[read the previous episode here]
John Thorne’s Journal
I’m here because of an accident.
We were testing first-generation teleports. The transportation matrix overloaded. I remember a blue-light pulse. Then I woke up in an empty field. There were pieces of debris from the research lab scattered in the unmown grass. I would later go back and bury them.
I was in a city called Monmar. I had never heard of Monmar. For me, this city didn’t exist. Somehow, in the lab at Offner Technologies, we discovered a method for traversing dimensions. Not that I realized this right away. When I woke up in the field, I could only think about my achy joints and nauseous stomach.
The field overlooked Monmar. I didn’t want to move, but I had to find out where I was. I started down the hill, stumbling, then walking. After about a mile of struggling to walk, I found a civil police station. An officer took me to the hospital, where I claimed amnesia. I couldn’t explain the real details of how I ended up in a city that never existed for me.
I searched for Offner Technologies, but they didn’t exist here. I realized that I was no longer in my universe. I studied the debris that followed me, but they gave me no clue about the accident that brought me here. Though I understood the science behind the original project, it was unlikely I could have found a way home alone.
Eventually, I secured a position at Offner Technologies’ counterpart in this universe, Outer Frontier. If there had been a way to return to my universe, the OF facility would be the place to find it. But as more time passed, the less anxious I was to find my way back.
The first time it happened, it was by chance. I had gone to the grocery store for eggs. There had been rioting in the city, and people crowded the store. The store was a rallying point for refugees being relocated to nearby towns. There was a woman who looked more lost than the others. I wasn’t sure if she was with them or got here on her own. I was walking out of the store when I saw her in front of the store searching on her phone. I asked if she needed help. She wanted to go back to the city. I suggested she wait. I offered her my tent to join the growing encampment of refugees between the grocery store and my apartment block. The next time it happened, I didn’t offer my tent; I offered her my empty apartment. After the first time, each time I offered my apartment, she accepted without hesitation.
The first time, she went back to the city after a few nights in the tent city. She borrowed some of my clothes, accepted a new toothbrush. But that first time I never saw her again. Her apartment had been ransacked. Some of the nearby buildings were completely burned. Amy’s boss, Tanya, had been killed, burned in her office building in Tonnage Row.
I suspected the odds of me having another teleport accident were low. And in all objective measures, the odds were low. But odds become less consequential when it happens to you. Maybe after the nine years, I had forgotten what it felt like to wake up alone in a field. I would never forget that feeling again.
I wonder if they ever discovered where I ended up. They were never able to bring me back; I have to assume they didn’t. Time moved forward for them, and I must have become an increasingly blurred memory. I wouldn’t have that privilege.