Chapter 1. Spun out of Quantum Bullshit.
For a lot of people, there is a moment when you wake up from a dream where your dream is overlaid on the real world. You see things that aren't actually there – at least until you can kick the lights on, bring everything into sharp focus and your brain catches up with reality. I've noticed in recent years this happens a lot with me; I wake up and think there is a fucking spider dropping down on my head or something, wave wildly to bat it away while clawing for the light switch, then feel like an idiot afterwards. Also known to happen; muscle cramps. Especially if I've probably pushed exercise too hard. Really fucking annoying to wake up with your leg or foot cramping like a motherfucker.
Still, it's always just been just an annoyance rather than a fright to me – most of the time anyway. A half second of instinctive confusion and panic followed by my brain catching up and presto, hit the lights. Or in the event of a muscle spasm, gritting and swearing incredibly profusely and stretching it out.
So when I woke up feeling pretty extreme muscle cramps just about everywhere while tasting the colour purple, it wasn't exactly something out of context for me to comprehend. At least for the first few seconds. But after a few moments as my eyes and focus tried to adjust as I took notice of a noise I vaguely realized was me screaming in pain, it dawned on me that this was actually quite unusual as left became up, right became a diagonal perpendicular to reality while up and down told me to go fuck myself.
Bit by bit it dawned on me through everything that something was horribly horribly wrong … and this was no dream, trapped in a hellish warped and twisted nightmare –
And then just as suddenly as that, it was over and I seemed to fall back into my bed. I gasped for air and promptly screamed in pain once more as my muscles continued to fire off randomly but through sheer willpower I managed to impose some kind of control and hold my body still by stretching out – which also seemed to cut out no small amount of the pain as my mind told my muscles to shut up and start behaving, I continued gasping for air, opening my eyes to look straight up –
Huh. This was not my bedroom.
I mean my bedroom wasn't exactly small, but it wasn't the size of a warehouse with bright fluorescent lights and bizarre things on the roof that looked like a massive array of aerials or dishes and what not, with thick power cables going everywhere. Struggling to sit up on my bed, my mind was furiously debating with itself if this was still a dream despite how real this felt – as that would seem infinitely more logical than what I was seeing.
Around me was my bed that I was sitting on, the back wall of my house behind – oh wait, it was falling down now, thankfully away from me. The chest of drawers next to my bed – ah good, my iPhone and iPad. I reached through the agony on a single thought; call help. Despite my muscles complaining very painfully again, sweating as I insisted my arm move I made it do so. I mean, I had no idea exactly what I would do; call the cops and insist that reality just flipped me off, but I certainly wasn't operating on a level much beyond fight/flight right now. My hearing also seemed to be returning – didn't even notice that it had gone- and I could make out some crazy klaxon going off and possibly the sound of people shouting as I finally managed to grab the phone and hit the home button through the pain.
No service. No WiFi. Joy!
I struggled myself to a sitting position – and then suddenly there were people around me. People in HAZMAT gear of a sorts waving all manner of stuff at me and shouting – and then it was all just too much and I collapsed back into the blissfully painless darkness.
My last brief thought noting how real this dream was…
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***
It was a full two days before I woke up. So I'm told anyway.
The first thing I heard was the steady 'Beep … Beep … Beep' of a heartbeat monitor. Just like the kind you see on TV. For a good five or ten seconds I had a deliriously happy moment of utterly forgetting the craziness that had taken place earlier without even really noticing the sound. Then I stretched and frowned as I heard and felt the sort of crinkle of plastic under a sheet that was definitely not my bed. Then the impact of that Beep-Beep-Beep came to me and ever so slowly I opened my eyes.
I was pretty clearly in a hospital. Glancing around I saw I had an IV in my upper arm, which was somewhat annoying but presumably pumping good things into me. Extending my gaze I did a quick survey of the room … which looked, rather unsurprisingly, like a room in a hospital.With all the sort of portable machines around the bed one might expect. And a nice window on the far wall letting in a cheery amount of light suggesting it was well into the next day. A private room it looked like.
Huh. Was not expecting that.
Groaning slightly as I belatedly discovered I felt as stiff and tender as if I had tried to run a marathon (or what I thought it might feel like, having never done anything as crazy as that) I forced myself to sit up slowly. As I did so, I noticed that the cheap hospital sheets common to such places were not there. Instead the sheets felt rather good. Like very high quality sheets...and the mattress itself actually felt surprisingly comfortable under. Not the 'stiff as a board' kind of bed that was typical of such places in my limited experience of them.
