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Will reached out to open his locker. The view spun. ‘Not again’ he thought, as he almost stumbled forwards. The view changed. Instead of his locker, his hand was inches away from a tree.
Gathering his composure, he turned and looked around. He clearly hadn’t moved physically but had obviously switched realities, as the base had vanished.
He went to use his wrist-worn RSC but then 78ealized that, having moved slightly when he turned around, he could easily transfer back into the middle of his bed or even his locker, which didn’t appeal much. Despite being tired and hungry after the morning’s training session, he realised he would have to move to somewhere he knew he could safely transfer back to the base. He tried to think where he might do so. Even though the base was hidden in the forest, it wasn’t too far from its edge. All he had to do was walk to the edge, use the RSC and walk back to the base.
What he hadn’t reckoned on was that the forest in this reality was much denser than the one in his adopted reality, making progress slow and lacked the access road in the base’s reality. Fortunately, the training regime required them to be armed at all times, with both a handgun and a knife attached to his belt. At least he could defend himself, he reckoned. The knife also proved handy when he had to extricate himself from some bramble-like foliage but he did manage to cut his hands as he did so on the shrubbery’s sharp barbs.
As he left the trees he realised he wasn’t alone. In his adopted reality, the area around the forest was scrubland. In this reality, the area was part farmland and a field of a cereal crop was in front of him. A few hundred metres away across the field, a group of farmers were in deep discussion when one spotted him and called out to him. Will couldn’t tell what he had said but realised that the language wasn’t English. He waved back and started to walk along the edge of the field, hoping that he would just look like someone out for a walk.
His hopes were dashed, however, when the farmer called out again. This time he realised that the language was German. Unfortunately, despite recognising the language, he couldn’t understand it, not having a use for it in his own reality. Clearly, the farmer was expecting a reply.
He did, briefly, consider pretending to be a tourist but his uniform and weapons would probably give the lie to that option. He also wasn’t sure whether, in this reality, they would have non-German speaking tourists anyway. He considered switching realities but wasn’t sure that he was clear of the trees back home.
He looked at the field but wasn’t sure about walking across it. There didn’t seem to be a path through the crop that he could take without damaging it. His mind was made up when one of the other farmers waved him towards the group.
Waving back at them, he headed across the field. As he walked, he decided that he couldn’t get close enough that he would need to say something. His lack of German would be bound to provoke some kind of reaction, possibly hostile. About half way across the field, he reckoned he was outside ‘his’ forest. He cautiously moved the catch on his RCS. Once he was certain the lid was open, he pretended to stumble into the growing crop. As soon as he hit the ground, he pressed the button. The world spun. He looked around him at scrubland. A grazer was two feet away, looking curiously at him. As he moved to stand up, it ran away.
‘That was close’ he thought, turning back towards the forest and looking for the base’s access road. In his travels in the other reality, he had no idea where he was relative to it and knew that using it would be much quicker and easier than fighting his way through the trees. He couldn’t see it in either direction, so decided that he would bear to the left of the forest in the first instance. After ten minutes, he realised that he was going the wrong way, so turned around and went back the way he had come. After fifteen minutes, he came across it and turned left into the forest. A discrete sign on each side of the road said “NO ENTRY” but, working there, he ignored them. Two minutes later, a land vehicle screeched to a halt behind him.
‘Halt. This is government property and you are trespassing. Put your hands in the air and turn around’ boomed a voice from a loudspeaker on the vehicle.
As requested, Will turned around and saw two armed guards looking at him, weapons pointing at him.
‘Oh, sorry Mr. Hunt. We didn’t recognise you from behind. We’ve been looking for you for the last hour or so. You vanished from the base and no one knew where you’d gone’ said an apologetic Sergeant.
‘That’s OK, Sergeant Jones. Any chance of a lift back to the base?’
‘No problem. We’ll have you back in no time. Hop aboard.’
Will didn’t hesitate and jumped into the back of the armoured car. Within a few minutes, they were back at the base. The others were there to greet them.
‘What happened Will?’ asked Sarah, running towards him and putting her arms around him and giving him a big hug.
‘Just the usual. Reality hopping again! I take it you missed me’ replied Will, feeling slightly embarrassed with everyone looking on.
‘We just wondered where you’d gone and hoped you were OK’ said Sarah.
Talking so that the whole group could hear him, Will said ‘Sorry I’ve been gone so long but, having made a switch, I needed to get out of the forest before I could get back, just to make sure I didn’t reappear inside a piece of furniture or something. Snag was, when I did get out of the alternate forest, I found myself in the presence of some German-speaking farmers and had to make a quick departure from them. Not unreasonably, they wanted to have a chat and there’s no way I could have done so. I can’t understand or speak German, which could have been awkward. Not sure what they would have done. As at least two of them seemed armed and they had some large farm dogs with them, I think the friendliness would have worn off all too quickly.’
‘I wonder what their reaction to your vanishing will be? Anyway, it looks like the personal RSC did what it was meant to do” said Dev.
‘Sure did. The process isn’t perfect. You do need to make sure you’re well clear of anything in both realities to ensure you’re safe, although I guess that in a desperate emergency, you’d just have to hope you were OK’ responded Will.
‘Anyway everyone, I think we need to get back to the training. We’ve lost enough time today waiting for Will to return’ said Dev.
‘That’s OK for you to say. I haven’t had any lunch! I reckon I’m going to work a lot more effectively this afternoon if I have some food inside me! I could also appreciate dealing with these cuts and scratches on my wrists and hands’ replied Will, holding up his arms to show them his bloody wrists.
‘Okay, you and Sarah can have an hour delay for Will to clean up and have something to eat but we’ll have to add it the end of the day. Can’t have you slacking. The rest of you can get back to your training schedule’ replied Dev, smiling.
‘By the way, Dev. This episode brought home to me the fact that, as soon as we can, we should investigate building a base that exists in ALL realities. I’m not sure how easy that would be but, if we’re to develop an inter-reality security force of some kind, it will be essential that we can move safely between realities.’
‘Good point, Will. I’ll raise it with the Admiral as soon as I next see him.’