The Douglas Rifts: Motion I

Motion 1: The Mistake


It was just a simple miscalculation.

I began to read of Primordial black holes in my study of General Relativity. I had always been interested. Being a physicist was always a childhood dream of mine. My Intelligence Quotient was heavy, and I slipped through college quickly.
For a few years, I had been working on an odd subject. The creation of artificial big booms, to then create micro primordial black holes. I could study them, and possibly even make a breakthrough. My goals were simple, Space-time travel, and possible escape of the event horizon, which was deemed inescapable.

I woke up that morning, my head swimming. It was, I think, eight in the morning. The pitter patter of rain gently sounded my roof and my window. I lay within my warm bed, struggling whether to wake up or fall back to sleep. I deeply breathed, between awake and in a dream-like state. My mind wandered, and I soon decided against more wonderful sleep and sat up. My brown, half opened eyes felt heavy and I tried to rub the weight away, yawning heavily. I reached a hand over and took hold of my wire-rimmed glasses upon the dark wood end table, slipping them upon my nose. The world was clear for another day. I looked around my simple bedroom, the plain off-white plaster walls and the dark wooden floor. Not much furniture found my bedroom home. A dresser, the bed, two end tables, two doors, a full body mirror, a closet. My little town house in Manchester, England was very lonely. I never concerned myself with love or companionship, It was really too much trouble.
I sat lazily, my back slouched and my legs crossed. My hands neatly folded in my lap with twiddling thumbs. My mind was on the experiment for today. I wondered if all was well, and if everything would go smoothly. It always did. Once slipped out of my bed, I slowly made my way over to my dresser, where I grabbed a small rectangular remote control. I clicked the button, which more than obviously depicted a light turning on; my bedroom was suddenly bright. Fluorescent light brought out the true colors of the furniture, all powered with simple solar energy. Most everything was powered either by solar and wind now…

I rubbed my eyes with the tips of my fingers, and my legs pulled me into my bathroom. Wantonly dropping the remote device to the marble counter, I leaned my weight onto the salt and pepper coloured counter top and raised my face to the mirror. I examined my features, as I always had. Light brown eyes, and simple black pupils… My glasses hung upon my softly rounded nose. It was neither big nor small. My eyes had many dark rings beneath, earned by a myriad of late nights and lost sleep. I rubbed my pale cheeks, and examined my small eyebrows before running long, skinny, bony fingers through my brown hair (in which a cut was dearly needed, but had been so abused. Left, it was nearly down to my cheeks now.) I examined my lip, which was chapped because of the weather, and I ran my print over it. I softly bit down upon it, and turned on the faucet, cold; I could say that I was the average height of a male my age, 26, but my features were always long and skinny. I never gained much weight, no matter how I tried.
I cupped my hands under the water, which was at it's coldest now, and pulled a hand from the flow to remove my glasses, setting them by the remote device. I then brought the water up to my face, and splashed the liquid to it, causing me to breathe in sharply at the sudden wake up. Wiping my face down with a clean towel, I went about my routine of showering, combing my hair, and brushing my teeth. I did nothing but think of experiment AM121... We planned to finally use an untested Antimatter beam upon a rift today, and see if the readouts claimed a stabilization; I finished my grooming and hygiene. My bare feet smacked upon the tiled floor of the bathroom, as I brought myself to the counter. I once again went about placing my spectacles about my nose, seeing the world clearly. They were slightly fogged from the steam, but it didn't bother me much. I walked from the steamy bathroom with a towel around my waist, I checked the calendar upon the wall next to the curtained window: April 12th, 2085.

By now, Manchester had found itself home to to the new headquarters of CERN. A disaster at the original Large Hadron Collider (LHC) between Switzerland and France had caused horrible damage to a neighboring town, before the destruction was contained in a magnetic field and the rift which had grown out of control died. About 10 years later, after the area was deemed unlivable, the world decided it was time to try again. After much protest and study and precautions, The new LHC and sister accelerators found its way into the outskirts of Manchester. I worked as the main Manager there for about 5 or 6 years. It was I who proposed the idea of studying black holes for the use of space-time travel and the idea of possibly escaping the Event Horizon. The very thing which had destroyed the original partical laboratory. I proposed to master what had defeated us, rather than shy away.

I slipped on some knickers and a pair of black slacks. Plaid socks found my feet home for today. Looking through my lower dresser drawer, I picked out a nicely folded dress shirt. White, long sleeved, button down. I slipped my arms through the sleeves and began to button it, staring myself down in the mirror. I always had such a serious look on my face, I suddenly thought. With eyes half shut, I let my lips set on their own. I quirked an eyebrow at myself, as I reached for a tie. It was a red silk tie, with a demask diamond shape woven into it. Not my favorite, but, i didn't like ties in the first place. I raised the collar of my shirt and began the tying of the silk. All the while, I whistled some popular tune to myself. Despite, my mind was on the experiment for today.
I tucked in my shirt, and slipped my shiny black belt through the loops of my slacks, buckling it in front. I adjusted my tie and gave one last look at myself in the mirror before turning to the curtained windows. Making my way back into the bathroom, I took the little remote device from the marble counter top and aimed it at the hidden windows. Pressing the button which indicated open curtains, i let the world come before me: wet and steadily raining, as I suspected from the lack of light and gentle sounds of rain drops upon my roof. I decided I would drive, rather than take the train. So, with that decision in my mind I walked to my closet, and took out a black wool trench coat. It was long, hemming about to my calves. I fastened it's large buttons and adjusted it's classic-looking collar; Taking one last look around my room... I made the time to make my bed and turn off the lights, smiling at the neatness of my bedroom before finally walking from it. I softly shut the door behind me and looked down the dark hallway with my hands within the pockets of my heavy coat. It had the same canvas walls and wooden flooring as my bedroom, and I liked it that way. I began to walk forward, my socked feet gently patting as I made my way to the stairs at the end of the hall. Plopping quietly down the stairs, I yawned softly, and my feet took me before the front door where my shoes had sat. Slipping the shining black leather into my feet, I took my Burberry umbrella from off the hook where it hang. With It's shining silver skeleton and polished wood handle resting between my slender fingers, I unlocked and opened the wooden door to see the rainy streets of Manchester before me. I reached to my right, where a little bowl set upon a little end table. My keys rattled at me, as I took them from their little home and locked the front door behind me. I opened the plaid umbrella into the cold and wet morning and walked down the steps of my townhouse and through the little front gate headed for my car.

