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The Beast and the Lake
The Traveler awoke on the shore of some lake amidst unfamiliar jungle. The Beast, thankfully, was nowhere to be seen. Although he had his clothes, nothing else from the Machine was with the Traveler. Which meant the first priority was simply to survive. Followed by finding the Machine.
He was rather surprised to not be in a cave, or some form of oversized bird's nest. Surprised, but thankful. There were no walls here, and he made his escape into the trees easily. From there, he set to climbing one, so that he might locate the Machine. The ascent, although more difficult than he'd thought, posed no major challenge. The Machine, however, was nowhere to be found. All the Traveler could see was trees, wooded hollows, and heavily forested hills. And the lake, of course.
The lake, still as glass, reflected bright sunlight back into his face. Except—
Except, now that he looked up, he couldn't find the sun anywhere. All that hung above him was uniformly bright, cloudless, and azure. So he looked back at the lake. Vodka would've been drunk, had the Traveler had any.
It was like looking at a mirror, except the mirror wasn't reflecting his world. Instead, through the mirror were stars. He was staring into space. The lake was some kind of hole in spacetime, and it led to space. Or something. Stars, too many and too varied to be either a figment of his imagination or created by some artist, lay in the hole. Perhaps "in" wasn't the right word. More like the hole lay atop the stars, like the entire world was hollow and full of stars. And the starfield moved, slowly, twisting and translating beneath his feet.
As the Traveler watched, one of the stars flared brilliantly. He held up his hands, looked away, and turned back, blinking. An expanding cloud of gas and energy sourced from the nova brushed against a nebula, and feeble red pinpricks resulted. The surrounding nebula slowly contracted inward, spiraling. Just before the nebula fluttered out of sight, the Traveler saw the sudden ignition of a newborn star.
A great "harumph" sound made him look to the shore. The Beast was there, staring at the star-lake. Whatever it was, it was incredibly fast. The Traveler slowly started to work his way down the tree, taking care not to rustle the branches too much. Unfortunately, he slipped and ended up hanging from a branch by his hands. The resulting cascade of leaf-shaking alerted the Beast. Its head turned, slowly looking away from the lake. The Traveler could see its eyes darting from tree to tree, searching for the source of the noise.
For a moment, their eyes locked.
And then the Beast started to advance, slowly, toward the jungle.
The Traveler panicked. He vaulted from his branch toward the ground, landing with a painful half roll. He was rather inelegantly sprawled face up in the dirt. While it may have saved him from twisting his ankle, the roll also completely disoriented him. Quickly, he managed to get on his feet, picked a direction at random and began dashing through the trees like a wild boar. Some part of his mind, still functioning despite the adrenaline flooding his system, wondered if he'd have been better off climbing the tree again.
His progress, however fast at first, slowed to a stumbling crawl as the foliage thickened. Broad leaves were constantly slapping his face, vines and roots grabbed his feet, and thorns had already torn his arm to shreds. The Traveler wasn't even sure that he was going in the same direction. There were so many bushes and walls of vines that he had to change path every five seconds.
The thickness of the jungle, however unnavigable for him, must be twice that for the Beast. It was eerily quiet. All the commotion must have caused the animals in the vicinity to flee. He must be far in the future for something like the Beast to exist. Surely some scientist would have noted the existence of such a thing in the fossil record. And that would explain the climate shift from his era. Unfortunately, it looked like civilization shifted, too. His house wasn't here — the road wasn't even here — let alone the sleepy town that enveloped the estate. Presumably all civilization hadn't disappeared. So he'd have to get out of this jungle, and hopefully find either the Machine or someone who could take him to it.
Surely Mankind was very far advanced by now. Teleportation, wormholes, interstellar flight… the possibilities were endless and quite within his reach. They probably had quite a few new drinks to sample. He'd give his eye for a bar.
The trees abruptly ended. He'd found a path. And where there's a path, there's civilization.
The North Dakota
The North Dakota's shielded room was anechoic and designed to prevent electromagnetic penetration. The end result was that the walls, floor (at least, most of the floor), and ceiling were covered with blunted metal spikes. It was fucking ominous. Like Maj. Gen. Easton was some kind of James Bond supervillain, ready to bring the world to its knees. Not some brass about to show Ouverwald a powerpoint on a beat up laptop.
"Colonel, you've been selected to head an exploratory taskforce based in Hawaii," Easton started. Wonderful. A desk job. Just what he needed. Some part of Ouverwald wondered what his 'taskforce' would be 'exploring'. The Major General continued, "You will be in command of 27 people. Seven of those are civilians."
What the hell did he do to deserve this?
"Seven years ago, a Dr. Marcus Harding developed an advanced rocket motor for use in the new Arrowhead missile system. It used a combination of exotic matter and magnetic fields to mask the thermal signature of the exhaust plume." Easton advanced slides. "Dr. Harding's system worked better than it should have, however. To make a far too long and technical story short, he'd tapped into an alternate reality. We've taken his work and developed the Harding Drive, an engine capable of shifting a vehicle into an alternate reality. Now, after seven years of development, we're ready to give the Explorer 1 a test drive, and we want you heading the taskforce."
Colonel Ouverwald waited. The room was alarmingly silent — soundproofing prevented engine noise from leaking through for the most part.
He couldn't be serious.
As a rule, though, generals never had a sense of humor. They must drill it out of you with your first star.
"Sir?" was all that Ouverwald could manage.
"I'm serious, Colonel," Easton said.
This was worse than he'd thought.
"May I ask why I was selected, sir?"
"No," Easton replied.
"Sir, I'm no leader. I've been alone the last four years on 'training missions'. I don't know a damn thing about… whatever science thing this is. If you talk to General Marks—"
"General Marks has already signed off on this. There's a reason that we're sending civilians with you — so you don't have to know string theory. And let's be frank, since you apparently already want to. You're a waste of resources. The United States Marines did not spend time and money so you can play commando. You're an officer. It's time to lead, no matter how well-connected you or your father is."
Ouverwald stared at the laptop. Some part of him wondered how ingrained powerpoints were in Easton's head that he had to make a two-slide presentation.
"We've got three more hours in here for today. Then another six hours each day until we make Pearl Harbor. That laptop contains everything you need to know about your assignment. Study up," Easton orderd.
"Yes, sir," Ouverwald replied.
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