Fiction Fragment Friday
One of the things I enjoy about flash fiction is exploring the variety of ways you can build a world or tell a story. With flash fiction you are not limited to prose writing, but can adapt any form of writing. With flash fiction you can use texts, job descriptions, resumes, posts, catalogs, or anything at all that speaks to your creativity as an outlet for your writing. It is very freeing in that it opens format options that would not work on larger scale fiction.
This week is not a large departure from prose. It is an orientation speech being given so it is really just a large sample of dialog. Even so it did feel like it was stepping outside of the standard prose box. As I write this I am wondering how much story I could fit into a fictional resume. Maybe next week.
My name is Jeremiah Henderson and let me be the first to officially welcome you to the Hub. For the next two hours I will be your orientation guide before handing you over to your individual department leads. I’m sure you all have questions, but I ask that you hold them until the end. Feel free to make notes so you don’t forget. Keep in mind that I’m not a scientist though so I may not be able to answer more technical ones.
Now that you have passed over the gateway you may open your sealed orientation folder. The first few pages will cover terminology we use around here. In general, we use the terms universe, reality, and dimension interchangeably. This annoys the actual scientists to no end as they have strict definitions for each word. If you have a strong preference, I recommend you keep it to yourself as others will intentionally use the others to get a rise out of you. I’m going to use the term Universe from this point forward.
Universes do not touch. They are not operating at a different frequency or out of sync in time. You cannot travel directly from one universe to another. Instead, you have to leave your universe, travel through a void that separates all universes, and only then can you enter another universe. The only problem is that matter cannot exist in the void. Matter has to be contained within a universe.
Put your hands down I told you to save your questions until the end. As I was saying matter cannot exist in the void. However, Universes can and do. The hub is a station that produces its own bubble of artificial universe. It exists outside of every universe and because of that we can bridge them. You cannot go directly from one universe to another, but you can come here.
When this station was setup we believed that there would be an infinite number of universes, but that was not the case. These are not simply alternate realities, but truly different universes. While most universes are similar the laws of physics are not the same across all of them. We have currently cataloged 43 of the discovered 11,543 universes that border on the void. Needless to say we still have a lot of work ahead of us.
Five weeks ago, another station was discovered here in the void. We have not been able to initiate communication with them to date, so a team has been selected to go meet them. This is not a minor challenge and is certainly filled with immense danger. The opportunity though to share knowledge is far too great to pass up. An ongoing working partnership could bring about exponential leaps in progress.
That is why you are all here. The teams on the Hub are already struggling under heavy workload and simply cannot lose the manpower that this mission will require. As such we are bringing on two new employees for every department that is giving up a seasoned resource to the mission. That also means you have very little time to get up to speed. No pressure, right?
Now if you will all follow me I will start the tour with the most important facilities first. Please take note of the bathrooms on your left and step right through here for the cafeteria.
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