Chaos Theory: Collaborative Free-form Story

[Perpetual Man]

This is a collaborative story, put together by various members of the Chrons.

It will run (hopefully from the 1st December - 31st ish)

Anyone interested in joining the fun, please visit this thread:

Another Perpetual Madcap Idea

Where you can add your name to the participants and see how I am trying to run it!

At the end of each post the name of the next writer will be included - Please no one but that person try and continue the story. It may be called chaos theory, but there needs to be some order! If you wish to join in see above!

Right here we go:

 

[Perpetual Man]

Chaos Theory​

Professor Santos looked at his machine and smiled. Just how many years of his life had it taken him to build the thing? How much of his own money?

He sneered, thinking of all the corporations, institutes and banks that had turned down his requests for funding; how many times he had been ridiculed by his peers. It did more than leave a bad feeling in his stomach; it fed a sliver of bitter hatred that skewed wormlike with his innate superiority, giving a twisted contempt for everyone and everything.

Except his project.

He stood there in the chamber, ran his hand over his balding head, looking up at the giant screen that dominated the room. Even he had to admit that it looked like the lair of a mad scientist, a horrendous mix of technologies, from ancient capacitors and vacuum tubes, to state of the art processors and micro technology.

“Well,” he muttered to himself in his querulous tones, “There is no point putting this off, it’s time to show those idiots just what I can do.”
He walked over to the control console, a interlinking array of keyboards; some wireless, some USB, some Ps2, one was an old rubber keyed ZX Spectrum, and he began to type.

At first it seemed as though nothing was going to happen, but there was a flicker of light on the huge screen; a slow hum began deep inside the mass of wires, tubing and the integrated melange of technologies, and it grew.
Electricity arced, dancing from transistor to transistor, sparks spluttered into the air in luminous showers of orange, and slowly, so very slowly an image began to appear on the screen.

A swirling mass of black, white and silver, a whirlpool, spiralling down into infinity.

Santos’ eyes widened. This was it, the universe was about to unfold in front of him, not just space, but time and stripping away the barriers between dimensions, so he would be able to see all the alternate possibilities; one after another, as simple as changing the channel on television.

The smile he gave was a sneer of superiority, the face of selfish vindication.
And then the first explosion shattered the static build up, like the condemnation of heavenly thunder.

“No!” Santos screeched, as the swirling mass on the screen seemed to expand, the monitor itself bubbling like liquid, a Dali painting brought to life. In the heart of the image a light of celestial brilliance seemed to expand, evaporating all that it touched.

High above, on open moorland, there was a beautiful silence, the quiet of the natural world. High above bird dipped and rose on the wind, trees moved gently in a caressing wind and then a beam of pure energy ripped up through the earth. A pillar of light that sloughed through the air, burning even though it had no heat.

The ground screeched, as though the very moorland was screaming, more shafts of hungry light lanced through the ground, which heaved and shook with tremors.

And the effect spread.

It was then that reality shattered.

And over to Anya

 

[AnyaKimlin]

Chaos Theory (contd)


Inspector Hanne Paulsson entered the professors living room and walked round the large chamber in the centre. Something had clearly occurred there was glass and feathers everywhere. 'Do you know what this is. Nissan?' She turned to the Sergeant that followed her round like a salivating, puppy.


'Hmm.' He cocked his head and looked at it, walked round it in the limited space. He knocked a dowdy looking Toby jug off the fireplace. 'Oops think we could say it was already like that?'


She rolled her eyes. 'Ideas, Sergeant?' He was a klutz, and she had been stuck working with him when nobody else would. He had some redeeming features.

'Hmm ….'


'You've said that already,' she snapped. Usually on manners of geekery he was more useful.


'Sorry Ma'am.' His face got that intense look as he opened the door. He bent over, peered in and as his suit jacket rode up Hanne got view of one of the things that made spending the day with Nissan tolerable. He turned back. 'Promise not to laugh?'


'Go, on.' Her lips pursed. 'Any ideas are useful at this stage. The university want their professor back.' Hanne patted her chest pocket and furrowed her brow. Where had her notepad gone, because it wasn't like her to leave something like that behind. She was organised, and determined not to be a stereotype. Policing was what she did because it was more exciting than using the law degree for lawyering. It was her job not her life.


Nissan stared at her. 'Ma'am when did you braid your hair?'



'This morning.' She didn't remember doing it, but he needed to focus on the task in hand. She used two fingers to point to her eyes and then at the contraption.


'It looks like a time machine. Same size on the inside so he isn't a time lord.' He laughed. 'Shall we see if it works?'


