The New Romford Free Press

Tag: alternate dimension

  • Project INFINITY Returns Home Early, Surprising Everyone

    Project INFINITY Returns Home Early, Surprising Everyone

    infinityweb

    By Chase Chapley

    Surprising everyone at ATOM Labs, the Project INFINITY team returned home early after a string of terrible alternate dimensions with the final straw being a world where Donald Trump was elected President of the United States.

    Project INFINITY was scheduled to return in another three months after exploring 100 alternate dimensions.  The New Romford Free Press has been running pieces from Tarani Kapoor’s journal about their experiences.  But the team returned yesterday after only exploring 58 dimensions.

    “Some of the worlds were more difficult than we anticipated,” said Kapoor in a press conference this morning.  “Our team was equipped to handle most of what we encountered, but we did not anticipate dimension 54, which was a world of near-constant acid rain.  In retrospect, we should’ve made all of our equipment acid-proof.”

    “Having lost much of our equipment to the acid,” she continued, “traversing dimensions 55, 56, and 57 was a journey of attrition.  55 was filled with giants, 56 landed us in the ocean somehow, and 57 was covered in lava.  It took all of our might and willpower to survive those dimensions, and many of us were injured.  Then, we entered dimension 58.”

    “Dimension 58 was a world much like our own, so we were naturally grateful not to be drowning or on fire,” said Kapoor.  “It gave us time to catch our breath, but we had entered a United States that was in the midst of an election, and the people of that word had, beyond all belief, elected Donald Trump to be their President.”

    Kapoor went on to describe how this believed his convoluted statements, conspiracy theories, and baseless claims.  This world also was on the verge of electing Hillary Clinton as their President and that she somehow lost even though she won 2 million more votes.  (They apparently still used the Electoral College.)  Half this America believed global warming to be a hoax, wanted to build a wall along the Mexican border, and wanted to register Muslims on a government watch list.

    “And they had no superheroes,” said Kapoor.  “After that, we were done.  That was it.  My team had been demoralized, and I made the executive decision to abort the mission.”

    But not everyone returned home.  The twin superhumans, Mike and Jennifer Laramie, decided to stay in dimension 58.

    “They wanted to, quote, fix things, end quote,” said Kapoor.  “I was not going to argue with them on that.”

  • INFINITE WORLDS: Superheroes Keep Punching Each Other

    INFINITE WORLDS: Superheroes Keep Punching Each Other

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    From left to right: Maria Gutierrez, Samantha McDonald, John Hou, Tarani Kapoor, Karen Humboldt, Kathleen Herrera, Mike Laramie, Jennifer Laramie

    By Tarani Kapoor

    As Project INFINITY explores the multiverse, team leader Tarani Kapoor writes about their travels into the unknown.  We’ll bring you select excerpts from her journal as ATOM Labs provides them to us.

    DIMENSION 46

    As we’ve traversed the multiverse, we’ve come across superheroes in about half our worlds (more depending on your definition of superhero), but by and large, everytime we’ve come across them, they are fighting supervillains and monsters.  Now, we’ve come across a world where they won’t stop punching each other.

    Dimension 36 initially resembled our home from the start.  We saw New Romford in all its glory, and we saw Titana fly through the air.  Then, as we were getting our bearings, Adonis flew in and attacked her.  The force of the impact could be felt for miles according to local news reports.  Our group figured one of them was a robot, clone, or evil counterpart of some origin, but as the two giants began to fight, the locals started running for cover.

    Within minutes, the streets were clear, and someone hurried us into an underground bunker with hundreds of people.  We asked what was going on, and no one knew.  Through overheard conversations and some googling, we gathered that Titana and Adonis were indeed themselves on this world, and that there’s been a war going on between two different factions of superheroes.  The source of the conflict was hazy.  One story suggests the death of a superhero sparked the conflict while another suggests a piece of legislation as the cause.  Another mentions something about an alien infiltration.

    Whatever the cause, we didn’t get much into this world’s history because someone blasted through our bunker with an energy ray of some sort.  Above ground, the battle had escalated very quickly with dozens of superheroes punching each other and destroying the entire city.  Fearing for my crew’s safety, I quickly teleported us to another dimension.

