BLACK + BEYOND: Event Horizon (BOOK 1!)
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CHAPTER ONE
Sarah was thinking about the color black as she used her keycard to enter the lab. Specifically, she was thinking about how most people thought of black as the absence of all color but in fact black was actually the absorption of all color. That was a radically different thing, she thought.
Her friends teased her mercilessly about her obsessions on topics like these. Invariably Sarah would bring virtually any conversation around to black holes.
It wasn’t her fault she had been obsessed with black holes since childhood. She didn’t even remember how she first became aware of what a black hole was. They were always just there. Exciting. Mysterious. Tantalizing.
And now that she had joined the university’s physics department as the youngest ever female recipient of the Goldenspire Fellowship award, she could finally study them to her heart’s content and actually get paid for it!
She’d been here for two years so far, in Professor Jax’s lab. It was the first place she had felt truly at home since her parents died in a car accident when she was 14. She’d survived the crash, albeit with significant injuries, because of being in the back seat, but her parents had died instantly.
She’d gone to live with her grandparents on the other side of the country after the accident. They were kind and loving people, but having lived far from them in her earlier years, she had never felt close with them. Coupled with having had to transfer to a new high school due to the move and her long painful recovery from her injuries, her sense of isolation was greatly amplified. She hadn’t minded really. Losing herself in books and study was how she coped with losing her parents.
A sudden memory popped into her mind of her and her grandfather Poppy out in the backyard at night fiddling with the new telescope he had bought for her. Her Nana had questioned the wisdom of allowing Sarah to dive so deeply into her obsession, but Poppy was a big time space nut already and the two spent hours studying star charts, checking out NASA images online, and stargazing in the backyard.
These were sweet memories for Sarah, islands of peace in the tumult of trying to find a place in her new school without the usual structure of team sports now closed to her due to injury and the absence of some of the advanced class options her old school had.
Eventually the school counselor had recommended she enter a special program with the local community college allowing her to take college classes to finish high school early, which ultimately led her to be here now, two years into her graduate degree at only 22.
Now she brought her thoughts back to the lab as she entered, placing her coat and rainbow scarf in her locker. Just because she was obsessed with black holes didn’t mean she wore a lot of black. She liked all the colors that black could absorb!
Samuel greeted her cheerily. One of the core senior student researchers in Jax’s lab, he was a kind and quiet young man with dark straight hair he wore slightly long, often creating a curtain over his eyes when he bent over studying his work.
Now he brushed his hair aside, coming over to meet her with a paper in his hand.
“Guess what?!”
Before she could respond, he breathlessly continued.
“Hughes won’t be lecturing at tonight’s Grant Hall session! You’re not gonna believe who we have instead!”
He was practically levitating as he bounced on his soles in front of her.
“Sebastian Black!” he proclaimed with a huge grin.
“What? WOW… what happened to Hughes?”
“Who CARES! Sebastian Black!!!! It turns out Jax KNOWS him! They’re friends!!”
Sebastian Black was a bit of a mythic character in certain circles. A prolific inventor and allegedly self-taught computer genius, Black had created one of the earliest massive multiplayer online role-playing computer games at only 18. His MMORPG, as they became known, was wildly popular from the start due in large part to Black’s imaginative genius in creating a truly epic fantasy world, skill for creating visual graphics with an unprecedented immersive sensation of realism, and his wholehearted devotion to constant improvements. Ultimately one of the global game companies purchased it from him in a deal that was rumored to have netted Black a hefty sum in the multi-millions range, the first such deal of its time.
But Black was reclusive by nature and little was known about him personally. He’d dropped off the radar after the company sale despite an ongoing devoted fan base sharing rumors of him online in various forums.
Sarah was not a gamer but she remembered when the sale happened. It was just before her parents died. Boys she knew were totally hooked on Dragon Fire, as the game was called, and followed news about Black obsessively, so the sale was a brief firestorm of activity in her social circles, some lamenting the buyout’s expected effect on degrading the game or increasing prices while others were enthusiastic at the bigger backer’s ability to expand and grow the world and resources needed to run such a massive computer system.
“We’re all going now for sure!” proclaimed Samuel referring to the other core senior students in Jax’s research group.
“And you should come with us.” he followed up a bit more shyly.
“Well, wow, of course I’ll be there, but I’m supposed to meet Lexi tonight, so I may just have to see you there.”
