Dead Ends and Other Escapes

By Nick Zentor

A collection of science-fiction and fantasy short-stories covering space travel, time travel, advanced computers, alien technology, alternate dimensions, mysterious phenomena, astral projection, and sentences in purgatory. The Tour is about a man who experiences a near-death experience and is suspended in limbo, until some spiritual friends help him out. Ghosts of Our Past is a time-tripper back to the early days of America to visit some of the founders who tried to amend the Constitution to prevent capital corruption. Reality Man is about a strange visitor who seeks to solve a serious problem with humanity in the 21st century. Ice on the Moon is about independent explorers who manage to build their own rocket to the Moon, to discover more than they ever expected. Ghost Wing Five is about an advanced computerized vehicle that goes haywire. The Refracted Man is about a man who is transported to another reality by a mysterious vortex. The Quarantine involves alien contact which exposes a serious problem for Earth. Report for the Defense is about a man who has been confined to a sentence in purgatory and has to work really hard if he ever expects to escape.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Nick Zentor
• Release date: Sep 19, 2018
• ISBN: 9780463805411

Nick Zentor

I was born in another parallel of Earth just a few years before John Kennedy was assassinated and I was transferred to this parallel after a motorcycle accident in late 1982. After 3 years of homelessness, I was inspired to become a science-fiction writer and committed myself to the task once I had managed to find a job and a place to plug in a typewriter. I worked on the job like a good robot for 10 years while writing science-fiction on my free time.After failing to get any books published due to a low demand (every publisher explained how they were selling less books every year), I decided to get into small-publishing and accessed the local copy-outlet to publish my own books. But I didn't have enough money to print more than a handful at a time, and almost no one was interested in buying any of it.It wasn't until 2004, after I managed to save enough money for a new computer, that I began to make some real progress. I was able to do a much better job with book-making and the quality of my books improved. But still they did not sell, so I simply small-published them at my own website online and offered them for free through the website. The website was up until 2008, when I lost my apartment and spent some time homeless again.Aside from writing science-fiction, I started working with 2d computer graphics and animation in late 2004, and got into 3d computer graphics and animation in 2009, after finding another apartment. I've been working with 3d computer graphics, trying to go somewhere there, but I've had problems paying for the software.I wrote "Fool's Errand: Redemption" as the last book in the Temspace-Variant Series in 2015 and turned it into an ebook in 2017. Because I am also a 3d computer graphics artist, I decided to try my hands at my first ebook cover and produced the cover for "Fool's Errand: Redemption" to go with it.

Book preview

Dead Ends and Other Escapes

Nick Zentor

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A collection of science-fiction and fantasy short-stories covering space travel,

time travel, advanced computers, alien technology, alternate dimensions,

mysterious phenomena, astral projection, and sentences in purgatory.

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Dead Ends and Other Escapes

Copyright: Coldpost-85, 2018

Note: Many of these stories were first published in the collection ‘Dead Ends’ in 1995.

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Contents

1. The Tour

2. Ghosts of Our Past

3. Reality Man

4. The Quarantine

5. Report for the Defense

6. Ice on the Moon

7. The Variant Edge: Regnazek's Ascent

8. The Escape Clause

9. Ghost-Wing Five

10. The Master Projector

11. The Time-Suit

12. The Refracted Man

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The Tour

One

The young man died, and his spirit exited his body, but could not escape the place with the dead body in it. The spirit sought a way to escape, but found none. Eventually, the spiritual guardians took notice and investigated.

The body is not dead, one of them said, that is why the spirit cannot leave this place.

Why is the body not dead? another said.

Shortly, another examined it, and checked a book.

It is not time, it said. This is not the proper time for it to die. Something is wrong.

They looked at the spirit, and the spirit became defensive.

I don’t know what’s wrong, it said. I was happy to leave it, but now what do I do?

After a thorough study of the situation, 2 spiritual guardians stepped forward and one said, We can find no physical or spiritual explanation for this disembodiment except one. Our mentors have suggested a ‘tour’ for the spirit. If the body still lives, after the tour, it may be open for reincarnation. Do you accept the tour, spirit?

The spirit looked at the walls around it, and nodded affirmation. The lead guardian opened a door in a wall, and led the spirit out. The other guardians followed, and they went on tour in the spiritual realm.

