What Exactly Is Reality? Read online

What Exactly Is reality?

  D.P. Allen Copyright © 2014

  This is my first entry into the realm of Science Fiction and the first in a series of books built from a storyline that has been floating around in the vacuum of my mind for years.

  I started the original story line in 2005 and because other things that actually paid the bills came up that required my attention, sat unfinished in my computer until 2014.

  My normal venue has been in technical writing, so writing where I can add humor, suspense, terror and just turn my warped mind loose on the world is fun.

  Please enjoy reading it as much as I enjoyed writing it.

  Chapter 1

  Beginnings

  It was a clear calm night when Mike made his final checks before nodding off to sleep. The day had been beautiful, the winds mild and the seas calm. Standing at the wheel of his dream come true sailboat, he checked the sail trim, his position on the moving map display of his GPS to be sure the autopilot was maintaining the proper heading, glanced at the radar display and finding it clear, reclined his captain’s chair. A six-hour nap would bring him about 60 nautical miles further southeast and the radar collision alarm, the depth meter shallow water alarm, or the autopilot off course alarm would awaken him earlier if anything changed.

  This was the first leg on the trip that Mike had wanted to make for most of his life. A solo sailboat cruise around the world. He had grown up in New England and had spent most of his youth around the ocean. After school he had joined the Army and spent his next 20 years in uniform. After three harrowing tours of duty in Vietnam, he had never again been in combat. Much of his time was spent training for whichever hot spot existed at the time, as he was a member of the Army’s Special Forces.

  Several times he was called upon as part of a “back up team” and his team stood ready, but he had never been called in to “handle” the situation. He had worked his way up through the ranks and eventually was offered a chance for a commission. He accepted and retired as Captain Henley. After retirement, he became involved in a new concept called the “Internet” and started a small company offering web services to businesses. Now, a dozen years later, 52 year old Mike’s company was at a point where his presence wasn’t needed. He could relax and do what he wanted while his staff ran the business.

  Throughout his life he’d never had time for family, so had never married. He was far from being celibate, having had many girlfriends, several of whom he had lived with for short periods of time. Some said he hadn’t found the right one, but he was known to say that he just hadn’t found anyone who could put up with him for very long. Truth be told, he simply was not comfortable with long-term relationships, enjoying his solitude and lifestyle.

  He had found his boat in a “Trader” magazine and decided that it had to be his. It was a 65’ yawl rigged steel hulled motor sailor. Not very fast under power, it would cruise at about 10 knots and had a top speed of about 15 knots. Under sail it was very smooth and had very little heel at 10 knots and when running with a good wind could hit almost 14 knots without the deck taking too much wash.

  Under power from its twin Perkins diesels it had a cruise range of more than 2500 miles with sufficient storage provided by the two unused guest cabins, he carried enough food and supplies to sail for six months without restocking anything but fresh provisions. That left the captain’s cabin, main salon, galley and dining areas for his personal enclosed living quarters, although in good weather, he spent most of his time on deck.

  He had a dual reverse osmosis water system for extracting fresh water from the salt seas, had installed a wind generator and solar panels to allow production of electricity without having to waste fuel running the back up generator and had installed the latest electronics` for navigation and communications. He had the boat equipped with state of the art sail control systems which allowed him to control all sail functions solo from the open bridge located above the enclosed forward mounted pilot house or from within the pilot house.

  The high positions of the sail booms and the forward locations of the control stations gave great visibility, comparable to a cabin cruiser. The hydraulically retractable keel allowed for shallow water operation while under power, only drawing 5’ of water compared to 8 1/2’ with the keel lowered. The keel extension was actually an oversized dagger board with a low drag shaped fiberglass over lead ballast weight at the bottom. The wide beam made it very stable in rough seas and its weight to sail area made it sail with minimum heel.