Well, I can see where the health department's budget is going these days…
Swinging my legs down to the cool vinyl floor I noted my IV was hooked into a bag on a stand that ran off the bed frame itself - but it was just hanging there and could be removed. I didn't think it would be a very good idea to do so though; I just wanted to stretch and so I very carefully started to stand … and promptly flopped right back onto the bed as my legs buckled. With pain shooting from my feet to my head to punish me for trying.
Okay. That hurt.
Mental note, don't try to stand anytime soon.
On the plus side, I could feel the horrible pain and my limbs were working, so I wasn't paralyzed or anything. Always a plus!
The sound of a door opening behind me caused me to force the pain off my face as best I could and drag my legs back onto my bed in a sitting position on the bed.
"Good afternoon mister Smith" a man in what looked like pretty typical medical scrubs said, followed in my a number of other people dressed similarly.
The mans accent was … English perhaps? I couldn't exactly pick it, but it was not mainstream Australian - if such an accent could even be said to exist anyway. Although it was hardly unusual for English medical professionals to run to Australia for a few years once the rain and cold got too depressing…
But no, English wasn't quite right ...
"Good afternoon" I replied back, trying not to wince too much at the pain from my aborted attempt to stand up. Although it was I noticed somewhat dull in that way that I knew meant I was on painkillers. Which made me very glad; if it hurt this much on drugs I didn't want to even think what it would feel like without them.
"Careful now. Your nervous system has been badly overloaded - in simple terms you suffered a major electric shock and corresponding strain to your neural system" the man said, striding quickly over to ease me back down before hitting some controls and causing the bed to shift up to a sitting position as others carefully pulled my legs back and eased me into the sitting position, checking the IV and otherwise fussing. "You've been asleep for two days while we dealt with the damage - and I'm pleased to say we're well on the way to getting you back on your feet".
"Oh" I blinked, feeling slightly shocked at that, the causal statement of the loss of two days of time like that. Thoughts about work, family and the world moving on crashing into me.
As if he could sense my thoughts, the man however raised a hand.
"After we check you out, we'll head downstairs and talk about all the questions I'm sure you want to ask" he noted, retrieving a stethoscope that had been hung around his neck. "Now if you'll just sit up and we'll check you out?"
At that I glanced down - and tried not to blush at what I saw. Clearly someone had undressed me at some point and put me into hospital garb.
Well, might as well get it over with I thought with a sigh and leaned forward as the doctor efficiently pulled the back of my gown open via some well placed velcro straps...
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***
Next came an hour of poking, prodding and checking things. Asking me to do this and that with my limbs and joints in a systematic inspection from head to toe testing strength, reflexes, power and so on. I wasn't given a clean bill of health exactly but I was told I was well on the way to recovery and, give or take a week, I'd be good as new. Which, I thought, was pretty incredible given that I'd apparently been zapped hard enough to hallucinate some really weird shit that had seemed so vivid at the time.
I did try to ask some questions about exactly where I was, but was told that all questions would be answered soon. And that given the possibility of nervous system damage, they didn't want to 'contaminate' the memory testing that would take place shortly. That I should just stay as relaxed as possible.
It sounded rather absurd to me - but mentally I shrugged and went with it. It wasn't as if I exactly had much of a choice anyway - having relatives as medical professionals had taught me well that Doctors, Nurses and specialists of all kinds were exceptionally good at ignoring their patients when they were not cooperating and demanding they just do as they were told. And the faster you just got it over and done with the faster you got out.
Soon enough I was in a wheelchair and being pushed out of the rather plain room. I kept looking around trying to find hints of which Sydney hospital I was in, but one hospital really looked like any other on the inside I suppose to people who didn't actually work in them. Although, I did note that this building looked … well, new I suppose would be the best word? Almost like a next generation office space in a lot of ways with its glass walls, polished metal fixtures and styles with surprisingly little of the organized clutter I would normally expect.
Perhaps this is a private hospital? I wondered, although it seemed unlikely given that they didn't really do emergency care work. But perhaps I had needed some kind of specialist treatment?
I didn't have too long to wonder though, the trip was pretty short, just down a few passages to wide door at the end of a corridor. A small touchpad/flat screen combo mounted on the wall next to it (again not something I'd expect to see in a hospital) said 'Conference Room 4-1A' noting that the time was apparently just before two thirty and a meeting was going to run here for a few hours. Trying pathetically to straighten up and make myself slightly presentable- in a hospital gown with an IV in one arm- the door was opened and I was wheeled through by the Doctor behind me.