The ‘spiritual realm’ was light and easy, for the most part, with lots of colors and a daylight overtone with a mysterious background. There were large honey-combed like structures, with various sized windows and valve-ways, tall spires in the bright indigo-violet sky, promenades and gardens.

There were also brightly colored bubbles floating about, varying in shades from light pink to light violet, at times almost translucent in the bright lights of the day. They floated as if with their own conscious direction, amongst trees that captured them and with winds that let them go free.

They led the young spirit along the promenade, passed through an underpass, to the most amazing waterway and canal-zone his eyes had ever seen. The promenade turned into a narrow bottleneck along the tight edge of the canal, into a slim highway strip, with a huge structure overlooking it built into the stone of a mountain.

This is where care must be taken, one of the spirits said. The high synergy flows hot along the edge, between the Za and the Ve, to the Ku. Stay on the side walk; we’re not fit for a high-speed ride.

Let’s check out one of the shops, one of them suggested. Maybe get ourselves some nectarine.

Good idea, another said. The spiritual tour would be incomplete without the good ole nectarine.

They all seemed mildly amused by this admission, and found an open shop with the cold-storage juices they wanted, received at a wall-vendor without need for cash payment or exchange. Apparently, such things were free in the spiritual realm. It got hot on the narrow strip, especially when on podal-extensor.

Watch out for the gummies, another warned them, and laughed, like a kid in the candy store.

They each received a ‘nectarine’, which was a round, orange fruit with a soft shell and nectar-juices inside. It reminded the young spirit of one of the best peaches he’d ever had, crossed with a cold orange crush soda on a hot summer day at the beach.

They flexed their pods and enjoyed the nectarines as they returned to the sidewalk and continued on in what the young spirit thought of as a ‘southern’ direction, although he couldn’t be certain the spiritual realm had physical laws with concepts such as north, south, east, or west.

Regardless of this, he was perfectly content to take the ‘tour with these spirits, knowing that he could learn more, with time, about it all.

They took him to the area known as the ‘Ve’, which was a fantastic maze of parkways, promenades, gardens, and structures, which stretched for many kilometers before reaching something like a vast, rural territory known as the Ku. The tour would not take them to the ‘Ku’ because he was too young in spirit and it was his very first tour in the spiritual-realm.

Two

They followed the bottleneck to the area known as ‘Ve’ and expired with much relief. The narrow strip was a real job, even for them, as spirits in a spiritual realm. The young spirit felt the relief along with them, as they entered a wide veranda and a parkway with lots of free-floating bubbles, and trees. They crossed the veranda, entered the parkway, and one of the spirits pointed across the courtyards to a huge structure.

The hall of records, he admitted, with an air of pride, as the young spirit gazed across a hundred meters at a huge pillared and columned structure carved out of the stone of the mountainside.

Amazing, he admitted, and tried to focus, to get a clear picture for his memory, but some bubbles floated by in the near foreground and distracted him. His was a very young spirit, easily excited by the wonders of the spiritual realm, for the first time, and everything captured his interest well. But at times, he had a difficult time focusing his spiritual eye, and one of the other spirits had to help him along. It was just like being a kid again, visiting a new reality for the first time, but with a sense of odd deja-vu, and a sense of slight disorientation and displacement.

He was almost lost twice, but they found him, following some pink and purple bubbles through the trees, apparently wandering without care.

It’s like nothing I’ve ever dreamed, he reported to them, once rejoined with their party. How long can I stay?

Of course we’d like to give you a larger tour, the tallest one said, but you may be limited by your ‘Ke’. With this possibility, we’d planned a short tour about ‘Ve’ and a quick return to ‘Za’ before your chord retracts.

My chord? he said

Yes, of course, the spirit said, and explained. It is one way we could tell your body is not dead. The chord is still attached. You can’t see it, of course, but we can. Mind your key before it pulls you back.

They followed the parkway from east to southwest, and about, at least that’s how the young spirit related to it, by general directions. After a few hundred meters, they neared the riverside canal-zone again, and one of the spirits pointed to a tower, by the water’s edge, like a large light-house, with some kind of lever attached to another, smaller tower, on an island only meters further away.

That’s how we measure the tides, the spirit said, and before he could think twice about it, another spirit distracted him.