    DIMENSION 47

    Safely into the next dimension, we were all relieved to see that superheroes were not currently destroying it.  Dimension 37 was calm and peaceful, and it resembled our own except for the local fashions.  Almost everyone, young and old, fit and portly, was half nude.  We were clearly overdressed.

    As we sat a café trying to get our bearings, we saw this world’s superheroes, whom we didn’t know, stop a robbery across the street.  While the robbery wasn’t anything out of the ordinary (a minotaur and his goons were robbing a china shop for some reason), the superheroes’ costumes were practically spray painted on, except for their thongs and capes.

    After the battle, two of the male superheroes walked around to make sure everyone was safe.  As they approached us, it became apparent that the superheroes had spray painted their bodies.  They were practically nude, and the fashions of the locals started to make sense.

    Something about us being fully clothed must’ve aroused them because they began to flirt with us.  Uncomfortably.  At one point, one superhero got incredibly close to Karen, and she became flustered.  Jennifer had to forcibly restrain the superhero from getting any closer, and the superhero got angry.  Then the other superhero tried to flirt with her, and Mike had to intervene.

    But before anything else happened, an explosion occurred on the other side of town.  The superheroes said a few derogatory and sexual things to us and flew off.  We comforted Karen and Jennifer and decided it was best to jump to a new dimension.  Hopefully, a calm one.

    DIMENSION 48

    We somehow landed in another world where the superheroes are at war with each other.  This time the conflict had something to do with Adonis and El Toro’s mothers having the same first name, which makes no sense, but at least no one’s sexually harassing us here, so we’ll take a win when we can get it.

  • Infinite Worlds: Year-Round Christmas

    Infinite Worlds: Year-Round Christmas

    infinityweb

    By Tarani Kapoor

    As Project INFINITY explores the multiverse, team leader Tarani Kapoor writes about their travels into the unknown.  We’ll bring you select excerpts from her journal as ATOM Labs provides them to us.

    DIMENSION 3

    Our third jump brought us to a strange world.  Even though we jumped from our world in October, by the local calendar, it was June 14.  That quirk of the calendar, as not all dimensions sync with ours, was not the strange part.  The strange part was that everyone was celebrating Christmas in the summer.

    Again, New Romford of Dimension 3 looked similar to ours in architecture, inhabitants, and sky color.  Since it was June 14, it was a warm late spring day, but Christmas decorations were hanging all over the streets and buildings.  Even the people were wearing Santa hats, Christmas-themed ties and lapels, garish Christmas sweaters (though we couldn’t tell if they were ironic or not), and most puzzling, full winter clothing.  Everyone was sweaty.

    Given that half our crew wasn’t Christian, and that it was the middle of June, we were unnerved by this scene.  (Except for Karen, who loved it.)  As we walked down the street in our civilian clothing, everyone stared at us.  We stuck out like sore thumbs.  Every street corner had at least one man dressed as Santa Claus, ringing a bell for charity, and their eyes were glued to us.  The twins could hear them talk into radios as we passed by, and they informed us to move into hiding immediately.

    The Santas pounced.  We ran down an alley, and Mike and Jennifer fought off the Santas while we made our escape.  But the layout of this New Romford confused us, and we ran right into a dead end.  The twins came to our aid, but we were outnumbered.  There were too many Santas.

    Out of nowhere, smoke bombs rained down on us.  We thought they came from the Santas, but it was someone else.  Several hands guided us to a secret passage down into the sewers, and we followed.

    We had been saved by the Calendar Freedom Fighters, a ragtag group of people not dressed in Christmas gear.  Their leader, Josh, introduced himself and then his group of about 30 people.  Josh explained that on this world Christmas used to be a one-month holiday.  After Thanksgiving, Christmas unofficially began.  But then, the holiday began to creep earlier and earlier into the calendar, overtaking Halloween, then Labor Day, then Independence Day.  Eventually, when it overtook St. Patrick’s Day, Congress, sensing the inevitable, made Christmas a year-long holiday, and for the past six years, the CFF has been fighting a literal War on Christmas.

