Multiverse a technothril.., p.1
Multiverse: A Technothriller, page 1
MULTIVERSE
M.A. ROTHMAN
Primordial Press
Copyright © 2022 Michael A. Rothman
Cover Art by M. S. Corley
Interior Art by M. S. Corley
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events, locales, and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.
All rights reserved.
ALSO BY M.A. ROTHMAN
Technothrillers: (Thrillers with science / Hard-Science Fiction)
• Primordial Threat
• Freedom’s Last Gasp
• Darwin’s Cipher
• Multiverse
Levi Yoder Thrillers:
• Perimeter
• The Inside Man
• Never Again
• The Swamp
LitRPG:
• The Plainswalker
• The Sage’s Tower
Epic Fantasy / Dystopian:
• Agent of Prophecy
• Heirs of Prophecy
• Tools of Prophecy
• Lords of Prophecy
CONTENTS
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Epilogue
Author’s Note
Preview – Primordial Threat
Addendum
About the Author
“Modern thinking is that time did not start with the big bang, and that there was a multiverse even before the big bang. In the inflation theory, and in string theory, there were universes before our big bang, and that big bangs are happening all the time. Universes are formed when bubbles collide or fission into smaller bubbles.”
—Michio Kaku, Theoretical Physicist
CHAPTER ONE
Michael Salomon lurched into a sitting position and felt a wave of dizziness as he blinked the sleep out of his eyes. His heart raced, and he was having difficulty catching his breath as the gauzy memories of a dream fled from his now-conscious mind.
Something had just happened, and he wasn’t exactly sure what it could be.
Definitely not a dream. Not with the growing anxiety he felt. Some kind of nightmare…
He glanced at the clock on his nightstand. It was just past seven. He’d gotten to bed only four hours earlier, but waking up at this time was habit. During the school year he’d be frantically climbing out of bed to go teach physics at Princeton. But it was the summer, and he dedicated all his attention to his research.
That was what had kept him up late last night. A discovery that ended with him leaving the lab after two a.m. in a state of shock.
He had wanted to tell someone. Anyone. But it was late, and he couldn’t trust himself to talk to his colleagues until he could verify everything with a clear mind. Triple-check the data. Then, and only then, would he risk his reputation.
He stood up from the bed, only to immediately sit back down with a sudden bout of vertigo. Maybe it was his body telling him he needed more rest.
And then he caught the scent of bacon.
He didn’t remember making any bacon when he got home from the lab. He had been too exhausted to do anything but go directly to bed. But when he opened the bedroom door, the scent was unmistakable, wafting up the stairs from the kitchen.
And something more.
Someone was humming.
Standing at the top of the stairs, he was about to yell out an empty threat that he had a gun, but his words were choked away when he saw a woman approaching the base of the stairs, carrying a coffee mug. She had straight dark hair hanging to her mid-back, and naturally tanned skin. And she was very pregnant.
Maria.
Their German shepherd puppy, Percy, followed her every step, his nails clicking on the wooden floor.
Before Michael could say a word, Maria’s face lit up. “You’re awake!” She held up the steaming mug of coffee. “I was going to bring this up to you and tell you I made breakfast.”
He merely stared, not believing that this could be real.
Maria waved for him to come down. “The baby is really moving,” she said, putting a hand on her stomach. “Come down and feel her.”
The puppy looked up at him and barked joyfully.
Michael’s skin felt cold and clammy, like he was on the verge of passing out. But he managed to walk slowly down the stairs, unable to take his eyes off the woman he’d loved for nearly a quarter of his forty-two years on this Earth.
Maria grabbed his hand and put it on her stomach. “Do you feel that?”
He nodded. “What—” He cleared his throat. “What day is it?”
Percy whined for attention.
“You poor thing, you’re barely even awake.” Maria smiled, handed him his coffee, and scratched the top of Percy’s head. “It’s Thursday, and you practically passed out the moment your head hit the pillow. You didn’t even get undressed.”
That part was true. He was still wearing the same clothes from last night at the lab.
Still unbelieving, he pressed his hand to Maria’s belly once more, feeling the movement as life stirred within her.
Their baby.
His throat tightened with emotion, and he felt like he was about to explode.
“Ay, mi amor. What’s wrong?” Maria wiped away an unbidden tear that had rolled down his cheek. She wrapped her arms around him. “Whatever it is, it’ll be fine. Did something bad happen at work?”
He kissed the top of her head, a storm of emotions raging through him. “I guess I just had a nightmare.”
“What about?”
“I don’t want to say it out loud.”
“Come.” Maria grabbed his free hand and gently pulled him toward the kitchen. “Have a seat, and I’ll serve up breakfast. I’m sure everything will look better after you’ve gotten something in your belly.”
