The First Spark

by T J Trapp

  “I’m glad you saw Sarah,” Alder said. “But it’s too bad that she is still on Nevia. I was hoping she would come home before now. If she is with my troops, there is no way to get her back here before the device fails.” A sad look crossed Alder’s face. “I dread telling our daughter Celeste that her mommy won’t be coming home. But, it was Sarah’s choice. Sarah knows it is important to link the worlds.”

  Not much remorse there, thought Alec.

  “Why do you need to link the worlds?” he asked.

  “It requires a little history for you to understand the reason,” Dr. Alder said, resuming his customary role as a teacher. “The elves established a herd of orbs – that would be us, humans – here on Earth some tens of thousands of years ago. A small elf population has always been on Earth to watch over the orb herds, but that elf population is only large enough to exert minimal control. About thirty years ago, the elf population started significantly increasing. Soon there will be enough elves on Earth that they can take control of the world! They will rule us if we don’t oppose them.

  “The elves think the orb herd – human population – on Earth is ripe to be culled and domesticated. That makes us a high-interest world for the elves. Over the millennia, elves have domesticated many orb herds and have developed a lot of ways to minimize resistance – domesticating equipment, mind control, things of that sort.”

  “So, we’re ‘orbs’?” Alec asked.

  Alder nodded.

  “About twenty years ago, when I was just starting my research into energy fields, orb resistance leaders on a sister world sent some of their Elders to Earth. They sought me out, and taught me about dark energy, in order to help us resist the elves here on Earth,” Alder continued. “Orb populations, like us, resist being domesticated by the elves, if we can figure out how to resist. The Elders work with a small cadre of us in secret to keep the elves unaware. The Elders told us that with so little background dark energy on Earth the elves have an advantage and will take control of our world.

  “My solution to oppose the elves, and defeat them, is to couple Earth to a powerful dark energy source – another planet. That’s why I found Nevia; it is a powerful source. If I can couple the two worlds at the focal point, enough dark energy will seep through so that we can use it directly here on Earth. From your time on Nevia, you probably understand what using dark energy directly allows. It lets us do extraordinary things!”

  Dr. Alder fell silent for several minutes.

  “But now, we have a problem, a ‘situation’ if you will,” Alder continued. “The elf device on Nevia is about to become unstable. We can tell that from our measurements of the changes in the available energy. When that happens, it will destroy everything around the device. We no longer have time to win our war on Nevia and link to the zero-point before then. We must let Nevia go. I will have to find another version of Nevia in the multiverse that has a zero-point, and try again to link the different focal point between the worlds. You should be able to help me do that.”

  “So you plan to just let Theland – Nevia – be destroyed?” said Alec, incredulously. “Your soldiers there – the Aldermen – everything?”

  “That is my plan. Unless the elves find us here in this fortress and destroy us first.”

  “Is that the reason for all of the guards?” asked Alec.

  “Yes,” replied Dr. Alder. “This facility is in a secret location. Even I don’t know the exact location. A heavily guarded portal is the only way to reach this place. The elves have tried several times to shut down all dark energy facilities, especially here on Earth. At first, they tried to shut them down by manipulating human systems – our politicians, governments, rulers, the like – to do things like discredit our science, or eliminate all our science funding, or watering down the quality of our science teaching in our universities. Things like that. But we now make enough gold, platinum, diamonds, and other precious materials, and sell them on the open market, to pay for ourselves, and we don’t need government money. When they saw that influencing our politicians was no longer effective, the elves tried a more direct route and began to attack and destroy our facilities. Our concentrator at the Institute, that you knew, is long gone. Some ‘arsonist’ set it on fire. That is why we relocated to this secret facility.”

  “So are other science institutions involved?” Alec asked.

  “Not really,” Dr. Alder replied. “The orb resistance on Earth – and most of it is in the United States – has never tried to link worlds like I am doing, although some of my colleagues know about my work.

  “Our orb Elders recommend that we abandon Earth and move key people – like you and me – to another world with a better dark energy background. They figure that the elves will be so busy converting the people who remain on Earth into compliant drones that they will not notice or pursue the lucky ones who escape.” Alder shook his head. “That is the traditional orb strategy. Run to a different world whenever possible and only fight when there is no alternative.

  “But I don’t like the orb strategy. This is my world. I don’t want to let the elves have my world. I want to fight for Earth.” He looked at Alec, his small eyes glinting behind the lenses of his glasses.

  Has Dr. Alder lost his mind?

  “The Elders have taught me so much since you left!” Alder continued excitedly. “On this attempt, when I opened the portal to Nevia, I didn’t know that I had to balance the fields that create time as well as the fields that create space. You were very good at figuring out these sorts of things. That’s why I recruited you into our work in the first place, and that is why I need you now. Your ability will give us a chance to correctly link to a focal point the next time we try, on our next zero-point world. Your theoretical knowledge should allow us to balance the fields correctly next time, and not create this unstable mess!” Dr. Alder chuckled.

  “The next time we will easily win any battle to capture the focal point! I have learned many lessons from this fight – looking back; I know how I could have fought.”

