Catalyst: PORT101 - Book Three

By J. A. Parrish

In the beginning, the horizon was marked with darkness and the heavens threatened to swallow all that was and could ever be. Then, one with the knowledge of that darkness sought a way to prevent the storm while harnessing its power. But despite all efforts, the darkness remained, unyielding.

But as the darkness continues to stretch across time, a woman and her daughter may hold the key to undoing all that has come before and that which has occurred since.

*2nd Edition*

• Language: English
• Publisher: J. A. Parrish
• Release date: Sep 17, 2012
• ISBN: 9780985313135

J. A. Parrish

J. A. Parrish is a part-time writer, teacher, and CG Artist. Besides creative storytelling, J. A. writes and develops books and educational materials about CG Art and 3D Animation production. A fan of fantasy, science fiction, and classic folklore, J. A. likes to develop stories rooted in reality, with a touch of the fantastic, focusing on characters and the choices they make. While he has mostly focused in longer format storytelling, short stories and children's books may be in the works. iBooks By J. A. Parrish https://itunes.apple.com/us/artist/jeremy-a.-parrish/id507724058?mt=11

Book preview

Chapter 01, Ring of Fire

All around him, people crowded in to see what was happening. He couldn't see their faces, just the silhouetted outlines of a murmuring mass. In spite of the blaze consuming him cell by cell, the light exploding from the meteorite in his hands never reached more than a few of the faces surrounding the crater. The bulk of the light flickered and swayed, mimicking the undulation of the flames that continued to ravage the square around the park. Bodies and the debris of the town square blazed, framing the silhouetted crowd at its center. The people around him pointed, muttered, or sobbed in horrified amazement. The little girl, whom he'd seen clutching the lifeless hand of a man in the street earlier, stood the closest to him. Tears had begun to dry on her cheeks, no doubt hastened by the heat of the blue-green and orange-red pyres that continually erupted around them. Beyond the crowd, the sky flickered, shifting from the misty black to a clear blue. Alex smiled, as a chunk of his arm cracked, fell, and shattered into a pile of sparkling blue-grey dust. The crowd around him let out a gasp and took several steps away, leaving the little girl kneeling before him. She had begun to wail, as a stream of blue-grey flame erupted from the place where Alex's arm had shattered and crumbled.

Alex slumped to the ground, dropping the meteorite into his lap. Leaning forward on his remaining arm, he spoke to the girl.

It's alright, he said. You'll be fine now. So will I.

The girl's wailing waned, but immediately redoubled as the rest of his left arm and a large portion of his chest sagged and shattered. Alex started at the sound of her renewed sorrow. It's alright, he said, feeling a familiar pain beginning to build in his stomach. The pain forced him to pause. The crowd around the crater inched in closer, but quickly retreated as the glow around Alex pulsed and became a searing white. At that moment , the sky became a soft shade of blue, framed by pillars of smoke and the charred remains of the town square. The sun blanketed the crater in rays of gold, amber, and yellow. When the light faded, Alex was gone. All that remained of him was a blue-grey cloud of dust, which twisted and scattered with the next breeze.

Chapter 02, Void

Alex woke in darkness. The air was still and cold, void of the dry heat of a town drenched in flames. The burning, which had enveloped him moments before, was gone. He was no longer standing, kneeling, nor laying on the ground. The pull of gravity had fled and the confines of space and time had fallen away. A tickle in his throat coaxed a cough from his mouth, but it made no sound, at least not one that he could hear. He clapped his hands together, forgetting that he'd lost his limbs in Lebanon. Despite this fact, he felt his palms collide, which reminded him of their loss. Alex hugged his arms, which pulsed with pain as his palms connected. The flesh was raw, swollen, and itchy, like a knee, scraped on asphalt. With a twinge of excitement and the continuous stab of pain, he grasped his arms, examining them from end to end. Reaching down, he made a similar survey of his legs, which responded just as his arms had. A pain in his side and shoulder confirmed that his restoration was total. The parts of his torso which he'd seen shatter and crumble away shouted their acknowledgment as Alex extended his structural survey. Glad to be alive and whole, Alex resigned himself to letting the complexities of time restore that which it had taken, while pondering the silence around him.

