Bridge Through Time

by Scott Spotson

Overview

Bridge Through Time is the sequel to Spotson's successful debut novel, Life II. Max's son, Dr. Kyle Thorning, is now a high particle physicist at CERN in Switzerland. Meanwhile, after First Contact, powerful aliens with four arms and four legs, named Darsians, are taking control of the planet, with the muted subservience of its human population due to the astounding technological advances that the aliens introduce. Kyle has a powerful weapon—a new Time Travel machine—and must decide to travel to his father's old parallel universe, where he doesn't even exist, or confront the aliens in his home universe.

Product Details

BN ID:	2940045662468
Publisher:	Scott Spotson
Publication date:	07/25/2014
Sold by:	Smashwords
Format:	eBook
File size:	9 MB

About the Author

Scott Spotson is a novelist who excels in imagining scenes of intrigue and adventure within ordinary lives while daydreaming, then pulls together various plots to create a compelling story. He likes to invent “what if?” scenarios, for example, what if I could go back to my university days, and what would I do differently? What if I could switch bodies with friends I am jealous of, like the guy who sold his software for millions of dollars and does whatever he pleases? What if I had the power to create clones of myself to do my bidding? Scott then likes to mentally insert himself into these situations, then plot a way to “get out” back to reality. This is how “Life II” and “Seeking Dr. Magic” were born, within weeks of each other. He’s still working on dreaming up a situation where he gets to smash a pie in the face of his boss, with no justification whatsoever – how to get out of that one?

Scott loves to travel and is partial to the idea of spending extended vacation at ski resorts up in the mountains. You know, the one like in the James Bond movie “On Her Majesty’s Secret Service” where the view is breathtaking, there’s an outdoors hot tub facing a pristine snow covered mountain, and one can warm up inside on a bear skin in front of a huge cobblestone fireplace, sitting on a circular wooden bench fitted with animal pelts and sipping at a mango and pineapple smoothie mixed with a touch of grenadine – okay, he’s getting too carried away!

Scott has visited Taiwan, Australia, New Zealand, Sweden, Germany, Denmark, Iceland, France, Mexico, Austria, the Netherlands, Switzerland, England, and Hong Kong.

As can be deduced from the beginning of “Life II,” Scott loves brain teasers.

Read an Excerpt

CHAPTER 1

April 30, 2011 at 8:37 a.m. Max Thorning's Estate, "Meaghan," near Calgary, Alberta, Canada

MARGARET GENTLY shook Max awake in bed. His drowsy fog dissipated at the look of alarm on her face.

"What is it?" he moaned, his voice scratchy after a long slumber.

"Aliens, Max," she said, her eyes wide open. "They're here."

He bolted upright. "In the house?"

She pointed a finger at the door. "No, in Turkey!" She pulled on his hand. "It's on TV."

Body protesting, Max scrambled out of bed. "Is it Dr. Time?" He rubbed one eye as he walked out of the bedroom.

"I don't think so," Margaret answered, as she hurried ahead of Max. "They have photos. The aliens look so different from us."

What the hell is going on? Max thought, wondering if he was in a dream.

The phone rang, and Max picked it up.

"Max! Did you see the news on TV?" his mother, Mabel, shouted in the phone.

"No, Mom," Max mumbled, his nerves tingling at the sound of his mother's alarmed voice. "I just got up."

"I'm really worried. What if they try to invade us?" "Just give me time to look at the news. I'll call you back."

"Okay, but call me right back!"

As soon as Max clicked off the phone, it rang again. Now it was his sister, Jenny. He laid the phone on a coffee table, unable to pry his eyes off the television set. He would let the phone ring for now.

Margaret had cranked up the volume on the TV. Or did it sound louder because the news anchors were so excited? He heard snatches of the banter before tuning it out again: "... speak in a language considered complex. They appear to be intelligent beings ..."

Margaret stood beside the television, shaking her head and covering her mouth.

The inset photo on the screen churned Max's stomach.

The alien's face reminded Max of one of those National Geographic specials on bizarre creatures, in this case, a colorful giant hybrid between a jellyfish and a tree trunk. Shimmering orange, white, and red splotches covered its surface. The photo had been cropped, so Max couldn't see if the aliens had legs.