The pair soon settled into the usual rhythms of their lab work, studious and quiet, as the day passed quickly by.
Before she knew it, late afternoon arrived and with it the time to pack up and head back to her place to meet Lexi, her roommate and best friend.
As she walked home, following the narrow pathway through the campus, past open green fields and past forested areas, the small city’s taller buildings visible in the distance, Sarah noticed the sky was filling with dark clouds threatening rain. She hoped for a full-on thunder and lightning storm as she had always loved the majesty and power of them.
But back at her grad student housing provided apartment, she did not find her brilliant and bubbly roommate. Instead, she found a note.
Sarah laughed as she realized Lexi already had the news about Sebastian Black. Of course she did! She’d gone ahead to secure them both seats knowing the crowd would swell as word continued to get around.
She went into her room, pausing, deciding if she should change her clothes but decided against it.
Instead, with a quick glance in the mirror, meeting the gaze of her own large, slightly almond-shaped blue and green hazel eyes, she ran her hands through her long dark curls and nodded in approval of her clear skin, make-up free as always.
At the door she grabbed her rain jacket and headed out into the building up storm, rain spattering down in giant fat drops as she trekked to the talk.
CHAPTER TWO
Sarah came in from the rain into the open commons area of Grant Hall. She had been a grad student here for a couple of years already but hadn’t yet attended one of these new monthly Friday night talks held at Grant.
Black was a mysterious figure but revered in the science and tech communities for his innovations and inventions especially since he had allegedly never gone to grad school or had professional studies himself, a fact which always caused debate and mild controversy.
Sarah moved into the large hall, stepping to the side of the door to shake herself off a bit as she pushed back her hood and unzipped her coat. Others were busy shaking out umbrellas or laying them off to the side on the floor to dry open, but Sarah had never bothered with umbrellas. She loved the rain and only wore a hood and jacket so she wouldn’t stay wet after walking in. Darn inconvenient after all to try and pay attention to your professor’s lecture on the intricacies of quantum mechanics while water drips down your face and neck.
The hall was filled with a jumble of chairs and small tables all bunched closer together than usual by the far side. The hall itself was round, with a central opening in the floor where a spiral staircase went down to the lower levels of labs and study areas. On the far side of this was a small lectern with a microphone standing on its own that someone had placed there. Typically small chairs and tables were spread all across the main rotunda but now Sarah could see that people had been pulling these over towards the podium area for a closer view.
Scanning the crowd, Sarah could see people of many ages here, she saw some younger students, probably undergrads although she thought some looked even younger, perhaps from the local high school? Much of the growing crowd were in their early twenties like herself who were most likely also grad students but there was also a fair amount of older adults who were probably professors or even for this particular night, folks from the surrounding community drawn in by the curiosity of a rare Black appearance. Word seemed to have spread far.
An orange clad arm shot up from the jumble of people and Sarah could make out her roommate Lexi waving to her. She made her way over to where Lexi had stacked her book bag and coat on, and was aggressively guarding, an empty chair. Hugging her roommate, Sarah dumped her own bag onto the floor along with Lexi’s gear and sat down.
“Oh, look! Here comes Professor Jax now!” Lexi exclaimed clapping her hands together excitedly.
Professor Jax was a large ramshackle of a man, easily 6’5” or taller, with wide sloping shoulders and a barrel body. Rumor was he had played football for a scholarship to college and you could believe it looking at the man’s size alone. Age had softened his edges and he now seemed like a comfortable giant teddy bear, soft and fuzzy like the blue sweater he wore.
Jax tapped the microphone with his finger and a loud PTT PTT sound reverberated and the crowd’s chatter dimmed quickly as all turned to pay attention.
“Hello everyone! Wonderful to see so many turn out for our last minute surprise guest!
“These monthly lectures have been a passion project that I and Jolly, Hannah, and Samuel from my lab put together as a lark last year but they seem to have grown in popularity so we will keep them coming!
“You may know that tonight’s guest was intended to be Professor Hughes here to discuss his latest research on mathematical models for string theory which I am sure it will disappoint you all to hear won’t be tonight’s topic after all.”
Good natured laughter swelled around the room and few hoots and hollers suggested that while the crowd held Hughes in affection, they largely had not turned out for his talk at all.
“I was at my wits end about what to do for his replacement when I received a call from my old dear friend Sebastian Black. He agreed to join us last minute provided we didn’t advertise it at all. So, to whomever heard about this and started spreading flyers around…” here he paused, glaring around the crowd in a manner that suddenly reminded them what it might be like to be on the receiving end of one of his college days tackles.
