This is a redoing of my first story. It has a completely new plot and a new OC protagonist. I noticed that my old plot was focused more on the action and less on the plot (Jekkal unknowingly made me realize this). Changed. Also, before I was kinda just writing as I went. Now I have an outline of the plot.
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Chapter 1
The pulsing screech rang throughout the facility and the ears of its staff. In Mathew's mind, the strident alarm was distant, in the back of his mind along with everything else. However, as he regained consciousness, it became louder and clearer until it was screaming in his face, warning him of the evident disaster.
His light hazel eyes flickered open toward the dull grey concrete ceiling that hovered seven feet above his face. An emergency light had come to brilliant red life, spinning slowly around in its dome and casting its color throughout the control room. The air was thick with a burning odor. He brought his head and back up off the cold, hard concrete and leaned his weight back on an arm. With his other arm, he placed a hand on top of his head. He blinked a few times, remembering how the control console exploded and knocked him and two others against the wall.
The two others. He quickly glanced around the small control room and saw them both lying on the cold ground. He crawled over to the nearest one. It was Jones the physicist. Matt reached past Jones's pale face and placed two fingers on his neck. He sighed when he felt a pulse.
"Jones!" Matt yelled over the alarm as he grabbed hold of his white lab coat and tried to shake consciousness into him. "Jones!" he yelled again.
"Huh? Wha… what?" His brown eyes blinked open and looked at Matt.
"Are you alright?" Matt asked, still yelling to keep his voice over the alarm.
"Y-yeah, I think so." Jones sat up and rubbed his forehead with the palms of his hands. "Just a headache and this alarm isn't helping."
Matt made his way over to the urban camouflage clad security guard, while Jones stood and stepped over to the damaged console. The portly guard was breathing heavily, so Matt figured there was no point in checking his pulse. He grabbed hold of the kevlar vest and shook him as he did with Jones.
"Frank!" he yelled as he tried to get a response.
The chubby guard groaned and mumbled something, then squinted at Matt. He mumbled something again and sat up.
"Hey, can someone turn that damn alarm off?" he shouted angrily.
"Glad to see you're okay."
Both he and Frank stood up. He brushed off his Marine Corps fatigues and ran a hand over what little black hair he had. It wasn't that he was old and losing his hair. He was only twenty-one. He had kept it cut short since basic training, which he went through three years ago. He wanted to join the military to gain government benefits and get college paid for. He was expecting his five years in the service to be hell, but after getting into shape in basic, he found that it wasn't nearly as bad as he envisioned it. Sure, there was the fact that he could be transferred and sent away from his friends, family, and, worst of all, his girlfriend, but it didn't look like that was going to be an issue. All he really needed to worry about was getting sent to the frontlines in the war the United States was currently waging.
When General Mortimer called him up, he thought he was getting new orders and being sent off to the battlefield. He was relieved when he was told that he was only being offered the chance to go to a government-owned, civilian-run research facility, the Minkowski Research Facility, to make a report for Mortimer on some new technology being developed there. The details weren't mentioned. He was told he would need to wait until he got there to find out what it was they were developing.
When he arrived at the facility, he was taken to the teleportation lab. All he had to do was sit in the control room and take a few notes while the head physicist did his job and a security guard kept an eye on him. As far as he could tell, everything was going well. He was jotting down some notes and that was the last thing he remembered before the explosion.
"C'mon, Jones. Can't you do anything to shut it off?" Frank whined.
Jones shot a glare back and said, "We have much more urgent matters to attend to right now." He pointed at a square, tinted window that fit neatly above the console. It had a crack that ran down from the top left corner to the center. It revealed a small metal room that could easily be mistaken for a closet due to its size. Aside from the fact that the room was made from some sort of metal that was similar to tin, it differentiated from a closet in that it had an orange glowing ball of pure energy floating in the center of it where there had previously been a table and a caged lab rat, making the room very bright. The window's tint filtered the light, and kept it from becoming intolerable.
