An Untitled Novel

Basil had been walking for about five minutes yet saw very few signs of life aside from the birds flying around and the faint smell of fish. He flipped open his phone, odd, still no signals. Even though GPS signals were supposed to be everywhere, between remote areas being deprioritized and the cheap chip in the phone he reasoned it could easily explain why he hadn’t detected any. Looking around to be sure he was still alone he quickly pulled up his holographic PDA, but that also did not detect any signals. Weird. He returned to walking, but suddenly his phone started to ring. “Finally, reception” he said out loud, before realizing that it was most likely his PDA spoofing a cell tower to relay a signal that ACE had sent through the wormhole.

“What have you seen so far?” ACE asked. “Not much other than a beach and some birds, though I’m getting close to the town or city or whatever I saw earlier. Definitely got some sort of port too, so I’d say that’s good news.” ACE seemed to be slightly concerned, but otherwise agreed with Basil that getting to the place was their best bet at finding more information on where the wormhole led. ACE closed the wormhole and the line went dead. Seeing nothing else to do, Basil went to continue to walk but noticed a small dirt path leading to some sort of house or cabin. The house looked a little odd, being made of stone with some sort of thatched roof, but Basil saw some people walking around and figured his best bet would be to approach them and ask where he was.

“Hey, you speak English?” Basil asked, smiling and giving a short wave. A shorter man with a darker complexion approached him. “What’s English?” the other man asked, though despite his joke he seemed somewhat alarmed at Basil’s presence. “A buddy of mine just ran our boat ashore, I was hoping you could tell me where we are?” The man seemed slightly less concerned now and replied with an abrupt “Arkepello County.” Basil asked for clarification. “No, what country are we in?” and the man replied “Arkepello County” for a second time. “Not county, I’m asking what country I’m in.” The man now looked a little annoyed. “Well if you Loquailians dislike the Redcaps so much we’re in the nation of Arkepello.” Basil was now very confused and asked “The what? Sorry, you lost me,” but the other man seemed to be finished with the conversation. “See that tower there?” Basil looked and saw what appeared to be a watchtower towards the center of the town or city now close by. “Go see the General up there, he will have maps and know how to explain this to you.”

“Thanks” said Basil awkwardly before he started walking in the direction of the tower. As he entered the town he saw all the buildings had an odd older look to them, as if they were all historical buildings or something similar - though they incorporated wood and metal into them as opposed to just stone and plant fibers. Basil eventually made it to the center of the port town and stepped into the tower. Entering it he saw a man of similar complexion and stature behind a desk. The man seemed very surprised when he saw Basil walk through the door, but after the momentary surprise wore off he donned a friendly smile and Basil returned one. “Hi, I’m kinda lost and was told I should speak to the General?” Basil asked, somewhat unsure of what he was asking. The other man seemed a little confused, but still had a friendly demeanor.

“Okay, who are you?” Basil answered “Basil” and the man spoke again. “Nice to meet you Basil, I’m Simon. You are aware you are on Arkepello right?” Basil responded, still a little confused. “Yeah, sorry, the other guy said something like that too. I just don’t know where Arkepello is.” Simon seemed a little confused. “You traveled to Arkepello but you don’t know where it is?” Basil replied apologetically. “Yeah, I kind of wound up here by accident, I’m still trying to find out where I am.” Simon responded as if it all made sense now. “Oh, your ship crashed or something like that right?” Basil responded with a slightly hesitant “Something like that” and Simon offered a quick “That’s fucked up, hope everybody is alright” before saying he would be right back and disappearing up some steps.

A few moments later Simon returned. “The General is all good to speak to you, he’s got maps and stuff. He’s right up those steps.” Basil replied with a quick “Thanks” before walking up a large spiral staircase and making his way to what appeared to be an office at the top of the tower. “Hello, you must be Basil, I’m General Tobias of Arkepello. I’m sorry to hear of your predicament” said General Tobias as Basil walked in. The General had the same complexion and a similar height to the others Basil had seen, and Basil could see a couple of maps spread out across a desk. “So you are here, on the Arkepello off the coast of Domum. To the north is your home of Loquail” General Tobias said while pointing around the map. Basil looked at the map, there was a large landmass named ‘Domum’ a small island nearby called ‘Arkepello’ and another further out labeled ‘Agimoso’ all relatively close by. There was also another larger landmass to the north labeled Loquail and one to the east labeled Lotalem.

