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Just My Imagination: Part 6 - Escape From Flatspace by Andrew Williams "Scott?" Mike didn't correct her when she looked up, but when the look of pain crossed her face, he felt it too. Even after a month, she still hoped that her son would walk through the front door. A month. A month since he'd woken up from strange and now forgotten dreams of spaceships and aliens, and Scott too, to find himself in a hospital bed. A month since his own mother had hugged him, weeping with relief that her son was alive, and he'd asked when Scott was visiting. They hadn't told him, not at first, waiting for him to come out of the hospital, waiting for him to be well, but when the police wanted to speak to him he knew something was wrong. Had Scott said anything to him about running away? Had he seemed depressed or been acting unusually? Mike had told them no, knowing what they weren't asking him. Then he'd confronted his mother, who'd told him that Scott had gone missing, that he'd ran away from home. He hadn't believed it. He knew his friend too well for that. So he'd gone to see Scott's mother, and confronted her. When she said the same thing, he came round again the next day, and the next, until one day she broke down in tears and told him the whole story. After that he went round every day after school, and they'd have tea and talk about anything. They never spoke about Scott, but they both thought of him, both jumped at the sound of the door. The night before Mike's recovery, Scott had simply vanished. His mother woke up in the night with the feeling that something was wrong, and since Scott's blackouts, she couldn't sleep unless she checked. So she'd quietly opened the door to check on him. She'd found the lights on, the computer on, the speakers switched off. Scott was gone. The windows and doors to the house were all closed and locked from the inside. Mike hadn't known about the blackouts. He was shocked. She'd looked around the house, looked outside, woken the neighbours and rang Mike's parents. No-one knew anything, no-one had seen her son. She called the police, who found nothing. No sign of entry, no sign of struggle. It looked like he'd gone out by himself, though they couldn't explain how he locked the door behind him. A manhunt took place (Scott's blackouts had made him a "high risk" missing person) and appeals were made in local papers. No trace of Scott anywhere. The school gave an assembly. Though the headmaster said they all hoped Scott would be found soon, it was obvious in his voice that he doubted he ever would. And over time, people started to move on. Scott was dead; they just hadn't found the body yet. His mother couldn't move on. And nor could Mike. Not while he kept having the dreams. Mike stopped playing computer games, especially Flatspace. They reminded him too much of his friend. But at night, in his dreams, Flatspace was the main feature - at least twice weekly. He was in command of a ship, and Scott was there with him. And every time, Scott spoke to him. "Help me, Mike. Help me get home." Mike would ask him what to do, but he'd never got an answer, just woken up with the feeling that he needed to do something. What was he supposed to do? Just dreams. Just the same dreams over and over, that stopped him from forgetting his friend and moving on. "June?" Mike had never known Scott's mother's name before he went missing. She was always just "Scott's mum" before then. Now she was her own person, not just someone connected to her son. "Yes, Mike?" He'd made up his mind to talk to her. There wasn't anyone else he could talk to, after all. "You know... dreams?" She sighed. "Yes," she said. "Have you ever had the same dream again?" She nodded, her eyes growing moist. "Every night," she said. "There's a knock at the door, and... he's there. Or sometimes it's the police, telling me they found him... in a ditch somewhere, or the river, or..." She stopped. Mike said nothing, he just let her get control. "Some people say that your dreams are messages," she said. "They're your mind telling you what to do. If you dream the same thing again, you haven't got the message." "I dream about Scott," said Mike. "He's trying to tell me something, but I keep waking up. I don't know what it is." June smiled, but only with her mouth. "Then don't wake up," she said. They sat in silence for a few minutes. Then they had tea and spoke about anything for a while, and dreams were forgotten. "Help me, Mike. Help me to get home." "What can I do?" asked Mike, but even as he said it he realised he was addressing his bedroom ceiling. Saturday. No school. No reason to get up, really, but he didn't want to sleep any more. He wandered over to the computer, thinking about looking online for a little while. Dreams are messages... Messages. Emails. He'd been avoiding them a lot lately. He used to check them every day but since Scott had stopped he'd been checking them a lot less often. He'd sort those out first, then look online. One new message. He opened it. "Flatspace II update released..." Flatspace. He moved to "delete" and then paused. Flatspace had been in his dreams a lot. Thoughts of going online were scrapped. All he wanted to do now was play Flatspace, and he had no idea why. The icon was still there. He'd never uninstalled it - he never usually uninstalled anything. Games he'd not played in months were buried amongst the desktop debris. Homework he'd never finished sat between picture files and music tracks. "Here's to you, Scott," he said, loading it up. His old saved game was still there, his upgraded ship still waiting for him to guide it through the universe. Yet there was something odd he couldn't work out at first. Then he realised. Everywhere he went, there was a Battlestation - normally a very rare ship. He scanned it a few times. It was always the same one. Ships didn't normally follow a player around. Then a message, and a yellow alert. "We have been scanned." It was targeting him. Then another message appeared. "Mike? Is that you?" Flatspace II wasn't designed for players to type long and complicated