Suddenly Steve understood what was happening. These cybernoids were effectively committing suicide, just to get him. They must have bypassed all the safety circuitry and cranked their microfusion power plants up far beyond the designed power level. This could only result in catastrophic containment failures. They were all going to explode! He had to get out of here now! Unfortunately the converging energy fields had already disrupted his nano-net so severely that his nanosymbiont had gone offline, reducing his internal nanites to something only slightly better than a standard bio-enhancement nanite package.
He couldn't even use them to call for help. Not that it would have mattered much, there wasn't enough time left to arrange an extraction anyway. There was only one possible way out. He still had the experimental prototype of the portable sidereal portalizer he had been testing in his pocket. It would be very dangerous. The portable unit couldn't compensate for the slight physical differences in the landscape between this universe and the one on the other side of the sidereal rift that he was about to open. Also, with his nano-net down, he would have no way to check that the transdimensional coordinates were accurate. He could easily wind up inside of something solid.
It hadn't been designed to open a portal suitable for human transport anyway. That was beyond the scope of such a small unit. Rather he was trying to develop a reliable way to send a small messenger drone through. The size of the portal was unlikely to exceed an arm in diameter. Worse, the aperture it generated wouldn't be stable. He had yet to get one to stay open for more than half a subcyclet. As often as not, they lasted less that 0.01 subcyclets before collapsing. So the aperture would probably collapse while he was still in transition.
That thought made him shudder even as he pulled the device out of his pocket and began to manually punch in the sidereal coordinates he had been using for the tests. At least he was sure that the size, orbital position, and rotational velocity of the two planets were currently in sync. As he pressed the last button of the activation sequence Steve threw himself at the spot where the portal would form. Even as he felt the transdimensional rift begin envelope him, he also felt the resistance to his passage increase as the effective aperture shrank as it began to collapse but at that exact moment he also felt a shockwave of force slam into him, just hard enough to push him all the way through. Then suddenly he was falling.
***
Jake was almost too tired to drive. He gulped down the last of the nearly cold coffee from his oversized travel mug. He glanced up at the overcast sky wishing that the moon would come out. It would probably take him about another hour on these windy mountain roads to reach the campsite. He thought about pulling over at the next wide spot and taking a nap but Cindy had already been upset at the idea of his having to go in to work on the first night of their vacation. He hadn't liked it either but since he was the manager of the convenience store he worked at, he hadn't had much choice. His assistant manager, Jill, had called to say she slipped and twisted her ankle so she couldn't relieve Sam, who had already worked 12 hours. She had tried to call in a replacement but nobody was answering their phones.
So he had had to make the three hour drive to cover the evening shift. Or rather the last four hours of it. When the 3rd shift worker, Bill got there at half past eleven, he agreed to cover Jill's morning shift. Which would give Jill enough time to rework the schedule from home. By 1:45 am, Jake had been nearly halfway back to the campsite. Then the weather had turned a bit foggy and he'd had to slow down. Now at half past two it was merely overcast and he was in no mood for any more delays.
Suddenly there was a flash of light somewhere overhead and something fell onto the road in front of him. Then to his amazement, Jake saw a man starting to stand up in the middle of the road. There wasn't time to stop! There wasn't anything coming the other way however, so he tried to swerve around him. He almost made it. He missed the guy but he was still doing 30 when his left front tire slipped off the pavement and sunk into the soft shoulder. Where it hit something solid and the pickup truck spun around and then hurtled down the embankment into the woods.
Jake saw the tree just before he slammed into it. When the airbag deflated, he was at first only vaguely aware of an intense pain in his chest. Then he saw that a stout branch had poked through the windshield and the remains of the airbag. Then he realized that the branch was lodged inside his chest. He wondered why it didn't hurt more. Then everything started going black. The last thing he was aware of was hearing somebody yelling something that sounded obscene. Then he knew nothing at all.
Chapter 2 Campsite
Cindy was pissed off at Jake for going in to work. It was bad enough that he had talked her into going camping but he had had to leave in the middle of supper and then be gone all night! It wasn't fair, he knew how horny she got at night. Especially since she could hear them carrying on in the other tent. She thought about how Jake would feel when he got the cold shoulder treatment from her when he finally crawled in. It would serve him right. Though she doubted she'd ignore him for more than a couple of hours. She'd still be horny after all. She sure wasn't going to get any sleep listening to what was beginning to sound as if that free spirit “Suzy” had managed to join in the fun Arnie and Karen were so obviously having. ‘Damn it all Jake,’ she thought again, ‘where are you?’
She really did love him, even if she had stepped out on him a few times when he'd had to work the overnight shift. He'd been gone all night for a year and a half before he got promoted to store manager. She'd been so lonely all those nights that she had eventually decided that what Jake didn't know wouldn't hurt him. She'd been real careful to slip out to an out of town pickup spot she knew of, where nobody knew them. She'd even used a fake name so that if any of her one night stands ever told stories that somehow reached Jake's ears, he wouldn't know they were about her. Then even after the promotion, Jake had still felt obligated to do at least one overnight a week, sometimes two. So, after a couple weeks of that, she had decided it would serve him right and resumed her nights out.