Here’s the magneto-pad, he said, You’ll like this. We can take this back to Za the fast way.

Suddenly, the young spirit cringed in the midsection, with pain, and doubled over.

It’s begun, a spirit said, his ke is reacting.

Before they could stop him, the young spirit suddenly began flying away back the way they came.

He’s never gonna make it like that, one spirit said, with excitement, not at the bottleneck. He’ll crash far sure!

I’ll get the skitter, the medium one said to the others "you get after him!’

The young spirit had the unavoidable compulsion to return to his body, as quickly as possible, but he was somewhat at a loss and wondered which way he’d have to go. The pain subsided shortly, as he realized he was lost, and wondered what had happened to his friends. The pain had driven him against his will.

Then he saw the canal-zone and recognized the edge of the bottleneck leading ‘north’? It didn’t matter what direction it was, he had to go the same way, follow it back the way he’d came.

He moved quickly with that decision, and followed the walkway at the edge of the road. He felt the pain again and gave himself a quick push, to fly on the wind over the high-speed strip. As he turned the shoulder and swung about northward, into the bottleneck, his speed was too great, and he got too close to the edge of the canal.

Before he could slow down his momentum carried him over the edge and out across the deep waters of the canal. He tried to fly away, but the gravity of the situation was against him, spirit or not. He blanked out of spiritual consciousness, as he met his fate head on, and plunged into the waters of the deep blue.

Minutes later, he awoke in his physical body, recalled where he was, thought about the spiritual realm, and spoke to the unseen spirits about.

Thanks for the tour, guys, he said, sighed with the after-thought and reflected. I guess you were right; I wasn’t quite ready to die.

Finis

Ghosts of Our Past

One

I am not a very controversial man, I do not cradle thoughts about changing people's minds on things like government or philosophy, but I am a scientific man with a realistic perspective upon the world and I cannot deny what my own senses tell me is true, not when the evidence can be observed and touched, and has a real physical quality about it that cannot be ignored.

However, despite my very scientific realistic viewpoint on all things, my work took a very theoretical, hypothetical turn a few years ago when I made a discovery about the property of certain radioactive elements, when used in conjunction with gamma rays and DC electrical charge stored in cesium-140, an isotope of cesium. I would prefer not to go into the details of this mechanism at this time, to avoid straying from the point of this anecdote, for it is the experience that followed that is of tantamount notation.

What followed the experimental mechanism was a historical discovery of such controversial import that I may be putting my life in danger just by recording it and sharing it with the public. But, after a firm evaluation of my long life and present situation, I have decided the danger is well worth the value of such a recording. Besides, it is also quite possible that no one will believe me, and unless I can prove it, my position may be easily discredited by those who would wish my secret to be ignored.

Yes, I did say secret. It is a secret now, but if anyone reads this, then they will share that secret as well. But the actual experience will be mine and mine alone. Well, that isn't entirely true. There are perhaps some ghosts from the past that have the experience recorded within the dusty cobwebs of their ancient archives, at least one or two, I should think.

So, what was that experience? Well, it all began while I was working in my subterranean laboratory in Philadelphia. It was a place I rented fairly cheaply while the owner was looking to sell the whole structure, an old factory, but the market was a bit slow at that time. I'm an elementary chemist and an inventor of sorts. Most of my inventions have been computer-related lately, because the market is good, but my real interest lies more in the area of medicine. I would have become a regular chemist for a pharmaceutical company a few years ago, but I got demoted for playing with psychotropics. Okay, I guess I should have kept that part to myself, it doesn't help, I guess, to establish my legitimacy. But I didn't actually do the stuff myself; I experimented with plant and animal molecules and cells. A rival that didn't like me found out about it and I was accused of selling the stuff to kids, and well, even though it was a lie, it was believed by people enough to hurt my position.

Anyhow, to make a long story short, the pharmaceutical industry didn't want me after that and so I looked for another position, and found out how chemicals were used to process certain computer parts, and I had a new trade. So, there I was in the subterranean lab in the old factory, all by myself, doing some research in the electro-chemical properties of certain elements, and working with a computer I had hooked to a new, experimental power source, which I was hoping would function as a compact battery for portable PC units and laptops.

