Tír nAill : Part Two.

4.

It took a few moments for Henry to come up with a solution. “The tables.” he said. “People, clear the tables and fold them up. That stuff is coming in through the doors, we need to cover it, and quickly.”

Norma expected some panic but there was nothing like that, people just did what he told them to do. He'd always been like that, always commanded respect and somehow he still had it. She admired that but didn't let it get in the way of her helping the others block the doorway. As they were in the process of balancing the tables Norma still kept an eye on the stuff that had already got through, wondering if there was any way to bottle some, to analyse it. She wanted to know what it was, what it's properties were. If she had been back at work she could have used the lab but this was a community centre.

It took her a couple of minutes to consider the basic principles of manufacturing a basic microscope. The place had enough plastic cups and bottles that, with a bit of luck and ingenuity, she thought she might be able to cobble one together. It would be rough, a kid's toy, but it would satisfy her curiosity. She left some of the others to adjust the tables, picked up a couple of the plastic cups and looked around for a sharp knife. She found one in the small kitchen area and as she was looking around to see if she could find anything else of use, discovered the remnants of a roll of cellophane. She was chuffed and kept on rummaging to see what else she could find. She managed to drum up an A4 sheet of card, some elastic bands and a black magic marker left over from the decorating party early in the day.

She unravelled the cellophane leaving her with the cardboard tube. She then took the piece of card and covered one side of it with the black marker ink before rolling it into another tube which she slid inside the tube from the cellophane roll. She covered one end of the tube with a small piece of cellophane and then used one of the elastic bands to secure it tightly before using her thumb to slightly loosen the centre. She then went over to the sink and carefully fiddled with the tap until she got a steady but slow drip from it. She removed the card from the tube and aimed the other beneath the tap until she got a single drop and then cautiously place the card back in. She repeated the procedure with the cellophane on the top of the card and again plopped a single drop of water in the thumb dent. After this, in order to secure it and make it stable, she cut a cross on the bottom of one of the plastic glasses and then gently slide the makeshift microscope into it. It stood on its own volition which was perfect. Done, all she needed now was to collect some of the weird matter.

Considering it seemed to be able to tear through almost everything so far, she knew this would be the most difficult part. She knew she would have to be quick which meant she would need a hand to collect it. She emptied out a two litre bottle of cola, which she planned to use as a vacuum and then smashed an empty vodka bottle. With the thick glass base of the bottle separated she thought she was good to go and then brought the microscope out into the main room with the plastic bottle and glass base.

She placed everything down on one of the remaining upright tables and called over Tommy McAllister, asking him to watch over it carefully while she went over to her little clutch bag. From it she pulled out her own mobile phone which she then handed to Tommy.

“What are you up to?” He finally asked.

“I'm going to analyse a sample of that stuff.” She replied.

“Have you lost your fucking mind?” Tommy asked, startled by her frank admission.

“If I can figure out what it is I might be able to find some way to stop it.” Norma explained.

Tommy was about to say something but thought for a moment, shrugged and nodded. “Alright, what can I do?” he asked.

“Keep an eye on this stuff while I collect a sample. The way that stuff is tearing through everything, I'll need to be quick.” Norma answered.

Tommy looked reticent but he nodded and said “okay.”

By this point others had been taking an interest in what she was up to but they never protested or gave any words of advice. Norma assumed they were all still dazed by this unnatural turn of events. With the empty bottle in hand, she walked over to one of the small clusters of the shuddering light dust and after piercing a small hole in the lid of the plastic bottle to expel a lot of the air inside, she bent down and…

“What are you doing, Norma?” Henry barked, clearly horrified.

“Getting a sample. Shush, Dad.” She instructed.

Before her father had a chance to protest and attempt to assert his authority, she aimed the bottle over the strange particulate matter and let the air rush back in. As she had expected some of the dust got sucked in with it. Immediately she ran back over to the table, moved the bottom of the vodka bottle in front of her and gently squeezed the air out of the plastic bottle again, pushing some of the collected dust onto the glass.

Tossing the plastic bottle aside, she took the “microscope” from Tommy, placed the upside down plastic cup over the glass and then turned the light of her mobile phone onto it. Refracted spectra of light came out at various angles, but she wasn't interested in that. Instead she looked down the water lens on top and saw a black and white sparkling blur. Moving the interior card up and down slightly she finally got it into focus. What she saw bemused her.

