Vortex Box Set by PD McClafferty (Patrick McClafferty) (#1-3)
Requirements: .MOBI Reader, 2.2 MB
Overview: In the near future and the world is pretty much the same as we know it now – terrorists are a bit more ingenious and their weapons a bit more terrifying and accidents, when they happen, are more deadly – much more deadly.
The high energy particle accelerator in Switzerland has been on-line for years and when a routine test goes awry and opens gateways into an alternate universe, to an alternate earth, UN troubleshooter Nikola Papandreou is sent in to pick up the pieces. Two, five man SWAT teams have already disappeared through the ominous black gateway, and it is his job to find them and bring them back while not suffering their same fate. The clock is ticking for Nikola, and the world of Dargen Plains is deadly and unforgiving, but his greatest danger lies with those who sent him in the first place. What’s worse, he can’t decide if he’s fighting for the right side as he struggles to save a world gone mad.
Genre: Sci-Fi/Fantasy
The Dargen Plain
Cool air wafted out the white overhead ducts in a quiet hiss, hardly noticeable over the soft voices in the Control Room. Computer screens on a raised circular dais showed bar graphs and cascading waterfall displays in bright colors, casting strange shadows on the attending technicians. A little box in the upper right of every screen showed small red numbers, counting down to zero. The label below the box identified it as a countdown to the firing time of the large linear accelerator.
It had been a long month in an even longer year. One technician sat sipping a steaming cup of tea while two more were sharing pictures of their children. The test firings had become more than routine―they had become boring. The clock on the wall read two thirty on a blustery Geneva morning, and the numbers in the box continued to decrease.
Three – two – one. The screens on the myriad computers flickered briefly, then without further fanfare, went black. Beneath the building the technicians felt the massive structure shudder…slightly. The teacup fell to the floor with a crash, and pictures dropped unnoticed. Every screen in the Control Room now bore the single word – ERROR.
The Devil’s Plain
Excerpt from the personal journal of Princess Marie, of House Papandreou: 19th day of June, 2527
In the beginning, before I was known as Princess Marie of House Papandreou and was still known as Tipp the thief, my father Nikola came to our world. I didn’t know about it, of course. I was much too busy stealing what I needed to stay alive.
According to our resident wizard and historian Yalamond, who was home during most of the adventure nursing a broken leg, the Great War and the following years of chaos destroyed most of the human race and changed the rest. Nikola calls it a mutation in the DNA, whatever that is. Yalamond told us the land itself changed during that wild time. Islands rose from the ocean floors and mountains from the plains. Whole cities were swallowed by raging seas and rivers of molten rock. Magic, neither good nor evil in and of itself, came back to the world along with fairies, elves, trolls, dragons and a host of other not so common magical creatures – and with them came the familiars. Were the magical creatures once people, or were they animals that changed too? No one seems to know the answer to that question. My dad calls the familiars shape-shifters. He should know – he’s one of them – now. This world does strange things to people, but then maybe it was Ishtar. I’ve felt the touch of the familiars myself, since they are all telepathic, more or less, when Peckin-the-Crown told me in no uncertain terms that he had chosen me to be his partner. Me! Ha! I told Nikola that this must be a mistake and that I was not a wizard. He just smiled that infuriatingly calm and reassuring smile of his. I’ll bet he didn’t smile quite so much when he found out that HE was a wizard too.
Ghelgorath Plain
Excerpt from the personal journal of Queen Marie Papandreou: 15th day of February, 2529
My father was a man with a mission – and he had no intention of deviating from it. His good intentions lasted until he set foot on this world. Then Ishtar took his destiny firmly in hand. I should probably explain this a bit. Since the Great War the primary, but not only, religion and deity on this world of ours has been matriarchal based. This has been all I’ve ever known, and I find the very idea of a patriarchal based religion, such as my father had on his world, cold, distant and disturbing. Ishtar is our loving Goddess and she prefers to take a much more personal and active role in the salvation of our world and those who love her.
His job had been to find two teams of men sent to our world from his, through an accidentally created gateway. He didn’t know, couldn’t know, that most of them were already dead. The Great War and the following years of chaos changed our world; changed it, and brought magic back into our lives. The surviving people changed, the living creatures on the world changed, and the planet itself changed. Mankind was no longer the only thinking creature on the planet. Elves and gnomes again walked the earth and fearsome monsters stalked both the dark of night and the depths of the oceans. My father overcame these obstacles, although he too was changed to become one of us. He accomplished his mission. He found the sole survivor of the lost teams and returned him to the world of his origin. Then he closed the gateway forever. Or so he thought.
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