Read The Fabric Of Reality for Free Online Page A

Junction Locater wasn’t sophisticated enough to analyze what was happening to the Window. All but the most rudimentary monitoring applications had been erased from the supercomputers, to keep the Brotherhood from discovering how to manipulate the junction point.
    None of his applications could tell for certain if some life-form had come close to the Window, but his body was shouting to him that that was exactly what had happened. Maybe I can get a look. Gil grabbed the Junction Locater, rushed into the corridor, and began tweaking the controls. With the correct settings, he would be able to see into the third site. The settings he had used during his previous observations were not working. The interference hampered his ability to peer through the Window. A solid sheet of misty haze blocked his view. All right, I know it’s there. It’s just a matter dialing it in.

Chapter Four
    Alesia awoke lying on the stone floor, chilled to the bone. The lamp had died while she slept. Sunlight streamed in through the entranceway at a low angle. The day was almost done. Soon she’d make the long climb back to the top of the guard tower, take her destiny firmly into her own hands, and embrace her fate. She should have listened to Bonnie long ago. Happily ever after was too much to hope for. The kind touch of a man who cared about her as a person was something she’d never know. Holding out and believing for so long made the truth of reality impossible to live with. She put her head on her knees and wept uncontrollably.
    When her tears had run dry, she raised her head to the fading light of early dusk. I had better go before it’s too dark to climb the steps in the tower.
    “Castle spirits, where are you? I’ve come for you to take me away!” she shouted.
    “What?” A man’s voice came from somewhere.
    She leaped to her feet as shivers shot up her spine, spun in place, but saw nothing. She backed into the wall, holding the broken shovel handle in front of her. “Who is there?”
    “Miss, where are you? There’s never been anyone there before. I thought that Reality to be uninhabited.”
    Alesia gripped the shovel handle tightly. “Come out where I can see you, but stay back, I have a stick, and I’m not afraid to use it on you.”
    “You can’t see me because I’m not actually there. Hold on, let me adjust this a little more and maybe...”
    The image of a tall, handsome man with shoulder-length dark hair shimmered into existence.
    Alesia stared at him, utterly confused. “Are you a ghost? You don’t appear quite solid, more like fog or smoke.”
    “You appear the same to me. Strangely familiar, actually.” He glanced down at a black and silver box in his hand and tapped a finger on it. “ Humm, I can’t clear this up any better.”
    As she gazed at the man shrouded behind the curtain of fog, images from her dreams flashed into her mind. “What do you mean, familiar?”
    “Nothing, I was thinking out—never mind.”
    Alesia glared at him even as she realized that he could no more see her expression than she could see his. She wanted an answer. There was an explanation for why he found her familiar, but she dared not let herself think it, for fear of fostering additional false hope. There was another, more likely, explanation. She was dreaming.
    “Are you a castle spirit, come for me? If you are, take me now. If that’s not why you’re here, I don’t think I could bear to delay my fate any longer.”
    For an instant his deep brown eyes became crystal clear, but before she could get a satisfying look, the foggy mist spread back across them.
    He raised his gaze to hers, tilting his head slightly to one side. “ Why do you think I’m here?”
    She lowered her weapon. “I believe that you’re here to whisk me away to the netherworld, because if you’re not, I must die.”
    He shook his head and fiddled with his box. “I apologize, miss, but I’m not a castle spirit. I am merely a man, and I know not this