    What we experienced with the Santas was normal.  Those who don’t celebrate Christmas—and as a winter holiday—are rounded up into reeducation camps, which explained the sweaters and winter clothing.  Since Christmas has always been such a boon to the economy, now every 25th day of every month was a gift-giving day.  Everyone could celebrate whatever other holidays they wanted during the year, but Christmas needed to be celebrated constantly.

    Josh asked us where we came from, and we explained, hoping they knew of alternate dimensions.  They did, and Josh asked us for our help in the fight against “the oppressors.”  We respectfully declined as we gave an oath to not interfere with the fates of other worlds as best we could, and when they didn’t accept our answer, the twins beat them up, and we jumped onto the next world.

    That one was filled with giant talking newts, who, thankfully, didn’t have any Santas.

  • Project INFINITY Journal: Dimension 1

    Project INFINITY Journal: Dimension 1

    infinityweb

    By Tarani Kapoor

    As Project INFINITY explores the multiverse, team leader Tarani Kapoor writes about their travels into the unknown.  We’ll bring you select excerpts from her journal as ATOM Labs provides them to us.

    DIMENSION 1

    Our first jump into the multiverse was bumpy.  Even though we’ve all jumped before to a controlled pocket dimension, it is still difficult to jump into the unknown.  Jitters were in everyone, including myself, but the atmospheric conditions of the first dimension were promising.  We landed in Dimension 1.

    This world seemed quite similar to ours at first glance.  We were in an alternate version of New Romford:  skyscrapers, superheroes in the skies, humans walking dogs (and not the other way around as Karen, our doctor, insists we’ll see one day).  As far as an introductory alternate universe goes, this was ideal.

    After changing into our street clothes, we broke off into two teams to explore the city with the mission of finding out what differentiated this dimension from our own.  John, Kathleen, and Jennifer accompanied me, and Maria led the others, Karen, Samantha, and Michael.  Through our travels, it was clear that people here spoke English and had similar technology to ours.  There were slight differences in the cosmetic looks of their phones, cars, and clothing, but everything seemed to work in the same way.  Maria’s team reported similar findings.

    My group became thirsty after two hours of exploration, and since we were in a hospitable dimension, we decided to try some local drinks.  But we didn’t have money from this dimension.  To prevent Jennifer’s more extreme methods, John suggested a little ruse he used to do when he was a child.  Basically, he grifted.  I won’t go into any more detail than that, as I didn’t approve of this tactic, but it did provide us with a small amount of money.  We went into a convenience store and purchased some sodas and juice so we could compare them to what we knew from Home Dimension.

    John bought a Coke while I had a Pepsi.  Kathleen had an orange juice, and Jennifer had a coconut water.  Their two drinks tasted the same as what was found in our world, but John and I immediately recognized something off in our drinks.  For one, my Pepsi was clear.  John’s Coke didn’t taste like Coca-Cola Classic, and it dawned on him that he was drinking New Coke.  He remembered it from the 80s, and then I knew that my drink was Crystal Pepsi.  We checked the dates on the cans to make sure we weren’t drinking outdated sodas, and no, they had future dates.

    Later on, we met up with the other team and relayed our findings.  They found a similar city to our Home Dimension, but they noticed billboards for long-dead television shows, failed musical acts, and sequels to movie flops from our dimension.  The Cavemen TV show was going into its ninth season on ABC, Chris Gaines was on tour promoting his sixth album, and Snow Dogs 7 was coming out in the next few months.  It had become apparent what made this dimension different:  it enjoyed pieces of culture that failed in our world.

    Using some more of the money John “acquired” for us, we sampled food from one of the many Planet Hollywoods that were sprinkled throughout this city as if it were as popular as Applebee’s or Starbucks.  It was surreal to see so many Planet Hollywoods in New Romford, let alone seeing how busy they all were.  And that didn’t even include all the movie memorabilia on the walls from all the Snow Dog movies as well as from the apparent Pluto Nash and Battlefield Earth franchises.  As expected, the food (standard American fare) tasted awful, but the locals enjoyed it.

