Spectrum

By Bryan Mero

John Haley never thought his routine experiments would put his best friend and group of undergrads in danger. That night seemed like any other when a runaway car almost took out his entire team. Luckily they were able to film the whole thing. When they processed the film they saw something totally new...something from a different dimension...

• Language: English
• Publisher: Bryan Mero
• Release date: Jun 11, 2014
• ISBN: 9781310894787

Bryan Mero

Writing from an early age, I always wanted to write my own novels. Recently I become the author of a comic book series called Spirit Knight and write movie reviews and tv blogs for Reelfans.com. I have also written a book about building a personal bocce court that has sold over 400 copies.

Book preview

SPECTRUM

by

Bryan Mero

Based on an idea by

Troy Gustafson and Bryan Mero

SMASHWORDS EDITION

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PUBLISHED BY:

Bryan Mero on Smashwords

Spectrum

Copyright © 2014 by Bryan Mero

All rights reserved. Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form, or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise) without the prior written permission of both the copyright owner and the above publisher of this book.

Smashwords Edition License Notes

This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each person you share it with. If you're reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then you should return to Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the author's work.

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FORWARD

I want to thank my good friend Troy for helping to inspire this story from a small meeting we had in a Fry’s Electronics store. We were hashing out story ideas for a possible comic book and this one stuck as a future project. The ideas of using iPhone apps in this story was not even conceivable back in that day (over tens years ago), but with the age of new technology there are so many possibilities for story telling. The scaled down version of this story became our comic book series called Spirit Knight. We had quite a bit of success with that series which is now available for online reading. The experiences we had sharing Spirit Knight was incredible and the friends we have made are invaluable. I hope you enjoy as much as we had putting the plot together that fine spring day.

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SPECTRUM

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THE DRIVE

John Haley looked through the rear view mirror of the noisy Suburban. The vehicle had been through hundreds of road trips with graduate and undergraduate students from Indiana Tech. John was on the final leg of his college career, studying physics emphasizing on optics or the study of light. He already received his Master's degree and was leading this rag tag group of students towards earning his doctorate degree. Standing at about 6' 3", sitting in the Suburban was just right for his long legs.

In the passenger seat was his wingman Steve Hanson. Besides being his best friend, Steve was the only guy he knew who could take any piece of video and manipulate it into anything he desired. A self proclaimed geek, watching Star Wars and other sci-fi movies endless amount of times, he realistically changed from film making to scientific documentation in hopes to produce documentaries that would change the way people think or look at science. At 5' 10", brown ratty hair and the goofy smile, Steve continually made a play for the ladies even though he'd been without a date for close to a year.

Behind Steve was Brittany Stevens. Her reddish blonde curls, always falling into her face, covered her two cherry cheeks and sky blue eyes. Brittany was an undergrad majoring in earth sciences/environmental studies. Always the skeptic, Brittany would question her professors and especially the grad students that would lead study sessions or teach classes from time to time. Her shy demeanor was just a disguise for a bull dog of a student. Her current classes had to do with weather and this project fit exactly with her paper due at the end of the semester.

Shannon DiMarco sat next to Brittany. Dark hair and doe eyes could not disguise her boredom of this trip. One of Steve's latest pursuits for love, Shannon was a psychology major and was really just along for the ride looking for some extra credits so she didn't have to take a class over the summer. She knew Steve was coming on to her but she didn't care. She needed the credits and considered just playing along until the project was over.

In the second set of benches in the Suburban lay Marcus Williams. He used his jacket as a pillow and placed his legs on several boxes of technical equipment. Marcus was also a physics major following in John's footsteps. Coming from the big city of Chicago to a small town around Indiana Tech was a huge challenge. He was the first of his family to go to college. Being an African-American in a large predominately white college was tough, especially after explaining that he was not there to play football.

DON'S GAS & GO

The faded red Suburban rolled up to the run down gas station on the outskirts of Middletown. The station was over 30 miles from the closest urban center. John parked the rusted vehicle in the back of the lone building. Doors flung open as the motley crew jumped out of the car and walked around and into the double doors of the small gas station.

Don! John bellowed out.

Johnny my boy, a stout older man responded from behind the wood counter. Don had been running this small gas station and snack shop for over 10 years. John stumbled on this place when he was scouting for his next project location. Don's place was perfect. It was out in the middle of nowhere and at night was the darkest he could find across three counties. This would be the first time the whole team could make it.

Looks like we might have a perfect night for our experiment. The storm is coming in and hopefully it will put on quite a show.

Good luck Johnny...nice to see you have the whole crew tonight.

Yep, finally...

Shut up John! a distant protest from Brittany in the back of the store.

"Thanks again for letting us use your electricity Don. I barely have enough of a budget to afford a backup generator and I definitely don’t have enough to keep Steve supplied in Ho-Hos."

Hey... a tone of fake annoyance as Steve walked around the last aisle carrying an armload of snack cakes, chips and other assorted junk food.

Don's eyes widened as Steve let gravity place his treasure of Hostess snacks onto the counter.

No problem John, Don laughed, "without you and Steve coming out every Wednesday night for the past month, I'd probably go out of business."

A little hungry Steve-o?

Hey, a man's gotta eat...and by the way Don, you need more Ding Dongs.

THE SET UP

Alright everyone, let's get things setup. Grab your stuff and let's go, John announced.

"John, just don't forget to