The New Romford Free Press

Tag: dimensions

  • 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.

  • 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.