messages to AI ships, so all Mike could respond with was a choice of predesigned messages such as demands for surrender, requests for repair and so on. It didn't matter too much - the Battlestation did most of the "talking" whilst Mike sat there, reading all the one-line messages and wondering if he'd finally gone totally mad. Mike? Is that you? It's Scott here. Listen, mate, I know you can't answer me properly. Use option 2 for Yes, option 3 for No. I'm trapped in Flatspace. I came to rescue you. Well, sort of. There is a way out, but I need your help. Do you remember the first Flatspace game? The quest in that one was to find four components. These made a device called a fractional hyperdrive. Someone from Flatspace used this to enter our world. I've been asking around to find out who this was. It was a long time ago, before the war with the Scarrid started. But I think I know who it is, and I need you to contact him. His name here was Marcus Sharkey. It was the weirdest and longest email Mike had ever written. Still not entirely sure he'd not gone mad, he read it back through. Could Mark Sheeky, the man behind this game, really be from another dimension? He hesitated over the "send" button for several seconds. (Mike? Is that you?) (I'm trapped in Flatspace.) "Who wants to be sane anyway?" he laughed, and clicked the button. His email, half an hour to type out, went on its way in half a second. Now to wait for the reply. In a cluttered room that combined study, bedroom and cupboard, a figure stood before a small easel, paintbrush in hand, delicately adding some fine detail to his latest work. In the background, a desktop computer played classical music. The figure paused, stepping back to examine his work. The painting was lacking something. "I'll think of it eventually," Mark said to himself. There was a sudden and unexpected wrong note in the music. It took Mark a few seconds to realise that it was the chime for an incoming email. Putting down his paintbrush, he went over to have a look. There was silence for a whole minute - at least, if you didn't count the music. Then he swore, read the email again, and swore again. "How in the galaxy did he... why did he..." Mark sighed. It was no good. He'd spent a long time in this new life, trying to forget about his old one. Here there were no battles, no struggles to survive. The only pirates here were those trying to hack his games, which he actually found more despicable than those that tried to kill him. Those pirates were just trying to survive too. It looked like his "retirement" was over. No more painting, no more music, no more writing computer games. Perhaps he shouldn't have written games about his past - it seemed there was more than one way back to Flatspace. He opened a draw and brought out a device not unlike a remote control. In a way, that was what it was. He pressed a coded sequence of buttons, and in a blur of lights, Mark Sheeky vanished. Mike decided that he'd gone mad a few moments after sending the email. It was the only sensible answer - first the dreams, then the messages from Scott in a computer game, and now this. "I mean, really," he said, "would any spaceship really look like this?" "What's wrong with it?" asked someone behind him. Mike sat up from his chair - which seemed to be part of his delusion - and turned round. "Where are the monitor stations? The buttons? The big viewscreen? Where's Mr Spock?" Mike paused to look at his kidnapper. "And you don't fit in either. Especially not with paint on your T-shirt." Mark looked down at the blue splotch on his top. "This place looks more like the inside of a transit van. Just a bit bigger. And full of paintings." "Well, I was running out of space at home," Mark admitted. "And I've not used my ship in a few years now, so..." "You have an interdimensional spacecraft hidden in Crewe, and you use it as a shed?" Mike laughed. "Hello, madness. Where are the men in white coats?" "You're not mad," Mark said. "Or at least, you're not imagining this. I really am from another dimension. How did you find me out?" "Scott told me." Mark nodded. "Scott. You said in your email he was trapped in Flatspace. How did he get there?" "He doesn't know. He was trying to rescue me." "How did you get there?" "I didn't - he was trying to rescue the other me... or something. I really haven't a clue. I just know what he told me." "What sector is he in?" "Uh..." Mike thought for a moment. Scott hadn't said anything about a sector. "I last saw him in [15,17]. I think." "Then this could take a while. And this ship isn't armed any more, so I was hoping for a quick jump in and out." Mark began jabbing coordinates into a keyboard at what Mike thought of as the driving seat. "Not armed...? What...?" "Hold on to something!" Mark pushed a final key, and there was a sudden lurch and then they were somewhere else. "Sector [15,17]. Not bad. We're close to the Scarrid border, though, so let's get this done quickly. Sit over there and watch those monitors." Mike stumbled into the "passenger" seat and studied the monitors. One seemed to be a radar station. The other was instantly familiar. "That's the Flatspace screen!" "Of course it is," replied Mark. "Where do you think we are?" A blip appeared on the radar's edge. An alarm went off. Mark swore. "Uhhh... you said before that your ship has no weapons?" "I'm afraid so," said Mark. "I came here for a brief visit a couple of years ago. I didn't realise the Scarrid had moved in. Barely got back in one piece. My guns didn't, and Earth doesn't have the technology to repair them." "What now?" "Me, I fly for our lives. You, grab the radio and call for help. Hopefully your friend will hear us." Another pair of blips appeared on the screen. Another alarm sounded. "We've been scanned again." "More Scarrid?" "No - human. One's a Battlestation..." The Scarrid ships turned to face this new threat, and a barrage of weapons fire from both new vessels left them scattered and many damaged. The radio bleeped. "Are my scanners reading you right? Is your name really Marcus Sharkey?" "I haven't been called that for a while," replied Mark. "I'm