  “Who are the elves on Earth?” Alec asked.

  “You never know; they walk among us, and look like us,” Dr. Alder said, clearly avoiding the issue.

  “How did you develop the transfer portals?” asked Alec.

  “I haven’t figured out how to make the portals,” Alder answered. “The Elders gave them to me. We have several. Besides my transfer point in the warehouse on Nevia that you used, there are two other portals connected to another continent on Nevia. We were using all three to transport the troops we recruited and trained.”

  Another continent on Nevia? Alec thought.

  What does he mean by that? Erin thought back to him, then realized he could not explain it to her at that moment.

  “How did you figure out how to use the portals?” Alec asked. “It must not be too difficult, since you are moving a lot of men and equipment.”

  “You probably saw the portal and the portal generator before you came here. They are easy to use. You take it to the sites at both end points and infuse it with dark energy at both places to move back and forth. When I try again, I will have the Elders give me more portals. Then I can supply my soldiers on the battlefront without needing a long supply line of wagons and things like that. If I do that I should be able to win any fight easily.” Dr. Alder looked at Alec.

  “But enough of this discussion for the night! You two will be my guests – but you are going to have to stay here in the compound for the night. We are not really set up for overnight visitors. The best I can do is let you sleep in this room, on the floor. I will have the janitor bring you some bedding. I can’t allow you to leave this secure area until the orbs verify she is not an elf.”

  Then he spoke directly to Erin. “Please don’t try to leave, because the guards are trained to shoot to kill. Tomorrow, we will bring in some orb advisors and hear your whole story. They will be able to verify that you are not an elf – if that is the case. Then we can find you both a more perma
nent place.” Alder left the room, shutting the door behind him. They could hear his footsteps receding down the hall.

  Alec looked at Erin and thought, What do you sense?

  What he tells us is true, but he has bad intentions towards us, Erin answered.

  Yes, thought Alec back. I sense that Alder’s accommodations for the night are closer to a jail than a hotel!

  What do you think he will do to us? Erin asked. Alec could sense that she was frightened, here in his strange world. He stroked her arm, trying to be reassuring.

  I think Alder’s ‘more permanent place for us’ may involve locking us up. Alec spent a few moments considering their predicament. Right now may be our best opportunity to get out of here. I think they intend to use me – us – for their purpose, and not let us go.

  “This is your home world, don’t you want us to stay?” asked Erin, aloud.

  Alec thought briefly, weighing the options before him. If they stayed, he would be back home here on Earth and have Erin with him. He could do his research with the aid of a computer, and he would have a cell phone. The best of both worlds. But if he stayed, Erin’s people would die. And if they all died, he would never be able to explain either to Erin or himself why he let them die. On the other hand, if they went back to Erin’s world – Nevia – both of them might die before they could stabilize the elf device, if it existed, and if it could be stabilized – and if they could find it.

  He turned to Erin.

  “What do you think?”

  “I want to be with you,” Erin answered. “I will stay with you. Whatever you want, whichever world you want to live in, I will do, too.”

  That answered Alec’s question.

  “Let’s see if we can get out of here, then.” We have people and lives to save.

  The two of them stepped into the hallway. The guards looked up.

  They are not going to allow us to leave, Erin thought.

  Alec spoke to the closest guard.

  “Is the bathroom that way?” he asked, pointing to his left, down the hallway.

  What is a ‘bathroom?’ Erin wondered.

  The guard nodded.

  “Yes, there are bathrooms in either direction, both men’s and women’s.” Then the guard returned his attention to his post, watching several video monitors with blurry images of doors and hallways.

  “Here, I will show you where it is,” Alec said loudly to Erin. Then he took her arm and walked with her down the hall. The guard paid no more attention to them. The two of them walked past the bathroom and to the door leading to the concentrator room. Alec pushed on the door, and it opened. An alarm went off and started beeping loudly.

  They control access by locking up the medallions, he thought to Erin. Good thing that Alder didn’t know I have a second medallion. He pulled her into the noisy room. We need to be quick before they respond to that alarm.

  Alec walked into the little control room where they had first seen Alder. The control panel was unfamiliar to Alec, but he understood the function of the controls. It had been a long time since he had operated a concentrator control panel so he was tentative initially, but gained confidence as the system responded to his commands. He felt the concentrator restart and felt dark energy pulse through the room. Slowly the dark energy strength increased until the field was at full power.

  Come this way, Alec thought to Erin. The two of them walked to the spot in Dr. Alder’s laboratory where they had first appeared from the Grasslands after their journey through time and space.

  Alec felt the rich dark energy from the concentrator surround him. Focus. He was satisfied when he felt the control panel fuse and melt. Sparks flicked onto the control room window. The concentrator coasted to a stop, and the dark energy started to decrease rapidly. Focus. Alec pushed the remaining dark energy into the platform. Erin placed her hand on his arm and showed him the rightness of what he was doing. The platform pulsed and throbbed. Multicolor flashes filled his eyes. Light and dark, dark and light, the flashes slowed. This time the nausea was noticeably less. He could feel the background dark energy field.

  “We are home,” Alec said, and it did feel like home.

