Quantum Void (Quantum Series Book 2) by Douglas Phillips

Author:Douglas Phillips [Phillips, Douglas]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2018-03-06T22:00:00+00:00

23

Eigenstates

Nala inhaled, let the breath out, and inhaled again. Air. Oxygen. Life.

She lifted her head from the hard surface. The surrounding air was cold with a stale smell. She lifted to her knees and sniffed. Stale, lifeless. The dizziness returned.

She dropped to the floor and pushed her nose against it, filling her lungs with fresh air.

Oxygen. In the floor?

It wasn’t really a floor, she knew that much. Down was not at her feet, but at some other angle that her inner ear could not quite process. Regardless of direction, the floor was a source of fresh air.

She lay on her stomach and pondered this fact, keeping her face close to the glowing surface. Fresh air could mean only that the floor was a flattened version of three-dimensional space. Home, but strangely out of reach.

“Now what?” she said aloud. “I can stay alive as long as I lie here?”

She lay motionless for several minutes, consuming the life-giving air.

Get to Thomas.

She took one last draw into her lungs, pushed up and ran to where Thomas lay. Letting the air out, she pushed her face close to the floor and inhaled.

Fresh air here too. Lying next to Thomas with her stomach on the floor, she remained still and listened. There was no sound of breathing from her friend. Not good. She reached a hand to his face, nothing coming from his nose or mouth. She laid two fingers across his neck but could find no pulse. Concern turned to panic as she repositioned her fingers but still felt nothing.

She slammed a fist to the floor. “Damn it! Fuck this shit!” Her throat constricted and tears came once more. Soon her whole body shook with sobs.

“Oh, God,” she whispered. “Thomas, I’m so sorry.”

She cried for her friend and for herself. “Damn, damn, damn!” She pounded the floor with each word. “Why didn’t I think? Just use your fucking brain.”

The anger couldn’t be kept inside, but it led to no solutions. She’d need to find another path, a more intellectual route to find a way out of her situation. Thomas would have been the first person to point this out.

I can’t just lie here.

Nala lifted herself to her knees and took a breath. Bad air, probably low on oxygen. If this was a 4-D bubble, it was sealed from three-dimensional space—like living inside a balloon. The pangs of hunger in her stomach told her she’d been trapped for at least twenty-four hours, enough time to use up the oxygen. At this point, just standing up required survival skills.

She dropped to the floor and sucked good air through the porous boundary once more.

Improvise. Find something.

Flex-tubing. Where had she seen it? Somewhere on one of the debris piles. It was the kind of tube they used to route Ethernet cables in the ceiling. If the tubing was still intact, it could be useful.

She lifted her head and looked around. Piles of debris were everywhere. Lowering herself again, she took a deep breath, then jumped up and began pushing aside debris and turning over planks of wood.

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