    Curiously, the local museums showcased fine art similar to our world, but as it was getting late, we decided to leave the question as to when cultural tastes changed to future explorers.  We found a park to camp out for the night along with hundreds of other homeless individuals.  At least this dimension doesn’t harass their homeless who sleep in the park.

  • Speedster Defeats Dimension-Hopping Tortoise

    Speedster Defeats Dimension-Hopping Tortoise

    speedsterbwBy Buffy Bolivar

    NEW YORK – Longtime Speedster supervillain The Tortoise gave his archnemesis a run for her money today by hopping through multiple dimensions before finally being defeated on Ellis Island.

    The Tortoise, a.k.a. Mortimer Tortois, has been antagonizing Speedster for the past 40 years, starting with the second Speedster of the 60s, 70s, and 80s.  With each new iteration, Tortois has found a way by science or magic to speed himself up or slow Speedster down.  This time, he had an experimental device implanted into his mechanical shell that allowed him to hop through dimensions, mimicking super speed via bending spacetime.

    “It really did look like he was super fast,” said Bryan Armstrong, who witnessed the beginning and ending of the encounter on Ellis Island.  “One moment, blip, he’s gone, and the next he’s right next to Speedster.  It was really weird.  An old fat dude with a giant metal turtle shell shouldn’t be able to move that fast.”

    The incident began on Ellis Island with The Tortoise dropping down in his giant Tortoise Copter and spitting out fire from its four “legholes”.   The fire dispersed the crowd, and when The Tortoise emerged, Speedster was waiting for him.  She had received his message.

    According to witnesses, Speedster immediately ran to The Tortoise, but he disappeared before she could lay a hand on him.  The Tortoise reappeared on the other side of the island, called out to Speedster.  She ran towards him, and again, he disappeared.  This sequence repeated itself a few more times until The Tortoise began to attack Speedster.  After a few blows, Speedster “ran away”, and The Tortoise thought he had won.  But Speedster had apparently run around the Earth to approach The Tortoise from behind.  Once she tackled him, they both disappeared.

    Thus far, Speedster and the NYPD are not saying where the two went, but given that they both returned to Ellis Island an hour later in different, but similar, clothes, it’s likely they went to different dimensions.  The device, coming from a research lab at MIT, has been reported to be a dimension traveling apparatus that was stolen last night.  Sources at MIT have confirmed the energy signature of The Tortoise match that of the device.

    Why Speedster and The Tortoise were wearing clothes with Jared from Subway on them is unknown.  Presumably, they spent time in a dimension where Jared from Subway is their king.

    Tortois has been arrested, the device has been secured and turned off, and the mechanical turtle shell has been dismantled.  Speedster has not indicated whether her new variant costume will stick around.

  • Project INFINITY Explorers Begin Voyage into Alternate Dimensions

    Project INFINITY Explorers Begin Voyage into Alternate Dimensions

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    From left to right: Maria Gutierrez, Samantha McDonald, John Hou, Tarani Kapoor, Karen Humboldt, Kathleen Herrera, Mike Laramie, Jennifer Laramie

    by Chase Chapley

    Project INFINITY, the ATOM Labs exploration into Earths of alternate dimensions, has finally commenced after over 30 years of planning.  INFINITY plans to explore 100 alternate Earths, recording their similarities and differences to ours, and send records of their exploits back to ATOM Labs.  They “jumped” to their first alternate Earth this morning from ATOM Labs to much fanfare from family, friends, and colleagues.

    The expedition is led by Tarani Kapoor, an expert in alternate dimensional travel and particle physics.  She will be monitoring the “jumper”, the hand-held device that opens portals to each dimension, and will make the final decisions on when they will “jump” dimensions.  Her second-in-command, Leon Verrick, an expert in cosmology, will also monitor a “jumper” of his own in case Kapoor is unable to use hers for any reason.

