Reality Zero

Chapter 2

  ‘Billy, come in’ invited Captain George VanDelden ‘Take a seat. I’ve been asked to make you an offer I'd like you to consider.’

  ‘I'm intrigued, Captain.’

  ‘Thanks to your work on Astraeus 5 with Will, we now know that the theoretical scientists have been right to argue that there are alternate realities. The hand-held device you two found is being examined as we speak. However, early indications are that the electronics are amazingly old-fashioned for what they do and look as though they could be comprehensively improved upon. We’d like you to get involved in a small team we've started to put together to see what we can come up with. The work you did modifying the receivers that helped find the base suggests that your knowledge of electronics could come in handy. Does that sound like something you'd be interested in?’

  ‘Sure does. How about Galacticomms? Won't they mind me being pulled off my normal job for this?’

  ‘I've already had a word with your MD. I haven't given him the full details, as we need to keep the existence of the alternate realities top secret for now. I hate to think what can of worms that would open up. He's been told that we have a special project that we want you to help with and we've heard that you would be a real asset to the team. He thought that there were others in the company who could do at least as good a job as you but we were adamant, so he OK’d the idea, providing you were happy to get involved. We reckon that you will be on this secondment, as we're calling it, for no more than six months but that’s only a guess at this stage. For the time you're with us, you'll get the appropriate navy pay. There are three of you in the team. As the other two are in navy research and have already started, I'd like it if you could start tomorrow morning. I can introduce you to the head of the team, Lieutenant Angela Loughlin, once I can get her down here. You’ll hold the rank of Warrant Officer but the research team usually stick with just referring to each other by name, so you’ll only need to worry about rank outside of the lab. The lab is a few levels up on the station, so you won't be ship-based, at least initially. Any questions?’ asked the Captain.

  ‘Wow, you don't hang about. If the MD is okay with it, then so am I.’

  ‘Since we've already made a start and since we have no idea when General Gott and his cronies will get here, we need every advantage we can. For information, we also have another team working on the two ships you found to see if there's anything they have that we can make use of to improve our own ships. Although we’re concentrating on weapons and propulsion systems at this stage, we plan to see if they have anything else on board that we can use to our advantage. We’ll probably also put the ships to use as part of our own fleet in time. You may have some dealings with that team but your priority is to work with Angela on the handheld unit. I doubt I will be involved myself. As we'd already met, I was asked to act as a go-between. That may change, of course, depending upon what happens. If that's all, go grab a coffee or whatever and I'll call Angela down.’

  ‘Thank you, Captain’ replied Billy, not sure if he needed to salute as he headed for the office door.

  Half an hour later, Angela took him to the navy research laboratory that she was using and introduced him to the third and final member of the team, Warrant Officer Dev Khan. As she showed Billy round the two rooms they were using as laboratories, she explained to him that, as yet, they had only been using non-invasive techniques to analyse the box's contents, so had yet to open it up to look at the electronics within. Using deep scans they had obtained a reasonably clear view of the components the box contained but were struggling to identify what each of the circuit boards within did, as there were a few components they didn’t recognise. Once the box was open, they were hoping they could precisely map the circuits to identify what they did, so that they could reverse engineer them and then see if it was possible to improve upon them.