Branch Off

by Dario Solera

  One of the men waved a hand and a police officer arrived. In a blink, the two doctors walked the woman and the child to the back of the ambulance, where they sat and received covers.

  Sarah watched and smiled.

  “What’s your name, madam?” the policeman asked.

  “Sarah Davinson.”

  “Did you come from the other side?”

  “How do you mean? I drove up to a gate back there and then I walked in the fields. Two minutes ago I found them.”

  “Why did you come here?”

  “I saw all this on the Internet,” she said gesturing around. “I had to see it with my eyes.”

  “So you’re from here. From this side.”

  “I don’t understand. I am from Geneva,” she said with a frown. “They are as well,” she added pointing at the woman and child.

  “May I see your papers?”

  “Of course.” She fumbled in her pocket.

  “You’re American.”

  “Yes. I moved to Geneva a couple years ago. I work for the Institute as a physicist.”

  “Then you must know what’s happening here.”

  “Actually, I don’t.”

  “Follow me, please.”

  They walked over to a large, nondescript black van. The cop opened the back doors and motioned for her to climb in. Other men with white lab coats were inside in front of computer screens. A tall, uniformed man stood behind them with his arms crossed.

  “Am I under arrest?” she asked after getting inside, unsure about what to make of those people.

  “Should you be?”

  “Of course not.”

  The officer studied her for a moment and then looked at the man in uniform.

  “I am Colonel Rambald of the Swiss Army, Special Operations division. You are…?”

  “Dr. Sarah Davinson.” She noted that his shoulder insignia had a black background. “Physicist at the Institute,” she added, guessing it was important.

  “The Institute on our side?”

  “Apparently,” the policeman said.

  “What side? What are you talking about?” she asked with a nervous tone.

  “You really don’t know, do you?”

  Sarah gave him a stare.

  “Where do you think all these people come from?”

  She jumped out of the van and wandered around, with the officer and Colonel Rambald following her. White tents with one side rolled up housed first-aid units, with doctors tending to lots of people. Some armed men patrolled the area and a dozen ambulances idled nearby.

  “We found another six,” someone called. “We need a stretcher!”

  “The other side,” Sarah said to herself. She looked toward the distant building. “The detector.” The yellow blossom of particle traces popped up in her mind. “No,” she whispered. “This can’t be,” she repeated to the police officer and Rambald. She turned in the other direction, where she expected the detector to lay underground.

  And then she saw it, towering in front of them.

  “Do you understand now?”

  “This is impossible!” she said, taking a few steps toward that thing. It was almost invisible through the fog—maybe it was the mist that made its contour evident. It was a sphere, a little oily, like water covered with gasoline, or the surface of a soap bubble. She could only see its lower part from here, while the rest was lost in the haze. The top of it could be several dozen meters high in the sky.

  “I saw it with my own eyes, Doctor. People appearing out of nowhere.”

  “But you don’t understand! This is impossible. This would mean—this would prove the multiverse theory is correct.”

  “Now, Doctor, try to explain to us, in simple words, how we stop it.”

  Sarah’s head spun. “I don’t even know how we started it,” she uttered with an unsteady voice.

  Rambald raised his eyebrows and then spoke. “Who else should we call?”

  “Professor Richards.”

  ***

  The helicopter’s blades spun down as the engine’s noise began dying. Three men jumped off the aircraft, running and keeping their heads low.

  “Sarah! Are you OK?” Richards asked as he jogged toward her. His swift moves surprised her.

  “Yeah.” She was still sitting on a chair under an open gazebo.

  “They brought me here, but they didn’t tell me why.”

  “Professor Richards, I am Colonel Rambald. I am supervising the operations here. Dr. Davinson, would you explain what’s happening?”

  Richards watched Rambald’s face for a long moment.

  “People are appearing out of nowhere,” Sarah began. “A few hundred meters down there is the detector.”

  “You mean the—”

  “Yes, the accelerator’s detector we used for the experiment.”

  “I don’t understand.”

  “Professor,” Rambald said, “you have created some kind of bridge between two dimensions.”

  Richards laughed. “How do you know? With all due respect, you don’t even know what you’re talking about.”

  “I saw it,” Sarah said. “I watched as people came through. Just a blur at first, a shadow, as if they were behind a block of ice. Then they got across, and just—walked.” Her voice broke. “It’s a nightmare.”

  “We have to stop it,” Rambald said.

  “No,” Richards said shaking his head. “This is impossible. There must be another explanation.”

  “Look there,” Sarah said, raising an arm and pointing at the elusive sphere.

  ***

  “This is all my fault,” Sarah said, pacing up and down under the white gazebo. “I insisted on running this experiment.”

  “I allowed it, Sarah. Had I suspected there could have been side effects—”

  “Side effects?” interrupted Colonel Rambald.

  Richards shot him a stern look. “What do you know, Colonel? What is your background?”

  “That is irrelevant. The army has taken over, and it’s my job to make sure of—”

  “Make sure of what? That we shut this thing down? That this hole in space-time is stitched up?” Richards’ tone was harsh, and he stood close to the bulky soldier.

