One Dimension Too Many: The Sideways Dimension Man, #1

By Tim Myers

One Dimension Too Many

By

Tim Myers

 

When inventor Tom Beckett tests out his latest machine, built to remove dirt from household objects, he is stunned to see a shimmering door of light appear in his shop.  Upon further investigation, Beckett discovers that he's accidently created a portal to another dimension, one where his counterpart has just been assassinated by a group determined to kill the secret of the gateway forever.  With the help of new friends Anna, Bruno, and Sadie, Beckett must fight the Dead Eye Assassins and figure out why they want the group dead before it's too late.

 

Tim Myers, working under a handful of names as well as his own, has written over a hundred novels and has appeared on the New York Times Bestseller list, the Independent Mystery Booksellers Association Bestseller list multiple times, and has been nominated for an Agatha Award and multiple Derringer Awards as well.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Tim Myers
• Release date: Jan 14, 2021
• ISBN: 9781393067924

Book preview

The First Time Ever Published!

One Dimension Too Many

Tim Myers, working under a handful of names as well as his own, has written over a hundred novels and has appeared on the New York Times Bestseller list, the Independent Mystery Booksellers Association Bestseller list multiple times, and has been nominated for an Agatha Award and multiple Derringer Awards as well.

When inventor Tom Beckett tests out his latest machine, built to remove dirt from household objects, he is stunned to see a shimmering door of light appear in his shop.  Upon further investigation, Beckett discovers that he’s accidently created a portal to another dimension, one where his counterpart has just been assassinated by a group determined to kill the secret of the gateway forever.  With the help of new friends Anna, Bruno, and Sadie, Beckett must fight the Dead Eye Assassins and figure out why they want the group dead before it’s too late.

This one, always and forever, is for Patty and Emily

Chapter 1

HELLO?  IS ANYBODY there? I called out through the blinding portal of light that had suddenly appeared in front of me in the center of my workshop shed.  The opening was a square big enough to drive a riding lawnmower through, but I wouldn’t be able to go in by myself without stooping over—not that I had any intention of just diving into the unknown without at least a little preparation first. 

I may be crazy, but you can’t call me lazy, and you certainly can’t call me stupid.

The crazy part comes from my occupation.  I’m an inventor, and I’ve come up with a ton of offbeat ideas over the years, but this one had to take the cake.  My attitude is that you have to be a little bit off center to come up with ideas that no one else has ever thought of before.  A moment before the portal opened, I was trying to come up with a way to repel dirt from an old bucket without the need of soap and a hose.  You can laugh all you want, but I’ve made some decent money over the years making life easier for folks taking care of their homes.  I wasn’t trying to cure cancer—that was way beyond my scope of expertise—but if I could take a bit of the burden off everyday people, I considered that a job worth doing.  I wasn’t rich or anything from my labors, far from it, but I managed to make enough to have a decent, though not extravagant, life.

Nobody answered when I called out, which didn’t greatly surprise me.  Why hadn’t Harry stuck around, tonight of all nights?  He was not only my best friend, but he also could help me figure out what to do about this.  Even though he’d mocked my setup and had even fiddled with it a little until I ran him off, I could really use his advice about now. 

I grabbed the closest thing I could find, a Phillips-head screwdriver, and poked it straight into the heart of the sheet of light.

It didn’t burn up on contact, catch fire, or shock me, which was a vast improvement over a lot of my inventions in the past before I had the bugs all worked out.

But it didn’t do anything else, either.  I pulled the tip of the screwdriver back out, not sure what to expect.  As I’d suspected, it hadn’t melted, and it wasn’t hot or cold but pretty much the ambient temperature of the rest of my tools in my shed. 

I decided to try something a little more aggressive.  I grabbed a tie-down with a hook on the end that I used on my pickup truck, coiled part of it around my waist and tied it securely, and then I chucked the rest of it into the light as far as I could throw it.  Maybe I could snag something on the other side that might tell me what I was dealing with here.

I didn’t hook anything on the first try, but if I gave up every time I failed at something initially, I wouldn’t be able to call myself an inventor, so I kept at it, hoping for better results.

Suddenly there was a jerk on my end, and I found myself being pulled toward the light!  I’d heard enough stories about people dying that claimed they walked into the light, but dragged?  No.  I was in no hurry to pass over to the other side anyway.

I tried to untie the strap from around my waist, but I’d done too good a job tying the knot, and the pressure on the other side was too strong and much too abrupt for me to do much about freeing myself.  In my defense, how was I supposed to know that I’d be in this position?

It didn’t help matters that I had on slick-soled shoes, either.  When I’d gotten dressed that morning, I hadn’t known that I’d be playing tug-of-war with something on the other side of a crazy white doorway made of light.  No matter, if I somehow managed to get out of this alive, I was wearing hiking boots in my shop for the rest of my life, and maybe I’d even attach myself to a bungee cord too, just for good measure.

If there was another time.

My fingers didn’t burn or freeze when they disappeared into the light, and neither did my hands.  At least I wouldn’t die wherever I was going. 

Not right away, anyway.