Each particle of the dust seemed to keep popping in and out of existence, returning with a bright flash and then vibrating before it again disappeared. There was no rhyme or reason, no pattern to it. It was again, like she imagined at first, like static on a detuned television. This matter was out of sync with the entire world. As it returned it etched grooves into the glass, but what was worse was that it seemed to be multiplying. As if it was attempting to grow.

“Well?” Asked Tommy. There was silence as dozens of people waited to find out what she had discovered.

Norma didn't know where to begin. She shrugged. “It's some kind of unstable matter, it's winking in and out of existence and corroding the material around it.”

“I think we'd guessed that.” Henry said.

“Yes, but, well Dad, this kind of thing shouldn't happen, not outside a particle accelerator and not at this scale.”

“Fucking Mantik.” Her father hissed. There were sounds and nods of agreement coming from all around her. She'd dismissed his concerns but was now beginning to think he might be right.

“So what is this Mantik?” Norma asked, generally.

“A bunch of bastards.” A woman, perhaps five or ten years older than her, replied. Norma had been introduced earlier but had already forgotten her name.

“That's not helpful.” Norma responded. “I need more details.”

The woman nodded angrily. “You want details? Fine. My Alec worked there for eighteen months. He totally changed, would come home at night looking concerned and worried. He kept telling me he wasn't allowed to talk about it but had insisted that once his contract had finished we were leaving Duntreath. One night, a few days before those bastards killed him, I caught him staring out the window, beyond the hills. He kept muttering to himself quietly. I heard him saying, “Oh God, please, not tonight, please.” Whatever they were up to, he knew it was dangerous.”

This again brought sounds of agreement but it didn't help Norma. “Does anyone here actually know what they were up to?”

This brought silence while everyone in the room looked around at each other, dozens of faces hoping someone might say something. Eventually it was up to one of the Peters boys, not the one still standing at the DJ booth with his headphones on and a curious look on his face, his brother. “My Dad used to get drunk after his shift, one night I came down to find him smashed out of his mind and crying. I asked him what was wrong and he… well he said he'd seen them open up the old stones of Ben Glannan. Said he saw them coming through. I asked what he meant but he just shrugged and told me that he never wanted to see them again.”

“Ben Glannan?” Tommy asked to no one in particular. “Those old stones disappeared a few years back.”

Norma felt that sickening feeling in her stomach, the one she had as she drove towards Duntreath, this time however, she had more of an inkling why. It wasn't anything she chose to share, it seemed too far-fetched and not the best way to keep people, who were already nervous, calm. Instead she just sighed and said “I need a drink.”

Her tentative hypothesis was that Mantik were indeed working with a particle accelerator but had somehow managed to perfect a gravitational collapse, to, as the Peters boys father had put it, “open up” a hole between here and somewhere else. They'd somehow pulled off a version of an Einstein-Rosen bridge, of a wormhole but not one across space-time but rather one to another universe with very, very different conditions. It explained why the matter she looked at was so unstable. It had difficulty remaining existent. What the old standing stones on Ben Glannan had to do with any of it, she had no idea.

“So what now?” her father asked handing her a beer.

Norma sighed and took the bottle from him and then took a large swig. “I don't know, it's complicated.”

Henry looked at her and then at the door. “Is that going to hold?”

“I don't think so, the stuff has the ability to shear through matter. It's also proliferating.”

“Christ, that's not good.” Henry said, looking around the room. “Let's hope they get it sorted.”

Norma wanted to explain that this was a catastrophe that had no comparison. If her thinking was even remotely true, this was something that could corrode through reality itself. She kept that to herself. “Yeah let's hope so.”

Norma took another drink and scanned the room again, everyone seemed so worried. Everyone except the Peters boy at the DJ booth. He was still standing there with his headphones on, one of his hands pressing hard against one of them. He was listening, to something, very intently. Considering earlier all that was coming out of the speakers was a cacophony of electronic noise, she wondered what it was he found so interesting.

As if he had been reading her mind, he pulled off the headphones and said loudly. “Hey, listen to this!”

He pressed a switch and from the speakers came the chaotic noise again, this time however it was in the background as a voice was cutting through it all. “… the aperture. Repeat, section two, there is an ongoing breach, close the aperture. Section Three, cut power to the Quadrant of Loug Systems. Repeat cut power to the Quadrant of Loug Systems.”