    The team will be filled out with ATOM Labs scientists of varying disciplines.  Samantha McDonald is the team’s biologist and geneticist, who will be recording the plant and animal species they come in contact to as well as studying DNA samples of said species.  John Hou is the geologist, Karen Humboldt is the team doctor and physiologist, and Maria Gutierrez is the expert in superhuman and extraterrestrial morphology.  Kathleen Herrera will join as the team’s anthropologist and linguist.  The entire team will be accompanied by Michael and Jennifer Laramie, twin brother and sister, who will be their bodyguards.  They are low-level superhumans with increased stamina, strength, speed, agility, and immune systems.

    Each member of Project INFINITY has been trained for years in use of the “jumper” and in hand-to-hand combat.  “We have to be prepared for anything,” said Captain Kapoor.  “Each new Earth could be vastly different than ours, and we won’t know how different until we get there.”

    They will wear special suits, much like spacesuits, for each jump until they’re certain they can survive the new world’s atmosphere.  The “jumper” is designed to detect Earths within the “survivable zone” determined by ATOM Labs.  Oxygen levels, temperature, humidity, acidity, cosmic rays, fire, all will be detected of each new dimension before a jump, but the predictions may not always be reliable.  “We tested this out on ten Earths,” said Kapoor, ” and the predictions were 80% reliable, which is pretty good.  But those two that were off sent us into a world made of fire and another where the atmosphere was the same as ours except the nitrogen [which comprises 70% of our atmosphere] was replaced with hydrogen.  As you might imagine, it was a very explosive Earth.”

    The expedition is expected to last one to two years.  The team has been given a flexible schedule because no one knows what kind of Earths they will experience.  “Some are likely to be hostile,” said Kapoor.  “But everyone understands this.  It comes with the territory, so to speak.”

    Captain Kapoor will be in charge of sending the official reports back to our Earth, dubbed Earth-1, but each member, including the bodyguards, will be keeping a journal of their experiences.  The NRFP will publish some of these reports, and all will be collected into several books once the project has finished.

  • Another Company Wants to Fast-Age Your Kids Using Alternate Dimension

    Another Company Wants to Fast-Age Your Kids Using Alternate Dimension

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    By Julia Crumpelman

    The fast-aging game just got some extra competition.  Recently, FutureKin unveiled their business model of sending children to various future timelines to fast-age them into young adults.  Now, Tomorrow World unveiled their model.

    They want to send children into a time-altered dimension.

    “The problem with future timelines,” said founder Darryl Montgomery, “is that they can blip out of existence just like that.  Someone steps on the wrong bug today, and poof, one timeline is altered or deleted.  And what happens to your kid?  Who knows?”

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    Tomorrow World CEO Darryl Montgomery

     

    “That’s why Tomorrow World has set up a time-altered dimension,” he said.  “It’s one we control completely, and no one can change it by accident.  One hundred percent safe.”

    Tomorrow World is actually the name of the dimension.  It has been specifically altered to increase the speed of time.  One day in Tomorrow World is about two seconds in our dimension, so a year in there lasts a little over 12 minutes here.  The turnaround time is longer than FutureKin, Montgomery admits, but sometimes, things are worth the wait.

    “You can’t rush good work,” he said without a hint of irony or self-awareness.  “Children will age 10 years in about two hours, which is just enough time to get a nice lunch.  You can pick up your adult children on your own leisure.”

    Tomorrow World, like FutureKin, will offer various study programs, including education, the arts, and martial arts

    As before, Dr. Amazing had his concerns with Tomorrow World’s business model.  “I can’t believe there are two of these things now,” he said, slumping his chair.  “This is a horrible, horrible, no good idea.  Fast-aging your children is such a morally questionable thing to begin with, I can’t believe people are actually floating this idea.”

    “And that’s not even dealing with the time-altered dimension,” he said.  “Yes, you can do that, but it’s so much work to keep that stable.  I’ve created five of these dimensions in my experiments, and it takes constant vigilance just to keep them flowing at a constant rate of time.  It’s very easy for these dimensions to slow down and then speed up, wildly.  It could be very easy for children to go in at 10 and come out at 100, if at all.”

    Montgomery wasn’t fazed by Dr. Amazing, either.  “Sounds to me like he’s just jealous he didn’t monopolize it first,” he said, taking a puff of a cigar.  “His loss.”