Dean M. Cole - Multitude

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Not only is the Universe stranger than we think, it is stranger than we can think.

Werner Heisenberg

E verything had gone to shit right in the middle of the best day of Vaughns post-apocalyptic life.

That had been two days ago.

Vaughn took a deep breath and then let it out in a long sigh.

My, how time flies

Shaking his head, he gazed through the forward window of the yachts expansive, well-appointed bridge. Blue waves disappeared beneath the prow of the gently heaving ship. On his left, to the yachts port, a long line of limestone cliffs paralleled Vaughns course.

That fateful best day had been a few weeks after hed rescued Angela from the International Space Station. Vaughn had introduced her to this yacht. Having renamed it as the Angelas Dream, hed had visions of plying the worlds oceans with her at his side. They would winter in places like Aruba or Barbados and spend the rest of the year exploring the worlds far corners.

All of that had been before theyd made love, an event that had put the cherry on top of the icing of that best day.

Then it had all gone south.

After making love to Vaughn, Angela had dropped the news on him, had told him of the weird goings-on that shed seen each time the space station had flown over Central Europe. In the months after the Disappearance, odd lines had begun to radiate out from Geneva, Switzerland. Those lines had spread across the continent in a pattern that shed referred to as a Gravity Flower. Gravity because not only had she seen it from orbit, but the flower-shaped pattern had also appeared on the gravity-wave detector that shed been running aboard the space station.

And one fact tied it all together.

The supercollider sat at the center of that Gravity Flower, and that damned collider had also been at the center of the Disappearance, the event that had wiped all animal lifeincluding the entire human racefrom the surface of the planet.

Just as Angela finished telling him about the Gravity Flower, all of the steel structures around them had suddenly lifted into the air and started streaming toward Europe.

Right on freaking cue!

Movement in his peripheral vision snapped Vaughn out of his thoughts. He looked away from the slowly scrolling line of cliffs and then frowned as a large steel building finished gliding into view overhead. It was just one in a levitating line of thousands of steel structures, the same line that had lured them north and the same one that had painted a petal across her gravity sensors.

Of course, Angela had wanted to follow the line to its final destination at, you guessed it, CERNs supercollider.

Now, instead of heading west into his dream of a sunset, they were sailing straight across the Mediterranean into a nightmare of apocalyptic proportions.

Vaughn shook his head again. Perfect!

He flinched as a pair of hands snaked under his arms and then wrapped around him.

Angela pressed the side of her face to his back as she hugged him tightly. Whats perfect?

Oh Uh, nothing. Just finished reviewing the ships systems. Everything looks perfect.

He felt her head nod against his back. If you say so.

Vaughn smiled in spite of himself. He'd grown very fond of that sleepy voice.

Forgetting his frustrations for the moment, he hugged her arms to his chest.

With her left cheek still pressed to his back, Angela sighed. On my way up, I noticed we havent lost the line.

Vaughn ground his teeth together but managed to keep the frustration from his words. Yep, still there.

Angela turned her face and pressed her right cheek against his back. She pulled a hand free and pointed east. By the way, whats that?

Vaughn tapped a knuckle against the surface of the moving-map display. According to the charts, thats Sardinia.

She snuggled into him and then sighed. I know its not the Caribbean, but at least these cliffs are beautiful.

Vaughn felt his cheeks warm with instant guilt. Inwardly, he shook his head. How long before she saw through him, saw the asshole that everyone else had seen him as?

Whats the matter? You just got all tense.

N-Nothing.

Vaughn willed his shoulders to relax. Then he nodded toward the coastline. You're right. They are beautiful.

His eyes swept northward as he continued to study the cliffs. He paused when he spotted an out-of-place, human-made structure. It sat crumpled where the emerald sea met the thin, white beach at the base of the cliff. Waves crashed into the thing, launching geysers of spray.

Angela leaned back as she apparently saw the same object. Is that an airliner?

Vaughn nodded. Yeah.

The structure had resolved as the burned-out and broken hull of a wide-bodied passenger jet.

A colossal shadow crossed over the wreckage, momentarily darkening the airplanes white tail fin and the waves that were crashing against it.

Releasing each other, they stepped haltingly to the bridges side window and stared up into the sky.

Overhead to the left of the ship, the line of levitating structures spanned from horizon to horizon. All of it slowly drifted north barely a thousand feet above the cliffs. The surreal train of steel edifices slowly glided past them, paralleling the rocky shoreline at a speed slightly faster than their yacht.

Angela leaned into him as she continued looking up. My mind still has a tough time accepting that image.

Vaughn felt a shiver run through her.

He squeezed her tightly. Yeah, me too.

The ominous specter of that much steel gliding serenely overhead was difficult to process. It looked as if the slightest perturbation would send it all crashing to Earth, converting its stores of potential energy into kinetic in a calamitous collapse.

Not that everything in the line stayed there.

They had seen stuff fall from it, things like concrete and nonmetallic building panels, but as far as he could tell, nothing made of steel ever fell from the line.

Dont worry. Were safe for now. Im keeping us out from under it. Still looking up, he pointed forward, ahead of their ship. Unfortunately, we will have to pass directly beneath it when we cut through the Strait of Bonifacio. Otherwise, well have to go all the way around Corsica.