Read Online The Fabric Of Reality by Benjamin Kelly - Free Book Online Page B

corridor.
    “Alesia...” was all she heard.
    She spun around, looking for him, but he was gone. “Gil! You can come back. I wanted you to chase me. I wouldn’t have pulled away if I had known I would lose you.” With the sun well below the horizon, the castle was very dark. She remembered that their connection between Realities had been providing light. Alesia felt her way along the walls, backtracking her steps to the corridor outside the dorm rooms, but he wasn’t there. No visible trace of the Window remained, either. She called to him for a while but got no answer. The twinge between her shoulder blades grew into a knot as the darkness amplified the profound emptiness surrounding her.

Chapter Five
    A spray of sparks erupted from the Alternate-Reality Junction Locater as Alesia’s hand slipped from Gil’s grasp. The kinetic energy released by the rubber band–like snapback had been too much for the delicate instrument to handle. With any luck the fuse had protected the irreplaceable tuning circuits and the power supply had taken the brunt of the overload. I should have told her not to let go. How could I have been so stupid?
    He made his way toward the control room to disassemble the damaged instrument and see if anything could be salvaged. Violent crackles sliced the air outside the Barrier Sphere, each one ending in a deafening boom that echoed through the castle. The Brotherhood was increasing the intensity of their attacks. Apparently, they could detect the weakened state of the protective system.
    If he had never met Alesia, Gil would have been tempted to surrender in order to have the opportunity to thumb his nose at them, but that was out of the question now. She was there, somewhere, in a distant Reality, waiting for him to help her escape her grievous fate. She had been in his arms, close enough to hold, but too far away to reach. He had felt her through the fabric. She was all woman, soft and sensuous, a delight to embrace, wonderful to touch. She had a smile in her voice as bright as day and warmth in her heart that thawed his frozen soul. And now that she was gone, he wished more than anything to have her in his arms again.
    All the years Gil spent working on the escape project, he had followed the rules and denied himself the luxury of female companionship. The entire community taking refuge inside the fortress had done the same. Their survival depended on completing the project as quickly as possible, and things like love affairs were deemed as too much of a distraction. Amanda had been there from the start, but they kept their relationship strictly professional, waiting for the day they could be together. Amanda was gone forever. He didn’t expect to get involved with the first woman he had seen in more than a year. All he wanted was to enjoy her company and assist her with her dilemma. With so little time remaining before his impending death, he needed the distraction.
    Alesia had all but given up hope of finding a solution to her problem that didn’t end in suicide. She needed someone to offer her encouragement, help her to see her own self-worth, and assist with devising alternatives she hadn’t considered. Even if he couldn’t get her off her world, there had to be something he could do to help her save herself. Despite the madness of her situation, for the brief time they were together, he found her attitude positive, like hope was still alive in her deep down somewhere. Suddenly losing contact with him could have robbed her of that hope. At any rate, he needed to reestablish communications with her quickly before she did anything drastic. Another violent boom reverberated through the castle.
    Gil flopped down onto a stool at his workbench and began the process of removing the instrument’s cover. The large display with a graphical representation of the Barrier Sphere sat where he could see it as he worked. A particularly hard hit warped the energy shield severely and allowed a minute