Free Web NovelChapter 1: The Experiment
Inside a top-secret research facility, its location redacted from the records, a high-stakes experiment was taking place, one that was of critical importance to the Terran Alliance and meant to save the entire human species from certain extinction.
"Keep an eye on those power levels!" Doctor Jessica Zhang, the lead scientist and Director of Project Twilight shouted as she personally adjusted the spatial harmonics of the facility’s primary containment chamber.
Staring at the tiny, twisting fissure in space on the monitor before her, Jessica couldn’t help shivering slightly.
This wasn’t the first time they had run this test; this wasn’t even the 100th time, but it seemed impossible for the young woman to ever completely overcome her fear of this Spatial Tear, despite it being many, many orders of magnitude smaller than the real thing.
Seeing the values on her holo-display reach their optimum state, Doctor Zhang gave the order, "Inject the Exotic Essence!"
Another scientist, an old man with a bald-head and somewhat scraggily beard, flipped the proverbial switch on his console, causing a stream of multi-coloured light to flood the containment chamber.
The Spatial Tear greedily absorbed the Exotic Essence, and as it did, its movements slowly became less chaotic, eventually stabilizing entirely and forming into something resembling a circle.
Success! Everyone in the room thought to themselves, but no one cheered aloud. It wasn’t time to celebrate; not yet, at least.
Recovering the fastest from this moment of joy, Jessica could have pulled up all the relevant data on the main console she was operating, but feeling like this was too important a moment to just calmly read off a screen, she decided instead to go around the room and get verbal confirmation, "Spatial flux?" frёeωebɳovel.com
"0.9%."
"Power consumption?"
"Holding steady at 50% output."
"Void generators?"
"Generators 1 through 3 operating withing parameters."
"E-injectors?"
"Exotic Essence input, 13 parts per million."
So far so good, Jessica took a deep breath, then asked the critical question, "Stability ratio?"
The room fell silent as one the scientists, an older woman, rapidly flipped through the holo-screens at her station, crunching the numbers along with the facilities computers.
5 seconds later, she broke her silence, "Event horizon is... 98.3% stable relative to the surrounding space. Spatial Tear frame is... 95.2% stable!"
"""HURRAH!!"""
"We did it!"
"Finally!"
Cries of joy immediately rang out, with every scientist, engineer, researcher, theoretician, and even the military personnel standing guard celebrating this joyous event.
Even Jessica, who should have been scolding her team for acting so unprofessional during this highly dangerous experiment, couldn’t stop herself from basking in the jubilant mood, and for good reason.
This was the first time they had managed to fully stabilize a Spatial Tear, a monumental achievement that not only signified a step towards their ultimate goal, but also provided a glimmer of hope, hope that humanity would not simply disappear from existence.
It was a small step, mind you, a very small step, but as with all seemingly impossible tasks, the first step is always the hardest to take.
After letting her team, 60 of the most brilliant minds in the entire Terran Alliance, have their moment, Jesscia cleared her throat loudly and declared, "Power down the system and close the injectors!"
"Yes, Director!" Everyone called out enthusiastically and got to work, gradually starving the Spatial Tear of energy until the microscopic crack in the fabric of reality fizzled out of existence.
Once she confirmed that all systems had returned to their idle mode, Jessica officially declared experiment 125 successfully completed, drawing another round of cheers from the room.
"We should have a celebration!" Someone suddenly proposed.
A proposal that was quickly seconded by the others in the lab.
Ordinarily, Jessica would have objected to such frivolities, but she was in such a good mood today that she decided to not just let it slide, but to actively participate.
Of course, since this lab was located at a top-secret military research facility in an uninhabited solar system, there wasn’t exactly a fancy spread of foods and party equipment available, but given that the average age of the researchers here was over 100, that hardly mattered.
Advances in cellular regeneration and vitality restoration allowed the humans of the 28th century to easily live to the age of 200, but just because one’s physical body didn’t age as rapidly didn’t mean their mentality didn’t.