  The design traded comfort and living space for top speed. The traditional sailboat low ceilings were no problem for his 5’ 9” 185 lb. frame and allowed two levels of cabins without making the boat top heavy. He had decided to name her DEMAR-1, pronounced dem are one and the 16’ tender became DEMAR-1-2, pronounced dem are one too. Translated from Latin, the name meant “Of the Sea”, which gave the boat one name with two meanings to fit the captain’s mood.

  He had allowed himself enough room for his main interests, which at this moment consisted of a half dozen Mac computers, some monitoring and controlling the boat’s operations and some for “play” along with loads of software and peripheral devices. His other hobby was his collection of firearms.

  Friends often joked that he could fight and win a war with most 3rd world countries, but he actually only carried a lever action .22 caliber carbine and his scoped .308 bolt action rifle, a .357 magnum revolver and his “toy”. Mike’s toy was an original W.W.II British STEN sub machine gun with a dozen 32 round 9 mm magazines. He didn’t have the Mark II version with the metal stock as seen in the old W.W.II war movies. He had acquired a Mark V, which had a removable wooden stock. The stock could be replaced with a “keyhole” adapter allowing its use as a stockless sub machine gun. The MK V also sported the better sights as used on the British Enfield rifle. This made for a very accurate and versatile weapon even if it was a 60 year old design. Its only weakness was the safety, which was known to release and fire the weapon if dropped. The only safe way to carry a STEN was with a magazine in, but the action not cocked until ready to be fired. He also had plenty of ammunition for all and even carried hand loading supplies.

  A favorite pastime while cruising away from civilization was to toss balloons overboard and use them for target practice, rotating through the various calibers and types of firearms. In a little chop, the balloons were a real challenge to hit as they bobbed with the waves and thus he maintained his shooting “eye”.

  He had sailed from Jacksonville, FL four days earlier and was at present sailing in the open ocean southeast of the Bahamas en route to the Virgin Islands. This was his “shakedown” cruise. He expected that this would hone his skills and test his boat’s systems before sailing through the Panama Canal and crossing thousands of miles of open Pacific Ocean. So that he didn’t lose touch with his business, he carried a cell phone, satellite Internet system and a ham radio in addition to the standard marine radios. Watching the myriad of stars through his half closed eyelids, he drifted off to sleep.

  Chapter 2

  Now you see me, now you don’t.

  The autopilot alarm was screaming for attention as he snapped awake. A quick look around found nothing unusual, but as he stared at the GPS readout, he saw that it had lost contact with the satellites. When he went to sleep, it was receiving from multiple GPS satellites and now he had none. His first thought was that his receiver had stopped working, but then he caught movement from the corner of his eye. It was the magnetic compass and its dial was spinning like a top. “Bermuda Triangle” descriptions sprung to mind as he fought down an adrenaline rush enhanced feeling of panic.

  A strange vibration began in the air and worked its way through his body until he felt
like his bones were being shaken apart. Movement became difficult, as his muscles didn’t want to react to his commands. Looking out to sea, Mike watched what appeared to be a wall rising slowly. The wall was pitch black with glints of red and blue light that gave the appearance that it was spinning in a clockwise direction.

  Even the radar displayed a solid line around him. Everything became still as the wall rose high enough to block the winds and the sails and flag hung limply. The boat came to a full stop, completely becalmed. Barely able to move his head, Mike realized that he had collapsed into his captain’s chair staring upwards to where the dome was closing and blotting out the stars. As it closed and total darkness descended, there was a sound like a clap of thunder heard far off. The DEMAR-1 shivered and the last thing that Mike saw was a flash of red and blue light that seemed to be everywhere at once.

  Chapter 3

  Lost!

  Mike awoke lying in his captain’s chair on the DEMAR-1, which was cruising under sail, as it had been when he first went to sleep. His first thought was that he had had a nightmare, except the autopilot’s alarm was screaming its warning. He looked and in the morning light the GPS receiver still showed no satellite links. The compass was working again, but it showed him traveling northwest now.

