Chapter 14: A Looming Situation

Daylight broke through the only windows in the homestead, a warm but unnerving glow from the sun. Usually there would be clouds to block the sun, however it was unusually clear for this sort of time of year. Ice cold air was also unusual, but wasn't as rare as the storm looming in the distance. Apparently a category 4 hurricane was in set of motion to head for San Jose on the evening, and shelter would be very much so needed. However it was the fact that the air was ice cold, and not warm like a pre-hurricane climate should be that had everyone worrying. Fortunately the homestead had a built-in shelter, and if that wasn't enough they could easily fly out of the path in the shuttle. Alma went into the shuttle, powering it up for the homestead to gain electricity, as it had been removed from the grid as to not waste energy and to avoid being found. However it seemed like that had failed due to what happened in the night.

"I'm starting to think we should get working on finding out whatever this thing is." Sarah said, pointing to one of the main towers. "I agree, and we should hurry too, before anyone else finds us." Everyone had slightly jumped when they had heard what Peter said, "Some intruder broke in last night, didn't take anything but this means our cover is blown. Fortunately Sarah I have something you might want, do you know the basement of the main NEASA center? Well Andrew gave me access to what's there. You might want to see this." Peter explained, he had taken various photos of both the main object and some blueprints when he had gone, and so presented them to everyone else. Alma quickly signalled him to stop on one of the blueprints.

"It's a match, with this design here." Alma said, showing a blueprint of the engines that were on the shuttle, and indeed they were a perfect match. However the blueprint that Peter had had much more detail, including some annotations. It turned out that the 'fusion engines' were in fact a hybrid of both fusion and antimatter, which was weird, since there was no known way of obtaining antimatter to the level that this thing had done. This was something new, and something that even Alma could not process efficiently. How it worked was also weird; energy created in the fusion stage would go directly to the antimatter stage, where single atoms of matter and anti matter would be created and annihilated.

At first it seemed like this stage wasn't needed, but it turns out that there was a secret stage inside the antimatter stage. The single atoms of antimatter and matter were entangled with random atoms across the universe, and this entanglement can be modified. This would of explained why the weird stuff could only happen when the engines were running, and not just when the shuttle was on. There was only one thing to worry though, the engine size for the shuttle was a mere cubic feet, the object in the basement was over 50 times that size, and math wise it would be 125,000 times more powerful. Whatever this was going to be used for, it was going to be big.

"Man this is a lot to take in." Sarah sighed. "Sarah, why don't you go home for the night and rest. Alma can handle things here, can't you?" Peter responded.

"What about you sir, where are you going?" Buck asked. "Just call me Peter, I'm going back to NEASA to do some more research on this, I'll be back within 2 hours tops, okay?" Everyone hesitantly agreed. Taking Peter's car, he and Sarah drove to her house, before Peter went to work once more for the day. Fortunately, the third floor held a room that only Peter, and no one else, could access and enter. He sat down and looked at everything Alma provided him previously. Ding! An email from Sarah popped up, telling him of a daily blackout that was underway.

For a moment it didn't seem true, the lights and stuff were still on inside. Instinctively Peter walked casually toward the nearest window - one that displays the main town. But there was no town, just the silhouette, and then the lights behind the down faded. Hurriedly walking back to his desk, he opened up the holographic display to search for a map of electrical supply. In Sarah's email she talked of a blackout across town, but this blackout was over half the state, and growing. Zooming in, only one building wasn't off: the one he was in.

Okay, something was really off.

Alma had decided to teach the family how to play card games, though quickly realizing why dinosaurs never invented card games in the first place. Perhaps playing chess with a large board would be more their type? Or maybe a humongous version of twister would be fun to see? The decision was quickly interrupted when the door slowly opened. Not a sound came from the door, but the ambient light from the shuttle had cast a silhouette.

"Ah Peter you're back. How was work?" Alma asked, who was adjusting it's cameras to see clearly into the dark. "I mean, it went well." At first it seemed like the reply Peter would say, but the voice... there was something off with the voice.

"You okay? You sound pretty weird." Alma asked again. "Yeah, just a bit of a cold. How are you? Where's those uh... you know?" Alma had fully adjusted to the dark, only for the light to be turned on and momentarily blind it. The family just stared at what happened next, before Arlo finally spoke.

"You're not Peter."

At NEASA, Peter was almost pulling his hair out trying to figure out the missing link. Just what was Andrew up to do. "Wait a second, if the engines are responsible for me being able to connect to their world, and the thing in the basement has a bigger design of the engines. My god... Andrew's going to connect the two worlds together, I have to tell them!" As quickly as he could, Peter rushed down to the elevator and ran out the building. He would have to break the speed limit to get there in time.

While the car was driving, he got a notification, again from Sarah. It was an article... made a week from now. It was about a reactor under NEASA that blew up by accident, he would turn back now, but he was too close to the homestead to do so. Stopping just in front, he ran toward the door and burst through it. Nothing but darkness ensured, and the light switch wouldn't turn on. His mobile phone was the only source of light, and so used it to look around. All of a sudden he pointed towards Alma, or what remained. It was completely wrecked. But then he turned to the family, who were all... asleep?

"Arlo? Ida, wake up... wake up."

"They won't wake up for half an hour, and by the time they do, they'll already be gone." A voice from behind said, Peter swiftly turned around to see who it was, but was met with a hard object smashing him, knocking him out instantly.

A/N: Can't say what's going to happen next, but we're near the conclusion of Peter's story. I hope you enjoyed this chapter - and more importantly the story so far, there's much more to come, though how many chapters specifically I'm not sure. Let me know what you think so far, and as always... see you, in the next chapter. Bye for now!

Next Chapter: Humanity's Saving Grace

Notable Facts: N/A