To most of the old fossils in the lab, ’celebrating’ meant sharing a toast, having a nice meal, then turning in early to catch up on the many hours of sleep they had missed over the past few months.
In that regard, Jessica Zhang was actually something of an anomaly, seeing how she didn’t just look young, she was young.
Some of the research facilities’ staff were younger than her, as were a number of the soldiers present, but at just 38 years old, Jessica was by far the youngest from the research team.
How, then, did she become the project’s leader?
Simple, Jessica was an unparalleled genius. She had graduated with a double PhD in Spatial Mechanics and Quantum Engineering at 20 years old, then went on to join one of the biggest design companies in the alliance where she played a key role in the creation of a next-generation Warp Drive for interstellar vessels.
On top of being a brilliant scientist, Jessica was also quite the beauty.
At 165 cm tall with glossy black hair, fair skin, a youthful face, and brilliant orange eyes, even when dressed in a lab-coat, sweatpants and sweater, Jessica had an innocent appeal to her that unconsciously drew the eyes of many of the younger men, and even some of the women on the base.
With that being the case, it wasn’t hard to imagine what happened when she showed up at the celebratory party that night with her hair done up in a neat bun, dressed in a black bare-back halter-top-style mini-dress.
She wasn’t wearing any jewelry, and instead of a pair of fancy high-heels or flats she had runners on her feet, but Jessica still cut a stunning picture.
Jaws dropped, people tripped, and more than one glass of the expensive wine one of the researchers had somehow managed to smuggle onboard was choked on as everyone gawked at the dazzling young woman.
Seeing all the dumbfounded looks being sent her way, even the usually calm and confident Jessica couldn’t help blushing slightly. Everyone else had also dressed up, but most of them had simply changed out of their lab coats and into something barely better than casualwear.
Thinking she might have gone a bit overboard, Jessica shyly asked, "Too much?"
"Not at all!" The balding Vice-Director of the project, Carlos Müller clapped in approval.
With the cheerful old man taking the lead, the others in the research facility’s mess-hall also started clapping, showering Jessica in praise for being both brilliant and beautiful.
Of course, the praise only caused Jessica to blush even further and eventually throw her lab coat back on to cover herself up a bit.
Oddly enough, this only made her appear sexier in the eyes of many, a fact they all kept to themselves so that she wouldn’t storm off and change back into one of her usual plain outfits.
Finally feeling a bit more comfortable, Jessica grabbed a plate and filled it with items from the buffet, which actually had quite an impressive spread considering their current situation.
Biting into a freshly fried tempura shrimp, synthesized on-site of course, Jessica tasted a familiar flavour and couldn’t help glancing over into the kitchen, her eyes searching for a certain head of light-blonde hair.
Spotting the one she was looking for, his head down as he was frantically stir-frying something, Jessica was about to head over to get his opinion on her look tonight when someone called out to her, "Director Zhang, you’re looking particularly lovely this evening."
For the briefest of instants, a look of annoyance flashed across Jessica’s face, not only because her plans had been interrupted, but because of who had interrupted her.
Still, Jessica wasn’t a child who didn’t know how to act in public, so she plastered on a professional smile, turned on her heels, and greeted politely, "Thank you for the compliment, Mr. Segreto."
"Please, call me Joon," the man replied while flashing a charming smile.
Tall, with a lean build and curly brown hair, Joon Segreto was a classic pretty-boy who Jessica admitted, begrudgingly, was quite handsome.
Unfortunately, he was also an arrogant bastard who was clearly chasing after her.
The worst part? She couldn’t just tell him to fuck-off like she normally would with any other skirt-chaser.
At 59 years old, Joon was actually the second youngest member of the research team and the alliance’s number one expert on Exotic Essence.
He was vital to the success of Project Twilight, so maintaining at least a certain degree of cordiality with him was an unfortunate necessity.
That said, Jessica’s inability to tell him to go screw himself had led Joon to believe he actually had a chance with her, further fueling his numerous attempts to talk her up or get a bit too close for comfort.