‘But damn it all,’ she thought. ‘We're supposed to be using this vacation to reconnect and rekindle the romance. Shit, I've just gotta stop thinking about my nights out or I'm gonna get so hot that I'll wind up trying to join the party next door. It'd serve Jake right for leaving me alone tonight. But I'd never be able to keep him from finding out.’
The noises coming from the cabin style two room tent that Arnie and his wife Karen were sharing with her friend Suzy, showed no sign of ending any time soon. So Cindy decided to take a walk in the night air.
Cindy climbed out of her sleeping bag, pulled her warm woolen poncho over her head and left the dome tent. Which she was supposed to be sharing with Jake.
‘Jake is such an asshole,’ she thought. ‘For choosing his stupid job over being here when she needed him.’
Then she started down the nearest path leading out of the clearing where the tents had been pitched next to David's broke down VW camper bus. She hadn't even begun to think about going for a midnight swim until she heard the water trickling into David's private swimming hole up ahead. Then it occurred to her that she hadn't put her swim suit back on before she had left the tent.
That's when she realized the only thing she was wearing was the poncho she had grabbed when she left in such a hurry. The poncho did cover her well enough that even if somebody saw her, they wouldn't notice. Though the night air wasn't quite cool enough to keep her from starting to sweat, with the heat she had built up under the warm woolen garment by walking so briskly. Suddenly she wanted to cool off in the swimming hole so badly that she decided to skinny-dip. Who would see her after all.
She reached the swimming hole which was basically a bend in a brook that had been dug out with a backhoe, so that it would form a pool right where a smaller brook tricked down over a few well placed rocks on the far side of the pool, making a small enough waterfall that it was easy to sit in and enjoy the massage of the cold moving water. Cindy folded her ponc
ho and set it on one of the rocks along the side of the path and dove in. As soon as her body adjusted to the chilly mountain steam Cindy swam over to the rock seat under the little falls. Soon she was sitting back letting the trickling water sooth away her tension. Well most of her tension. In spite of the coldness of the water, the idea that she was doing this naked, so soon after hearing some of her friends engaging in some kind of orgy made her remember how horny she was.
Just then there was a flash of light from the other side of the tree lined hill. The flash hadn't quite look like lightening but it would still have sent her scrambling out of the water. If only she hadn't been looking towards the trail when the flash of light showed her a very naked David Taylor walking towards the swimming hole. So instead of fleeing the water, Cindy quietly slipped off the partially submerged rock she was sitting on and sunk into the dark water. Opting to hide behind the other rocks placed around it. When Cindy was as out of sight as she could get. She risked a quick peek around the edge of the boulder she had chosen just in time to see David dive in, and quickly swim towards her hiding spot.
Cindy nervously realized that while she was well hidden from the beach at the end of the path, she had a nearly unobstructed view of David climbing up onto the ‘sitting rock’. As he had called it when he had first showed his swimming hole to them all this morning. Her only hope of avoiding detection lay in the darkness of the night. Along with the hope that he wouldn't peer too closely at the shadows of the rocks she was hiding in. At that moment the moon stopped playing hide and seek with the clouds and gave her a very clear view of David gently massaging his rigid manhood.
Cindy stopped thinking as the lust that had been building up all night took over. She could see that David's eyes were closed as he slowly stroked his organ. So she risked a closer look. His manhood looked a little shorter than Jake's nine inches but, she thought, it was a little bit thicker. It was his balls that got her attention however, they were huge. As she quietly got closer another detail caught her eye. David, unlike Jake, hadn't been circumcised.
David didn't see Cindy slowly approach. So he was completely surprised when his hand's down stroke was followed by a set of lips engulfing him. The sensation was so intense that it took less than a minute for his orgasm to begin. It wasn't until he was finished that he opened his eyes to see that it was his best friend's girl who had just given him such pleasure. For a split second he hesitated. Then he decided that ‘friend's woman’ or not, he believed in giving as good as he got. David slid into the water and lifted Cindy's body up onto the rock she had so recently been hiding behind.
Chapter 3 An Awakening
Steve was standing beside the bed when his patient started to regain consciousness. The stranger who had almost died trying not to run him over groaned again. It took no effort for Steve to remember the name on this man's drivers license. Nor any of the megabytes about him that he had quickly extracted from the local planetary ‘internet’. Then the man's eyes fluttered open.
“Where the fuck am I?” Jake demanded, as he looked at the unfamiliar room.
“Your in my medical laboratory Mr Peterson,” Steve replied. “You've been in an accident. My name is Steve Fontane.”
When Jake heard the word ‘accident’, he threw the blankets off and looked at his chest with a start. He couldn't see any trace of the terrible wound he expected to see. Nor for that matter, did he see any other signs of injury down the length of his body. He looked back up at Steve. Jake thought the man looked familiar.
“Where's my cloths?” he demanded.
Suddenly Jake realized why this ‘Steve’ looked so familiar.
“Your that nut case that jumped in front of my truck!” Jake yelled.
“Fact is I fell,” Steve calmly replied. “I did not jump. But thank you for ‘not’ running me over.”
