Free Outland (World-Lines Book 1) by Dennis Taylor Page B

seconds. “I’m not sure what bothers me more,” he replied, “that one out of three worlds so far has never had humans or that, on one out of two that had humans, we killed ourselves off.”
    “If that’s what happened,” Kevin said. “Eventually we’ll want to jump beyond these two to find out more, but that will take a lot of infrastructure.”
    “And I’m not sure we want to be the ones doing that,” Richard replied. “It’s one thing to get an early shot at the gold rush. It’s another thing to create our own SG-1, as Bill would say.”
     

Enter Monica
    July 2                            Monica
    Erin ushered Monica into the warehouse. The four men sitting around a table watched them approach. A couple of partially devoured pizzas sat on the table, the aroma of pepperoni and sausage reminding Monica that she hadn’t eaten since lunch.
    The tension radiating from the men was palpable, and Monica was beginning to wonder what she was getting into. This is Erin, one of my best friends. I’ve known her forever . She’s not about to sell me into slavery, so relax.
    Monica decided to try to lighten the mood a bit. She piped up, “So, do you have a park you need a biologist to sign off on?”
    To her surprise, everyone turned to look at Erin, who held up her hands and exclaimed, “I didn’t say anything !” One of the men, a cute but somewhat pudgy character, was choking back laughter.
    A tall and very attractive man stepped forward. “Let’s start with introductions, then we’ll explain the situation. Afterwards, we’ll try to convince you we’re not crazy.”
    Erin made introductions, then Richard played a couple of videos for Monica, without commentary. Once she’d seen them, the explanations started.
     
    “Another dimension?” Monica asked, bewildered.
    “That doesn’t mean anything,” Kevin replied, “unless you mean another time dimension, in which case yes . It’s another world-line. A parallel universe. An alternate Earth. Whatever science-fiction cliché you want to use.”
    “And it’s filled with animals but as far as we can tell, no people,” Bill added. “We’d like you to look at the animals and see if you can identify them and come to any conclusions. We’re especially interested in which ones will try to eat us.”
    Monica looked at each of the men in turn. They appeared serious. “All right. I’m still treating this as an elaborate practical joke, but if you do manage to open a gateway to another world, I’ll reconsider. Shall we start?”
    Bill grinned. Richard began the startup sequence, which by this time consisted of little more than a couple of menu selections and an OK button.
    The three-foot gate blurred, then settled into a scene showing distant trees and animals. Matt handed Monica a set of  binoculars and motioned towards the gate.
    Monica sidled up to it like a cat investigating something unknown. After a few seconds, she put the binoculars to her eyes and began scanning the scene, muttering just loud enough to be heard, “ Tapirus californicus . Tayassuida . Cervalces scotti . Holy shit. Those are supposed to be extinct!”
    As she walked sideways, trying to scan the landscape, she found herself trying to peer through the gate at a steep angle. She lowered the binoculars and frowned.
    Richard came over. “Here, you can rotate it. Let me.”
    He took hold of the gate assembly from behind and turned it on the table. As he rotated it, Monica walked around to keep the best angle of view. Abruptly she screamed and jumped back as a large paw with very impressive claws poked through the gate. The paw withdrew and was replaced by a large feline face with very long teeth. The animal growled and started to push farther through.
    Richard yelled “The fuck!” as he caught sight of it and pulled out one of the cables. The gate shut down and the feline head disappeared.
    “Fuck, fuck, fuck, oh fuck!” Monica backed away and yelled.