It was unlikely it did, Santos had been refused funding for years and seen as a kook. However he was missing and the living room mysterious. She held up her hand and shook her head. 'No, leave it for the tech boys.'


He put on his gloves and picked up a feather. 'These are strange, look like they came out of a pillow, but we can't find a blown casing anywhere.' He shrugged. 'Maybe it changed him into a duck. We are looking for Peking Santos.'


Hanne decided she couldn't take it and went to stand outside. She leaned against the wall of the house letting her head make contact with the rough brick. Maybe she could give this case to some one else. Weird crap like this wasn't her scene. Her pocket revealed a packet of cigs ...

Over to Hope

 

[hopewrites]

Landing with a thud Professor Santos groaned and wondered where in all of creation he was. A tropic sun dazzled his eyes and the smells were all unfamiliarly junglesk. Rolling over he found that he had been unceremoniously deposited in someone’s compost bin.

That someone came around the corner as he was standing up and letting out a shriek of terror dashed back around the side of their dwelling.

The professor wished to do the same, a large raptor was not at all whom he expected to met.

“I must have entered an alternate reality, one in which dinosaurs never went extinct, but became the dominate sentient life on this planet.” It would be remarkable if he wasn’t afraid of becoming dinner. “nice plumage” he muttered to himself as he scrambled down out of the bin and began scampering off to see if mammals had survived and if there were any friendly ones.

(your turn Polarity Man)

 

[PolarityMan]

Hanne sat up holding her thumping head between her shaking hands. She shook her head and look around at the scattered cigarettes as she picked herself up onto her feet. Nothing had ever happened like that before, Hanne knew she was pushing herself but she had never remembered once fainting in her life. In her line of work women prone to light headedness didn't tend to last too long. The strangest thing was she had a niggling memory of seeing her hand fade in front of her eyes as she took a drag on her cigarette.

"Nissan?", Hanne hurried back inside, "Did something happen in here?"

"No, I was just checking the suspects computer,", he paused sheepishly, "for clues."

Hanne ignored the facebook logo adorning the top of the laptop screen and took her notepad from her breast pocket scribbling down the time.

"Never mind that now, I want to get some forensics down here. In the meantime photograph everything you can, use your phone if you have to."

"My phone doesn't have a camera, did you know that the government can activate it at any time and see where you are.

Hanne shot him a withering glance and slammed her phone into his hands turning away from him as he jabbed eagerly at the touchscreen. Her attention had been drawn by a sundial sitting just to the side of the labyrinthine mass of electronics sprawling across the huge desk. The sundial was grey stone and had clearly once been attached to a base or plinth, the cracked bowl itself was all that sat on the table the copper disk on the top picking out the numbers. It took her some minutes to realise that number 5 was missing from the dial. There wasn't a gap where the number should be rather there remaining 11 numbers were spaced equidistant around the copper plate. Shivering she turned back to Nissan, "Have you finished? Lets go, this place gives me the creeps."

Without pausing to see if he was following her she stepped out the front door, turning her collar up against the cold she pulled her pony tail out from under the collar as she clicked her radio on to call dispatch.

"Dispatch, this is Inspector Paulsson. We need a crime scene photographer down here right away."

She paused thinking again before adding:

"..and send someone who's good with electronics. Do we have someone from bomb squad available?"

...and on to ctg....

 

[ctg]

"This is an impossible situation," the professor shot his arms in the air. "None of this should had happened." He turned around and picked up an e-pad from a pile and looked at its shattered screen. "All equations, formulas... everything..."

"...no," he said and then he paused as the screen sparked alive. In it what once was, was no longer. Not in the same way. Not even in the same alphabet. There was nothing that he could say that was familiar.

More data flowed in, wider his eyes drew open. What had happened was impossible to explain, but yet, he could not but to drew one conclusion, the reality had changed.

There was no doubt about it.

"Professor," a female voice said. "Are you all right?"

"Me... all right?" The professor turned around to see a tall, thin woman standing behind her in the middle of the rubble. What she was? Who she was? Santos couldn't tell. But what he could tell was that the woman wasn't human. Not with her pale white skin, long stretched neck, or even with her large, purple, oval-shaped eyes. "Of course I'm all right. But..."

"But what?" The woman threw her arms on side.

"But who are you?"

"Who am I?" The woman cocked her eyebrow.

"Don't you recognise me?" She asked as she pulled from a hip-pocket a device that undoubtedly looked like some sort of scanner. A scanner that started immediately to beep and whine when she flipped its top open and stepped closer to wave it over the professor's body. "I'm Alian Shing."

