This next section is really important, so pay close attention to what's being said. I'm going to explain it OOC at the end to make sure it's clear. This was the intended reason why this story can fit canon-wise with the rest of Darwin's Soldiers.
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Shelton led Zachary and James to a room with a large projector set up, and showed them a large square diagram.
The diagram had a large jagged vertical line right down the middle. The left half was labeled “Matter universe.” The right half was labeled “Antimatter universe.” The lower left corner of the diagram showed a circle labeled ëA.’ The lower right hand corner showed an identical circle labeled ëB.’ The upper left hand corner had a concave ring labeled ëC.’ Arrows connected A to B, B to A, and B to C.
“Now, I’m going to show you what happened step by step. We start off here, at A, matter Earth. As we go through the bridge, Lockdown changed the bridge into antimatter. But that’s not all. He changed us into antimatter as well.”
“Us?” James looked at himself. “I’m antimatter?”
“Not exactly. You’re not James.”
“I’m not?”
“None of us are ourselves. We’re antimatter copies, duplicates of the originals.”
“What happened to the originals?”
“Same as us. They got ejected out, only they wound up back in their universe, the matter universe. To them, the bridge looked like it just didn’t work and they could move on with their lives.”
“So where are we? Us duplicates, I mean.”
“Here, at point B. The antimatter Earth, at antimatter Pelvanida.”
“And we’re antimatter.” James was having trouble digesting that specific part.
“It explains a few things, like why the radios need to be off to work, why the bridge coordinates got flipped, and why,” Shelton held up his hand, “I’m suddenly right handed.”
“And what about point C, the ring? What’s that?”
“First, let me explain how the bridge works. When its functioning properly, the bridge uses the coordinates you entered to create a giant ellipse out of the universe, with your coordinates as one of the focal points.”
“But an ellipse has two focal points,” said Zachary.
“Right. And, in the matter universe, Pelvanida Base is one of the focal points. And the otheró” Shelton tapped the point C on the screen, “is here.”
“Gaman? The planet we just left?”
“It’s not a planet. Not per se. It’s a giant band of packed soil, revolving around a sun. We landed on the inner surface, which explains why it was always noon. And, assuming the distance from the sun to the band is roughly the same as the distance from our sun to Earth, the climate and the force of gravity would be the same.”
“But the band would have to be slightly further from the Sun than the Earth’s orbit, since otherwise heat would build up on the inside,” Zachary pointed out.
Shelton nodded. “Right, the atmosphere on the inside of the band is hotter than usual, but I think access heat drains off into space, keeping the inner surface habitable.”
James looked at the diagram. “The king mentioned a race of people called Sapaar who live in the dark lands.”
“That would be the outer ring. I don’t know how they counteract centrifugal force, possibly by living underground, but the excess heat vented through the soil would keep them from freezing to death. I guess. I haven’t thought about them.” Shelton scratched his head.
“Okay,” said James, “so what about going home? Can’t we just travel back through the gate to matter Earth?”
“Yes, but there are a couple problems.”
“Like what?”
“Remember, the bridge has four coordinates you can alter to change where you go: x, y, z, and t. t is obviously time, the fourth dimension. Now, we’re here,” Shelton pointed, “at anti-Earth. With the current coordinates, we can travel to Gaman and back to anti-Earth. What happens ifwe change the x, y, or z coordinates?”
“We’d travel to a different point in space,” said Zachary.
“Almost definitely empty space,” agreed Shelton. “Where we’d die instantly. So we have to keep those coordinates the same. What happens if we change the t-coordinate and attempt to travel back to Earth?”
Zachary nodded, understanding. “Earth would be at a different point in it’s orbit.”
“And again, we’d walk into space. But since Gaman is a band, no matter what t-coordinate we plug in, we’ll still land on solid ground.”
“So the only coordinate we can safely change…” said Zachary.
“…is t, traveling to Gaman.”
“What if we keep the same t coordinate, and travel back to Earth?” said James. “We’d be sure Earth was there.”
“That won’t work either,” Shelton moved his finger from B to A. “Remember, at the exact original coordinates, our matter counterparts are just jumping through. And when identical matter and anti-matter collideó”
“óboth are annihilated,” Zachary finished.
James looked from one to the other. “Then what do we do?”
Zachary glanced at Shelton. “We’re not sure yet.”
“Then keep thinking. I’m going to check on Neku.”
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James entered the makeshift infirmary. Vic had Neku on a stone table, with a wadded-up lab coat or a pillow and a large piece ripped off for a tourniquet.
“In have him sedated right now,” said Vic. “I managed to get the arrow out, but he fractured several bones in the fall. He’ll heal, but his limp will never go away. And I can’t tell while he’s knocked out if he’s suffered any brain damage.”
James looked at the fallen figure. “On our Earth, he had the power to regenerate damaged tissue, but he said he lost his other powers when traveling through the gate. Do you know if he lost that power too?”
“It’s innate, so he might have kept it. I don’t know.”
Snow whimpered from beside him.
There were some choice things James wanted to say to Snow about her performance off-world, but he realized now wasn’t the time. And that the time would probably never come.
“Just take care of him, Vic.”
Vic sighed. “What are you thinking we do next, James?”
“We find Werner,” said Hans. “He’s still out there.”
James nodded. “Shelton’s devising a plan to get home, but even if he does, one thing’s certain: whatever we choose to do, we have to go back.”
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(The important thing to notice here, is that these are not the characters we've had in the RP. These were copies accidentally created by the Einstein-Rosen bridge due to the anti-matter overload. This was how the events of this story could take place without affecting our characters on Earth.)