  “That’s correct!” Rambald said with a booming voice. “You are going to fix this mess,” he added after a moment, “and rest assured that you’re not leaving until you are finished.”

  Sarah was speechless and looked at the distant trees, observing how waves of mist danced in the feeble breeze. Her feet tingled with the cold.

  In the cottony silence of the snowy landscape, her heart missed a beat as her phone rang for an incoming text. She waited, still with her back to the others.

  “It’s not like we can wave a magic wand at the air and—poof!—the anomaly goes away,” Richards said with a calmer tone.

  She grabbed the phone from her pocket and set it to vibrate.

  The message was from Will. “Where are you?” he asked.

  “Middle of nowhere, watching hell break loose,” she replied, adding her GPS coordinates.

  “I’m coming,” he answered after a couple of seconds.

  “Dr. Davinson,” Rambald said, sending a surge of adrenaline right through her chest, “what do you think?”

  Turning, she saw Richards, Colonel Rambald, and the police officer watching her. With an awkward but effective move, she sneaked her phone in a pocket. “We know nothing. This is—we weren’t supposed to discover this kind of thing for another few decades.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “We struck it lucky, if you like, but we were not prepared. We don’t know what happened. It may take months or years to understand.”

  “Can’t you just reverse the process in some way? Reverse the polarity?”

  Both Sarah and Richards snickered, then she spoke. “It’s not Star Trek. We’ve found an aspect of physics that defies everything we know. We must study it and try to build a model that explains it.”

  “And
so what are you proposing?” Rambald pressed.

  “Nothing. We can’t do anything now—today. What I’m saying is, we might have to live with this thing for a while.”

  The man nodded in silence and thought for a moment. “We’ll bring in the brightest scientists in the world.”

  “That’s a good idea,” Richards said. “I have a few suggestions, if you don’t mind.”

  “Colonel,” Sarah spoke, “what’s on the other side?”

  He didn’t answer.

  She pressed him. “I’m sure you have questioned all these people. What is it like in the other dimension? Did they tell you?”

  “We discovered something. Just some clues.”

  “And?”

  “It’s classified.”

  “Of course,” she said, throwing her hands up in exasperation.

  “I am sorry.”

  “You’re not. Did you send someone there?”

  “No. We know too little.”

  “Aren’t you curious? Not even a bit?”

  “It’s not the time to be curious, Doctor. We don’t know what could come through that—how did you call it?”

  “Anomaly.”

  “Yeah, that anomaly. We must stop it.”

  Ten

  Despite the helicopter’s smooth flight, without many jolts, Léa had to fight away a mild need to vomit the stale sandwich she had munched before taking off.

  Lieutenant Gagnier sat in front of her to the right side, failing to pretend not to watch her.

  The other four men aboard glanced outside with flat looks. They held their submachine guns on their chests with muzzles aiming downward.

  Léa felt squeezed against the padded wall of the chopper by the solid body of the soldier sitting near her.

  This time, the pilot decided not to cross Lake Geneva, but instead he kept a coastal flight path at a lower altitude that she estimated at something around a hundred meters. There were no tall buildings and the view was wide and flooded with whitish light that made her squint her eyes. In other circumstances it would have been a wonderful journey.

  Nothing moved in the world below, either artificial or natural. Léa observed the few province towns whooshing by, bucolic and pretty. “Everything’s intact here,” she shouted over the noise.

  Gagnier fetched a headset from a hook above his head and motioned for her to do the same.

  “Buildings here seem intact,” she repeated, feeling weird at the metallic sound of her own voice in her ears.

  “Yes. Attacks were concentrated in west Geneva. The outskirts are fine,” he said through the headphones.

  “Five minutes,” the pilot said. He then glanced over at the passengers. “No enemy activity.”

  Léa’s heart jumped into her throat. Her hands sweated a little and she bit her lower lip.

  Gagnier produced a smile. “You know, I used to pilot these.”

  She managed to nod, but she could not remove the word “enemy” from her thoughts. If she closed her eyes, she could picture them destroying everything, killing everyone. In her mind, she could almost feel the blast of a bomb falling nearby and shredding her to pieces. A knot formed in her guts.

  Her eyes focused once more on the outside. Far in the distance something caught her attention. It looked like a train with carriages of many different colors, but it wasn’t moving.

  As the chopper flew closer and began descending, Léa could make out the shape of dozens of cars, trucks, and vehicles of all kinds. They were parked on the shoulders of a country road that led into an empty field. Some people walked forward, alone or in small groups.

  “Prepare for landing,” the pilot announced.

  “Wait a moment,” Gagnier said. “Can you circle over the area?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  The helicopter lurched a little upward and then began a wide, curved path, going counterclockwise and giving a good view of what was below. Farther in the field was a group of people, perhaps twenty. They were pointing and staring at the aircraft flying above their heads. The grass waved and danced in the gusts of air coming from the rotor’s blades.

  When they were midway through the circle, Léa’s vision caught something glistening in the fog at the periphery of her vision, and then, in the course of a couple of seconds, everything turned blurry. The radio relayed sounds that she couldn’t catch and she felt her stomach upturn. She closed her eyes and took several deep breaths, hoping not to pass away.

