writing

Prologue​

"We have a problem, gentlemen," Security Director Mike Donaldson said. "Gene knows a little about it. Dr. Richards, we've brought you in to see what technical options we have. He was thorough. I've got to say I'm not hopeful."

"Who was thorough?" Dr. Richards, the project physicist asked.

"Rob - the computer guy," Gene Dykes, the Project Director supplied.

"What did he do?" Dr Richards asked.

"He left a video behind. Easier to just show both of you," Mike said.

As he loaded a USB thumb drive into the conference room video projector, he said "This video was running in a loop on my computer when I came in today."

The video began with a closeup of a man's face. The man stepped back from the camera, and help up a white knife. He turned it around in his hands to allow for a close inspection. He then unraveled a leather cord and presented it to the camera. It was apparent that he wasn't wearing a shirt. Mike froze the playback.

"I know that bone knife. Rob showed it to me a month or two ago when we went fishing. Looking back on that, I think he went fishing with me to show me that knife. We've never been fishing before that one time or since then. He made a point of showing me that he had made all his tackle from natural materials - including his hooks and fishing string. Makes me wonder now how long he's been planning this." He resumed the video.

The man in the video turned and walked directly away from the camera. As he came into full view of the camera, the Director blurted "What's he doing butt naked?"

"I'll get to that," Mike replied.

The man in the video stepped onto a platform, and turned to face the camera.

"I figured the portal had to be involved," Dr. Richards said.

"He could at least cover his privates," the Director said, frowning.

"I don't think so, Gene. I'll tell you why in a minute."

The man in the video then tied the cord to the knife, and fastened both on his waist. He then lifted each foot for the camera. He looked to his left, then back to the camera. He waved, took a breath, then vanished.

"He showed us he had nothing but the leather and the knife, and it's made of bone," Mike said.

"He wanted to be untrackable," Dr. Richards said.

"He may have succeeded," Mike said. "All security video from all the cameras in the facility for the weekend is missing. This is the only video of what happened. I am guessing your equipment logs for the weekend are missing as well," Mike said to Dr Richards.

"I was just thinking that myself," Dr. Richards said.

"How?" the Director asked.

"Through the magic of Internet Protocol," Mike said.

"Our computers aren't on the Internet!" Gene exclaimed.

"Transmission Control Protocol/Internet Protocol (or TCP/IP), is the basis for most computer networks, public or private," Dr. Richards replied. Looking at Mike, he asked "Are we using IP cameras?"

"Yes we are. You know, my gut told me that was a bad idea, but it's what the security industry's pushing nowadays."

"I'm not following you guys," Gene said.

"Everything in this project is networked through our computer system. So many subsystems have to work seamlessly together, so we rely on our in-house network to tie it all together. I didn't realize our security cameras were on the network, though," Dr. Richards replied.

"They're not," Mike said. "But they are on their own network." Turning to Gene, he said "Our networks are fully isolated from the outside world, but we had the same systems programmer set everything up. Rob. Who'd have thought he would have been a security risk?"

"Was he?" Gene asked. "Is there any indication anything left the premises, data or hardware?"

Mike and Dr. Richards exchanged silent looks before Dr. Richards said "Umm, Gene, Rob left this universe."

"I'm not stupid, Dave. I know he's gone through the portal. And if he followed anywhere near normal protocol, he can't very well return on his own - even automatically. But other than some kind of escapist venture, has he done anything that may harm the project?"

"I can't tell you that until I've looked at the systems. If the logs are deleted like Mike suggests, we may have to duplicate some data runs. Depends on how much is missing."

"Alright, you both have some investigating to do. Keep this quiet. The official story on Rob is we haven't heard anything - which we haven't. Mike, keep a copy of that video safe, but keep a lid on this thing for now. Dave, you see if we still have any way to track him, and whether recovery is feasible."

"Will do," Mike said.

"You got it," Dr. Richards said.

​

Chapter One​

Robin Cruise found himself about three feet in the air above a vast watery expanse. He knew there should be islands nearby, and quickly scanned side to side as he dropped into the water.

Before he splashed in, he caught a glimpse of a distant island to his right, but he knew there were closer ones.

When he surfaced, he turned around, and there, much closer, was the island he had expected to see. He began a slow, steady stroke towards the island.