“Well, don’t do that again, folks,” he concluded, “or we can’t get people to trust us and show up when they don’t want all the fanfare!”
Black was notoriously private and almost nothing was known about him, his life, his whereabouts or much of anything. It was news to everyone there that Jax and Black were friends although when he mentioned it, while eyebrows had shot up in surprise, they were just as often followed quickly with little murmuring nods because it did make sense to those who knew the affable and brilliant professor that they would somehow know each other.
Now Jax turned to a man seated in a chair near him, nodding and saying,
“Our guest needs no introduction but I will mangle one for him anyway!
“Sebastian Black is a man of many interests and accomplishments, some of them known and some of them unknown. His wide range of experiences have included his well known inventions in quantum computing, advances which have made new technologies possible that we only dreamt of as pure science fiction even just a few years ago.
“Indeed, science fiction has long been a source of inspiration for many of us in the science and technology worlds. Of course you are all aware of the game he created, Dragon Fire, but Sebastian is also a published sci fi writer -“ here gasps arose in the crowd as this was not known - “and no, I will not tell you his pen name, but you have definitely read some of his work, I guarantee that!
“In his early days, Sebastian did many odd jobs to pay the bills. He was a bus boy in a local restaurant at age 15 and parked cars for the valet at the Park Regal. My favorite of his many mini careers was as a tattooist…”
Sarah stopped hearing Jax at this moment as her attention was fully taken by the younger man now standing at Jax’s side.
He was also tall, maybe just an inch or so shorter than Jax himself. Far leaner and somehow a mix of ranginess and strength, he had a good natured face, a slight smile curling his lip as he listened to Jax.
He had turned his head a bit to gaze out on the crowd. His eyes and Sarah’s suddenly caught each other which was when Sarah had stopped hearing Jax.
In fact the whole room seemed to fall away and it was just her and this man, outside of time and space.
His eyes pulled her in.
They were a pale brown, nearly yellow, like a rich honey in sunlight and they held the faintest shimmer of green as well. These colors seemed to almost swirl, as if distinctly alive in their own right. His lashes were full and brown, their darker color framing his eyes more effectively than any makeup would have and making them jump out as his most prominent feature despite a strong nose and a full but firm jawline.
His face was broad and open in appearance with a wide mouth and full lips that made something inside Sarah suddenly shiver involuntarily.
Her body’s tremor seemed to pull her back into the room and into the moment.
She and the man still locked eyes and now his slight smile widened more, his eyes crinkling slightly as the smile reached them.
She found herself smiling too and noticing a warm glow rushing through her body as she leaned back in her chair. She thought she might start purring under his gaze.
And Jax was talking.
“… he was most famous as a tattooist for his own self-designed dragon tattoos which he refused to duplicate for others no matter the offered price…”
Sarah mouthed to Black, for she now understood this was Sebastian Black himself with whom she was engaged in this unusual across-the-room flirtation or whatever it was, “I’d liked to see those….”
And he mouthed back “and so you shall” at which the warmth in her body seemed to catch fire and she nearly giggled out loud from the delight of it.
It had seemed to her that she had heard him say this inside her head not just watched his lips lightly form the word shapes.
“… fortunately for all of us, Sebastian’s unwillingness to share his dragon art ended his temporary tattoo artist career and he turned more directly to technology and science. And the rest, as they say, is history. Without further ado, I give you my friend, Sebastian Black!”
And here Jax turned to face Black, his arm held out to embrace the younger man as he stepped forward towards him. The two hugged briefly and then Jax stepped back and took a seat to the side as Black stepped forward to the mic.
And when Black began speaking, Sarah realized his voice sounded exactly as she had just imagined it.
CHAPTER THREE
Black’s talk was absolutely brilliant. Charming and self-deprecating, with a liberal sprinkling of humor, Black held the crowd in the palm of his hand as he regaled them with tales from his inventions, from the Dragon Fire buy out - his first engagement with venture capital - and hinted at his latest, still mysterious project.
Throughout the talk, Sarah found it hard to focus on his words despite how engaging he was.
Her body seemed to be taking over with a mind of its own and was sending unfamiliar rippling and shivering sensations throughout itself from her core all the way to her fingers and toes.
In fact, it took a bit of effort for Sarah to hide these from being visible to those around her. Not that anyone was paying attention to her.