Well, I think maybe I failed to set the regulator properly or something and under-estimated the power. There was a small electrical spark, then a somewhat larger explosion and a puff of smoke as the circuits appeared to fry, the lights went out, and I was left in the dark looking for a flashlight.

But I couldn't find a flashlight. In fact, I couldn't find anything. I stumbled in the dark and fell on the ground. Not on the cement floor, but on what appeared to be the floor of a wood-land, covered with dead leaves. It was a very disconcerting experience. I thought the leaves were some papers which had fallen during the explosions and been crumpled up by the fall. But the floor should have been hard but was soft, and as my eyes began to focus, I could see that I was no longer in the laboratory. I stood carefully up and looked about, much to my amazement, to see that I was in the midst of a wood-land at night. I saw stars overhead in a dark blue night sky and the dark lines of trees all about.

Two

I swept about and saw a light in the distance, beyond the trees, and without any better idea as to what should be done in such a disillusioning experience, I began to walk for it, wondering where I was and how I had got there. By the time I reached the edge of the trees and stared at the light, which was coming from a large, early colonial-style house on a hill, I had reached the conclusion that the explosion had somehow knocked me out of consciousness and I had wandered away from the lab without knowing what I was doing, and my memory had returned only just as I stumbled in the woods at night. It was in no way a certainty, of course, but it was the only explanation for my situation that I could imagine.

I decided to go to the house on the hill to try and figure out exactly where I had wandered to.

When I saw the dirt road and nothing but a barn beside the large, ancient looking early colonial house, I realized that I had somehow been transported much further outside Philadelphia than I first imagined. It appeared to be some kind of farm-house, with an old wooden log-fence aligning the borders of its property, but the light from the stars and a quarter moon was much too dim to make out any more details. I saw nothing that resembled a garage except the barn perhaps, but the driveway was also made of dirt and it was hard to imagine any automobile had ever driven on it. It appeared much too stony and rugged for automobile traffic. As I looked at the light in the window and thought how strange it all was, I began to think perhaps I had somehow made it all the way into the Amish county, much further northwest in the Penn-state.

When I reached the front of the house, I suddenly felt very oddly misplaced and my gut told me I was in danger, so when I heard voices inside from the lighted window, I quickly snuck away to the side and down below the windows ledge, suddenly afraid that I might be discovered and charged with trespassing or something. My gut had told me something was terribly wrong and I had reacted, and I found myself creeping carefully in the shadows of the underbrush and flowerbeds aligning the exterior walls of the old house. I waited, listening, to hear only the mumble of voices, much too low to understand the words.

I dared to take a peak over the edge from the corner, with the utmost care and what I saw was almost impossible for my eyes to believe. Not only did the outside of the house resemble something from early colonial days of the United States, but the inside did as well. The light, I saw, came from a fireplace and a candle under a glass chimney top. In the corner beside the fireplace sat an old man with grey-white hair, wearing spectacles. Another younger man sat by the fire near him, in what appeared to be a chair set there for the specific meeting of the two. An old woman was serving the younger man some tea, and the old man was talking, with some obvious difficulty.

I tried to listen closely, but I couldn't quite make out his words, they were too low and feeble. But after the woman left the room, I peaked in again and saw the old man handing the younger man what appeared to be a paper, rolled up and tied with a blue ribbon. As I listened closely, the old man said in a much louder voice, which I could understand, You must make certain that Madison receives this! It must not fall into anyone else’s hands! Do you understand?

Yes, Mr. Jefferson, sir, the younger man replied. It will go directly to Mr. Madison.

It has been signed by all the others, the old man said, lowering his tone some, but still clearly, Madison will know what to do.

All of the Sons of Liberty have signed it? the younger man said, with intrigue. And Mr. Franklin?

Yes, all of the sons, Jefferson said, including Ben. I'm certain he would deliver it himself if he could. You do understand how important it is, don't you, Zack?

Yes, of course, Zack said, something to do with our future economy?

Perhaps the only thing that can save it, Jefferson said. Ben said it years ago, but nobody would listen. It was too radical an idea for us liberal folk when we drafted the constitution, much too radical. We were all set upon exploiting our newly deserved liberties after the fight with the Brits and we simply could not see that far ahead of ourselves. But the older we all became, the wiser and more conservative. It finally dawned on all of us that Ben was right, of course, as he always had been, so we each signed it and it was given to me to hold until the time was right. I would have submitted it to Madison earlier, but Hamilton and Burr got in the way, with that damn duel of theirs.

