Free The Fabric Of Reality by Benjamin Kelly

amount of charged particles to penetrate. Static electricity danced across the panel of the surviving electrical grid circuit box. If you burn, it’s all over. Gil hurried to the control station and tweaked the settings to shore up the weak spot.
    Eventually a shot would penetrate, the protective system would go down, and that would be that. During the time he had spent with Alesia, hundreds of Emitters had weakened considerably and begun to lose their ability to maintain focus. Too many of them needed replacing for one man to accomplish the task. All he could do was swap out the weakest to buy a little more time.
    Gil hurried out to the Barrier Emitter Housing Facility. The situation looked far worse in person than it did on the computer graphical display. Black and blue smoke from burned-out components poured out of the heat exhaust vents running along the top of the walls. Heavy weapon fire continued to pummel the protective energy shield. It was all over now. Penetration of the Barrier Sphere was imminent. With little more than brute force and dumb luck, the Brotherhood had won. Gil worked as quickly as possible, changing the most critical components and ignoring the rest. With luck he could stall his impending demise long enough to say good-bye to Alesia. After everything he had been through, the universe owed him that. More importantly the universe owed that to Alesia.
    He rushed back to his workbench, removed the last of the screws, and popped the cover off his instrument. Every component on every circuit board was charred to a crisp. There was nothing left to repair. The universe had thumbed its nose at him, once again. Alesia was lost to him on the other side of eternity. She could be standing in the same room right beside him or even occupy the exact same spot, no physical distance from him, but he couldn’t get to her.
    Gil slogged to the Barrier control station and took a seat. He opened the application to power down the system and sat with his finger hovering over the button to shut it off. Might as well get it over with.
    The dot on the display across the room indicating the Transuniversal Locater Beacon pulsed brilliant red. Gil strolled over and took a closer look. The graph on the screen charting the level of energy translating through the Window had peaked at four times the previous average and was holding steady. You’re still not sending any sort of message, so why have you ramped up your power level so high? Unless—your output hasn’t changed, but I’m receiving all of it. God, we’ve ruptured the Window. If energy can flow through unimpeded, matter can pass as well. I’m getting out of here after all! Oh, Alesia, please be there waiting for me.
    Finding the exact spot without a Junction Locater would be nearly impossible. Theoretically, the rupture could be located virtually anywhere, but he had a suspicion that the corridor outside the dorms where the junction points had always been centered was where it would be. If Alesia was still on the other side, she could help him pinpoint the spot. Slipping through would require precise orientation. The rupture, like a Doorway to another Reality, would have no physical dimension. If she could find it from her side, she could show him the way. Both of them searching would increase the odds of finding it.
    The most logical thing for her to do after their connection had been severed would be return to the corridor where they had first met. That’s where he would have gone if he hadn’t known what happened. The chances of her still being there were almost nonexistent, but if he had any hope of escaping death and seeing her again, he had to search.
    Gil rushed down the corridor to the spot where their Realities had been closest and called her name, but got no answer. He wandered back and forth for a while, calling and contemplating his next move. The heavy bombardment continued to overwhelm the noise-canceling system. Given the battered state of the