"Alian Sing..."

"Shing," Alian corrected at the moment she flipped the scanner's lid close. "There is nothing wrong in you professor. But this bee-seven-nine-five series scanner might be wrong, or even malfunctioning. We better get you to the full body-scan in the medbay ASAP--"

"I'm not going anywhere..." the professor folded his arms over his chest and stood back vehemently. "...before you tell me exactly what--" his words were engulfed by a loud shriek and with a few flaps of mighty wings as the feathered beast flew over the science and observation deck broken windows.

"What was that?" They both said in same voice.

Over to you Springs.

PS. I hope that someone's going to do an edit on these entries later on.

 

[Jo Zebedee]

"My mother," came a flat voice behind them.

The two humans turned to see the raptor in front of them, arms crossed, leaning back in the unmistakeable stance of bored teenagers everywhere.

"Well tell her she's flying outside regulation hours," said Shing. "She scared the life out of our new arrival."

The raptor yawned, his teeth exposed, the saliva dripping from them, and then laughed when he saw the Professor's reaction.

"Chill down," he said. "You think I wanna eat you. I mean, like, yeurgh, bony, old and sinewy. I don't think so. Anyway, Mum, she says to tell you there's something wrong at the rend; she can hear voices."

"Voices?" asked the professor.

"Something like Nissan."

"That's odd," asked Shing. "There should be no link between the realities. Something's very very wrong, and I think I know where the blame lies."

The professor stretched. "You're absolutely right, and it's up to me to fix it. Apart from anything else, I should have done better than a Nissan. A ferrari, now that would have been worth the disruption." He pointed to the raptor.

"You, what's your name?"

The raptor straightened. "Krail," he said, "what's it to you?"

"Well, if you're going to take me all the way to the rend, I thought it best to be on first name terms. Let's go."

Over to Perp.

 

[Perpetual Man]

They sometimes refer to space as the infinite, but it is not; not really. It is huge, so big that if someone came close to fully understand just how large it was then they would be driven inexorably mad. But it is finite, an expanding mass of matter that keeps expanding until it shrinks back on its self and is gone. Finite then in cosmic terms, but to mortal beings infinite serves just as well.

For the true meaning of infinite though the scope of 'universe' has to be put aside and parallel realities come into play. If every decision, no matter how small could go one way or another, and each junction creates another universe then the mulitverse concept becomes like an never ending onion, layer after layer with every possible permutation played out.

From realities so close together that there is no way of telling them apart, to ones so different that one might be as fantasy to another rigid sciences.
On one world you might find a scientist capable of making a machine that does more than look into those realities, on another a world where the great lizard never died out, but became the truly dominant sentient species.

He drifted, between worlds, the empty spaces of quantum blankness, part of everything and yet nothing at the same time. Some might have said that there was a silence so complete it was beyond understanding there, but he would have argued, saying that he could hear music, a symphonic grandeur that was part of the very fabric of creation, perhaps even the song of god itself.

How long he had been there he did not know, but part of him accepted the serenity that it blessed him with; while another raged against it knowing that it was little more than imprisonment.

But...

Something had changed, the walls had become a little weaker. There was nothing to see, but after all the time he could just sense it. Perhaps the sacrifice he had made was not to be as permanent as he had initially thought.

A hand of black leather reached slowly out, and although it touched nothing, it pushed.

And over to Hope

 

[hopewrites]

When Inspector Paulsson stepped out Nissan couldn’t help going back to what he had covered with his Facebook profile when he heard her coming in. All the equations were there, and the keyloging software proved that they were followed correctly, but still it staggered the imagination.
He entered the sequence that was last used and hit the enter key, a vision of Professor Santos following a velociraptor with feathers not unlike those littering the room, though this raptors plumage was in oranges and reds while the feathers on the floor were greens and browns.
“hmm, strange variations” Nissan muttered to himself as he noted the colors.
“what’s strange?” Paulsson asked “that your watching him follow a dinosaur or that you didn’t tell me what your doing?”
“Incpector!” leaping up from his seat in surprise he disconnected the laptop and the image blanked out. “I, eh, didn’t hear you come in” he stammered.
Hanne gave him a stern look
“well as you saw Proffessor Santos is alive and well, but um, well ah, the strange thing was that the feathers don’t match you see, so the um the person he was following couldn’t have been the one to abduct him, if he was in fact abducted.”
Hanne continued to stare at her babbling Sargent. “Look Murano, its been a rough morning right? Lets go get some coffee and you can explain to me what it was I caught you watching.”


