* This is a tentative continuance, no guarantees.
All because vanity calls.

I hope you won't be too disappointed.
We'll see if it works, or not.

==

.

There’s a mountain, and no, I’m not speaking of one of those thin ones, those fashionably slim, elegantly cutting through the air. You know, the ones that all mountaineers so dearly love.

No, it's an altogether other type of mountain. First of all, It's old, so much older than anything you ever have meet in your life. Think of a universe, any universe. Then ask yourself which came first, the mountain or SpaceTime? We can only guess there. And if you started to walk it I think you first would think of it as a hill, ugly, slippery, overgrown with trees, vines, and all kinds of rotting vegetation. But, after some weeks walking you might just start to wonder when this hill would end? And as you went on, forever exploring upwards, you would find its vegetation changing, the trees becoming increasingly scarce, bushes and moss taking their place. And, as you looked up that everlasting hill, you might just wonder how high it could go?

In fact, the mountain is so large, it covers half a continent, maybe more? Inside it, hidden from sight there are jewels of delight, valleys, filled with wild life, lakes gleaming blue, and people, well, inhabitants at least. To me it is a place of dreaming, and if you ever visited it, a place you would want to return too. So, you might ask, is this a real place? Well, as real as faith, hope and imagination can make it. Reality is only a game, you live it with your eyes open, but sleeping all the same. And this mountain, it's just as real as that.

And Jeff was there.
In fact, he had never really left..
=

“What do you see?”

“I don’t know”

“Look harder”

A sea of blackness opening into an abyss.

“There’s something, stars?”

“Harder.”

“Is it a game.”

“look.”

Looking into that swirling blackness his footing was lost, falling again. Now looking out from inside he watched the mountain recede, rapidly shrinking, twirling away into nothingness, and with it all his memories.
==

“Jeff.”

“Yes” He tried to wake up, but he didn’t really want to. There was something he had to do?

“Jeff, we need to confer.”

Why couldn’t they leave him alone? But, as he at last opened his eyes he once more knew where he was, and with that, his dream forgotten.

“Yes suit.”

“We have a problem.”

Jeff looked out, first checking on her ladyship. Her suit was still there beside him, its telltales a relaxed glimmering green. So comforted, he started to scan what space he could see around him.

“What problem suit?”

“There is a anomaly approaching.”

“Anomaly?”

What the hell did that matter anyway? He would be dead soon enough anyway, anomaly or no anomaly. But it might for Janelle. Yes, he had started to call her that, most secretly, and only in his thoughts.

“Describe it, please?”

“We first noticed it 1300 h, heading away from us. Royal scanned it at 1300:12:110:13 without luck. At 1300:12:111 the gravity slope changed, we are now getting dragged towards it.”

“A black hole, suit?”

“No, no data consistent with this behavior.”

Jeff had read of those small, and micro, black holes. Made at the birth of a universe they roamed its lanes, doing no more mischief than any other objects made of matter. It wasn’t until you passed its event horizon you really had to worry, and that said, you more or less had to meet them 'head on' to do that. But the suit and Royal was right, the gravity slope couldn’t be manipulated this way. Out here, where gravity was weak, the space could almost be described as flat, and to create a slope where none had been, and from a object leaving you ?

“Does it accelerate?”

“No.”

“Not a ship then?” Jeff found himself desperately wishing that he knew more. Maybe they should wake Janelle? “Have we tried to communicate?”

“No answer on subspace channels.”

“Can we stop us from getting dragged with it?”

“Yes, but we need a human decision for that. It will involve losing energy.”

Ah, of course. Energy, the great divider between life and death.

“How much?”

“Royal and me concur on losing between fifty to eighty percent, if done inside the nearest ten minutes. Raising constantly with the slopes steepness.”

That made it almost meaningless, thought Jeff, losing half their energy supply, or more, they could as easily commit suicide.

“You know that this is not a option. Why did you wake me.”

“Sir, our protocols do not allow otherwise, sorry Sir.”

‘Wow, that had to be a first’ thought Jeff. ‘Calling me, Sir?’ He almost smiled.

“It’s okay, suit, I understand.”

“Thank you Sir.”

“Stop that Siring please. Call me Jeff.”

“Thank you, Jeff.”

Some time passed as Jeff silently mulled over what to do, not that there really was any ´choices to be made here.

“Sir.”

“Didn’t I tell you, Jeff?”

“Jeff, our window of opportunity is gone. The slope are reaching lights speed.”

“What!” A black hole after all? But if it was, of some kind that Jeff never been told of. Not that he had that much experience, but he had crammed in what sleep courses he could find, as his apetite had grown aboard his new home.

“That makes no sense Suit? Give me your data?”

“Calculating, expected down time. 120:12 :134:02. Sorry updating, 119:11:34. Sorry updating.”

“Just give me your best guess Suit.”

“Extrapolating, from known parameters. I’m sorry Jeff, this will be a very bad guess. Give or take some minutes. Possibly 10 minutes, to half an hour. Its parameters are not linear. .And I have no data on anything able to accelerate faster, the closer it comes to light Jeff. According to my data the opposite should be the correct response, the higher the slope of light, the slower a acceleration, closing on infinity.”

There was Hyper, and then there was sub space. Humans came from Sub space, or SpaceTime as some called it. Hyper was just a description of a region where the laws no longer held, as far Jeff understood it. Like a fracture inside floating glass someone had told him, a bubble in where nothing moved, but from where SpaceTime was accessible everywhere, even though under some restrictions. But nothing could break the law of lights speed in a vacuum, to go faster by ordinary motion presumed more energy than the universe contained itself.

“I’m getting a headache.” Jef mumbled.

“A painkiller?”

“No suit, Thanks though.”

“Is there any ideas in you data banks? Anything that can suggest how this is possible?”

“Negative energy, and matter, might, but not really Jeff. Most theory's expect them to act the same as ordinary matter and energy.”

“Portals then, suit? Could it be some sort of portal?”

Portals were the big unknowns. They did not fit any known theory. Whoever had built them first did not use worm holes, and there was no known energy drawn from their existence.

“Not enough data Jeff. Maybe, but there is nothing in my banks about portals manipulating gravity.”

“And it doesn’t accelerate you say?”

“No.”

“Well suit, I don’t see we have any choice? Let’s try to enjoy the ride.”

“Acknowledged, changing into survival mode. Goodnight Jeff.”

As Jeff found himself slipping under, he still tried to vocalize his protest, but, to no avail.

His last thought, ‘damn those protocol’s to hell.”
===