"That portal should not be open right now," Jones continued. "The main power is cut, and the auxiliary generators don't provide enough to keep it running. Something is holding it open."
"So, uh, what's so bad about the portal still being open?" Matt asked timidly, not wanting to ask a dumb question.
"Don't you get it? It is impossible for that portal to be open right now. Someone is supplying extra power to it somehow. But there's no way anyone could be doing that."
"Jones, my head is killin' me. Just turn that alarm off."
"Fine!" He pressed a button and the alarm died, but left the emergency light on.
Jones was trying frantically to get a response from the portal with the console, but nothing seemed to be happening. The console, normaly flat and angled toward the user by about fifteen degrees, now had a protruding dent that gave the entire surface an outward curve. Smoke was rising from it and a few of the control devices had been jettisoned out of their set positions. He tapped an LCD screen. It flickered a few times and he tapped it again. Then it flashed on, displaying a bunch of seemingly random numbers.
Jones frowned and said, "These aren't the coordinates I put in. I don't even know where… wait a minute. I do know where this is." He turned with wide eyes at Frank and said faintly, "The array is pointed at the Borehl system." The guard's eyes also went wide. Matt had no idea what they were talking about.
"Ya hafta shut that thing down!"
"I know, I know. I can't though!" Jones turned to the console and began pressing some of the still functional buttons.
Frank raised his voice and yelled, "Do something then!"
"I'm not picking my nose, here! Just shut up so I can concentrate." He stopped pressing buttons and started looking over the panel, as if he had something on his mind.
"Maybe… maybe I can change the coordinates. Yes, I think I can. Those controls still seem functional." He turned a dial and started punching in some numbers on a number pad. "The channels are jammed. I don't believe this! I can't specify any new coordinates! Wait. I think I can… yes! There is one open channel. I have no idea where these coordinates are, but I'm changing 'em." He started saying what numbers he was pressing out loud, then turned and smiled satisfactorily.
Suddenly, an old computer monitor that looked like it was manufactured in the '80s that had been idle the whole time came to life. A red screen flashed the word "Alert!" and then changed to a black screen and white text flooded it. It was some code or data format that Matt didn't recognize.
Jones seemed to, though. He took one glance at it and muttered, "Oh my god."
"What? What is it?" Matt asked, his tone half worry and half confusion.
Jones stared at it for a moment with his jaw hanging open, then said, "According to this, energy signals identical to the previous portal are opening all over the place." He pressed a button on a keyboard next to the monitor. The text changed around. "There's some sort of rift being opened. It-it's covering the facility right now… but it's getting bigger." Then, in nearly a whisper, he said, "How could this have happened?"
"Wait. What the hell are you two talking about? What's this 'Borehl' or whatever?" Matt asked. His curiosity had finally gotten the best of him.
Jones hung his head, then turned to the security guard and said, "There is a chance that this can be taken care of before it gets too out of hand. Do your duty."
Frank nodded and drew a Glock 21. He pointed it at Matt.
"What are you doing?"
"Sorry, Corporal. Jones says there's a chance that we can get this straightened out. You've heard too much, and since there is that chance, you can't live."
Matt slowly reduced the gap between him and a white, metal door to the left of the console, embedded into the concrete wall. The guard gulped, and Matt knew that Frank was having trouble fulfilling his duties. He knew he had one chance. He shot his arm up and twisted the barrel away from himself, then yanked back, all in one quick motion. Frank was taken by surprise and was trying to figure out what had happened. Matt struggled to quickly get the gun pointed in the other direction. Jones thought fast and slammed his fist down on the console. The door behind Matt slid open and revealed the 'closet' housing the portal. The portal now radiated its presence into the room through bright light and intense heat.
"Shove him in!"
Matt clasped the gun's grip and was raising it up at the charging guard, but it was too late. Frank planted a shoulder on Matt's chest and sent him stumbling backwards. He tried desperately to regain himself as he tumbled backwards, the heat raising to a nearly intolerable level, the light growing brighter, until there was an excruciating flash of white.