched by how deeply Kathy was depending on him for sexual fulfillment. Sometimes, Kathy and Matt would have slow, gentle sex, filled with leisurely caresses and unfocused goals. At other times Kathy's desire would burn as a physical need. They had barely undressed before Kathy had reversed mounted him, suckling and stroking his penis to erection, penetrating his anus with her index finger and softly caressing his prostate. She then quickly rolled on a condom onto his throbbing penis. With another whimper, she lay flat on her back, her legs up in the air in a large V with her toes pointed, her hips already rocking in anticipation, and she pleaded with Matt with her eyes for swift entry. Matt mounted her and they were soon both lost in their passion for each other. In a part of Matt's mind, he felt filled with appreciation that he was so important to the core of Kathy's being, in awe that her passion was based on her burning desire to affirm him as her husband. They rejoiced in their fidelity as their caring love, sexual love, and friendship love were woven in their coupling into a strong and permanent braid. Nearing her orgasm, Kathy placed her heels against the top back of Matt's thighs to lock him into her. Matt felt lost in his love and delight for his darling wife beneath him, and began his own orgasm a few moments later, feeling Kathy join him with her gasps and the arch of her back, delighting Matt with strong vaginal contractions around his thrusting penis. They hugged as the slowly drifted down and recovered from their experience. After uncoupling, Kathy removed the condom and playfully licked his penis clean. Smiling a moment later, she said "Here, take this blanket, and hold on tight!" Kathy wrapped her arms and legs around Matt and a second later they were in a lush forest on a high mountain, watching a sunset over a sparkling ocean. "This is so beautiful, Kathy! Where are we?" "Hawau. My parents took me here for my 14th birthday. They let me pick our annual vacation spot as part of my birthday present. They loved me so much! I still miss them so... They were both killed in a car accident less than a month after we were here... I've always thought this was one of the most beautiful spots of the whole trip. It's very isolated. It would make a nice backup meeting spot. Can you acquire it visually? Thanks! I think it's five hours earlier here, compared to Chicago time." Kathy rested her body against Matt under the blanket, and after a snuggling for a while, cupped his scrotum in her hand. Matt softly petted her pubic fur. They sat and watched the sunset, relaxing and playfully petting each other. Eventually the sun set and it became quite dark. "Still far away, but I think someone's coming" whispered Matt. They were back in their Bedroom a second later. "We'll have to be really careful," said Kathy smiling, sitting naked with Matt on the bed, their blanket lying behind them. "Our old timeline gave us a frightening view of what life would be like if people knew about this, and there will be no more temporal tunnels to put the genie back in the bottle again..." "Yes..." said Matt, as he continued to caress Kathy. He turned out the lights. Kathy turned away from Matt, then backed up into him, feeling him curl around her as they started drifting off to sleep. Kathy took Matt's hand and held it to her breast, loving the warmth of his palm against her nipple. "You know Kathy, I've just remembered something. I remember laughing a bit when I first saw the pamphlet about the emergency escalators. It had the restroom symbols for both a man and a woman by a diagram of the escalator stairs, and I remember thinking: Well, of course! Who would ever have separate escalators for men and women?! I see now that the creature was asking for a male and a female, so he could give the gift of teleportation to our species. What an incredibly thoughtful creature, facing a painful death, and its heart was full of love..." "Yes, full of love. In our own world, there are none so kind." replied Kathy, deep in thought. She took Matt's hand from her breast and kissed it, then turned in the darkness to face him, propping up her head with her arm. "... Matthew, can we put the moose back on the table? What are our long term goals now? We have all our material needs satisfied for life. I guess we might spend a bit of money flying to different countries at first, to acquire jump sites... Probably should carry around some video equipment, take panoramic views to help retain the visual locks... Maybe some money for social occasions, and to maintain our appearance in society... But what are our goals? Just being a secretary seems so trivial... I'm not knocking the profession, it's just that having any regular job seems so trivial... Is it the same for you?" "Yes. I've been thinking the same thing. I can't be just a contract lawyer with an incredible vacation home! To treat the tesseract like a lottery winning is to dishonor the memory of the creature. It deserves better. We've been given such wondrous gifts... Teleportation, the Manufacturing room, Olympic bodies... Do you realize that we were wished long life from a creature who was 7 billion years old? What goal is worthy of these gifts? My mind keeps returning to Barcelona..." "The radiological bombs? All those thousands of children killed and poisoned last year?" "Exactly! How dare they, Katherine! Intentionally targeting the primary schools of an entire city!? How dare they! This isn't a battle of Muslim versus Christian, or of East versus West. It's a battle against depraved monsters filled with hate. We'll need to plan well, but with the aid of the tesseract's technology, and our ability to teleport, I think we just might be able to get the jump on the people who did it..." "It's a worthy goal... Worthy of the creature's memory... I accept, Matthew. I'll join you in the effort. It'll take a lot of planning, but we make a good team. We just might be able to do something truly good for the world... There's also some other research I want to do, another problem I want to solve..." "Oh? What?" "Well, it's been a very busy day! You beating me at pool this morning seems like ages ago. But remember last night? We both decided we would ready for parenthood in about a year. But what kind of crib do you use with a child who can teleport?" ------- The End ------- Posted: 2004-06-05 ------- http://storiesonline.net/ -------