I looked around in some surprise as I entered the room. It was crowded with a lot of very serious looking men and women. At least what, twenty? More? The rectangular table in the middle of the room only had a dozen or so seats, meaning several people were standing clustered around the far end. Only a few were wearing hospital scrubs, most were wearing lab coats or even suits of a somewhat odd cut. One bizarrely even looked to be in what suspiciously looked like some kind of military uniform - but certainly not an Australian defense force uniform which was more than a bit confusing … and concerning.
I didn't see any family members though and the sense of unease I had been feeling since waking up grew a little. At the least I knew they were safe; none of them had been in the house with me when I was asleep…
Presently after pushing me up to the nearest end of the long table which had been left open - presumably for me- and checking my IV with a reassuring smile, the Doctor handed over some paperwork to the man sitting opposite me on the table before quietly leaving and closing the door behind him.
"Mister Smith, welcome. My name is Doctor Charles Stewart - head of the neurological department" the older, somewhat dignified looking man said. "I apologize for the lack of information you have received thus far, but we wanted to be sure first and foremost of your health before proceeding. And it would appear" he noted, flicking through a number of printouts on the table, "that you are recovering and responding very well to treatment".
"Glad to hear it" I responded, the uneasy feeling growing slightly at both the fact that this man also had the slightly 'wrong' accent … and the sheer number of people in the room watching me closely.
So I decided to get straight to the point.
"If you'll forgive my directness; what the hell happened to me and where am I?"
"Understandable questions. In simple terms" Doctor Stewart said, leaning forward slightly before pausing slightly and then pressing on. "You were exposed to a high-intensity but highly focused and localized EM field. One that was generated as a result of certain highly-classified science experiments regarding … long range communications. The field was never, of course, meant to materialize around you and your bed while you were sleeping, but a chaotic event … well suffice to say, it materialized on you. Speaking frankly, it's something of a miracle you survived - let alone survived with no permanent damage".
"...right" I responded to the man after glancing around the room and taking a note of the deadly serious expressions on the faces there as my sense of unease grew rapidly. I was hardly a scientist, but was wondering what in the hell kind of experiment could direct an EM field without line of sight over such a long distance (as I was emphatically sure there wasn't any such facility anywhere near my house) and what exactly was being done with it-
Then, suddenly, the alarm bells started to ring in my head as the last thoughts of in my bed hit me with a terrifying clarity. In some kind of warehouse yet on my bed with part of my room around me and a wall that collapsed-
"The last thing I remember as I woke up after the … event … was seeing a massive looking warehouse or structure around part of my room" I said very carefully, my tension creeping just that more as several of the people exchanged glances. "As if it along with me had been sliced out of my house and transported somewhere else".
It was utterly insane, but I said it anyway. Waiting for everyone to suggest that I needed to go lie down again for a while.
They didn't.
The not-quite accusation hung there in the air for a good three seconds before finally another man, a somewhat younger man who couldn't quite meet my gaze spoke up in a stutter-
"That … that is because, in essence, you and that part of your room were, um, well, you see -"
Doctor Stewart stepped in at that point with an annoyed look at the other.
"Our 'communications system' works, in essence, by opening a hole through space from point to point to send transmissions through. Due to a freak one in a trillion series of events, the system overloaded and became a bridge for not simply energy, but matter. You and everything in a flattened sphere approximately three meters in diameter and two in height, were, … well, transported here through that bridge".
At that I blinked and worked my jaw trying to say something.
It was completely, utterly, absolutely insane.
And yet … the lack of straight answers, no family or friends when I woke up … and the utterly serious looks on the faces around me oddly convinced me that I had just become part of human history. The first man teleported? Yay me?
I tried to force myself to calm down with only partial success and only deal with the facts as they stood.
"Okay … " I managed to swallow that and accept the statement on its face value as I again took a good long look around the room and started to slowly add things up. "Based on your accents, your slightly … odd ... sense of fashion and uniform I don't recognize" I nodded at several people in a row and took the plunge. "I'm … not in … where am I?"
Then before anyone could answer my eyes bulged as the vivid memory of seeing my bedrooms back wall behind me go falling over. "Wait - my house, what happened to my house! And my-"
"Please calm down Mister Smith" a young woman with a sympathetic face sitting next to me cut in. Glancing at her I noticed that her tablet computer (an odd model I had never seen before that I'm guessing was some kind of MilSpec custom job, looking more like an older laptop than anything else) and it had what looked like medical readings flashing over it. I guessed she was somehow monitoring my vital signs on it - huh guess this wheelchair was more than just a seat. "You're safe, everything is going to be okay. Please just calm down and listen" she said, reaching out to firmly take my hand. The sudden contact jolted me a little - but it also seemed to help ground me.
"Please" I swallowed to clear an annoyingly hoarse voice after a time. "My house? My family?"