looking for a Captain Scott. My passenger here would like a chat." "Which Scott do you mean?" laughed the radio. "Old one or young one?" "I'm Mike Trenchard," said Mike. "I'm looking for my friend." The radio crackled again. "Hello, Mike. I knew you'd be alright!" They decided a conference was the best way to catch up. The Battlestation had a room apparently just for conferences, complete with a coffee machine and giant viewscreen. A dozen seats went unoccupied, their small gathering occupying just one corner. Mike was amazed. His friend looked older, harder - but it was still Scott. He still laughed at the same lame jokes. Living in Flatspace for - how long was it? Time seemed to work differently here - had made an impression on him. The battles, the constant struggle... what had Scott been through? Mark (or was it Marcus?) sat a little apart from the rest of the group. Of course, this dimension jumping thing was old news to him. Opposite Mike and Scott sat.. Mike and Scott. They looked just like their younger counterparts - but with another fifteen, twenty years added on. The older Mike looked a little worse for wear, but when the younger Mike heard about his capture and rescue, he wasn't surprised. "Our first assault on the Scarrid base was a disaster," he said. "They took us completely by surprise, had us cut off and overpowered in no time. My crew barely had time to bail out before the ship blew." "I couldn't get to the lifepods in time," said the elder Scott. "The Scarrid scooped them all up and I had two choices - fight and die, or run and come back with help." "You did right," said Mike. "If you'd stayed, we'd both still be there now. In any case, the Scarrid didn't hurt us. They didn't feed us too well either, mind you. Probably don't know what we eat." Then Scott told them about his own adventures, about the dreams and the blackouts, and then how he'd somehow fallen into the Flatspace universe. He couldn't explain a lot of it, including how saving Mike in one universe would save him in the other. "But it did," said young Mike. "I remember being rescued. I dreamed about it." "None of this explains how any of it happened," said the older Mike. "Do we all have doubles? And why have the Scotts been sharing memories, but not me and this lad?" "I think that might be my fault," said Mark. "That, and much more." Long ago, before the Scarrid first emerged (and no-one had yet managed to explain quite where they had emerged from) there was a young pilot called Marcus Sharkey. While exploring the galaxy and hunting pirates, he called into a shipyard at a quiet, out of the way station and discovered a bizarre glass component. Despite it not doing anything by itself and the enormous price tag, he was intrigued by the device and set about the task of finding out more. He learned that there were four such components, and that together they made up a device known as the Fractional Hyperdrive. Beyond that, no-one knew anything. It took Marcus many months to find all four components, and far longer to earn the money to buy them all. Yet when eventually he had them all, he wasted no time in launching into the unknown. "I don't know quite what happened," he said. "No-one understands the science behind it. But I think, when I entered fractional space, I created a hole in the boundary between two universes. A hole that is still there." "So how does that explain anything?" "I think the hole moves. It formed a channel between the two Scotts, and allowed your thoughts to mix up. You've heard about twins having psychic links? It's because they're on nearly the same frequency. Imagine being the same person." "And it allowed me to come through?" asked young Scott. "Yes. Solid objects can pass through as well. But it was anchored to one Scott at either end - all those thoughts passing through the hole kept it in place. When you went through, the hole moved on - and you were trapped." "Not any more," grinned Mike. "Mark can take us both home again, Scott. Your mother has missed you. Do you know what trouble you've caused?" "I can take you back," said Mark. "But this isn't over. That hole between dimensions is still there, and every time something passes through it, it gets bigger. And I'm not the only one that's gone through." There was silence. The older Scott answered first. "You mean... the Scarrid?" "The Scarrid," nodded Mark. "I think they fell through not long after I left, and they've been trapped here ever since." Three people sat strapped in the slightly less cluttered spacecraft. Mark had sold some of his older artworks in exchange for repairs to the weaponry and a few new pieces of equipment. "Time to get you two back home," he said. "Time moves differently on both sides of the hole - I hope when we get back it's been a few hours and not a few weeks." Mike shuddered. He didn't like the idea of both their mothers with missing children. "What about the hole?" he asked. "That's why I've got my ship patched up," replied Mark. "I can't sit around in my retirement any more. The Scarrid could find a way into this universe the same way you found a way into mine, and your universe doesn't have any way to defend itself yet." "Just you?" asked Scott. "I turned up with a Battlestation. What happens if they turn up with something even bigger?" "I need to seal off that hole," admitted Mark. "And I only know one way to do that. I need to write another game." Scott blinked. "Huh?" "That's how you got in - through Flatspace. I need to write another Flatspace game. One where the hole is known, and contained. That'll stop anything getting out or in. At least, I hope so." "Flatspace 3!" grinned Mike. "Can we help?" Mark smiled. "I couldn't do it without you." Then he pushed the warp button and the ship juddered and appeared back in their familiar, three-dimensional universe. To their left, the rings of Saturn glinted in the starlight. Mark smiled at their open mouths and wide eyes. "Just a couple of hours," he said. "Good, good." "Is that really Saturn?" gasped Mike. Mark nodded. "Shall we go straight back to Earth?" he asked. "Or shall we take the scenic route?" THE END.