“Sorry, I’m really not from around here and I’m not familiar with Domum, the Arkepello, or Agimoso. You have a world map?” Tobias seemed surprised. “You can read Domum?” Tobias asked Basil. “Yeah, ha, I can read a lot more words too. I’m just trying to figure out where we are in relation to where I’m from.” Tobias again pointed at Arkepello, then again at Loquail. “You are here in Arkepello, and you are from Loquail here.” Basil just looked confused. “I’m not from Loquail, I’m from the United States.” Tobias now looked confused as well and gave Basil a quick “hm?” as a prompt to explain. “Ya’ know, burgers, bald eagles, and fat people at Walmart?” Basil said, although Tobias looked even more confused. Basil went to speak again but his phone rang, prompting him to pull it out and Tobias to ask “You have a radio? Hold on, what kind of radio is that?”

“Basil, turn around and get out of there now” ACE said over the phone. “What, why? I’m talking to somebody now, he’s figuring out where we are.” ACE replied with words that Basil almost couldn’t process.

“The fourth variable does not refer to the gravitational field of an individual device itself, it applies to the gravitational field of another planetary body. The lack of satellite and electronic signals confirms this, we have somehow accessed some sort of interplanetary transportation network. You need to get out of there now and then we need to figure out what is going on before we do anything else.”

General Tobias’s eyes went as wide as Basil’s did. “What did he just say?” asked Tobias and Basil put ACE on speaker phone. “Are you familiar with others that have traveled interplanetarily?” ACE asked a stunned Tobias. “No.” Tobias answered, before pausing for a long time and adding “I am familiar with the concept of other planetary bodies, but we did not expect there were others with beings inhabiting them.”

“Okay, then you need to leave now Basil, we need to find out what is going on first before we do anything more.” Tobias looked as if he was curious to learn more and didn’t seem to want Basil to leave. “Will you come back? We need to know more, if you are not lying this is a very monumentus discovery.” Basil thought for a moment, but after his pause he responded very confidently that he would be back, though it was obvious he was still very nervous at the unexpected nature of his trip. “Definitely, same here, I just need to go now.” Tobias simply said “Okay” as Basil began to sprint down the stairs and back towards the part of the shoreline where the wormhole originally opened. Simon seemed to say something, but Basil didn’t hear it as he ran past and sprinted out of the port town. The trip took him a considerably shorter time as he ran, and soon enough Basil made it to the spot where the wormhole was opened previously. Basil stood there, panting slightly, but still feeling energy surging through him while he waited for ACE to open the wormhole.

“Hey, what did you do?” yelled the first man Basil had seen. “Nothing. What do you mean?” Basil asked in response. He turned around to see several people following the man, most holding what appeared to be rifles and large knives. “You, I told you to see the General and then you ran away, what did you do?” he yelled again in a very accusatory tone. Basil, still short on breath, tried to respond in the most calming manner he could muster in his condition. “Nothing, I said hi, and then found out my friend was ready to pick me up so I ran back here.” The man didn’t seem too happy. “You’re not going anywhere until I send somebody back to the General and verify your story.” Suddenly Basil heard the high pitch whine of the wormhole device and began to move in that direction. Several of the people started raising their weapons, prompting Basil to quickly fire several shots in the air. Some of them froze or took cover, and Basil made a mad dash for the wormhole as several of the others in the crowd opened fire on Basil but missed. Basil dove through the wormhole, which ACE quickly closed behind him.

Basil leaned up against the wall as the adrenaline began to wear off and he realized exactly how tired he was, both physically and mentally. After a quick pause and regrouping of his thoughts he exclaimed an almost panicked “What was that?” ACE replied, not fully sure of all that had happened either. “All that we know is that it appears these devices are more than simple transportation and we need to exercise caution. And you are still sure there was not another device on the other side of there as well?” Basil thought back, confident there had been nothing of the sort. “No” Basil responded, before hesitating and saying “At least none that I could see, unless it was buried in the sand or something.” Basil went silent, and ACE didn’t offer any response or further information, but eventually Basil broke the silence. “We need to go back there.”

ACE seemed hesitant. “For now there are more pressing matters to consider. Since we can travel between here and anywhere we bring one of these devices, it is imperative we set up a permanent base of operations to get supplies since we are already running low again. In the meantime I will need to go over every bit of data we were able to collect and see if I can make sense of any of it.” Basil also seemed hesitant but for different reasons. “Okay, but I need to know what all this is. It’s the key to finding out who we are, and who shot me, not to mention it’s a huge discovery.” Basil turned to leave the sealed room, but ACE spoke again. “Leave your boots in here. We have effectively been in isolation so you likely did not bring any diseases over, and assuming you did not eat or drink anything you likely did not pick anything up either. But before we go back I would like to see if I can detect any differences in bacteria and such and your boots might be the closest we have to a sample.”