Quadrant of Loug. It was something Norma had heard before and she couldn't quite recall when. She tried to remember.

“Can you contact whoever that is?” Tommy asked the Peters boy.

The lad shrugged. “Dunno. Don't think this thing can really transmit anything other than through the speakers.”

Tommy looked over at Norma. “So can you like MacGyver it, like you did the Microscope?”

“Not really my field. I'm a chemist not a radio nut.” Norma said, taking another drink from her bottle, still trying to figure out where she'd heard that phrase.

“Charlie.” Henry called out. The ginger haired man from earlier, who had been talking to his wife, nodded and walked over.

“You're a bit of an audio buff, can we communicate with that guy?” Henry asked.

“I'd need to take a look.” Charlie said, already walking over to the Peters boy's turntables.

Norma left them to it and sat drinking her beer, looking at the faces of the crowd, the worried looks of parents comforting their bewildered children, the old folk who had features of resignation, as if they were just counting the moments down until inevitable oblivion. She herself felt angry and frustrated. Stephanie had told her before she left that going back to Duntreath would be bad for her, but Stephanie had been worried about painful memories, not some inter-dimensional leak that threatened everything. Norma thought she should try and call her, she needed to speak to her, just in case things got worse.

A hand rested on her shoulder. She looked up to see her mother. “You okay, Norma?”

Norma nodded. “Yeah Mum, I was just thinking, I need to call Stephanie, let her know I'm okay.”

Agnes frowned. “You sure you want to worry her unless there's reason?”

Norma hadn't considered that. While the situation might seem bleak, she wasn't yet ready to give up. She looked back over at Charlie and her father, who were bent over the now opened turntable. She put her beer down on the table and then stood up, kissed her mother on the cheek, giving her a hug and then said thanks. She then stood there, looking around the room again, thinking, trying to focus her brain on the matter at hand. There had to be something she could do.

A wail of feedback came out from the speakers and Charlie stood up and hissed something under his breath, shaking his head. “No use. We need more parts.”

Tommy, who'd been milling around the periphery of this DIY engineering project stood with his arms on his hips and asked “Couldn't we use something from the phones?”

Charlie's eyes lit up. “Brilliant idea! Why didn't I think of that?”

Charlie pulled out his own and Tommy offered his and before long the two of them were prised open. Charlie ducked down behind the turntables again and Norma walked over to see they'd already opened the amplifier and the wiry guts were spilled out. She was at a loss until she remembered that there was, in the kitchen, a roll of tin-foil. She had no idea if it would help but thought it better to do something than stay there.

She walked briskly into the kitchen area where there were three old women nattering and smoking including Clare McDonald. As they spotted her all three went quiet. Clare was the one to break the silence.

“We were just talking about you.” she said while opening her cigarette box to offer Norma one. Norma plucked a cigarette out with thanks and said “Oh aye?”

“You've got a handle on what's going on here.” said one of the other old woman, “How bad is it?”

Clare lit Norma's cigarette. She took a deep drag while she thought about how to answer. She exhaled. “Well, keep this to yourselves, we don't need people panicking but based on what I've seen, pretty bad.”

“I knew it!” Clare said. “What is that stuff?”

“Well it's difficult to explain and I might be guessing wildly, but that stuff is actually material from another universe.”

“What?” The old women said in unison, baffled by the statement.

Norma had expected the reaction. “I said it was difficult to explain but I think those guys at the old military base were doing experiments to tear open a hole in the fabric of our reality and this stuff leaked out.”

“God wouldn't let that happen.” The third old woman protested.

Norma felt herself having to physically hold her eyes in place, to stop them rolling. “Well...”

“Don't be so naive, Sheila.” Clare started. “You're believing in stupid fairy tales.”

Sheila took umbrage at that. “You don't know that. Just because I have faith in something doesn't mean I'm wrong.”

“Doesn't mean you're right either.” Clare snapped back, dismissively.

“It doesn't matter.” Norma said, before the two got into a heated theological debate.

“Then can it be stopped?” Sheila asked.

“I think so. The hole needs to be plugged. Earlier we heard that voice asking someone to close the aperture, and then cut power. I think that guy's trying. If we can contact him we might be able to get some answers, perhaps even help.”

“How? That stuff seems to be burning through everything.” the still nameless woman said.