  “What the fuck!” the pilot yelled.

  She opened her eyes again, and her heart missed a beat.

  All the people were gone.

  Ambulances, white tents, and an open gazebo, which was shaking in the powerful flow of air of the aircraft, had replaced them.

  Eleven

  The sound of the helicopter boomed in the cold air. Everyone gazed in the sky for the vehicle that had appeared out of nowhere and was now making a wide circle above the area.

  Colonel Rambald spoke into his radio, but the noise covered his voice. He turned and faced Sarah. “I told you,” she seemed to read on his lips.

  Gazebos quivered in the wind, with their four vertical struts shaking and pulling at the nails in the ground.

  The helicopter lowered and moved a hundred meters away from the tents, finally touching down on the snow-clad grass. The engine wound down and stopped as a squad of soldiers spread out and ran toward the chopper with their SMGs trained in front of them.

  Sarah, Richards, and Rambald followed behind at a slower pace.

  “It looks like one of ours,” Rambald said as they got nearer. They crouched down near a tree, thirty meters from the landing point.

  Six uniformed men and one civilian had assembled on the side of the aircraft and were looking about them.

  “Drop your weapons and identify yourselves!” a soldier yelled at the group.

  One of them turned around and watched his surroundings, and then he motioned to the other four soldiers, who lowered their submachine guns, pointing them at the ground. “I am Lieutenant Gagnier of the Swiss Army, 2nd Infantry Brigade,” he said. “These are four of my men, and we have a pilot and a doctor with us.”

  “I said drop your weapons!”

  “We won’t,” the man replied with a firm voice. “May I come closer?” He unlatched his holster and gave it to one of the other soldiers, causing the ones on this side to stiffen up. With deliberate steps, he walked forward with his hands raised at the height of his head.

  Rambald stood. “Stay here,” he said before venturing several meters toward him.

  Sarah tried to stand as well, but she felt something pulling at her wrist. It was Richards. His firm grip surprised her, and in exchange she shot him a stern look.

  “It might be dangerous,” he said.

  She wriggled free of his hold and reached Colonel Rambald, stopping at his side. Gagnier had the same field uniform the others had but with different sleeve insignia and ranks.

  The man gave the military salute to the colonel, and he responded. “We are on a recon mission in this area to investigate the disappearance of several refugees, sir.” His look seemed unsure. “May I ask who am I talking with?”

  With piercing eyes, Rambald studied him for a moment before speaking. “Colonel Rambald, Special Operations division. What refugees?”

  “People from Geneva. I am sure you know, sir. We were flying above the area and then… something strange happened, and—I don’t know, sir. They were gone. I ordered to land.”

  Sarah and Rambald exchanged a look.

  “Come with me.”

  “My men?”

  “Call them.”

  Gagnier turned and motioned for his team to join him.

  “Sergeant!” Rambald shouted. “Withdraw your men and resume patrols on the perimeter.”

  The group walked back to the tents with the four soldiers, the pilot, and the doctor in tow.

  “These people come from the other side,” Sarah whispered to Richards.

  �
��It’s very hard to believe, but I think it’s the only explanation.”

  “They flew through the anomaly with a damn helicopter. You saw it, the hole must be enormous,” she added in a low voice, leaning in closer to him as they walked.

  “That was my concern, Doctor,” Rambald said. “What if we get an airliner crossing our airspace? The airport is very close. Even worse, what if another fighter jet crashes into a building, killing more people?”

  Sarah froze on her feet. “The crash,” she whispered. “That plane. It was not ours. It was from the other side.”

  “I thought you had figured it out already.”

  “Of course,” she said in a whisper with her eyes darting around. “The pilot didn’t see the anomaly until it was too late. But the aircraft was damaged. It left behind a trail of smoke.” She paused and looked at Richards. “It’s my fault. It was my experiment.”

  “We couldn’t have known, Sarah,” he said. “You should not blame yourself.”

  “People have died, and I don’t even know how many. And all because of the experiment I have designed.”

  “What experiment? What are you talking about?” Gagnier asked. He had sneaked up closer to them as they talked.

  She stared at him for a time without speaking, unsure whether to tell him anything, and then resumed walking.

  “Lieutenant, these people,” Rambald said, “are your refugees. I am sure that you have a list and that most of them are on it. The problem is, they are no longer in their world, and neither are you.”

  The open gazebo was skewed on one side when they reached it, and two uniformed men were tightening its struts and planting new tie beams into the ground.

  Sarah and Richards stood in a corner. The tent didn’t make much sense to her, as it was open to the breeze and had no floor, but it somehow provided containment. It surprised her that it felt like a room with several people in it.

  Both Lieutenant Gagnier and the pilot only had their pistols and no further equipment. The woman stood out of sight behind them.

  Rambald fetched a tiny notebook from a pocket. “What is your name?” he asked to the woman.

  Stepping forward, she answered with a tiny voice. “Dr. Léa Bosshart.” Her eyes darted between the various faces.