What it did have were four arms radiating outward from the top of its torso. Each arm had double joints, and ended in slender fingers — Max was too distracted to count how many. He couldn't discern a head.

"Holy shit," muttered Max.

"Do you know anything about this, Max?" Margaret demanded, her eyes like slits.

"No, I don't!"

"Dr. Time didn't say anything about these — aliens?"

Memories of his meetings with Dr. Time raced through his head at a feverish pace. He grasped for a memory here, a memory there — any clue. "Well, Dr. Time mentioned that there was a race that had colonized other worlds. She didn't say anything about who they were."

The female reporter on the screen turned to the camera, looking agitated as she spoke. "The Turkish government has given President Walker permission to deploy fighter jets over their air space."

The male reporter to her left said, "Are they threatening anyone?"

"We have no idea," she said. "There's no report of violence. They ..."

"Max!" Margaret shouted, diverting his attention away from the frenetic chatter from the set. "Do you have any information you could pass on to the government?"

"The government?" Max echoed, recoiling. "They're not going to believe me."

"You must have something!"

"I don't —"

The phone rang again. He darted over to glance at the call display. "It's Garfield. I'm gonna pick it up." He dashed out of his living room, away from the blare of the television, a hand cupping his free ear. "Hi, Garfield."

His best friend's voice came through crisp, yet insistent. "Max. You gotta answer one question."

"Yes, I know about the aliens."

"I'm sure. Now, I know you left Time on October 27, 2013. Am I right?"

Max pictured Garfield standing ramrod straight, his head back as he waited for the answer to materialize from Max's throat.

"As always, bud."

Now Max knew Garfield's next question. He had the same gnawing thought right after he saw the photo of the riveting alien.

Anxiety strained Garfield's voice. "I want to be absolutely clear. Before you left, did you observe any of this stuff happening?" Max's heart sank like a stone.

"No."

The future had changed. And now the world faced a threat Max didn't encounter in his original Timeline. Max contemplated the unthinkable: was it his doing? Did he alter history? He didn't have the answers.

CHAPTER 2

April 30, 2016 at 8:30 p.m. Max Thorning's Estate, "Meaghan," near Calgary, Alberta, Canada

MAX THORNING'S STOMACH sank as he sat in the comfort of his living room, about to watch a television special. Margaret was out with her friends. He felt more morose, dejected, and despondent than usual on this anniversary of First Contact.

First Contact. April 30, 2011. Five years ago today.

The location: Tokat, Turkey, near the rugged Pontic Mountains. The alien spaceship had crashed ten kilometers north of the outskirts of the town. This once-sleepy area had become famous overnight as the site of the first contact with aliens in the Earth's history. This site — with the crashed alien spaceship still unmoved — was declared a United Nations heritage site and guarded against the anarchists who feared the aliens. And it seemed that there were millions of these militants worldwide, as protests continued on a daily basis against the "invading" Darsians.

The world had gradually grown accustomed to the rather strange appearance of the Darsians ever since that infamous, jarring first photo.

The Darsians appeared to be a cross between a jellyfish and a giant, upright stick insect. The jellyfish, because of its strange sheen, consisting of a rigid exterior covered by a membrane infused with splotches of startling bright colors, such as purple, green, brown, yellow, gold, red, and blue. The giant stick insect, because of its tubular, long torso, and its eight limbs. Four arms on top, and four legs supporting it. Each Darsian towered at around eight feet tall and had the strength and agility of a Bengal tiger — and much more.

The Darsians had graciously allowed human biologists to dissect several of their members who had died of natural causes. The results had filled the first voluminous textbooks on alien biology.

Yes, the Darsians had insisted they came with peaceful intentions, and so far, the majority of Earthlings believed them. Language, naturally, was a difficult barrier at the outset. Luckily, the aliens also had verbal communication. Due to the races' advanced intelligence, a "Rosetta Stone" language class was established, and soon linguists became fluent in Darsian. In turn, the Darsians became quite adept at processing the syntax of Earth's spoken and written languages.