Closing his eyes, he thought back to his last few moments in Lebanon. The little girl had been inches away from him, reaching out amidst the blaze enveloping his body. He hoped that she hadn't gotten too close. He had know idea if he could have taken her with him or hurt her, but neither would have been something that he'd wish on his worst enemy. The burning in his stomach had spread, creeping into every pore and particle of his being, just before he'd lost consciousness. He could also remember the tugging sensation, the one that usually meant that he was about to be dragged out of time. Except for the first time, he'd always been awake during his journeys through time. As he thought about his past temporal excursions, he began to feel increasingly uneasy. There was something wrong. Usually, there had always been some sense of travel, movement, or transition, but this time the stillness and complete darkness were beginning to unnerve him. The quiet and emptiness cultivated a sense of dread and panic. Whenever Alex thought that he'd seen a shimmer or point of light in the darkness, he'd turn to find nothing but more darkness. This only served to deepen his despair. Alex longed for the usual shower of whirling lights and near misses with ethereal masses, which often came with his flights across time and space. Even though his journey might land him in any number of distant futures or pasts, a near miss with a collapsing star or a burgeoning galaxy would have given him something to do other than sleep or stare. He never really felt tired when he transitioned through time, but the lack of control and the waiting was easier when he slept.

Chapter 03, Burnout

The flames enveloped much of the lab and her arms were on fire when she dove into the vortex. The moment that she'd crossed the event horizon, the chronetic reactor began to evaporate, absorbed into the vortex which it had created. As soon as it slipped from her grasp, Sonya felt a wave of heat rushing over her, rushing ahead of the sound of an explosion behind her. Closing her eyes, she waited for the blast to engulf her body, but it didn't. The heat and the blast rushed by and dissolved into nothingness. Even though her clothes had begun to smolder and smoke, the beginnings of flame wavered and burned out. Despite the miraculous death of the flames, she still felt something tearing at her flesh and churning in her stomach.Before they'd died, the flames had eaten through her suit, her skin had been charred into numbness, and had begun to itch, burn, and redden. Her arms were not burned as badly as they could have been, but she knew that it was probably much worst on her back. As she watched, the worst of the charring on her arms flaked off to reveal new flesh, which seemed to sprout from the bone, pulsing with glowing blue-grey particles. Despite the thrill of seeing such a thing happen without the aid of nano-tech or stem-cell inducement, the resultant pain tore through her elation. She hadn't meant for it to happen, but before she knew that it had, she heard it erupt from her mouth. Sonya screamed, shrieking, as she began to lose consciousness.

Chapter 04, Snowfall

Sori had almost reached the top of the mountain, by the time that the Moon had begun to sink below the peaks of the western horizon. The air was thin and she'd found it increasingly difficult to catch her breath. Beads of sweat rolled down her forehead, beading up around the rim of her goggles. It was nearly sunrise, so she knew that she had to hurry. Besides, the peak was only a few yards above. The soil had been grainy near the base, but the top was laden with large rocks and massive boulders. If not for the ice, coating the majority of their surfaces, she'd have reached the peak in no time. As it was, her progress had slowed to a crawl. Occasionally, Sori found small patches of earth or snow amongst the rock. More often than not, they'd made excellent foot and hand holds, providing more traction than the ice. Drawing closer to the top, she could see the sun beginning to rise in the east. The forest to the west was a blaze of light and shadow, slowly stretching out to embrace the grassy plains between the forest and the slopes below. Sori took a deep breath, adjusted her gloves, and wrapped her fingers around a large rock, protruding from the peak. Just above her, a small ledge jutted out , less than a yard from the top. Pulling with all her might, she scampered up the rock face and slipped onto the ledge. Just then, the sun broke through the trees and rose into the sky. Flames trailed behind it, turning the forest into a shimmering sea of gold and green. Sori turned away and shielded her eyes, as the sunlight flared and double in strength, until it had become a blinding white light. Suddenly, the sun shook, as a bell rang out. The mountain grumbled and shook beneath her. The bell sounded again and again, growing in speed and intensity, until Sori covered her ears with her palms and screamed for it to stop. Just then, the ledge beneath her shuttered, cracked, and shattered out from under her. Instinctively throwing her hands out to grab onto something, Sori's hand came down hard on the alarm clock, as she sat up and groggily slipped out of bed, slumping onto the floor.

As Sori rubbed at the rapidly swelling bruise on her hand, she climbed back onto the bed and stared at the view beyond the window. Forgetting the pain in her palm, she rushed to the window and looked out at the street below. Her eyes grew wide, as the enormity of the implied possibilities washed over her.

It must be, she gasped. It couldn't be, not here...

Looking around, Sori fished her fuzzy bunnies out from under the bed and slipped them onto her feet. They were worn and an odd blue-grey, mostly from age, but they were her favorite slippers. She clambered out into the hallway and was about to shout for her mom, when her mom came bounding up the stairs.

Snow day, snow day, snooow daaaay, yelled her mom! Can you believe it, there's a million feet of snow out there. It'll be days before they clear it all.

Sori's mom swept her up into a hug and peck kissed her cheeks. Sori giggled. Can we build one, asked Sori? Her mom looked out of the window at the end of the hall. The snow storm, which had primed the landscape with snow, was still raging on outside. Sori's mom gave her another hug and promised that they could build one as soon as the storm had abated. Sori kissed her mom and release her grip, letting her feet dangle above the floor. Her mom grunted, smiled, and let Sori drop to her feet.

