I chuckle again.  Can my constant chuckling be a primary stage of madness?  Am I going crazy?  This time I laugh outright.
  If looks could kill I would die a million slow and torturous deaths.
  I smile.
  Ignoring me Knox continues as if at least for his own sake.
  "The auto guidance system should bring you back within three minutes.  The Vortex is equiped with enough air to last you one full  hour.  Remember this: The Vortex is the only way for you to return to our reality, our present.  Don't try to escape or you may drift in eternity forever."
  With these forboding words, Knox, the inventor of the Vortex machine leaves.  Again, the whisper of hydraulics and I am alone again.
  A blue light flashes on the panel in front of me.  Slowly, the canopy closes and locks.
00:00:58
The timer has begun again.
  I panic.  I strain against the straps.  Useless.
  When I volunteered for this project (Trust, when an offer like this comes to some one like me, a convict on death row, you take it.  Especially if a full unconditional pardon and half a million dollars are thrown into the mix.) the reason for my being there in he first place was made clear to me.  Not that they told me anything directly, after all I am just a dumb con.  Right?  No, I had to play dumb, stay quiet and listen.  It never fails, people tend to talk too much and eventually I hear some things that I shouldn't.       They had sent several monkeys through and the machine had always reappeared.  The monkeys were always missing.  Strangely, the onboard recording devices did not work once the machine travelled; all information pertaining to events surrounding each trip would be unexplicablly erased from the Vortex's  computer banks.  That was when they decided on having a human traveller.  They settled on someone expendable.  They settled on me.
  There is something. . . something gnawing on the far horizon of my mind.  What is it?  Yeah. . . that's it.  Somewhere among all the information I gathered I remember something about an eject button.  Yes, underneath the left armrest.
  I strain to reach the button.
00:00:22
I can barely feel the button with the tips of my finger.  Why did they place the button in such an awkward location?  Oh, they must have had a willing unstrapped passenger in mind.  Ah!  There it is!  reaching the button I depress it.
  The canopy flies off and the seat carries me out of the metallic behemoth.  Looking up I see the metallic ceiling of the underground compound fast approaching.  I shift my weight to turn the seat upside down decelerating my upward momentum.  The underside of the seat crashes into the ceiling and I begin to fall.
  Small jets kick in and attempt to starighten and upright the seat as parachutes are deployed too late.
  I land hard and miraculously nothing seems to be broken.  More importantly the straps have losened enough to allow me some movement.  Quickly, I free myself.  Turning, I look for an escape route and freeze.  The Vortex is no longer on the floor.
00:00:05
In the time after my ejection the Vortex had levitated ten feet off the floor and is now spinning, as if fixed upon a central axis, in slow counter-clockwise circles.
00:00:04
The air around the Vortex seems to distort.
00:00:03
A soft golden red glow exudes from the Vortex.
Certain Things Are Likely page 1 2 3
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