“Do you remember anything else about the accident Mr Peterson?” Steve continued after a slight pause.
Jake didn't answer right away. Instead he absently rubbed his chest for a moment.
“I'm not sure what I remember,” he finally said.
“Perhaps not Mr Peterson,” Steve responded. “But it seems you remember the tree in any event.”
“What tree is that?” Jake said guardedly. “And please stop calling me ‘Mr Peterson’!”
“Jake then?” Steve asked with a smile. Then he continued without pause. “You know very well what tree but you won't find any scar there or anywhere else on your body for that matter. Would you like to know why?”
“Not as much as I'd like to know where my cloths are,” Jake said.
“Your wallet, pocket knife and keys are in the draw beside the bed,” Steve said. “Your clothes were not salvageable I'm afraid.” Then with a gesture towards a closed door on the other side of the room he continued. “But there's something to wear hanging on the inside of that restroom door. I'll get you a replacement for the damaged butane lighter that was inside your shirt pocket. But not, I'm afraid, for the bag of weed that was with it.” Steve paused a moment, then continued more gently. “The reason you won't find any scars is that in order to save your life, I had to enhance your body's natural healing power with nano-technology.”
After a few seconds while Jake just stared at him like he was crazy or something, Steve resumed talking.
“If there had been more time I'd have used some customized medical nanites that you would never have had to even know about,” he said. “But you were injured much to badly for me to wait. So I used some of my personal nanites. Then something really rare happened. The nanites liked you enough to want to stay. So instead of just repairing the damage and returning to me, they transformed themselves to match your genetic and brainwave patterns.”
“Did you just say that you put some kind of fucking nanotech shit inside of me?” Jake was suddenly yelling at Steve.
“I don't mean to upset you Jake,” Steve replied. “But there wasn't any other way.”
Now Jake was sure that this Steve was some kind of nut. Before he could decide what to do about it however, Steve gestured towards the open door behind him.
“Let me show you!” he suggested. “You've recovered enough for walking and anyway it's just down the hall.”
After a moment Jake decided to humor him long enough to find out what the hell was going on here. So he stood up and began to walk towards the door.
“You can get dressed first if you'd like,” Steve said. “There are some female staff and a few guests out there. Course it's up to you, none of them actually get offended by nudity.”
Without a word Jake changed course for the bathroom door. The clothes hanging on the inside of the door looked a lot like the blue jeans and V necked pocket tee outfit that he had been wearing but the fabric was much smoother and softer to the touch. Then he noticed that there weren't any labels. Jake didn't bother to go inside the bathroom to get dressed. He wanted to keep an eye on this Steve character. Besides it wasn't like the man hadn't already had a good look already.
These new cloths were surprisingly comfortable. As were the athletic shoes that looked a lot like his old pair, except that they were new. When he finished dressing, he walked around the bed and retrieved his wallet. Then after glancing at it's contents, he grabbed his pocket knife and keys. Then, while he put these in his pockets, Jake nodded at the other door.
“After you!” he said.
Without another word, Steve led him down a short carpeted hallway to a large, high ceilinged, mostly carpeted open space. Which was sparsely furnished with an assortment of expensive looking chairs and sofas arranged in such a way that afforded anyone seated with an excellent view of the most realistic indoor waterfall Jake had ever seen.
The big room was at least two floors tall. The sides having several doorways like the hallway he had just left. It also had what looked like a long second floor balcony that served as a walkway along either side. At one end there was a massive door that appeared to lead outside. It was the two story water
fall at the other end however, that really dominated the room. There was a safety rail around the small pool at the base of the falls. The turbulent water rapidly flowed into two channels on either side of the falls and was gone.
The rock face that the falls flowed down, looked so real that it was hard to believe you were indoors. Jake was so fascinated by the realistic appearance that he missed seeing which doorway Steve had just left the big room by. He was pretty sure that Steve had been on his way to the other side of the room when he had lost sight of him. That eliminated 5 of the of the 11 doorways that opened off the big room. He was sure Steve hadn't walked towards the water fall so that eliminated the backmost passageway. He didn't believe Steve had had enough time to get as far as the doorway by the main door. That would also rule out the main door itself. Which left three doorways, the one directly across from the one they had come in by and the next two heading towards the back of the big room.
In any case it didn't look like Steve was going to bother to come back to finish escorting him to what he wanted him to see. Jake didn't feel like standing there looking like an idiot in front of the half dozen people in the room. He'd noticed however, that two of the four women who were enjoying the fall's were not wearing upper garments. All four of the women were strikingly beautiful.
One dark skinned woman with black hair, who appeared to be perhaps 30 years old, was wearing a prim looking business pants suit. She was casually un-spooling a skein of some kind of yarn. While a younger looking fair skinned blond, wearing only a grass skirt, rolled the yarn into a ball. Just a little closer to the falls there was a redheaded man who looked to be about 20. Who was quietly reading some book. He was wearing cut off shorts and a loud multi-color tie-dyed tank top and a white armband with a black circle containing a white on black image of a waterfall flowing out of the front door of some kind of building. Jake was surprised at how well he could see the details on the armband.
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