With a name like Robin Cruise, it was difficult to escape the ribbing he'd gotten in school when they'd had to read The Adventures of Robinson Crusoe. He hadn't really cared for the story, but as he swam toward his new deserted island home, he couldn't help thinking about the parallel.


Winded but not spent, Rob trudged up onto the beach. After catching his breath, his next order of business would be to find a fresh water supply. For now, he simply took in all he could see.

Geographically, this would still correspond to the Lake Wales Ridge area of Central Florida. Apparently in this particular universe, Earth had a higher sea level. The hilltops back home were islands here. He hoped the plant and animal life corresponded to those he knew back home.

The temperature supported one of his assumptions. It was March, but felt more like July. The higher sea level could be due to a warmer climate than 'back home'.

That would make one thing easier - he wouldn't have to worry about making clothing or blankets for months, if ever. He could focus on a secure shelter, once he established a water supply and determined what was edible. He had a lot of hard work ahead of him.

​

Chapter Two​

"So tell me, how bad is it?" Gene asked the other two men.

Mike and Dr Richards exchanged glances, and Mike said "Go ahead".

"Well, let me use the 'needle in a haystack' comparison. Gene, do you know how to actually find a needle in a haystack?" Dr. Richards asked, eyebrows raised.

"Very careful searching," Gene answered.

"You could if you wanted to spend a great deal of time and effort. Or you could simply put an industrial electromagnet over the haystack, and maybe shake the stack a little. The needle will simply fly up to the magnet. Job done."

"Alright," Gene said, smiling.

"But that approach would fail miserably if you were looking for a toothpick. In that case, there's nothing a magnet would attract. That's the situation we are in. Rob knew good and well that our resource probing system relies on the resonance return signals when we open a portal and send out a powerful EMP pulse. Rob wasn't trying to shock us by parading naked in front of the camera. He wanted us to see that he was carrying no metals or synthetic materials that a probe could recognize. If we probed the world he went to, the things he took with him would just blend in with the natural background signal. "The only way I can give you to track him would be to go to every world he may have traveled to, and physically look around."

"We just don't have the time or manpower for that," Gene nodded glumly. "We need to get back on track with locating exploitable resources." He looked at Mike.

"We were right about all the logs for the weekend. He deleted everything. Worse than that, he even deleted the power consumption records for the last month. Dr. Richards had told me that more distant universes require more power to reach. We were hoping to narrow down the range of worlds he could have gone to by looking at the power logs.

"When I looked into his background, I found that he had closed all his accounts, paid his last month's rent, and apparently disposed of all his belongings, since the apartment is empty. He's clearly had this planned for some time. Frankly, I think it would be a greater security risk to keep looking for him than to just let things lay. Like you said, Gene, there's no way for him to return. If there was a way, he removed it when he wiped the computers. If we restore everything from the last backup, any automatic retrieval routines he may have had would most likely not be there. And now that we know it's a possibility that the system can automatically activate, we can put extra safeguards in place - like simply powering the equipment off at the circuit breakers when not in use."

"The most significant find was this," Mike said holding up a sheet of paper. "Rob left it for us in his desk drawer, right on top. I'll read it so you both can hear.

Greetings. I'm not sure who will be reading this, but I can guess. First, let me apologize. I know I have betrayed your trust. I wish I knew another way to do this, but as you will see, I have done my best to minimize its impact on you. I will try to be brief. I am not trying to convince you of anything, simply to explain what I did.

Our culture is way out of balance, and I believe irreparably so. I could write books on our unsustainable environmental practices, but that's been done. More fundamentally, we have lost touch with the natural world. If I dropped the average modern American alone in a true wilderness, they would be dead within weeks - not because food, water, and shelter are unavailable, but because most are simply too ignorant to find or make it!

Even this very project is an example of our mis-guidedness. We are looking for untapped resources in uninhabited parallel universes that we can plunder to replace the resources that we have wasted in our own! That's bad enough, but my biggest fear is that it won't stop there. History has been too full of examples of more 'primitive' peoples being overrun for the benefit of the more technologically endowed.

The way we treat each other is abominable. I have tried to make a positive impact in the world with my volunteer work ever since I was a teenager. More and more, I have felt like I was trying to sweep sand off the beach. I know for a fact I have helped a lot of people, but I have also seen a lot of my efforts go nowhere. I hate to admit, but I have gotten completely burned out with our whole society. I need a break.