“I don't know.” Norma confessed, thinking of the material just eroding its way through the surface of the earth. “I don't know.”

5.

She came back through to the hall with the other women to find quite a buzz of excitement. Apparently Charlie had managed to get the amplifier working as a radio transmitter. The main problem would be making it transmit at a frequency that could be picked up by, what they were assuming, was the guy at Mantik. Norma was a bit concerned about this until Charlie revealed he had used the phone's CPU and number keys to act as a sort of dial which could change the frequency of the transmission. She marvelled at his ingenuity and complimented him on his quick thinking. Charlie was quite chuffed.

The only thing left to do was test it out. The next time the broadcast cut into the speakers Henry picked up the microphone. “Hello?!”

No response. Charlie began changing the frequency. Ne nodded and Henry repeated. “Hello?”

Again there was no response, again they repeated the procedure. This went on several times until eventually the voice said “Hello? Which Section is this?”

“Listen son,” Henry began. “This is not a station. My name is Henry Jenkins and I'm stuck here in Duntreath Community Centre with dozens of people. Were stuck in here because whatever you clowns did has spread out and is tearing everything apart.”

“Sir, if you are not authorised to be on this channel I would ask that...”

“Listen to me. You need to do something and fast. This stuff is going to kill us all, it's already leaking into the hall.” Henry said, angrily.

Norma winced as a ripple of anxious fear washed across the room. She walked over to her father. “Dad… let me.”

Henry was already red faced and losing his temper. He handed over the microphone. “Hello. My Name is Norma I am working under the assumption that you have managed to achieve a localised and stable gravitational collapse. Is that correct.”

“Ma'am I'm afraid that is classified, I ask that you leave this frequency open.”

“Your teams are all dead, I'm surprised you're not dead. You've allowed unstable exotic matter to pour out of this hole, it's destroying everything it touches at an atomic level. Do you understand what I'm saying to you.”

“Yes.” the voice replied, grimly, with a sense of depressed finality.

“Then you appreciate that this is not going to end well for anyone if we do not stabilise the material.”

“That is what I'm attempting to do, to get the power turned off and the aperture closed.”

“You have to assume there is no one else to help you. Can you do anything?”

There was a long pause. “Hello?” Norma asked.

“Yes.. I'm thinking.” The voice replied. “I—I could attempt to change the electromagnetic resonance to try and get the material in phase but that is not without risk. If I use the wrong setting it could accelerate the process. Even if I get it right then...”

He stopped. There was a deep sigh came through. “If the material stabilises then it will be an intrusion point for those from Tír nAill.”

“Explain.” Norma demanded.

“The wormhole was opened into a stable dimension, not unlike ours, but with it's own flora and fauna, it's own intelligent life. They're smart and duplicitous when not outright hostile.” He explained

“That is less of a risk than this stuff cracking open the surface of the earth like an egg, no?” Norma asked.

“Sure, but if I do this, if we can get it stable, I need others to shut down the power and close the aperture. If not their world will just supplant our own.” The voice replied.

“You get it in phase, I'll get it done. You're in Mantik, right?” Norma asked.

“Yeah.” He said.

“Fine. Start the process.”

“Okay. I'm scared, this could go so wrong.” he said, his voice trembling.

“What's your name, honey?” Norma asked.

My name is Geoff, Geoff Sanders.”

“Well Geoff, look on the bright side, not everyone gets a chance to try and save the world.”

He gave a weak laugh. “Yeah. Okay. I'm going to start this now. If it goes wrong, please know I'm sorry.”

“Go for it Geoff.” Norma said.

There was a moment of silence followed by what sounded like distant thunder. After two or three seconds it seemed like the entire world stuttered and then, once again was silence.

“Look!” shouted Kelly, pointing where the corrosion had being growing under the door. It had been replaced by sprouts of vibrant green grass. Norma felt like she might float off the ground she was so relieved. She lifted the microphone “Geoff?”

“Norma, I've changed it. Did it work?”

“It appears so, good job. You just saved the world.”

A sigh of relief came through the speakers. “Thank God.”

There was excited chatter coming from the hall, some relieved crying and a collective “yes” from many people. Norma felt her dad pat her on her back and for a moment there was a little of the party atmosphere. Geoff could hear it and gave a laugh which came out the speakers. People were smiling again. It felt good. Norma still felt some reticence about celebrating too soon, her mind was already on the job ahead. She needed to go to Mantik and shut down the portal.

