订阅以下载
Six-Dimensional Space

"It's cold."
I turn three dials, one after another, in quick sequence. Their clicking is barely audible, but it's how I measure their position. My breath fogs in the atmosphere, as I work on the panel in front of me. The generator hums, keeping the steel mechanics limber and unstuck. It warms my flesh as I touch the instruments, working through multiple levels of authentication.

I look up into the sky. The harshness of the white light clashed with the murmur of the wind, carrying tiny flakes onto my exposed face, where they land gently and kiss me in bites of cold. I push the final button and the snowman's eyes light up. I close the panel and rise from my kneeling position and squint to find the cave, stepping through the knee-deep snow.

I feel my muscles contract. I'm frozen where I stand - slowly, gridlines begin to appear in the sky. Barely noticeable at first, they increase in harshness and contrast as the atmosphere around me darkens. The ground shakes violently, as deafening cracks rocket through the atmosphere. I want to scream, I want to run, but I can't. My eyes won't move in their sockets, and gravity won't take me. I start to rise with giant chunks of snow, into the air, twirlinng uncontrollably as I ascend. The ground and the sky chase each other in a vicious cycle, and in-between them I can see the black of the horizon - I see something else, too. A hole, in the sky, and I'm falling right toward it. Lights flash in front of my face - The Alliance, The Alliance, over and over in green tiling. What is the Alliance?

The hole swallows me, and everything goes quiet. The spinning stops. It is warm and dark here, and I can move again. I grip my face with my hands, and the sleeves of my jacket sway like I am underwater. I see a light in the distance, growing brighter and brighter - where am I? The thought fades as the light grows closer, and slowly I am consumed by it. It is on all sides, it is all things. A million hushed voices, whispering excitedly, am I to join them? The noise fades, and the light fades, and I fade too, my senses growing dimmer and dimmer as I grow dimmer, too.