"To the very best of our knowledge, both are perfectly fine. In fact they should not have noticed your departure".
My brain gave a 'Flat What' at that and I looked around somewhat incredulously at the still utterly serious expressions directed at me.
"Give them some credit; I think they would kind of noticed a significant chunk of the house going missing with me in it" I bit back almost instinctively, clutching the arms of my wheelchair for some kind of support as much as I clung to the sarcasm as I wondered if I was utterly misunderstanding them on some level.
"Alright Mister Smith, the Truth" the military looking man finally joined the conversation with a deep, direct sounding voice.
"General, I don't think-"
"He deserves to know what you people" -although from the tone of his voice I would have guessed he really meant 'idiots' - "did" he snapped, turning to face him. "Son they've told the truth, but not the whole truth. The … technology … we were using didn't pull you from there to here. It copied what was inside the field, exactly to the quantum level, duplicating it inside an identical field in our laboratory. The original 'you' is probably completely unaware of what happened".
"It … I … what?" I managed to get out - even though in a strange way, I found it horribly clear exactly what he was saying. Even as my mind screamed denial. "You're saying … I'm not … I'm just a …"
'Copy' my mind supplied the word I couldn't possibly say.
I'm not John … I'm just a copy of him … just a fucking copy ...
I heard the general still talking, vaguely but didn't really pay attention. Everything just seemed to stop as the entire fundamental truth of my existence collapsed in on itself until from somewhere I heard my name being called (My name? Was it?) several times and I managed to drag my attention back.
"General, enough; you're pushing him too hard!" the woman next to me protested, shooting him a look of pure murder as my mine chased itself around in small circles as I desperately tried my very best to ignore the implications to my life and my existence, before finally latching onto, rather pathetically and desperately, something in the phrasing.
"You said … said It's been days since this happened. And you just said … you just said you think that I … me … him - the other me, is fine and the house" I managed to stutter out through the numb shock and disbelief raging in my head. "You think. How could you not know? I mean, I'm sure it's all over the news - a chunk of the house and someone inside it goes missing in the middle of the night, if it happened. And if it didn't, you've had plenty of time to have someone go around and take a look! So why don't you know?!" I finished in a half shout half sob half whatever.
I knew somehow, distantly, that I was just grasping at straws. And that it was even entirely possible that wherever I was and whoever these people were, they didn't have 'assets' in place to go around and take a look at where I lived…
But I didn't expect the answer they gave.
"I'm afraid that isn't possible Mister Smith" Doctor Stewart replied gently, shooting one final glare at the General, before taking a breath. "I'm sorry to be the one to tell you this - but I won't like to you. The technology we were testing did not simply transmit across space … but also, in this case, seemingly uniquely across time. When you went to sleep two days ago the year was twenty fifteen … the year is now thirty twenty six. And you're not on Earth anymore - this planet is roughly three hundred light years away from mankind's homeworld".
"Oh" I responded. "Well … that would explain it, I guess".
Then I threw up. Before passing out.
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So that was how I ended up in the universe of Battletech.
The next few months were, well, lets just fast forward through the five stages of grief? Denial was how I spent most of the time though. At first, Janace - who was my assigned therapist - had to try and get through my understandable shock and numbness. A regime of very advanced antidepressants and so on helped me, although it's all still a bit of a blur in my memory. Mostly I was both simultaneously grateful that as far as NAIS knew, the 'real' me was still going fine without having noticed anything. Which also meant that no matter how much I missed them, my family and friends at least would be spared the horror of me simply vanishing one night with a chunk of my house forcing them to bury an empty coffin or something.
Eventually, I was was well enough to actually start to ask questions about the future … starting with why everything looked so suspiciously like the present to me rather than Clark's law being fully in effect.
And so it was explained to me that science with a few exceptions had broadly remained much the same as it was in my timeframe - even if impressive strides had been made in applied engineering. I was not entirely convinced but finally I was sat down in a room for a history catch up … which had quickly made me blink and sit up in disbelief.
Because this 'future' sounded familiar.
Suspiciously familiar, in fact.
Unbelievably familiar, in fact.
Some part of me firmly in denial mode about all of this still kept my mouth shut at the absurdity presented to me. That I was not simply in the future, but had transitioned to a fucking fictional universe and was crashing at the New Avalon Institute of Science in the wonderful world of Battletech, in the best imitation of a Self Insertion fanfiction.
My knee-jerk denial (even if I kept my mouth shut my skepticism was clear) had lasted 24 hours more until Janice had taken me outside for a walk … and five minutes later I had stood there dumbfounded as a lance of Battlemechs (a Jagermech, two Enforcers and a Locust I recall rather vividly) casually strolled past when they got a green light as they threaded their way down the road to the College of Military Sciences.