She lifted the microphone and said, quietly “Stay put Geoff, I'm coming for you. Give me a minute to get a pen and paper and you can tell me what I need to do.”

“Okay.” The voice coming through the speaker said.

As Norma was searching for a pen, she noticed Tommy and some others were pulling the tables off the door. She needed to check outside, but was confident it was stable out there, but she had to look, just to make sure, to see what she was going to be dealing with. The doors opened and there was laughter as the men looked out. She craned her neck over one of the men's shoulders to see a glorious dusk and the hills, cracked streets and broken houses covered in greenery, a kind of alien greenery that looked more like something from the cover of a fantasy novel rather than natural trees, grass, flowers and vines. It was breathtaking, beautiful and utterly weird.

A few of the men stood there admiring the view but Norma went back to finding a pen. She located one after asking her mother, who had a Biro in her purse. She handed it over and Norma went back to get instructions from Geoff.

“Geoff, I've got a pen, so tell me where I need to go.”

There was no answer. She tried again but still got no response. She checked to see if the system was still on, it was. The silence began to worry Norma a bit but she persisted even while she noticed many of the others in the hall were being beckoned towards the doors to look at something. That feeling in her stomach began again, that plummeting nausea.

“Geoff!” she hissed, insistently.

There was a croaking whisper. “I can hear them, they're out there.”

“Who is out there?” She asked.

“The other ones, the ones from Tír nAill. I need to hide.” Geoff said, his voice trembling.

The flashes of light out of the corner of her eyes caught her attention. She turned to see people taking photographs. They were excited about something out there. Norma dropped the microphone and began to walk towards the door, even as some people began to slowly back away. She quickened her pace as her Dad said “Christ. Move. Close the door.”

Everyone was dashing past her as she kept going, catching a glimpse of something big, dark and fast racing towards the centre. It was roaring, holding something gleaming and sharp looking which slammed into the door just as it was closed.

There was some screams and from outside she heard a rough growling shout, in a language, of some kind. Whatever it was it bounced itself against the door, continuing its angry incoherent demands. She grabbed a phone from one of the guests so she might get a better idea of what the thing was.

The creature was an anthropoid of some variety, with a dark greyish skin which resembled bark. It was dressed in some kind of loose black garment which covered the torso but not the long hanging arms which went down to the knees of it's equally out-sized and muscular legs. Those hands held implements which looked like meat-cleavers. It's face, grey and wizened, had subtle features, a hint of nostril and a long dark bloody looking slit instead of obvious eyes. The only identifiable similarity to that of a human was its mouth, though sporting two sharp tusks on the bottom. It also had long dank strands of black hair, almost like dreadlocks, and a full black beard.

“I recognise some of what that thing is saying.” Clare McDonald said. “It's Gaelic, at least, a form of Gaelic.”

“What?” Henry Jenkins said.

“Aye, my mother was a fluent speaker, I picked a bit of it up when I was a kid.” She added.

Norma heard this but was almost hypnotised by the image, from the looks of it the thing was eight feet tall. She couldn't take her eyes off it even when her father began talking to her. There was something more in the photograph, something she couldn't quite make out.

“Norma!” he said, his voice loud enough to snap her out of it. “Give Betty her phone back.”

It took her a moment to figure out what he was talking about before she realised and handed back the phone to the woman she snatched if from, apologising for her rudeness. Once that was done her father asked her what she thought it was. Norma shrugged. “Some kind of alien thing.”

“I know that.” Henry said impatiently. “What I mean is, is it a threat?”

“It attacked us so I think it's safe to say it's hostile. However, at least it's physical.”

“What's that supposed to mean?” Henry asked

“It means, Dad, that it is likely that it can be hurt, captured or even killed.” she sighed.

“You think that's necessary?” Henry asked.

Norma was beginning to lose patience. “I don't know.” she sighed again. “Probably, Geoff seems to think they're dangerous.

It was then she remembered Geoff and walked back over to the DJ booth. She picked up the microphone and spoke again. “Geoff, are you still there?”

There was, once more, no answer. This time, no matter how insistent she was, Geoff did not reply. She worried that he'd been caught by one of those things. The others, he'd called them, not aliens she realised, others. Others that spoke some kind of Gaelic, others that were called forth from another place, using old standing stones apparently.

“Oh my God.” she gasped. “I know what they are.”