Chapter 1

Nobody can hear a scream in the vacuum of space, or so they say. In the absence of light everything seems to glow with a certain eerie luminescence. The shine of a helmet and the tint of leather, it seemed to be the only thing Kaia could see when she looked at her reflection in the glass. She was making her way around to the checkpoints, one by one, slowly, seemingly floating along the path she walked every night. Gravity on Mars has about 38% of the pull that it has on Earth, so Kaia took long strides and glided in the air like an aircraft struggling to take off. She had worked for Links Aeronautics for 10 years, but this was her first month on Mars. She was tasked with a security endeavor, to walk the grounds of the Links space station at night and make sure the equipment was running smoothly at different intervals throughout the day. The mission was top secret, Kaia only knew that Links Aeronautics was involved with researching plant life in the Martian atmosphere. She saw plants of all kinds growing in machines and in large metal cylinders. It was not her job to ask questions, so she didn’t.

Kaia stopped at checkpoint 7, took her remote out and scanned the barcode located on a stake in the ground. She looked around, saw the usual nothingness and proceeded to make her way toward checkpoint 8. This was the second to last checkpoint on her overnight walk. She was tired and wanted to get to sleep. After 10 minutes Kaia was approaching checkpoint 8. She squinted and noticed that the stake with the barcode on it was laying on the ground. There hadn’t been a sandstorm and the wind was no more powerful than usual. She thought this to be odd and approached cautiously while looking at her surroundings. She saw nothing and heard nothing. Still, she approached. When she reached the checkpoint she studied the ground around where the stake was laying on its side. She noticed footprints, but not her own. Kaia followed the footprints about 15 feet towards the station, but they disappeared. Had this stranger taken a turn? Had they leapt in another direction? Did they simply… vanish? Kaia couldn’t understand or explain how the footprints abruptly ended. She looked back, saw a flash a color, blue she thought, and then doubled over with a pain so intense that her vision became blurry. She screamed. Her head was pounding and she felt immediately nauseous, her legs and arms were shaking and she felt a sense of overwhelming dread. What was that? She thought she was having a panic attack. Had she been startled so gravely that her nerves took over completely? Or was there something out there with her? Something so quick that she couldn’t catch a glimpse of it. Something, sinister.

It was morning. Kaia awoke slowly to the sight of white linens.

“Ah, you’re awake. You gave us quite a scare last night” said a man in a white coat.

“What… what happened?” asked Kaia.

“You tell me, Kaia. You were found by one of the scientists by checkpoint 8. You were on the ground covered in sweat.”

“I don’t know what happened. I remember seeing a flash, a blue flash, but that’s it.”

“How peculiar” said the man in the white coat.

“Am I ok? I mean, have you checked me out, my vitals?”

“Yes you’ll be just fine. Not to worry.”

Kaia turned over in her bed. What was that? Exhausted, she fell back asleep.

She didn’t know how much time had passed, but she knew she needed to get up. It felt like her body had been at rest too long, albeit she reckoned she needed the down time. When Kaia sat up in her bed she noted that she was the only one in the room. Good, she thought as she peeled the thin white blanket off her legs. She swung her legs over and her feet touched the floor. It was cold but welcoming. She needed to stand up and find her boots. She looked around her bed on the floor and on the chairs, but she saw no boots. Kaia stood up and started across the room. Maybe there was a locker or a cubby where patient belongings were kept. She looked, but still found nothing. Kaia noticed that the doctor seemed somewhat unorganized. There were papers and notebooks strewn all over every horizontal surface in the room. She wondered how he managed to get through medical school with such a chaotic feature. Kaia, always a curious girl, opened one of the notebooks. What she saw on the lined paper was a circle, drawn over and over again. One layer on top of the other like someone had traced over the same shape a hundred times. She turned the page and saw the number 11 written at the top. Kaia continued glancing at the page. There appeared to be some complex calculations and underlined at the bottom she read the words String Theory. Kaia had studied string theory in graduate school, but the information had come and gone. She remembered that the basis was that there were tiny vibrating “strings” in everything and as those strings bend and fold they produce the outcomes of everyday life like gravity and light. She thought it was interesting, but wondered why the doctor would be writing about string theory instead of studying medicine. In her periphery she saw a black shape on the ground. She looked over. Her boots. They were in the corner of the room with her socks tucked over the side of one. She walked over to them and put them on. She peered at her watch and realized it was time to go. She had to start her equipment checks in the main quarter of the space station.

Kaia made her way to the plant lab where she found a bustling scene. There were several scientists huddled around in a circle.

“Magnificent!” exclaimed a voice.

“Great work John” said another.

From the crowd emerged the doctor with a notebook in one hand and his glasses in another. He caught Kaia’s glance and threw his arms up.

“Kaia, what are you doing up? You need to rest. How do you feel?”

“I feel fine. I need to get back to work.” Kaia said somewhat sheepishly. “You said my vitals were fine, I’m good to go, right?”

“Well technically I should observe you for a few more hours, but since I see you are up and in good spirits, I’ll settle for a check in later on this evening…?” He asked.

Kaia agreed.

“I’ll see you at 7pm sharp in the medical annex. Don’t work yourself too hard today, Kaia.”

“Ok” she said.