Was there even breathable air on the other side?  Maybe there was some kind of bug-eyed monster waiting to eat me the second I appeared.  I suddenly remembered that I hadn’t even finished dessert after dinner, an apple pie my neighbor Stephanie had made me.  That was another regret I had.  Stephanie liked me, I mean really liked me, and I knew it, but I hadn’t done a thing about it.  Getting divorced had burned me pretty bad five years earlier, but I never should have let it ruin my life.  Besides being a great baker, Stephanie was what the kids called smokin’ hot, and what was more, she had made it clear to me on more than one occasion that she wouldn’t mind having a sleepover sometime at my place or hers.  Man oh man, was I regretting never taking her up on that, along with a thousand other opportunities I’d passed up in my life.  I won’t say that my life flashed in front of my eyes, but I definitely hit the highlights of regrets in the life of Tom Beckett.

Before I could stop, or even slow, my forward progress, I found my head going through the light, with my rear end following close behind.

Whatever I was about to face was going to happen whether I liked it or not, and in a flash.

I popped out into a shop that looked quite a bit like mine, with some similar equipment but some really odd stuff there, too.

I didn’t really have a chance to take it all in at the moment, though.

Two things were much more urgent that had to be dealt with before I could look around.

The first was a body lying facedown on the floor to one side of the portal.

The second was a petite brunette holding some kind of gun on me, clearly ready to shoot.

Steve?  What’s going on?  She looked really confused, which I was sure was mirrored in my own expression, as she glanced back and forth from the body on the floor to me.  "You’re not Steve, are you?  Who are you, and why did you just kill him? she asked.  Never mind.  I’m not taking any chances with you."

Hang on a second, I said as she released the tie-down and raised her pistol in both hands.

Just give me a second to...  I barely got the words out before I blacked out.

I’d just been shot, and at close range too, so it appeared that I was going into that final light after all, whether I was ready to or not.

When I came to, I was sitting in a chair, but I wasn’t exactly free.  When I couldn’t move my arms and legs very much, I looked down to find that I’d been tied up with some kind of sticky mess resembling cow snot that bound my hands together and my feet together.  It may have looked pliable, but there was no breaking free of it.  It seemed to move a bit under my struggles, but there was no way I was going to be able to get myself out of it.

Hey, I’m not dead, I said aloud in wonder.

Wow, I wish I could say that you weren’t stupid too, but apparently that would be a reach, the brunette said.

Lady, give me a break, I answered.  After all, this is all new to me.

Trust me, this has never happened to me before either, Sport.  I was standing here having a perfectly nice conversation with Steve, she pointed to the man still lying on the floor, when he keeled over as that doorway appeared out of nowhere.  Did you shoot him from the other side?  Why did you have to kill him?  Couldn’t you have just stunned him?

I don’t even know enough to answer any of those questions, except that I didn’t kill anybody, at least not on purpose, I said.  If my machine had indeed killed the man, it could have just as easily been me lying in my shop, waiting for some random stranger to find the body.  Any chance you’d free up my hands?  My nose itches.

Evidently my plea worked, but not in the way I’d hoped.  Yeah, I hate when that happens, she said as she leaned forward and scratched my nose.  The closer she got to me, the prettier she was, and she’d been quite fetching from across the room.  Is that better?

Much.  Thanks, I said.  You smell amazing.

She actually blushed a bit at the compliment.  Do you really like it?  It’s new, she answered, and then she took a step back.  "Stop trying to distract me.  If you’re not Steve, which you clearly are not no matter how much you look like him, then who are you, and how did you get here?"

I honestly have no idea.  I was working on an invention to repel dirt when I flipped a switch, and that door suddenly showed up in my shop, I said.  At least the portal was just as bright from this side.  Nobody could see in or out, which made me feel a little bit less self-conscious about being tied up by a pretty girl.  My friends would never let me hear the end of it if they ever found out.  What was I thinking?  I would love for them to hear what had happened!  At least that way I’d still be alive, but the jury was still out on whether or not that was ever going to happen.

"So you’re an inventor, too, she said, frowning.  I wonder," she said to herself as she reached over and flipped the switch on a portable machine that looked awfully similar to the one lying on my workbench on the other side of that doorway.

And just like that, the portal, and my way back home, vanished!

"Hey, what did you do?  Am I stranded here forever now?"  I was distraught, and if I hadn’t been secured to it, I would have fallen out of the chair I was stuck to as I tried to lunge toward a doorway that wasn’t there anymore.

Hold on a second. Don’t get your panties in a knot, she said as she flipped the switch on again.

Nothing happened.

The girl, who looked to be in her late twenties, frowned.  That’s odd.  It was working before.

Now who’s the stupid one? I asked her without thinking about the consequences.

I prepared myself for another jolt from that gun of hers, and she even started to lift it before reconsidering.  Yeah, clearly you just didn’t appear out of thin air. 

At that moment, the portal materialized again in all its glory.  I’d never been happier to see a white light in my life.  As a matter of fact, that was probably the first time I’d ever been happy to see one, but still. 

What am I supposed to do with you? she asked me plaintively as she turned her attention back in my direction.

Let me go? I asked hopefully, not expecting any results.

Yeah, that’s probably not a bad idea, she said as she retrieved a can from her fanny pack and sprayed it on my hands and legs.  Just like that, the goo vanished, and I was free.  As