Alright Sori, go wash your face and we can have breakfast. Sori glared at her. Come on now, I made Alpine Waffles...topped with cheesecake cream and vanilla chips... Sori's eyes grew wide, just before she disappeared into her bathroom. Be right down, she shouted. Her mother laughed and bounded down the stairs to finish getting breakfast ready.

Chapter 05, Bared Fruit

The sand was warm, wrapping around her like a downy quilt. The muffled sound of waves, crashing into the shore, reverberating through the sand. Sonya felt sore, groggy, and a little weak. She opened her eyes and found herself staring up at a sky speckled with wisps of grey clouds. She tried to sit up, but something in her side jabbed at her. Rolling over, she pushed herself into a kneeling position. The daggers in her side seemed to be less disturbed by this, despite a consistent grumble.

Half buried in sand, Sonya settled into a squat and tried to find out where she was. Her first clue, being the sand, she figured that she was on a beach, on Earth. She looked out over the water, which stretch out to and beyond the horizon. The water was clear, with a blue-green hue nearer the shore, but a few feet out from the beach, the water was black and eerily still. It was still early morning she guessed, because she could still see the Moon, as clear as if it were night. When she'd last seen it from a distance, it had been whole. Not this time. Near the northern pole of the sphere, a massive crater had been blown in the surface. Extending out from the crater, cracks littered the face of the Moon like arcs of electricity in a plasma globe. Small chunks of the Moon, presumably the debris expelled to form the crater, radiated out behind the Moon like a tail. Sonya stared at the Moon and the debris, examining each asteroid's position and relative distance from the crater.

That's not right, she said aloud.

She'd seen the shattered hulk of the Moon, when she'd traveled to the future, a future which she was no longer sure would happen. Her visit had happened by accident, when an experiment in particulate displacement had created tears in the fabric of time. At least a third of the Moon had been blown into space by the destruction of the moon-base, when she'd first seen it. What she was seeing was the same moon, but it was more whole than she could recall. Sonya had spent much of her life trying to change the future she had glimpsed, a future being eaten away by the technology which had been derived from her research.

She smiled.

I changed it, a little, she sighed.

Her smile faded. Sonya wondered what had happened to Herb, her research partner and the love of her life. When she'd last seen him, Avery had been dragging him out of the base to a waiting cargo ship. She hadn't known Avery long, but she knew that he wouldn't let anything happen to Herb. I know that they made it out, she thought.

While studying the Moon and its radiating asteroid field, Sonya had begun to walk along the beach. When she finally turned her attentions back to her immediate surroundings, she'd traveled several meters away from where she'd first awakened. She hadn't noticed before, but the sand in which she had been partially buried appeared to be emitting a dull blue-grey light, the same blue-grey emitted by Chronyte. Lacking equipment, she could only assume that the glow was residual energy, leftover by her arrival. All the same, Sonya couldn't help but to wonder how and if the effect would last. So, she scooped up a handful of sand and dropped it into a small pocket in her tattered radiation suit. Once she'd verified that the sand was not leaking out of any unseen holes, she continued to travel along the beach to the north, in the direction which she'd begun to wander earlier.

Where she'd awakened, a great mound of sand and rock blocked the beach to the south, preventing access without first wading out into deep water or without cutting into the jungle forest bordering the beach. Its leaves glistened and swayed, fanning and flippantly dancing to and fro. Sonya had never seen so many shades of green. Bush, branch, and brambles abound with blossoms, buds, and succulent bounty. As she proceeded along the coast, a plethora of fruits and flowers were revealed themselves. Many were familiar, but just as many were strange and monstrous, uncommonly massive. Even the ones which she knew bore an air of strangeness. There were berries, citrus fruits, and melons of all kinds, sporadically planted amongst shrubbery, trees, and flowering plants. The trees seemed to be decorated for some sort of arboreal holiday. Reds, blues, yellows, and a rainbow of hues dazzled Sonya's eyes. After she'd walked for awhile, she felt the pangs of hunger taking root, so she went towards a tree and plucked a banana from the sand. The tree from which it had fallen towered above her. She pressed her palms to its side and shook the tree with all her might. As she did, one, two, and three bananas broke free and tumbled to the ground around the tree. Two of them fell close by, but the other bounced off of a tree limb and disappeared into the jungle. Sonya stared into the jungle where the banana had vanished, swallowed by shadows cast by the dense foliage. She took a few steps into the jungle. As she did, what she had mistaken for points of reflected sunlight blinked and disappeared. Slowly backing out of the trees, Sonya kept her eyes on the spots, which had reappeared, gazing in her direction. Upon reaching the beach, she bent down and picked up her bananas, glancing back into the jungle. The eyes were gone, but there was movement nearby. It hadn't moved towards her and she wasn't going