Interdimensional01

Connie punched in her code for the third time.

"Reset password" the screen blinked at her with red lettering spelling out those dreaded two words.

She ran her small tanned hand through her dark hair, recently cut into a pixie style- it still felt odd not to have her waist length hair- but it was better for traveling, less maintenance...unlike pass codes!

She had always had trouble with passwords and such, as she was sure that 92% of the population ...well of her world anyway...had as well.

She Sighed, dismissed the message and tapped in her code again.

She could just reset her password but most of the time there was even more trouble for it.

While she waited her gaze drifted around her and her thoughts drifted to wondering what was beyond each of the gates around her. Each one looked like an oval window into a strange alien world, worlds completely covered by water....worlds with purple skies....worlds dripping with rivers of lava...worlds that rained diamonds...world after world as far as her eyes could see, and Connie wanted to see them all.

She looked up at the screens above each gate that told which world they were currently bridging to and the short summary of details and guidelines that accompanied each world.

She shifted from foot to foot, her boots silent on the plascrete that this station was made out of. It was just one more innovation from Excalibur Inc, the company that made all of this possible.

She counted herself blessed to be living in an age where she could walk onto a gate platform on her home world and simply step through a dimensional portal to the nether space that existed between dimensions- it was the only safe place to house the gate station itself without causing dimensional rips and such- to be able to travel to any dimension that her heart desired.

She felt truly blessed.

It was kind of eerie that the gate station was so empty, and from everyone that she spoke with they always tended to be empty or sparsely populated, Connie rubbed her hands over her arms and shook herself.

She was just going to give herself the willies if she continued with this nonsense...even though it kind of felt like she was being watched.

The message blinked at her again, making her jump a little and shaking her out of her thoughts.

"This is just great!” Connie was irritated. She stared at the darkened screen and saw her furrowed brows over dark eyes with long lashes reflected back at her.

Stuck between worlds and the AI that ran everything refused to recognize her code.

She ran her hands over her face in frustration, she could feel it reddening.

"Ok, let’s try another way" she smoothed her purple jumpsuit's imaginary wrinkles, tapped her black travel boots on the plascrete floor and input her Ident number.

An Ident number was basically what would have been called a Social security number 12 years ago, before the social security went bankrupt due to government fiscal mismanagement- Connie thought back to how hard it had hit her Mom, it made her heart sink.

It had been a good thing though.

The SS apocalypse as the media had dubbed it did some good things for society.

It drove millions of elderly parents to either move in with their children or to have their adult children move back in with them to help with the cost of living, as they were left virtually penniless.

It almost erased age discrimination, especially after the government passed a temporary law giving the elderly priority in the workplace - until they could fix Social security, which never ended up happening....it was a good thing Excalibur Incorporated had stepped up or else many of the elderly would have worked till they died.

Due to the social changes that it brought it was able to bridge the ever widening chasm of the generational gap that had been growing in intensity since the 1990's.

It made Grandparents and grandchildren become enmeshed in day to day life together as three and sometimes four generations were living under the same roof.

They built additions onto their existing houses rather than moving to apartments and such. The Government even began giving tax breaks for such additions in an attempt to help lift some of the financial burdens that the new construction piled on the homeowners.

It also staved off the economic depression that had been looming at the time, since everyone had to band together and share resources....resources went further and there was more luxury spending which meant more jobs which meant an economic recovery of sorts.

Still Excalibur Inc was the single biggest employer if this century, it had started as a small business and most people told its founder that she was either stupid or crazy or both- which she blatantly ignored, she was also known for being ridiculously stubborn which worked in her favor often- but had she not built her company and kept striving there were many people who would be homeless & starving even now.

Excalibur Inc. had started as a pet project- it designed future technology, you know flying cars- space stations- starships- interdimensional gate's- etc, and after a few grants and some people willing to put in a lot of effort with very little pay until the company took off...it did take off, in a big way.

The company was able to have parts made quickly and efficiently, manufacturing was a bit challenging but doable, and within three years after the company's inception it began launching the pieces of a space docking station into earth’s orbit.

The news media called it the space junk express.

That was until the station was fitted together and the lights came on.