Michael sat at the kitchen table and watched as his wife of eight years, pregnant with their child, busied herself in the kitchen.
He watched, knowing it was impossible. Because his memories told him of a cascading set of events that had led to Maria disappearing.
First was the late-term complication with the pregnancy. Their daughter was delivered early, and though she should have lived—the odds were with her—she didn’t make it. That was the beginning of the end for their marriage. There were arguments. Bitter and nonsensical fights. And then, one day, Maria left and never came back.
He vividly remembered the pain of waking up and finding her gone. Her clothes still in the closet. Her car in the garage.
He filed a missing persons report with the police. They told him she was an adult and maybe she’d just needed time away.
But Maria had literally vanished. Gone from his life.
For years.
Until now.
And then there was Percy. The puppy was now watching his mom prepare scrambled eggs, his tail wagging furiously as she scooped some into his bowl on the counter.
Percy was alive… and still a puppy. He had whined for weeks after Maria disappeared. And then one day he escaped from the back yard and got killed by a car.
But apparently that never happened.
It was all a lie. A nightmare.
Percy hopped from side to side with anticipation as Maria mixed his puppy kibble with the eggs. When she set it on the floor, he dove in and devoured it.
Michael smiled at the sight. His wife was really here with him, and as his gaze trailed down to her bulging belly, it took all of his self-control to not break down and begin sobbing right then and there. Their daughter wasn’t dead. She was having a little party inside Maria’s belly.
Everything was good. Everything was as it should be.
Maria set down two steaming plates of scrambled eggs and bacon, poured herself a glass of orange juice, and sat down beside him.
He sipped the coffee. It was hot, strong, and black. Just like she’d always made it.
She looked longingly at his mug and sighed. “That’s the one thing I do miss. My morning tinto.”
Tinto was what Colombians called a black coffee.
He smiled, reached under the table, and patted her belly. “It won’t be long. Would you prefer that I don’t drink coffee while you’re pregnant?”
Maria gave him a hard look. “Why, are you pregnant? Don’t be silly. Besides, the orange juice is good for the baby.” She took a sip, then pointed at his plate with her fork. “Don’t let your food get cold.”
“Yes, ma’am.” Michael smiled and shoveled a forkful of eggs into his mouth.
Yet even as he chewed, he felt a nagging sense of wrongness.
But then Maria smiled. He returned the smile as he took a bite of bacon.
Everything was perfect.
It was just past ten, and Michael was driving south on US-1 heading in to work when he saw a cluster of brake lights up ahead. Traffic slowed, and then stopped altogether. He sighed, not seeing any cause for the traffic jam. It was a simple two-lane highway, and never got backed up.
“Someone mu st have gotten into an accident,” he muttered.
As he sat in the car, making no forward progress, his mind drifted back to last night’s experiments. His area of research had to do with superluminal particles, otherwise known as tachyons—a niche field that occupied one of the darkest recesses of special relativity. And there was good reason for that: no one had ever detected a tachyon. They were the stuff of science fiction.
Tachyons were particles that could go faster than the speed of light. And if there was one thing that everyone understood—or misunderstood—about Einstein’s groundbreaking theory, it was that nothing could go faster than the speed of light.
This wasn’t exactly true.
To be more accurate, Einstein said that nothing that initially moved below the speed of light could be accelerated to move beyond the speed of light. And thus the question arose: could tachyons exist?
Up until last night, that question had gone unanswered.
Michael was roused from his thoughts at the sound of tires screeching behind him. He looked in the rearview mirror and saw a vintage Cadillac swerving, seemingly out of control. No cars had stopped behind Michael, and the barreling Cadillac was no more than fifty feet away from crashing right into him.
Everything seemed to slow. Michael saw the panicked look on the driver’s face as he wrestled with his steering wheel. The driver had clearly lost control of the giant boat of a car. It fishtailed, smoke billowing from the tires.
The professor braced himself for impact.
And… the Cadillac skidded to a stop beside him, facing backwards. The driver was literally within arm’s reach.
Under normal circumstances, Michael would have thrown his entire inventory of curse words at the man who’d nearly hit him, and would likely have invented new ones for good measure. But he was shaking with the sudden dump of adrenaline into his bloodstream, and he found he couldn’t form a coherent sentence. The world was spinning, and he thought he might throw up.
He needed to gather his wits.
So he turned off into the breakdown lane, moved ahead several car lengths, and pulled into the entrance to a parking lot. It was for some kind of medical complex—a sign read “Rothman Orthopedics.” But he barely noticed it. He just needed air.