This is a one-way trip. I am pretty sure that the area I am headed for is uninhabited, if not the whole world. While I regret that I won't be able to be of service to others there, at least I won't adversely affect anyone. I am looking forward to the depressurization.

There is a box of data DVDs in my desk. They are labeled disk 1 - disk 14. You can restore the security and research networks by inserting disk 1 into my desktop computer and following the prompts.

There is also an envelope addressed to Gene. It's a cashier's check for the estimated dollar amount that my 'getaway' has cost the company.

It's been good working with you guys. None of this is personal toward anyone here. Farewell.

Gene looked back at Dr. Richards. "Alright. I want those safeguards in place immediately, then try those disks he mentioned, and let's get this project back on track. The official story on Rob Cruise is that he failed to show up at work, and we have heard nothing from him. Mike, I want that letter, and one copy of that video on a CD. Then delete any other copies. Got it?" He looked at both men.

"Yessir," Mike said.

"Yessir," Dr. Richards added.

​

Chapter Three​

Rob's new home was a moderate sized island, with a cluster of small islands to the North of it. The nearest one was reachable by an easy swim, but was too small to have any fresh water supply. To reach the others, he would need to build a boat of some sort, but in the long term, a boat was likely to be a necessity anyway.

He hadn't really thought about mosquitoes when he left home. The first few nights, he had caked himself in mud, but he had decided that wasn't an acceptable way to sleep. After he'd finished his shelter, he had made sure he kept a smoky fire going in it.

The shelter was a simple structure. More than a lean-to, but less than a cabin. He used palm fronds extensively in the roof, walls, and even his bedding. The fronds were woven into mats. The roof and walls overlapped in layers for waterproofing. The bedding mat was padded with Spanish moss. The wall facing the prevailing wind, and the downwind wall each had a movable panel to allow a cross breeze when conditions were favorable. Rob enjoyed the breezy nights. The breeze kept the mosquitoes at bay, and he didn't have to breathe smoke all night.

Rob had found that his research on Central Florida edible plants had paid off well. The island was large enough to have several different plant communities, abundant small game, and of course good fishing opportunities. Staying fed didn't take up too much of his day. Not sure what Winter was going to be like, he had started tanning furs from the raccoons and rabbits he had been eating. Even if it didn't get cold, the skins could be useful in a number of ways.

The weather had gotten steadily more muggy and hot since his first arrival. Not having sunscreen, he had been careful to limit his time in the direct sun when he first arrived.

Grudgingly taking a cue from Robinson Crusoe, he tried weaving a hat and sort of poncho from palm fronds to protect himself from the sun. Crusoe had done that because he knew that people in warm desert areas kept their heads and bodies loosely covered. Rob quickly found that, while that technique apparently worked in a dry climate, it was just too stifling hot in this muggy climate. The only way to be comfortable was to wear nothing at all. He concluded that unless there was actually a cold weather season there, it just wouldn't make sense to waste time and resources on making (or maintaining) any more clothing. The only other possible reason for clothing would be to avoid offending anyone. But since there was no one else there to offend, that wasn't a valid reason to squander resources.

He soon developed a deep tan, and only realized after inadvertently spending one full day in the sun, that he no longer burned. With the humidity consistently higher than the Central Florida in 'his' universe, it occurred to him that the extra humidity may be screening some of the Sun's ultraviolet rays. It was possible too, he realized, that the extreme humidity could moderate the Winters, but that was far from certain this early in the game. He'd spent some cold, damp Winter days 'back home' in Central Florida.

During his first few weeks, he had found that he had to drink far more water than he was used to drinking, and he made himself take frequent breaks during the heat of the day. He had gradually built up his endurance. Now, during extra hot afternoons, he still made a point of taking swim or shade breaks, but his bare skin on a breezy day had become comfortable enough that he routinely now worked most days through.

January to March was the dry season back home, and Rob had arrived here in March. It had in fact been dry the first few weeks. The rain started in April, and as expected, picked up as Summer approached. The seep where he was getting his drinking water increased its output in proportion to the amount of rainfall.

It occurred to him that the water could dry up completely in extended dry spells. Without a means to desalinate the sea water, his very life depended on reliable fresh water.