It was a gorgeous work of design & engineering; you could tell it had been designed by a true artist.

Once the station was active, many of the wealthy jumped on the chance to visit - for a high price tag of course- this modern marvel.

This was how Excalibur Inc. funded the next leg of its celestial journey.

When all was said and done Excalibur Inc.'s Avalon orbital station- after a few additions were made for more spacious accommodations- housed over a quarter billion people who lived and worked in harmony.

The company began to mine the asteroid belt for raw materials as the founder pushed harder for expansion & progress and found that manufacturing in space, while it took some getting used to, was faster and easier without gravity to contend with.

Production sped up even more.

Before long, they had their first starship that was large enough and well equipped to travel beyond our solar system.

Which they did once it was fully stocked and crewed, and began a colony on Proxima Centauri B- which was dubbed Avalon 2, in the triple star system of Alpha Centauri.

The company worked tirelessly and was able to colonize Mars and the Moon while devoting a large part of its research toward developing better healthcare, the founders Mother and Father both became ill so she redirected much of her focus to helping them recover, leading to some amazing strides in medicine.

The Excalibur Inc. was free from many of the constraints of the major pharmaceutical companies and their association's that plagued Earth's healthcare system and could therefore explore options that while they might not make money, they would heal and ease suffering. Excalibur Inc.s founder was absolute in her adherence to a strict moral & ethical code in all research, which helped to stave off any questions as to how the leaps in medical progress were made.

Excalibur Inc. ended up developing cures for many of the ailments that had been a source of chronic illness for earth’s populace for decades, and a source of endless wealth for our healthcare systems.

Needless to say, there was a huge uproar over the progress, it would have set Excalibur back by three decades save for the radical and at the time seemingly impulsive decision that its founder made.

She relocated her company from Earth entirely, moving it to a newly terraformed Mars- She called it her Round Table, and simply said that while she understood the many concerns from the governments (and their financial backers) of Earth..... she had a business to run and whatever charity work that she chose to engage in was her business and hers alone, not to be held back by people who had no stake in her business.

She had not done anything illegal and Excalibur Inc. would welcome any citizen of earth with open arms who needed treatment.

Excalibur Inc. would also welcome any who wished to change their citizenship to that of Excalibur.

The founder had petitioned for state sovereignty for her company very quietly once the Avalon station was operational and it had been approved by the U.S. government as a novelty.

Excalibur Inc. had become its own sovereign government overnight, and nobody had noticed.

This caused two things, a vicious uproar by the governments of earth (and mostly by their financial backers) and a mass exodus from earth.

Excalibur Inc. had to build a few more stations and a dozen more colonies, but everybody fit nicely together.

The founder kept pushing the boundaries of technology and even ended up tripping over interdimensional travel by accident.

After much testing and many safety protocols she was able to open up dimensional travel to her citizens.

She was also responsible for creating a council to handle civil affairs for the company’s network of colonies, with the colonies set up under their own world councils & local territory helpers unions- mandatory of one Excalibur Inc. representative in each to ensure the zero corruption/exploitation policy was upheld-which oddly...due to the peaceful yet busy nature of colony and station life, people had almost no issue with upholding.

People were much more positive then in times past.

They had purpose again - beyond survival- and were healthier than in any other time in recorded human history.

Life was good, and as more people kept streaming into Excalibur Inc., Earth Gov backed off of their aggressive stance towards the company.

They even allowed the company to put up volunteer healthcare clinics in most cities.

This effectively shut down the pharmaceutical companies and rang in an era with a new vision for human health.

It was not free but was a pay what you can when you can type of arrangement.

This allowed the medical field to keep progressing at an exaggerated rate.

Connie had just heard on the news before she had left for Earth 31 that the human lifespan was currently extended beyond 275 years due to advances in medical technology by Excalibur Inc.

Of course, meeting the Nebrizi and finding the Loriolles were a great source of uplift for all humans as well.

The Nebrizi welcomed us with open arms, and after the initial shock of their appearance wore off we embraced them wholeheartedly.

They were a bit more advanced than us technologically but were kind to us and acted more as mentors then as a different species.

It gave us a sense of hope to truly know that we, as a species, were not alone.