He parked, got out, and took in a slow, deep breath. He felt as though the ground beneath him was tilting. He’d never passed out before, but he was sure he was about to.
Clinging to his car door to keep from collapsing, he closed his eyes and focused on his breathing.
In his mind’s eye he saw a verdant field of grass.
It was more than an image; it was a crystal-clear vision, unfolding as though he were experiencing a dream through a camera lens.
He saw a man in the distance, kneeling. Michael involuntarily moved toward him, despite the fact that the closer he got to the figure, the more anxious he felt.
The man was in a graveyard, kneeling before a tombstone.
Michael’s breath caught in his throat. He recognized the man before him.
It was him.
But not exactly him. An older version of him. He was thinner. Too thin. A noticeable amount of gray in his hair. A scraggly beard.
Then Michael looked at the tombstone, and his blood ran cold.
Felicia Batsheva Salomon.
We had you only one day, but know this: If love
could have saved you, you would have lived forever.
Below the inscription were two dates: birth and death. They were the same date.
And the date… was tomorrow.
Michael’s tires screeched in the driveway as he parked, jumped out of the car, and rushed into the house.
“Maria!” he yelled.
He heard the dog’s bark in response, coming from the back yard.
His heart pounding, Michael raced to the sliding glass door leading to the back yard and yanked it open. “Maria!”
“Honey? I thought you were going into work?”
Maria was sitting on a lounge chair in partial shade from their patio umbrella. She looked uncomfortable.
He rushed over and gingerly scooped up her hand. “Baby, are you feeling okay?”
She shrugged. “I’m feeling very pregnant right now. So, the usual. But also my lower back is really hurting today. I thought this chair would help but… no. What are you doing home?”
Michael couldn’t explain. “I—I want to get you checked out by the doctor. You look… overly tired.”
“Why today? I already have my appointment set for tomorrow.”
He pasted on a smile. “Just do me this one favor. It’s your job to be pregnant, and my job to be worried, right? I just want to make sure everything is okay with you and Felicia.”
Reluctantly, Maria allowed him to help as she slowly levered herself up from the lounge chair. “I haven’t even showered yet.”
“No one cares about that. Please, just humor me.”
“Fine.” She rolled her eyes. “But at least let me change my clothes.”
He gave her a quick kiss on the forehead. “Deal.”
The ultrasound technician placed warm jelly onto the business end of the wide transducer and then placed it on Maria’s belly. “Okay, let’s take a look at the little cutie and get some measurements.”
Maria gripped Michael’s hand as the sound of a rapid heartbeat played through the ultrasound machine’s speaker. She looked over at the technician. “Is that Felicia’s heartbeat?”
“It sure is. Felicia is a beautiful name. It means ‘smile’ in Spanish, doesn’t it?”
“Close, but not exactly. It’s more related to feliz, which means happy.”
The technician continued moving the probe across Maria’s belly with one hand while working the machine’s keyboard and mouse with the other. “Do you have a middle name picked out?”
Maria smiled at Michael. “We’re not sure yet, but I was thinking about Batsheva. It’s his grandmother’s name; she passed not too long ago. What do you think, honey?”
Michael nodded, but a chill raced up his spine. That was the name on the tombstone.
Felicia Batsheva Salomon.
The technician stopped suddenly and lifted up the probe, making the screen go black. “Wait here a moment,” she said. “I’ll be right back with Dr. Sakata.”
Though her voice was calm, Michael spotted the look of concern on the woman’s face as she got up from the stool and left the room.
Maria squeezed his hand. “I should ask Sakata if there’s anything I can take for my lower back. I’m not sure I can handle another eight weeks of this.”
Michael gave her a warm smile, but inside, he was freaking out. What had the technician seen? There shouldn’t be any big surprises in the beginning of the eighth month; it should be smooth sailing at this point. At least, that’s what all those damned pregnancy books said that Maria had made him read.
The door opened, and Dr. Sakata walked in. “Hello, Mr. and Mrs. Salomon. I understand we’re doing a wellness check. Did you have any spotting or other symptoms that made you come in today?”
“Spotting, as in bleeding? No.” Maria hitched her thumb at her husband. “He’s just worried, and wanted me to get checked. The only new symptom I have is back pain. But I guess that comes with the territory.”
The doctor sat on the stool. “Well, let’s have a look.”
As the physician slid the probe across Maria’s belly, the ultrasound screen showed various structures that meant nothing to Michael. Still he watched closely, his eyes moving from the screen to the doctor’s expression and back, looking for some kind of reaction.
Sakata stopped on one fuzzy image that looked like all the rest, clicked something on the keyboard, and zoomed in. He shifted the angle of the transducer slightly.