He experimented with digging a pool alongside the stream that flowed from the seep to the beach. Before he could even connect the pool to the stream, water seeped through the sand into the hole. He realized water would seep out of the pool just as easily. He needed something like clay to line the pool if he wanted a reservoir.

His search for clay on his home island was unfruitful. The nearest island to his had some clay, but he couldn't swim back with it. He'd decided he would definitely need a boat.

​

Chapter 4​

"Where are we at exactly, gentlemen?" Gene asked.

"You know we are back on line," Dr. Richards said. "But I held back the really good news until I was sure. I wondered why there were so many disks. Not only did Mr. Cruise' data DVDs bring the project back to full capacity, but he had also processed a lot of the raw probe data that was in the queue. He has tagged a half dozen resource-rich worlds. Once we move the portal out of the lab and into the processing area, we can start rolling the mining equipment."

"That's the kind of bombshell I can get into! What can you tell me, Mike?"

"Pretty much what we already knew. Non-metallic needle-in-a-haystack. No way to magnetize it out. I did do a cost projection on doing a brute-force trial and error search. It's in the millions of dollars."

"I was afraid of that," Gene replied. "I've got too much pressure from above. They want this project moving again. So, as of now, we drop this and move on. It's really going to be a pain finding a new IT guy. Thank you both for your work on this. Let's get back to the mission."

​

Chapter Five​

Rob quickly realized that building a canoe would be quite a project. He didn't need a canoe as such yet - a raft would do to transport clay. Still, cutting enough similar sized logs was plenty tedious. With a saw or axe, it would have taken a day or two. Finding something tough enough to put an edge on and chop with was impossible on his island. Fashioning a saw proved easier. He only needed sharp teeth, not something that needed to endure pounding. As it was, he wore out four makeshift saw blades before he had a serviceable raft.

Even the cordage to lash the raft together proved challenging. He was able to twist grape and smilax vines together for the purpose. The raft wouldn't stay together more than a few weeks, but he figured that was all he needed to get enough clay back to his island to line a water storage pool.

He was right. By the third trip, he had dug and transported all the clay he needed.

Lining the water storage pool proved to be problematic. Rob quickly found there was no way to pack the clay while the pool was full of water. He would actually have to let the pool dry up, then line it with clay, and wait till the water level came back up. This was doubly frustrating, because he had done a lot of work for nothing, and if the creek diddry up, he'd still be faced with the problem of having no water.

There was also the issue of keeping the clay damp. If he let it dry out, it would become rock-hard. He ended up burying it, figuring that the surrounding soil would keep it damp.


Rob decided he needed to build a real boat. The raft was adequate for short distances, but one calm day, when the water had been glassy smooth, he'd seen another island far to the south. If this were the Florida he knew, Iron Mountain, the highest point in Florida's peninsula, would be in approximately that direction. The highest point would translate to the largest island in this area. Largest island meant most resources. Making a dugout canoe was still beyond his ability. He didn't really want to wait that long to check out the large island.

He decided to try something totally different. He already had the trees cut for his raft, and he wanted a long, skinny, canoe-like vehicle. A long, skinny raft might just do it. He didn't want to rely on grape vines for long open water crossings though. He began focusing on stripping palm fibers.


Throughout the Summer, Rob's days were spent in prayer time, followed by breakfast, followed by twisting palm fibers into cord, and turning the cord into rope. He only took time out for lunch, nature calls, and a dip or two in the surf in the heat of the day. Rob figured he probably couldn't make too much rope, since it would all get used for something, and he didn't want to get halfway through the raft construction and need more rope. It wasn't difficult work. He had made rope in Boy Scouts, and later at Mountain Man Rendezvous.

He realized he would need containers for food and water before he made a trip that could keep him away from home overnight. Between bouts of rope-making, he spent a couple of days digging up some of his clay and making jars, and letting them dry on the beach in the sun. The daily afternoon thunderstorm season had passed, so he only had to bring them inside once to keep them out of the rain.

He fired the jars the next day in the base of a fire, keeping just enough wood on the fire to keep the coals glowing well. He started the fire just after sunrise, and stopped feeding the fire about two hours before sunset, As the sun was going down, he carefully brushed the coals and ashes aside. Just before dark, he picked up the jars with two sticks. He could feel their warmth radiating as he took them into the hut, but the sticks didn't smoke any.