(Back to Perp)

 

[Perpetual Man]

“So,” Santos breathed, “The Rend. I would imagine that is your term for where there is a tear in the fabric of realities.”

Krail shrugged, “Well, what else would you call it? But it is more than that as well. Please do not make the mistake Professor of believing that this world is anything like your own.

“From what I know from my observations, your little simian species has only been a dominant life form for the better part of half a million years. We have been walking the Earth for 38 million. There is a lot more room for advancement.

“That being said, explaining the Rend is long winded and complex when it does not need to be. It will be much better where I to show you.”

Krail stamped a foot with a slight display of impatience, her tail flipping from side to side like a rather large agitated python.

For a moment Santos was taken with the incredible hues of the skin, the array of colours present in the feathers then shook his head clearing it of the distraction. It was still amazing, he thought, noting just how his mind worked. It had always been the same, ever since he was a kid. Although he had specialized in one area of science, he still had that curious interest in anything and everything; he could hardly help researching things in all fields. It was the kind of attitude that had somehow led him to going off on a tangent and creating the wonderful machine – well in retrospect not so wonderful machine that had ultimately torn a whole through the fabric of reality.

All the same he could not help himself as his mind slipped back through time, running through all the things he knew about those Terrible Lizards that had walked the Earth, and tried to extrapolate an evolutionary path that could have led to a creature like Krail.

“Lead on,” he muttered and followed the reptilian out into the sun lit day outside.

It was warmer than he would have thought; the humidity was somehow greater too. But it should not have been surprising when he noticed just how verdant and green the world around him was. For a moment he had to question whether they were in England or not, it just seemed far too tropical. But then, perhaps the point that had changed this world from his own was that there had been no catastrophic meteor strike, not only saving a species from extinction, but altering the very environment around them.

He sniffed the air, probably had not screwed things up quite as much as we have.

He wondered just how far it was to the Rend, whether they were going to walk, or whether there was going to be some form of transport.

The answer came suddenly, and when it came he could hardly believe it.

And over to Anya

 

[Perpetual Man]

We've stuttered a bit - probably should have posted here as well as the madcap thread - that due to illness Anya is skipping a round so PolarityMan it's over to you

 

[Perpetual Man]

Doing so well and then we seem to stutter, over to Springs...

 

[Jo Zebedee]

As the mother raptor touched down in front of him, Professor Santos wondered what to do. She was huge, her adult feathering less resplendent, but somehow its muted beauty was as moving as Krail's rainbow plumage.

"I - erm - what do I do?" asked the professor, unusually cautious for such an adventurous soul.

"Get on," said Krail. "Unless you think I'm going to fly us both, which I'm like, so not."

Uncomfortably, Santos climbed up the tail and onto the back.

"We'll go to the rend," confirmed Krail, "and then you can have a look at the damage you did."

As they left the ruins of the laboratory none of them noticed the hand that - almost - touched the professor, its wisping clouds closing on him just as he took off into the sky, swooping, free as he had never been before.

"This is magnificent!" he shouted as the muscular dinosaur raised up into the clouds and then swooped down following Krail as she flew.

As they flew into the lowering dusk ahead Santos could see it, the great rend, the myriad possibilities ahead.

"Oh my!" he said as they landed. "Who would have guessed, so many ways, so many views, so many possibilities."

i think it's ctg next? lost track for sure.

 

[AnyaKimlin]

Hanne was sat at the bar, playing with the beer mat and waiting for her steak. After the day she had just had she didn't feel like going home to an empty flat. She sighed, how the hell did she get stuck with the Mulder and Scully case. Unfortunately apart from a nice arse Nissan was no sex symbol, he'd have to be the redhead.


A tall dark man dressed a little like a priest sat next to her. Bloody great just what she wanted, God with her steak. He smiled at her leaned over and offered his hand, 'Hi, I'm Harry Krail. And yourself?'


'Hanne.' She took the hand. She really did not want to talk. 'So, can I buy you a drink?' Where the hell had that come from. He was kinda handsome.


'Sure, I'll have a scotch with rocks.' His smile caused her stomach to flip.


'On the rocks?' Her eyebrow raised.


'Umm … yeah that.' His smile grew bigger revealing strong white teeth. 'He also ordered a steak. 'So, umm … yeah.'


'Shall we take a seat?' She picked up their drinks and headed to one of the tables near the fire. 'Come on big boy. You seem new to town, where are you from?'