From the gradual but fruitful exchanges between the humans and the Darsians, humanity learned that the crash that led to First Contact was due to the ship being ill-fitted for Earth's powerful atmosphere, and that three of the crew had died in the crash, the other thirty had survived, although some suffered severe injuries. The Darsians were able to regenerate major nerves and organs without medical intervention, so those that survived all healed within weeks.

The colorful aliens shared data on their home galaxy, which consisted of thirty-five planets, all of which were billions of light years from Earth. The Darsians dissuaded several humans who clamored to visit the Darsian galaxy by informing them that it would take several hundred generations in the Dream Chaser, the newest spacecraft from a privately-owned space corporation in collaboration with NASA, to make the trip. No, the Darsians weren't willing to let the humans on their ships, which could travel to the edge of the Milky Way within days. They were also not willing to share the science behind their technology.

The television set blared, "First Contact, five years later. A momentous event in Earth's history. Forever linking us to the cosmos. Are we better off, or worse off since the aliens landed? Our special correspondent, Jennifer Ryan, will now seek the answers."

Dramatic music played as the news camera zoomed in on a middle-aged woman with dyed blonde "helmet hair", a sparkling green dress, golden hoop earrings, and crow's feet wrinkles around her eyes. As she had done hundreds of times before to national television audiences, the famous broadcaster plastered on an engaging smile before she spoke.

"Good evening," she announced. A montage of old clips showing her announcing the ground-breaking news of First Contact displayed in the corner of the screen. "It's been five years since the Darsians crashed to Earth and sought our assistance." She tilted her head for dramatic effect. "From that moment on, humanity forever changed. No longer did we have to gaze out into the stars and wonder, 'What is out there?' Since then, our understanding of the universe has grown exponentially."

She gestured to the older man on her left. He was bald and wore dark brown wiry glasses with small oval-shaped frames. His deeply etched perioral lines gave the appearance of an "O" encircling his mouth, particularly when he firmed up his facial muscles to acknowledge Ryan's welcome.

"This is Professor Alan McMillan, Chair of Earth First, which seeks the removal of aliens from our planet."

McMillan nodded his acknowledgment and Ryan gestured to her right. The camera focused on a woman, appearing to be in her mid-forties, who wore a well-tailored dark purple pantsuit and a vibrant pink kerchief around her neck. Her curly dark brown hair graced her shoulders. More animated than McMillan, she crossed her legs and smiled warmly.

Ryan said, "And this is Emily Scharf, an attorney and President of Moving Forward, a group dedicated to partnership with the Darsians and advocating for their rights."

Max curled his fingers upon hearing the name of the Moving Forward group. Hah! Moving Forward to hell is more like it, he thought.

Ryan leaned in McMillan's direction. "Let's start with you, Professor. Why are you so opposed to the Darsians?"

McMillan swatted aside the loaded question. "It's not a matter of opposition for the sake of it, Jennifer. As we've said before, Earth is one of the few planets that has evolved on its own. We don't need an alien species telling us what to do."

Right on, Max thought. He also watched the captions glide across the bottom of the screen, a habit he'd picked up in his original Timeline, when he'd had a deaf daughter. He felt he kept her memory alive by leaving the captioning option on at all times.

"Ms. Scharf?" Ryan bounced the response back to her other guest.

Scharf smiled sweetly, and said, "Not too long ago, all races on this planet united as one. We just see this as continuity. We welcome our visitors from outer space."

"Totally different," McMillan said as he jumped in. "As humans, we all share the same planet. The Darsians aren't even of this planet."

"But, Professor, where do you draw the line?" Scharf rebutted. "The universe was bound to come together as some point, just as human nations have come together. On what basis can you exclude a certain species?"

"I draw the line," McMillan said, with a tone of anger in his voice, "at a species that's far more advanced than us, far more intelligent ..."

"Whom we could benefit from!"

"No. This is an unequal power situation. Eventually humanity will lose."

Scharf's face turned a shade of crimson. "On what basis, Professor? What are you afraid of? Have they harmed us? Stolen anything? Have we been invaded?"

"Actually, yes. The reported disappearances of members of the Armed Resistance ..."

"None of those so-called disappearances have been proven. Don't you think you're capable ... of knowing that this is all mere propaganda?"