It would be the last time I ever walked through that little white gate.



When I had made my way to the laboratory, everything was already very busy busy. Like a beehive, everyone had their own jobs to do, to serve the queen bee... The New Large Hadron Collider, or NLHC as we referred to it. I looked up to that beautiful accelerator and smiled with a sort of love in my eyes, one could say. If i ever felt passion for anything, this was it. A great experiment within itself, it changed little from the original design, though the inside was full of upgrades. In such a way, it shined, and made me think of the sun. I sighed out gently, as if taking myself from the passion, and moved to the lift for the control room. I was raised slowly up, before coming to a stop where the door split in half and opened me up to the room. There were a few people working, top Physicists and some bright interns, an Engineer going over something with an advisor. I moved forward to my rightful position in the room. My computer was on and ready, and I began to type commands into it. I programmed exactly what was needed for the experiment.
As I went about my work and calculations, a young intern greeted me, "Oh! Mr. Douglas, how are you this morning, Sir?" I blinked and lifted my head, smiling. The Boy's accent was light like mine. He was a very bright young man, and I was always glad to have people like him around me. He was only about 19, nearly finished with his education. He was so intelligent, had so much ahead of him, "I am fine, John. A little excited for the read outs for today, ah, I just cant wait to fire it all up."
John smiled, he understood my excitement. He turned, then, and made his way over to the mic, "All is go?"
His voice echoed through the Collider room. The engineers gave a thumbs up and John smiled, speaking once again, "If all is go, then please clear the vicinity. I repeat, please clear the vicinity. Experiment AM121 will begin shortly." The men inside took the other, doing just that and clearing the area. It was to be sealed, to make sure nobody could interrupt the process once it begun.

It was only soon after that I initiated the experiment. My goal? To see if Antimatter could make a black hole stable enough to travel through. To be sure that it never got out of hand, we produced hawking radiation as a precaution. May the need ever arise, we would simply evaporate the rift. We never tested it, though, as containing the radiation was already expensive enough;
The first particle beam was shot out as indicated by certain read-outs. Success! The other came soon after. I could imagine them, being shot through the accelerators. We were pushing them to go as fast as 99.9% the speed of light. That was the energy we needed to produce the rift.
Then suddenly, a flash and an odd feeling pressure of gravity filled the room.
The humming of the Hadron Collider was great, and computers began to light up. I read the readouts: we had a black hole, spinning within the vacuum of the Collider. "Phase 2, Antimatter particle beam." and with that command, A large machine that looked to come out of a science fiction book moved from the wall. It looked like, to me, a laser beam gun. But, it was readying to shoot something more than just a laser. It made a loud humming noise, that only gradually got more intense. A light flashed, and the beam was shot forward from the massive machine. It shot through a small hole, in the middle of the spinning machinery of the Hadron Collider. Everyone celebrated as they got the news, that the rift was stabilizing.

Until...
It was all so sudden, just a little explosion on the Collider, right in the middle. A small one. We were all thrown off guard, some screaming in sudden shock as the whole room shook. My eyes shot open as I looked to my screen and quickly checked the status of the Antimatter Beam. It was still shooting, still! Why? It should have stopped! Too much Antimatter would cause an overload, and the matter's atoms were highly unstable. I read through my programming as fast as I could see. I found my simple little mistake...
And that's all it took, just that one extra zero. That one wrong exponent.
Another explosion, bigger, in the middle, throwing magnets off their courses, another, another... People held onto whatever they could find that was stable enough to let them stand through the quakes. Sweating, I pressed the emergency call button with my fist, which was nearby. I remember my voice was haggard, as if I didn't trust myself in saying the words. I wanted it a dream...
"Abort!! Abort AM121! It's level 5! Release the radiation!! STOP THE FEED!" My screaming was so frantic, so full of fear. We were feeding the monster.
Only soon did the beam shut down, when a massive blinding light illuminated the whole laboratory. "What's going on in there?!" someone on the other line yelled out to us through the speaker system. The front glass window just seemed to burst, and I heard screams of panic. I shielded my eyes with my hands, opening them only to see a gruesome display of violence... John, who was stumbling to his feet, stood in the way of flying shrapnel that had blown off the Collider. A flat, sharp piece of metal. Flying through the air, it chopped like a flying ax into his forehead right between the eyes. I cried out in horror, "J-JOHN!" and dropped to my butt, pushing against the wall. The intern fell backward like a brick, hitting the floor with a thump, instantly dead. His eyes were wide, a line of blood dripped from the wound; Only soon after, another bright flash, and I could feel myself being lifted off the floor rapidly... The screams around me became distorted, quiet, slow. I heard my name screamed out, possibly by a woman.
Suddenly I felt such a horrible pressure, a speed, a heat. My mind was running behind in the situation, and I finally, finally released a scream. I was being jetted forward at a speed I did not comprehend. A sickening, horrible fast. Was I dead? or...
I blacked out, before I could even think of what could have been happening to me.

Little did I know, I had become my own experiment.
It was just a simple miscalculation.