He looked round. 'If I told you that, you probably wouldn't believe me. I believe it is good to ask you what do you do?'


'I'm currently working on a science project.' True and less threatening than I lock up crooks for a living. 'Yourself?'


'I've been recruited to find someone. My people need help.' He sat down and stared into his scotch. 'Trouble is I don't know who.' His cuff pulled up and Hanne took a deep breath. A small feather like the ones in Santos' place fell out and under the table. She knocked the beer mat off and managed to use that to unobtrusively retrieve the feather and put it in her pocket.


'I think you might be able to help me.' She watched him as he took a sip of the Scotch and his eyes grew bigger in surprise. She couldn't help it and grinned. The grin became a smile, the smile became a laugh and the laugh became a roar. Why did she find him so funny. Maybe she shouldn't have had the fourth whisky.


He looked round, and joined in. Everyone was watching them. When she had calmed down a little. He whispered, 'How can I help you?'


'Do you know anything about Time-Machines? Things that affect reality?' She looked around a little in case someone heard her.


'I may do.' His face hardened. 'Do you?'


'Not exactly, but I have something to show you. However we'll have to break into the forensics lab. They won't let just anyone without credentials do.'


'Would these work?' He took some papers and an ID badge out his pocket. The picture was of Krail, but the name was Santos. He coughed and tried to hide the small feather that came out.


Hanne tapped the badge. 'Where did you get these?'


'Santos gave them to me.' His lips pursed a little. 'Said they might be useful. We need that machine.'


'Can you take me to Santos?' she asked.


He nodded. 'Let me see the machine. I have instructions from the man himself.'


Hanne paid for the meal and followed him out of the bar …


Over to Perp

 

[Perpetual Man]

There was once a world...

A world of miraculous men and women, a world of wonder and magic; a world where anything seemed possible.

A place where men and women would don gaudy costumes and fight for the common man, blessed with powers and abilities that were beyond the understanding of the common man. A world of high science and wonder. A world of good and evil.

By the very nature of the beings upon the face of that world the understood the possibility of alternate realities; indeed the world was quantum linked to various other worlds similar to itself, where similarities were almost impossible to perceive. Some were further up the time line, some further down, but the super beings could cross between them in a multi-dimensional society that was unlike any other.

And in this near Utopian state a catastrophe had come. Even on such a small controlled level, between worlds that were so similar, the crossing between realities had caused fractures through all local realities.

The result had been catastrophic, only a last minute dash of ingenuity had seen the local cortex saved, but at a terrible cost.

Twenty seven realities had been subsumed into one.

People had woken in the morning with memories of countless different lives.
Earthquakes had shaken great cities to rubble.

Ghostly apparitions had walked the streets for weeks as things had settled.
And all the so called supermen had gone.

Where most had fallen into oblivion, literally ceasing to exist, one, that one who saved them all with a moment of inspiration, realigning 27 realities into one, was cut off in a neophytic unreality; un-space, a blank dimension; somehow able to look through the impenetrable walls that surrounded him at the worlds beyond. Unable to interact in anyway.

Until that moment...

And he pushed his hand harder, into some unknown reality, and felt something... it might only of been air, but it more than nothing, and slowly, so very slowly the man that had once been known quite simply as Power made his way back into a world.

Unfortunately the years of exile in a realm of absolute nothing had rendered him quite insane.

And on to Springs

 

[Jo Zebedee]

"So, Krail," said Hanne as she reminded herself not to keep looking at him, but he seemed such a refreshing change it was hard not to. "You're sure these instructions are good?"

"They came from Santos himself," he said. "He gave them to me, personally."

"So you're like the emissary?"

"Pretty much; he says when we follow them through, you'll join him. In my world."

"In your world?" asked Hanne. "Are they are like you there?"

Krail smiled and his teeth glistened. "Better," he said.

Hanne turned around and inputted the instructions before she stopped.

"We're sure this won't do any damage. It's just, since the last time with Santos, things have felt -odd."

"Odd?"

"Like I haven't quite been myself, like I have other thoughts. I mean, I even thought Nissan was interesting. For two minutes, then I seemed to come back to where I should be."

"It's the rend," he told her, "It's big; and it's getting bigger. Now, even the elder guardians have vanished into it. Santos says he can fix it."

"So, why isn't he here?" challenged Hanne. "Why you?"

"He can't fly," said Krail.

"And you can?"

"I can," he told her, and reached out, devilishly fast and pulled down hard on the controls of the machine.

As he did, he changed, she felt herself change and then she saw the face before her and -

good luck PM