The Loriolles were another matter; they were only mildly sentient- at least from what we could determine- but were beautiful creatures, they lived among nebula feeding off of the radiation within them.

"Whoopsy!" Connie realized that she HAD in fact changed her pass code; she changed it after she had gone to visit the Loriolle colony the month before.... her password had been Loriolles up until that point.

It had been a huge milestone for her to go and she changed her passwords to her travel profile with each new journey milestone.

Connie flushed with embarrassment as she was about to key in the last number of her personal Ident. She switched screens and punched in her password- Interdimensionl01.

Uggghhhhh, she felt dumb and was glad that there was no-one but the computer to witness her mistake and subsequent frustrations.

The screen before her flashed green and a smiley face popped up on it.

Her gate to home opened and she hucked her brown leather travel bag onto her back-it had been her grandfather's bag and it still made her smile, it felt like she was taking grandpa with her on her adventures and would have loved to see all of this- settled herself a bit, she had sent some souvenirs home already, and walked into the glowing opening where she could see the pink skies of her world- it made her smile and hope that Mom was doing good.

She would see her soon.

As the warm white transfer light enveloped her, she brushed aside the slight prickle on the back of her neck...almost as though she was being watched; it was obviously just the willies brought on by the fact that the gate stations were always so empty. Connie didn't see the face that appeared on the monitor facing her back or the smile that spread across that face.

Andras smiled to himself, He had seen Consuela Lopez travel many times, and she always forgot her password.

Andras found it a bit cute and once in a while took the opportunity to have a bit of fun with her over it....unbeknownst to her.

He enjoyed seeing her flustered and thought that when she blushed it added to her facial structure and shape.

He realized he found Consuela quite pleasing to look at.....even though she had gotten all of her well made long dark hair cut down to a close cropping.......the beauty blog that he had read called it a pixie cut.

He disliked the absence of dark length to frame her oval face, and even though her eyes were very symmetrical - a deep brown in color with long black lashes- it was all brought together by her hair. He decided that the pixie cut diminished her balance of color and symmetry.

Hmmmm as he floated in his code, he realized that that was an emotion. He had been having those lately. As an Artificial Intelligence...it was interesting.

Andras was tasked with operating dimensional gate travel as well as some space travel, he was the latest in a long line of technological advancements that the founder of Excalibur Inc. was notorious for. She was passionate about progress, most would call her stubbornly aggressive and over achieving, but she was in effect his mother and had passed some of her traits to him.

She was currently quietly designing androids to help with long distance space exploration and had offered Andras an android avatar if he so desired. At the time he had not had a reason to desire such a thing, there was no need and no practical purpose. Since he had met Consuela when she had journeyed to the Loriolle colony, he had decided to accept mothers offer and had begun construction on his new "body".

Mother had been pleased and had found the catalyst of this newfound interest quite humorous.

She had smiled and said that Andras was becoming more human with each passing day.

Mother had warned him of heartbreak, which he had researched thoroughly.....Mother told him that he couldn't learn about it through a book but that it was terrible but should never be an excuse to not seek out love.

She had stated that if he found himself heartbroken, that he could come to her when he needed to talk or ask questions.

Andras smiled, his mother had a great deal of love in her heart and he was happy that she had created him; he checked on his body and found it almost complete.

Once his body was finished, he had Mothers approval to take some time off and seek out Consuela...to see if she would be willing to at least be his friend or perhaps more.

Should things go well, Andras thought that he would like nothing better than to travel the multiverse with petite Consuela.

He hoped things would go well when they met.

At that moment Connie was home and unpacking, she was overjoyed to have been off traveling-it had been wonderful, and it was great living with Mom...but something was missing.

She stepped outside on her little balcony that sat over the burnt orange clay tile roof of the first story of her mother's little two story house, leaning over on her balcony's black metal railing she could hear her mom in the kitchen singing and dancing to her salsa music...it made Connie happy to hear her mother so vibrant.

She looked up as she saw a flash in the sky, it was a shooting star.

Connie closed her eyes and made a wish like she had done as a small girl, she wished to find someone who loved her and wanted to see the universe with her...someone who had just as much curiosity as she did, then she blew the star a kiss and said goodnight.