  “And I am with you,” Erin said, squeezing his arm. He smiled at her.

  ✽✽✽

  Alec could feel a change in the pulsing of the transfer point.

  “The transfer point is shutting down,” he said. “We have solved this end of the problem – Alder can’t use this as a conduit from Earth anymore.”

  “Does that mean that the Aldermen cannot receive any more supplies or death rods from your world?” asked Erin.

  “That’s right,” said Alec. “They can’t get any more stuff from Earth. Not through this portal, anyway. The Alder will soon run out of ammunition, and whatever else they’ve been getting, and then they will have to fight on an even footing.”

  “So, their death rods will not be fed,” Erin said, quickly grasping the import of what she was hearing. “Without more fuel, the death rods will go hungry, and without the death rods, this war will be the same as the usual battles between two lords.” He nodded.

  “Let’s find the portal generators and then get ourselves out of here,” Alec said. “We are still in danger of being caught.”

  Alec found his light globe still lying where he had left it and relit it. They looked around the warehouse. They saw two identical looking platforms on the other side of the warehouse.

  “I think those are portals,” whispered Alec to Erin, pointing at the platforms. Stacked by one platform were several hundred bars that looked like gold. Payment for services thought Alec. Alec felt for dark energy, and the gold bars turned into a pile of sand.

  On the side of one platform was a stand with a six-inch-long hexagonal rod on top. Alec pulled in dark energy and felt the rod. He could sense the rod willingly take his energy and feed it into the surrounding area. Alec sensed the area start to fade. He quit feeding energy into the rod, and the fading stopped. The area returned to normal.

  “Oops!” Alec said. “I almost ported us to somewhere else!” He took a closer look around the platforms. “It looks like they use one of these to go each direction. They must have trained several locals to use dark energy to run the platforms.” He picked up the rod. “Let’s take this and get out of here. That will limit their operations! They won’t be able to go anywhere without it!”

  “If there are two platforms, won’t there be two of those things?” asked Erin. Alec looked around.

  “The hex rod for the other platform must be on the other end. It’s not worth the risk for us to try to find it right now. They will still be able to use one platform, and get here, but it will limit their effectiveness because they can’t get there, wherever ‘there’ is.”

  Near the platform chamber was a small screened shop. The door was locked, but it was a simple task for Alec to convert the deadbolt to sand and swing the door open.

  Erin could see that Alec was in toy-land. My Wizard sometimes acts like a large boy, she thought fondly.

  Alec poked around on the shop benches, examining the assortment of tools and gadgets, and picked up two small spheres.

  “These are dark energy storage devices,” he said in amazement. He put them both in his pocket.

  Erin could see that he wanted to explore further but could feel that Alec knew it was a bad idea. Alec pulled himself away.

  “I guess we’d better get out of here,” he said reluctantly. “Someone might come by on patrol soon.”

  They crossed the Alder warehouse to the door with the electronic keypad, where they had entered. Erin sensed the outside surroundings.

  Several guards outside, she warned.

  After a long wait, Erin sensed that the guards had left. They opened the door and stepped out.

  “Unauthorized opening,” the computer’s monotone announced, and an alarm started to sound. Alec closed the door.

  Several guards approaching, Erin sensed.

  Stay here in the
light, Alec indicated. Then he created an obscuring field as they stood together under the door’s security light. Four guards came running up in response to the alarm. Two of them carried torches and searched the dark area near the warehouse door, but none of them bothered to search the apparently-vacant area under the light. Eventually, the alarm stopped.

  “Just another false alarm,” one of the guards said in disgust. They gave one last cursory look around and then left.

  It is clear now. With Erin sensing ahead, they crept slowly and carefully back to their wagon undetected and climbed into their sleeping area. They were both exhausted and slept deeply through the night.

  ✽✽✽

  “Now we must find the elf device before it becomes unstable,” said Alec the next morning. “There will be no more supplies delivered through this transfer point, but it will probably take them at least a week or so before they notice. We don’t want to get stuck here for a couple of weeks while they figure it out – we need to leave this caravan.”

  “But now that we have signed on, it will be hard to leave,” Erin said. “The Caravan Master will want his share of our ‘earnings.’ And we will need his seal to show we have permission to cross the Grasslands.”

  “Let’s see if we can play on the Caravan Master’s sympathies to get out,” Alec said. “People do this all the time at home. You will have to do some acting – you will have to ‘pretend.’ Let me explain to you what we need to do.”

  Alec and Erin went to see the Caravan Master later that morning. Alec was holding Erin tightly by one arm, almost dragging her along. Erin looked like she was in tears.

  “Caravan Master,” said Alec, “can you help me? My girl here is homesick. Such a bother! She’s tired of me and wants to go home.” Erin managed to squeeze out a few tears. “She is screaming at me, always in tears, and angry,” Alec continued. “I can’t stand it anymore. Can you help me, please? I need a break!”

  “No,” said the Caravan Master, looking at Erin. “Sorry, son, but there’s not much I can do until we have a load. We are so short of wagons – the Aldermen won’t let an empty wagon go back.”