5 days earlier- the librarians were researching a strange magical energy attached to a jewel in a new museum display. They traveled to Oakland, California to the Oakland Museum; a multilayer labyrinth of a place.
"So where is it?" their leader Colonel Eve Baird, a blonde woman in her early 40's, pretty and youthful for her age, but with the personality of a world weary solider.
In a museum that had exhibits ranging from historic to pop culture, there was not much press for a new rock.
"The gardens." Cassandra suggested. "It just fits with the reports. Where else can someone randomly fall asleep without being noticed? "
The 'reports' were blog posts and twitter feeds from over 60 people. Who fell asleep within moments of coming near the stone and had the exact same dream; a dark space like place with covered in portals that they could not access. Some people thought it was the afterlife, others assumed it was just a weird 'drug-like' effect of the stone. But the memory stuck with all of them.
Cassandra was right, the "stone" was in the garden surrounded by benches. The specimen it self was a 1-2 pound purple stone embedded in a larger chuck of black rock. And that was surrounded by 5 sleeping bodies.
"How close does a person have to be to feel the..." Eve blinked, Jacob caught her and took a few steps back.
Ezekiel Jones, the team's thief/hacker a young athletic Australian born Asian (who some might say reminded them of a power ranger from the later seasons) had an idea. "Cassie, do you think you can lift it?"
"me?!" Cassie did not relish the idea of climbing over the people, and plants surrounding the display.
"Your brain works on an entirely different level, there is a chance you can get close to it without being affected." It was really their only option.
"and if there's an alarm?" if? This was a museum, there was a 100% chance of an alarm.
"I'll cut the power to the area. Jake, take Baird back to the car and have it prepped to pick us up..." he looked around for the nearest wall or exit. "there-" it was a wall overlooking the street."13 minutes- starting now."
Cassie had one question. "what will happen when we have the rock in the car?"
"I just hope I'm correct in that it will not effect you, so you can drive said car." He left to cut the power. As soon as he returned with the alarms in full swing (everywhere except the gardens), Cassie grabbed the rock (that was easily 9 pounds), tossed it to Ezekiel who jumped the wall and threw it to the ground (losing 2 pounds of excess rock), to grab her hand. In preparation Jacob got out of the driver's seat so Cassandra could toss him the rock and make a clean getaway.
since she had the car to herself for the next 10 minutes she turned on the radio,
"...know I never meant to cause you no pain
And I realise I let you down (oh yeah)
But I know in my heart of hearts
I know I'm never gonna hold you again, no
Now I, now I know I wish it would rain down, down on me"
Wish it would rain down, by Phil Collins- something about that song seemed 'meaningful', if not a little foreboding.
When they made it to the 'door'. Jenkins, the master of the annex (a place in between dimensions) brought the jewel in to the room, quickly placing in an energy field, that instantly allowed the rest of the team to wake up.
"What we have here is a displaced specimen native to the dream realm." He said in his usual matter if fact tone. "Although it could have been taken from there by occupants of any of the other realm colonies."
"dreamrealm?" asked Eve, as usual she did not believe what she was hearing.
"Yes there are billions of alternate realities or 'realms' but the bigger question is - who brought this here and why." Jenkins said, he then turned off the field.
"why did …" Cassie started.
"Don't worry, anyone who has already experience the dream cannot re-experience it." He said taking out the stone, slamming it to the ground again to remove the rest of the black rock. "and you are going to need it."
"for what…. " Cassie, again was concerned.
"to access the realms that might be involved.- there are only a few. All 4 of you need to be touching the stone when passing through the door." By that he meant their usually door, a normal looking door that could mimic any door.
"This stone slipped through, because someone or something is planning to pass through in to our world- and that usually not a good thing."
"What do you mean usually?" it was Jacob's turn to be confused.
"The realms that this stone is native to- their inhabits range from humans to monsters to super powered immortals. In the past some have came to our world seeking asylum, others have come because we're seen as an easy target." He said pointing to an ancient Egyptian carving."
"The Egyptian Gods were from an alternate reality?" Eve threw up her hands."Fine we go to the 'realm colonies' by allowing ourselves to be separated, most likely loosing the magic rock.- How do we get home?"
"that I cannot help you with." He said, knowing that was a strange response.
The entire team froze with WTF expressions.
"The technology to traverse realms rarely, if ever crosses over to our reality, and what does cross over is highly outdated. Trust me you will find the right people and they will have all the resources you need to return home." He said setting up their door.
Being a member of Librarians always required a bit of 'trust', so they did as he said, all touching the jewel with at least one finger they passed through the door. They were instantly separated-split to 4 different realms. Out world, Chaos realm, Order realm, Dream realm. One would hold the key.
Jacob would come to be safe. Next was Eve.
"Sonya!" A man who sort of looked like an older cleaner cut version of Jacob ran towards her. "uh.. you're not Sonya. "
"No, I'm Colonel…" she started to stand.
"No time for intros- the name's Cage, and long story short you kind of resemble my missing wife." He shoved her out of the way of a hail of flaming arrows. They were in the middle of a warzone.
"Where are we?" she asked as they starting running. The soldiers looked like an ancient Chinese army, under the watch of a man with long white hair.
"Order realm they think they're under attack by Earth realm." He said, out of breath. He had arrived with Sonya to investigate but they were separated.
"They think?" If they were not being attacked, who were they firing on?
"Me and my wife are earth realm special forces sent to investigate because as far as we know Earth realm has no forces deployed here. But something is attacking." He motioned toward what looked like men in modern military clothing wielding riot gear-like weapons.
Something was off; when a solider got hit the body seemed to melt in to a liquid, as if someone was trying to trick the order realm armies.
"We need to get out of here." Johnny flicked his fingers, opening a portal, shoving her through- he didn't follow, he needed to learn more- he needed to find his wife.