Will Mr. Hamilton let it pass, sir? Zack said, with some uncertainty.

He damn well better, Jefferson said, if he doesn't, we might as well sign all our descendants off to another age of tyranny in the hands of power-mad zealots and self-seeking privateers.

Zack looked at the rolled paper with the blue ribbon tied about it with suspenseful wonder, and said, But how, how can any piece of paper be that important? May I ask, what exactly it contains?

Jefferson began to talk lowly again and I could hear only a mumble through the expertly constructed window. I strained to hear the words, but his voice was much too low now. It was extremely frustrating, to bear witness to such a historical event but not be able to discern the most important aspect about it. For, as I strained to understand Jefferson's low muffled words, I realized that the paper that Zack had been charged with delivering to Madison was perhaps one of the most important documents ever to be delivered during the latter days of the post-revolution United States. I could only guess, from what I had heard clearly, that it had something to do with Ben Franklins very own theories on economics, and Franklin, as Jefferson admitted with final closure, was right about it.

Before I could hear any more, Zack was up and moving out the door. I hid in the shadows as he went directly to the barn, went inside, and a minute later, stepped out with a horse, hopped onto its back, and took off along the road down about the hillside. This was too much. I couldn't quite believe it. I thought it was a wild dream. I thought about that document with the blue ribbon, realized I had to know what was on it, hurried to the barn, went inside, found a horse, saddled it, and was out of the barn and off on Zack's tail before I thought twice about what I was doing.

Three

Zack had about 3 or 4 minutes on me, so I wasn't too sure I could catch up with him, but it wasn't exactly a race, so I figured if I pushed my horse a bit faster, I might have a chance. As it turned out, I was lucky. As I reached the edge of a town, Zack was trotting at a much slower speed, and I slowed down and stayed on his tail, far enough behind so that he would not notice me but I could still see him. As I entered the town, I was glad that I had been wearing my cobalt blue cloak rather than the lighter one, when this strange displacement began at my lab, for the cobalt was darker and would not be as obvious at night.

I followed Zack as he trotted at a medium pace along the dirt road, and the town became somewhat larger, with a few two and three-story structures. A couple of horse-drawn carriages with people passed, and a couple of men stepped out of what appeared to be a tavern. They watched Zack pass and then watched me as well. Then we reached what appeared to be the other side of the town, and a parkway, with what appeared to be a building under construction, still a stone and wooden skeleton of odd geometric shadows against the starlit night sky. When I saw where we were heading, I began to realize, from old pictures I'd seen as a young man at the library, that this was old Philadelphia, long before it had developed into a city.

Suddenly, a carriage pulled out from a dark alley at the edge of town, almost hitting Zack, and it forced the horse to make an abrupt halt, as Zack almost lost his grip and flew from its back. The horse settled and waited, as the carriage passed, and I signaled my horse to slow its pace. After the carriage had passed, another horse appeared from the shadows and approached Zack. The man on the horse spoke to him and he answered.

I carefully edged my horse to the side of the road and stopped it in the shadows at the other end of the last block of structures. I watched as another horse appeared with another man, and it appeared they were arguing with Zack. One of them pulled out a gun, an old flintlock revolver, and pointed it at Zack. I ducked into the shadows, stepped down from the horse, and peaked about the corner. The gun had convinced Zack to be more cooperative and they spoke with more civility.

I understood that Zack was anxious to deliver the document to Madison, but these two men, who were apparently some kind of government officials, weren't in any hurry to let him pass. Zack handed a paper to the one without the gun, but it wasn't the document. Probably some kind of early form of official identification. The man looked at the paper, looked back at him, and questioned him carefully, with much interest.

After a minute, I heard Zack raise his voice with objection to something the man said, then look at the gun in the other man's hand, and he followed the man, still holding Zack's papers, on the horses, to the other side of the road, where they all stepped off their horses and went inside the last building at the edge of town. I didn't like what I saw. These guys were being much too fascist with Zack and I smelled trouble.

Four

I left the horse, snuck quickly across the road, went through an alley between structures, snuck along the back