Kaia dutifully checked the equipment in the main quarter. Everything was in working order and she retired to the residential annex where her bedroom was located. Kaia took out a piece of paper and a pen and drew a circle. She stared at it for a long while and posited what it meant. What was it that she saw in the doctor’s notebook and why had it been drawn with such a heavy hand? She drew another circle exactly on top of the first, and then another and another until the page looked like the doctor’s drawing. She studied it again. It almost looks like a black hole, she thought. Kaia laid down, weary from the thoughts that were running through her head. She drifted to sleep and dreamt of the color blue.

When Kaia awoke she decided that she would return to the site of her collapse the night before. Something just didn’t add up. All she saw was blue light and then it was as if her whole body gave out all at once. She had to go back. She had to see if whatever knocked her unconscious was still there and she wanted to go while there was still light because she knew she didn’t want to face whatever was out there in the dark of night again. Kaia geared up with her helmet and leather uniform and made trek toward checkpoint 8. It was about a 30 minute walk around the space station to checkpoint 8, but Kaia walked briskly, as much as possible with so little gravity, and she made it there in 25 minutes. She examined the ground around where the stake was still laying on its side. There was nothing. No footprints, no signs of her struggle or fall. It was as if it never happened. Kaia paused. She picked up the stake, maneuvered it to an upright position and found the hole that it had been standing in previously. She put the stake in the hole, adjusted it to the height she thought was right and patted it down until it stood on its own. With nothing left to see, she headed back to the residential annex. As she walked she glimpsed to her right at the space station and saw the doctor eyeing her intently through a large window. She waved. He did not wave back.

Once Kaia made it back to the residential annex she went to the kitchen, boiled some water and put a packet of vegetables in it. When the vegetables were soft she drained them and seasoned them with salt and pepper. She brought the vegetables back to her bedroom and set the plate down at her desk. She studied the circle she had drawn and wondered again what it meant. She was at once fascinated and frightened. Something did not sit well with her about the circle she had seen and the doctor’s notes about string theory. When she finished eating it was 7pm. Kaia made her way to the medical annex to see the doctor. When she arrived he was hunched over a table with one light on illuminating just a small corner of the room.

“Doctor?” Kaia said

He flinched. “Oh Kaia good I’ve been expecting you.” He said. “Come, sit down.”

He patted the bed closest to the table he was working at. Kaia went to the bed and sat down.

“Kaia, I wanted to ask you about your experience last night. Now it’s very important that you try to remember everything that happened, just as it occurred. Can you do that?”

“I told you, I saw a flash of blue light and then felt an intense pain. That’s when I must have passed out.”

“Kaia, I saw you at checkpoint 8 today. What were you doing there?”

“I was just fixing the stake that I found knocked over last night.

“Is that all?” the doctor asked.

Kaia thought it was strange that he was so interested in what she was doing at checkpoint 8, but her curiosity about the site and what she had seen there led her to be completely honest with him.

“Well you see, last night when I saw the stake knocked over, I saw footprints.”

“Footprints?”

“Yes, they were leading away from the stake for about 15 feet, but then they, well they, they just stopped. Disappeared.”

“Peculiar” said the doctor.

“Yes I thought so too. And then when I looked back that’s when I saw the flash of blue light. I felt immediately nauseous and in pain like I’ve never felt before. But then when I woke up here this morning, I felt fine, like nothing happened.”

“Kaia, when you saw the flash of blue light did you see anything else? Think hard.”

Kaia sat for a moment with his question. “No” she said. “It was too bright to look at. I couldn’t see anything else.”

“Did you hear anything along with this flash of blue light?”

“No, absolutely nothing. What’s all this about? Why are you so interested in what happened?”

The doctor stood up. He looked at Kaia pensively. After a few moments he spoke.

“What is your understanding of this space station’s mission?”

“To study plant life in the Martian atmosphere.”

“Kaia, the year is 2083. Links has been studying plant life on Mars for 70 plus years. Did it ever occur to you that there may be, shall I say, ulterior motives?”

Kaia looked at him and said, “I opened your notebook.”

The doctor looked puzzled.

“I saw your calculations about string theory and the circle you drew over and over. What does it mean?”

“Kaia” the doctor started.

“Tell me the truth. What was out there? You know something I know you do.”

“Kaia, the purpose of this space station is not to study plant life. It’s to study the existence of the 11th dimension. “

“The 11th dimension? What do you mean? I don’t understand.”

“String Theory suggests that there are 10 dimensions. 9 dimensions of space and 1 dimension of time. But what of the 11th dimension of spacetime? Kaia I believe what you saw out there last night was a wormhole to the 11th dimension of the universe.”

“A wormhole, the 11th dimension, what…what are you talking about?”

“Well it’s been reported twice before around this same area where our space station is located. I believe there is some tear in the space-time continuum that is allowing us some small glimpse into the 11th dimension. Both reports were exactly as you said; a flash of blue light and then unbearable pain. The pain we think could be explained by string theory as well. You see it’s not natural for one dimension to merge in any way with another so when it does particles go completely on the fritz. I think that the particles in your body were in some way drawn to this wormhole, but the laws of our current dimensions dictate that’s not possible, so you felt nauseous and you felt pain.”

Kaia took this in. “Could it happen again?” she asked.

“Yes, it could happen again.”