She had never experienced anything like this and wasn’t sure what to make of the unsettling yet largely enjoyable feelings.
At one point, eyes fixed on Black, Lexi had leaned in sideways towards Sarah’s ear, whispering “Hubba hubba!”
Lexi’s exploits and flirtations with men were legendary in Sarah’s mind, who had very little experience in this department. A serial monogamist, Lexi was currently embroiled in a passionate love affair with a musician. As she always declared, however, a little “window shopping” never killed anyone and she continued in her rapt observation of Black.
Sarah had always enjoyed Lexi’s tales of her love life, content to experience romance more vicariously through her. She just simply had never really felt the pull towards any men in the way Lexi described and had always been content with her studies and her typically solitary forays out into the surrounding forests and mountains for time in nature, the only place where her extremely busy brain seemed to go into quiet mode.
But the effect Black was having on her tonight could not be denied.
This must be what Lexi means, she mused to herself.
She tried to mentally keep up with Black’s talk but found she could not.
Instead, she kept getting lost in the man himself with shocking mini-fantasies erupting unlike any she’d ever had.
She longed to tousle his thick dark blonde hair and run her fingers through it. It was pretty unruly already, carelessly falling in various wavy directions around his head and framing his face.
She couldn’t decide if she was more enraptured by his eyes or his mouth.
Periodically as he spoke, his eyes gazing out around the crowd, he would return to her and they would lock eyes, sending her time and time again into an inner tumble of sensations through her body and the feeling of being somehow outside of the hall and alone with just him.
Suddenly the hall erupted in clapping, hooting, and cheering as everyone jumped to their feet in standing ovation.
Black’s talk was done.
She was stuck in her chair, momentarily stunned and unable to move.
But the standing crowd had disrupted her view of him. She could no longer see his face at all in the crowd.
Lexi looked down at her from her own standing position as she wolf-whistled, thumb and index finger curled together at her lips amplifying her sound.
Lexi’s puzzled expression suddenly cleared and she started laughing.
Turning fully to Sarah, Lexi bent over and grabbed both her hands, hauling her to her feet.
Sarah felt unsteady and wondered if her sensation of swaying was noticeable.
Lexi had to lean in to her ear to be heard over the crowd.
“Oooh girl! You got it bad for Mr. Hottie Black!!!
“FINALLY, someone who gets your motor going!”
Sarah’s face immediately flushed with heat, Lexi laughing even louder as the redness crept across her cheeks and throat.
Not unkindly though, Lexi placed her arm around her friend’s shoulders to steady her as she could feel the trembling through their hands.
“You should go up and meet him!”
Sarah gasped at the idea in horror.
Having lost the visual connection between herself and Black, she felt her own more usual sense of self returning and there was no way on this beautiful green Earth she was going to wade through the crowd surging towards Black now to try and squeeze to the front to meet him.
There was literally no way that was ever going to happen.
She shook her head vigorously at Lexi now, steadiness returning to her legs.
“That is NO WAY gonna happen, Lex. NO WAY.”
Lexi started laughing again.
She found Sarah’s shyness with men hilarious and inexplicable. After all, she routinely saw other men notice Sarah wherever they went. She was a true classic beauty even though she didn’t seem to notice.
Lexi shrugged in defeat.
“Alright then, girl, let’s get you out of here in one piece anyway. We are gonna need to DISCUSS this new development in great detail!”
Sarah groaned. Listening to Lexi’s exploits was one thing. Being the subject of her sharp analysis and insight was an entirely different story.
They both leaned down to gather up their bags and coats and moved out into the makeshift aisle and towards the entrance to hall, away from the crowd still milling about, abuzz and active.
Looking back over her shoulder, Sarah could see a considerable throng of people gathered around Jax and Black still, both of whom she could just identify by the tops of their heads showing thanks to the height of both men.
Turning forward again, Sarah signed, remembering the heat and glow in her body.
Maybe it wouldn’t be such a bad thing to get Lexi’s thoughts on this anyway. She needed to understand what this was.
They headed out of the hall into the night which was no clear, the storm having passed.
A few stars peeked through the growing cloud breaks, twinkling their brilliant light.
Sarah paused for a moment, her gaze upwards to the stars.
Now that was a place where she felt comfortable and at ease.
She sucked in a deep breath and Lexi companionably hooked her hand and arm through Sarah’s arm and the two women began the trek home.
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