"Now, you know that we're not formally aligned with the Armed Resistance ..."

"Oh, please!"

Ryan stepped in. "Professor McMillan is speaking now. Let him speak."

Without missing a beat, McMillan continued, "We're concerned about conceding our autonomy to the Darsian people. First, they gained recognition as citizens in the world's major industrialized countries. Then they used their new status to incorporate Quantum State Inc., which has become the fifth most powerful corporation in the world in terms of revenue. The Darsians are clever, I'll give them that. There were only thirty-three that arrived on the ship. Since then they've brought in more of their own people, and they now number around twenty-three thousand worldwide. Now, they're hiding behind this corporation, which doesn't have to ..."

Scharf started to speak, but Ryan beat her to it.

"I understand what you're saying. So, are you saying that the Darsians have a questionable master plan —"

McMillan nodded vigorously. "Not questionable at all! Sinister!"

"That's so ridiculous!" Scharf jabbed a finger at her adversary.

Ryan said, "Alan, you seem to be saying that the Darsians have some sort of master plan to seize control of Earth. What do you think that would be?"

The camera zoomed in on McMillan. "Well, there are several steps. First, bring gifts to the Earthlings, to make us feel good. Such as the interactive hologram, which we call the integram. Now one of the most addictive activities on Earth."

There was a moment of silence. Max guiltily recalled how he'd tried one of these things, and tried out the Dungeons and Dragons program in a Quantum State outlet fifty kilometers from his home. Battling a dragon breathing fire, he'd felt his adrenalin pump as he plotted his next move, equipped with chain mail armor and a sword. Damn, it was intoxicating. But, over the years, mom-and-pop businesses closed up and once-vibrant downtown cores had deteriorated since Quantum State extended its monopoly, devastating all competitors. He'd heard of valued colleagues who quit as doctors, since hospital boards dominated by Quantum State appointees had tightened admissions criteria for patients. Fortunately, his position at Calgary General was secure, since his colleague, Dr. Nathan Symes, was one of his closest friends, as well as a cardiac surgeon intimately connected to the bigwig donors across the province.

Since his last visit to an integram, he'd stayed away from those addictive attractions on the basis of principle. He wasn't going to endear himself to those aliens.

McMillan ticked off the list. "The H2O converter. The Creator."

"Which have delivered basic water and food to millions of starving people in developing countries," Scharf said.

"Even though we know they transmute energy into matter and seem to have limitless power, none of our scientists can figure out how they work. Then, the Darsians plotted to earn the same rights as Earthlings. So they can go on to gain power and influence the same way we do."

"Such as?" Ryan asked.

"The right to amass wealth. The right to hide behind the privacy accorded to multinational corporations. They've made Quantum State a private corporation, not a public corporation. A huge, trillion-dollar conglomerate with stores on every main street and in every country in the world. They're not accountable to the Securities Exchange Commission. They're not accountable to any government. And they're sure not accountable to you or me."

"Why are you surprised, Professor?" Scharf sneered. "Are you saying we should not encourage private enterprise to solve the problems of our society?"

"I'm not against private enterprise. What I'm very much against is using them as tools of oppression."

There was a moment of excited chatter by all three as they competed for attention.

"Oppression? Excuse me!" Scharf blurted out. Ryan interjected, "Whoa, Professor ..."

When calm prevailed, Ryan turned to Scharf and touched her on the arm. "I'm sorry, Ms. Scharf, we haven't had a chance to hear your side of the story."

In response, a relaxed grin.

Ryan said, "Tell us why you think we should continue our partnership with the Darsians."

Scharf sat back. "As I've said, they've lifted millions of people out of poverty and squalid conditions. They've revealed many of the secrets of the universe to us, advancing our knowledge by hundreds of years. They've ..."

At that point, a troubled Max clicked off the screen.

I can't put this off any longer. I need answers from Dr. Time. Now.

(Continues…)

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Excerpted from "Bridge Through Time"
by .
Copyright © 2018 Scott Spotson.
Excerpted by permission of Scott Spotson.
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
Excerpts are provided by Dial-A-Book Inc. solely for the personal use of visitors to this web site.

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