  The breeze felt the same, but if the compass could be believed, he had turned 180 degrees while he was asleep. With the sun rising over his right shoulder, he knew that his compass was correct and his boat had indeed changed direction.

  Not sure what had happened and still with thoughts of his “dream” and “Bermuda Triangle” Mike turned on the radio directional finder after the Loran refused to find any signals. He went through all of the bands searching for a radio signal to use to determine his location. The airwaves were empty. Marine radio, cell phone, Internet connection, ham radio, TV and AM/FM radios all had the same results. It was as if all RF transmissions had ceased.

  Fighting down a repeat of the panic remembered from the night before, Mike took a deep breath and decided on a course of action. “I know about where I am and the compass seems to be working. I guess the best thing is to head back towards the Bahamas. I wasn’t out for more than a few hours and so couldn’t have traveled more than 30 or 40 miles from my last known position.

  If I continue sailing northwest, I should hit the Bahamas and even if I miss them, I’ll hit the mainland. I can watch for shoals with the depth finder, which starts reading when the water depth gets shallower than 200’. As evening once more fell, Mike looked for the North Star to use as a reference for double-checking the compass and found it.

  The problem was that the compass didn’t match. According to the compass with magnetic declination between true north and magnetic north, the compass insisted that true north was nowhere near Polaris, the North Star. He also observed that the Big Dipper was missing the star Dubhe at its mouth. A star wouldn’t go nova and disappear in one night and it had been there the night before.

  Some years before, Mike had watched a star that had gone nova for over a week before it faded from sight. Mike went to the tender and checked its compass. Its needle pointed the same direction as the main compass. Digging out the compass from his emergency supplies, he got the same reading. Strange he thought as his skin began to crawl.

  Inspiration struck in the wee hours of the morning and Mike started up one of his Macs. He opened an astronomy program called “Starry Night”. Setting his position and the date and time in the program, he found that the heavens didn’t match what they should have been. Everything was offset by a large margin. He moved the date forward century by century until the program had reached its limits. He had decided on forward as the missing star would have had to disappear in the future, not the past.

  While not exact, the constellations now came very close to matching and true north was now located west of Polaris Theory confirmed as terrible fact. The clock in the program now read 9999 AD. It wasn’t a matter of where he had gone since his encounter with whatever the force was, but more accurately when he had gone. He remembered reading in a survival book for sailors that the polar stars had an apparent rotation around the “polar disk” due to the wobble in the earth as it circled the sun. An example that the book had used was that in about 8000 years the star Deneb would be the closest to a “north star”.

  Deneb is located in the constellation Cygnus, the swan. When looking at Cygnus, Deneb is the end star in the shorter of the long portions of the cross. Mike checked and sure enough, all of the compasses pointed very close to straight at the star and so it became his new “north star” He double checked his compasses against Orion’s Belt in the center of the constellation Orion as it cleared the horizon. He found that it was still due east as it should be. He remembered that it rose due east and set due west from anywhere on Earth. That gave him extra proof that his compasses at least hadn’t somehow lost their calibration.

  Now the problem would be what changes had all of the centuries made to the landmasses. It was obvious that his charts were now out of date and Mike didn’t think he had any programs that could estimate changes to the coastlines. “Let’s see,” thought Mike aloud. “The continents were drifting apart on the Atlantic side, but that had taken millions of years. How far would they move in 10,000?

  Where was DEMAR-1 in relation to them?” Questions with no answers were one thing that Mike had always hated. He sat awake watching and thinking as the ordinary looking sun and moon began their change of command rituals.

  The next day with no land in sight and nothing on the radar, Mike saw that the depth meter was beginning to show a real depth compared to the maximum of 200’ it displayed when over deep water. As it passed the 180’ mark on its way up, Mike began to feel better as he knew he must be heading towards land. Suddenly the depth went from 160’ to 40’ and back to 160’ in the space of a few seconds. Less than a minute later it happened again and started bouncing from 20’ to 50’ to 160’ as if he were passing over submerged fences. The depth changes were too erratic to be undersea mountains or reefs.