My brain promptly went into an infinite loop chasing itself as it tried to determine if Occam's Razor made 'someone with a fucklaod of money on Earth is simply replicating a known tabletop game after kidnapping me' was more likely than 'I transitioned to a reality version of an entirely fictional universe'.
I mean, one would require a fucking crapload of technology and countless billions of dollars and powerful people to put in an obscene effort to try and trick me for motives I couldn't come close to guessing, far more assumptions and moving parts … but didn't require what amounted to the impossible. That everything I knew about physics was wrong and somehow, a paper and tabletop work of fiction was now a real universe.
Then there were other fun ideas like me being in some kind of matrix VR world based on Battletech - but quickly I realized that if that was the case I wouldn't be able to determine it anyway, so…
Then the next day as I was still clinging to the thin argument of a massive trick … I saw a dropship launch.
No actually, I saw about thirty of them launch, from the roof of the hospital where a nice little cafe was situated. From both a military sportport attached to NAIS and other more distant locations around the lights of Avalon City and Castle Avalon. It was spectacular, loud and in your face. On a scale of one to ten, this rated Michael Bay. And as the fusion drives briefly turned night into day across the entire region as the massive objects told gravity to go suck a higgs boson, the truth of my situation became oddly, calmly, undeniable.
I was in Battletech. Cira 3025.
It sounded insane every time I said it, but there it was and here I am.
In the days that followed I consumed damn near Every history book I had scoured matched up identical to what I recalled - if far more detail, but this wasn't 'close' or 'near' Battletech, but as far as I could tell, exactly matched it.
Still, I kept enough sense to keep my mouth shut because I needed to consider my position carefully - very carefully.
The one thing I could do and did do however was make it clear that I was not from their reality either. In discussions with a gaggle of various academics from NAIS, I laid out in detail many of the geopolitical and historical changes in my timeline from theirs, narrowing down some kind of divergence in the 1970s, well before I was born.
Which was to be frank a rather clear relief to the people talking to me, who had clearly been terrified of the idea of plucking me from their timeline and somehow having contaminated it in a butterfly effect.
And that solved, now there was just the small matter … of building a new life.
Medically NAIS were, as you would think, very good at what they did. And they dealt with the physical damage from my creation quickly enough. Plus even a few medical improvements of minor ailments which was nice of them to do - as well as massive testing to make sure I wasn't going to be a Typhoid Mary, followed by vaccinations and more testing which I thankfully passed without incident. Somewhat disturbingly, I suspect that a lot of the scientists were sort of hoping for a medical reaction from my body to the vaccinations to examine the differences in physiology over a thousand years, but it seems my DNA was depressingly normal enough. Evolution didn't seem to have left any surprises after all over such a short timeframe.
Material wise there was good news and bad news for me. The bad news was that I had very few possessions to my name anymore. My bed (which had been thrown out) and some things around it and under it had come with me - luckily a lot of my more sentimental items had been stored under the bed and had come with me, but few clothes or other bits and pieces.
But my iPad and iPhone had come through fine. Even better, my bedside draw had piles of cables and a couple of adapters for recharging them. Which, thanks to 21st century safety standards, had etched into the plastic the exact power inputs and outputs making it child's play for the NAIS School of Engineering as a sort-of apology for the whole 'creating you and dumping you in a brave new world' thing to slap together an adaptor for their standard 'offworld travel power adaptor' kit, so I could recharge the apple devices.
Although frankly, it was clear they mostly went to the effort of building a USB adapter because they really wanted to play with the 'ancient' computers … and were not expecting what I showed them.
Suffice to say they were stunned that my 21st century was building things like that!And more than a few seemed mildly exasperated and disheartened how a thousand years later in their timeline, well…
Anyway, after showing off the interface and some of the apps on it, said engineers immediately offered a rather large amount of cash for me to turn them over … but money was not an immediate issue. Someone high up - they wouldn't say who - in the Fedsuns had arranged a lifetime pension comparable to a living wage. Partially as an apology for my circumstances, partially as a 'keep your fucking mouth shut' incentive to neither talk about how I came into being or anything inside the NAIS I had seen.
And I accepted those terms rather quickly - last thing I wanted was MIIO thinking I was a security threat and that it would be quicker and cheaper to just toss me into a fusion disposal unit or something.
Anyway, I simply kept my mouth shut for now. And a couple of months of physical therapy and crash courses about the Federated Suns later, I was dumped at my cheap but clean and well stocked with history books apartment in downtown Avalon City to see what I could make of myself