Mark and charles are in Mark’s flyer. It’s like a car but rather than driving, it flies. It’s not a high performance flyer. Its an ordinary vehicle. The color is bland gray but the appearance is very futuristic compared to earth cars. It doesn’t just look like a flying car. A flyer looks more like an airplane. The shape resembles that of an eagle. But no wings. The design is sleek but the propulsion is ionic so it doesn’t have jets or propellers. They generally only fly close to the ground. 50 feet high or so. The lights are attention grabbing and the overall look of the flyer seems to be designed for speed not turning. Although it can turn, it is designed to go straight fast and turn at lower speeds.
The [propulsion device] was almost weightless but felt heavy in his pocket. He wondered if anyone was onto him. When the physicist died, no one knew the device existed. As far as mark knew, that hadn't changed. The technology wasn't supposed to be possible. Others had tried to make it using similar theories and failed. The prototype mark now had was the result of several years of research and trials. No one would believe it existed even if they heard about it. Smaller than his palm, slightly bigger than a large coin, it created a directional field that worked by scrunching space like an accordion; making very long distances as short as a few steps and short distances were like stepping over a crack in the sidewalk. He’d used it several times before but the last time he ended up appearing in the middle of a busy street and nearly got hit by several flyers but their autopilot worked almost instantly and avoided hitting him. Charles was unaware that the device existed too. Although mark planned to tell him about it once they had left the local area. It would take weeks to get out of the country and arrive somewhere mark had never been. That was the problem now though, he didn’t have the destination charted and he didn’t want to end up walking into the middle of an ocean.
Charles walked up to the distorted aura at the entrance of the transportation area. The aura looked like a ovular starburst. The elongated edge was horizontal. It was translucent but visible. It was like looking at the world through water. It was slightly pink around the edges but became a more pronounced shade near the middle. He walked up to it and got as close as he could without touching it. He tried to see into it but all he could see was the swirling surface and the distorted trees behind it. He focused on the surface, it reminded him of a bubble. The way the colors move across the surface of a bubble was similar. He wondered what would happen if he walked into the edge. Half his body in the aura and the other half out of it. He put his hand up to the surface and slowly touched it. It felt like vapor and the part touching his hand turned the same color as the edges. He put his hand in further then took it out. Nothing happened. He sniffed his hand. No smell. “Just curious” he thought. He took a deep breath and stepped in. He saw a shape in the tunnel at first, then a figure. As the figure became clearer, he could see that the figure was moving. Not like a flag in the wind but like an animal sniffing around for food. It was an intentional and purposeful movement. It looked reptilian, long and low to the ground. It could have been made of light. Not sparkling but certainly sharp and possessed of its own light source. It didn’t appear that a light was making it show up but rather it was light enough to see it even if it were dark. Like some kind of bioluminescence. He thought that it would be a good idea to get a closer look but he wasn’t sure how much time he had inside the transport tunnel and decided to keep moving toward his destination. Surely Mark would be able to tell him what it was. When he exited the tunnel, he felt wet. He touched his face and it was dry but the air made it feel cold as if it was wet. He even felt a drip down the back of his neck and his hand traveled there to wipe it instinctively but there was nothing. His clothes were clinging to his skin as if they were wet too but when he felt them they were also dry. He looked around for mark for a moment before he spotted him. Mark was examining himself in a mirror, touching his own face and hair. Mark was right about one thing, nothing would have prepared him for that. Everything he knew to be “physical laws” didn’t seem to apply inside the transport tunnel. The light in the tunnel was ambient. There wasn’t a light source. It was colorful like the surface of a bubble but it was subtle.