  Mike wondered if he might be the only human. “Don’t think that way, I don’t need to lose what little sanity I may still have.” Mike said to himself and the whales. As he watched them he saw that they were Blue Whales. He couldn’t remember if they were an extinct or endangered species in his own time, but here, they were very much alive. There had to be 30 plus in this pod. Now that the shock of their sudden appearance had dulled, he realized that any one of them could swamp his boat.

  It took less than 30 seconds for the winches to drop all sails and the DEMAR-1 to coast to a stop, rocking and bouncing amid the boiling waters of the pod’s passing. He sat very quietly as the pod passed awed by the graceful movements of their gigantic bodies. What he considered a big boat was like a dinghy compared to these giants and he realized that an unintentional or even playful bump by one of these beautiful creatures would be almost certain death to him and his craft. They moved off to the north and whether by pure luck or because the whales realized how fragile his craft really was, not one had so much as brushed against her. The pod was traveling to the north, which Mike assumed meant that they were following the Gulf Stream to the cold water feeding grounds of the North Atlantic.

  If this was in fact the Gulf Stream area, that meant that he should be somewhere between the Bahamas and Florida. Nothing showed on radar except the whales as they surfaced which told him that at least the radar was working. From its position on the main mast, the primary radar had a range of almost 80 miles. The Gulf Stream area between the Bahamas and mainland Florida was only about 55 miles wide, so some land should have been on the screen. Nothing except the surfaced whales made any reading on the screen.

  The words “Global Warming” came to mind. What was it that the special on the Discovery Channel had said? How many feet would the oceans rise according to the scientists? How much of the coast would disappear? There had been many scientists who scoffed at the theory calling it political pan
ic mongering, but could the theory have been right?

  How about the other theory of a new ice age? Could huge frozen areas up north displace enough water here in the south to raise the sea levels? The Bahamas and southern Florida were mere feet above sea level in his own time, so it wouldn’t take much of a sea level rise combined with thousands of years of erosion by wave action to cover them. Was he over the Bahamas now or possibly Florida? His best guess placed him somewhere around the western edge of the Bahamas, but it was only a guess. Later that day, the depth meter again dropped out of its maximum range.

  If his charts were any indication, this had to be the straights between the Bahamas and Florida. It used to be about 55 miles wide. Another 5 to 6 hours should give him a better idea of where he was.

  About 6 hours later, the depth meter again began to register. “I’m home,” Mike thought. Welcome to Florida, the Sunshine State. Unfortunately that’s all they have now. Sunshine and ocean as far as the eye and radar can see.” That evening, as the sun was setting, the water began becoming shallower. As it reached 80’ Mike decided to set the anchor connected to his longest chain. He dropped the sails and played out the full 150’ of anchor chain, settling in for the night and the sleep that he hadn’t had in almost 36 hours. He wouldn’t risk running aground and with no GPS nor Loran support for his autopilot, he didn’t need to risk getting any more lost than he already was.

  He drifted off to sleep and dreamed about Global Warming and Noah’s Ark. He slept soundly as schools of luminous fish glided by. They were followed by a 6’ gray fin, which silently cut through the gently rolling sea and made an investigative circle around the DEMAR-1 before continuing on.

  Up again with the sun, Mike raised the anchor and found a surprise as it cleared the surface. Wrapped around the anchor was a mass of seaweed and a piece of what looked like concrete. Once on board, he cleared away the seaweed that had grown through neat, evenly spaced holes in the concrete. The piece was about 6” thick, 2’ long and 3’ wide, with the holes straight through the 2’ and 3’ dimensions. It looked very much like a piece of roadway with the rebar removed courtesy of centuries of rusting. “If this is Florida, I’d better start heading north before I end up in the Gulf of Mexico. Northern Florida is higher ground than down here.” Mike said to the boat, the wind, or any listening deity who might be interested.