Novels2Search
The Shimmer
First Interlude

First Interlude

From the desk of Captain Kia Singh, Office of Public Affairs

Press Liaison for Operation Strange Egress.

The following is a collection of transcripts from public media sources ranging from 1-6 hours post-Egress.

Transcript One: Live Coverage, Vancouver-based news organization TTV from 14:52 (Two hours, fourteen minutes post-Egress.)

Alice South

It’s now been two hours since the attack on Annacis Island, and since our own reporter on-the-scene, Faye Wong, went missing. Officials are still keeping the details close to heart. TTV has reached out to government, police and political officials and have yet to receive any answers.

In an effort to understand what’s happening, TTV has reached out to the University of British Columbia’s Physics Department, and we have Professor of Physics, Takemichi Ono here in the studio to discuss. Welcome, Professor.

Professor Ono

Thank you for inviting me, Alice.

Alice South

Professor, I’m sure you’ve seen the TTV live coverage of the event that some on social media are referring to as the Annacis Egress?

Professor Ono

I have. I’ve also watched a recording of Faye Wong’s livestream. News spread very quickly.

Alice South

Professor… what is it we witnessed today?

Professor Ono

I couldn’t tell you. It’s far too early to make sense of what we saw, let alone vouch for its authenticity.

Alice South

Well I would say that the official silence on the matter is enough to suggest that what we saw was real. Our production team is still unaccounted for, and any access to the island has been cut off entirely, and the nearby airspace restricted. Despite that, the top of the tree is clearly visible from as far away as Twenty-Second Street Station in New Westminster. If that really was, like many are choosing to believe, an elaborate hoax, why the silence?

Professor Ono

My concern isn’t the silence of the authorities on the matter, Alice. I can understand their silence. My concern isn’t even what came out of that tree. Dragons, giant wolves are easy enough to swallow. But that tree. The speed at which it grew. And the… apparent portal. That’s sort of a big deal.

Alice South

How so?

Professor Ono

Look, the people that came out of the tree looked… medieval, for lack of a better term. No mechanized units, no guns that we could tell. Just bows and arrows and beasts of burden. And yet they, if they’re the creators of this tree, did something that… well, completely disregarded the known laws of physics, and I expect biology as well.

Unauthorized duplication: this narrative has been taken without consent. Report sightings.

Alice South

Biology?

Professor Ono

Well, biology isn’t my specialty, but I expect if we were to ask a biologist if there’s any precedent for rapid growth of that nature, and what it produced, they’d be hard-pressed to find an answer. What we witnessed is, in a word, impossible.

Alice South

And yet it has been independently confirmed by several eyewitness accounts who have corroborated that two officers lost their lives in an attempt to rescue hostages from the invaders.

Professor Ono

That’s what frightens me. The fact that it is impossible, and yet there is evidence of it. Now I don’t know if what we witnessed can be taken at face value, but I can tell you that many in the scientific community are trying to wrap their heads around it. But if it was exactly as we saw, that a portal did open up, and human beings from another world flooded through it, then it means two things. First, that everything we know about history and science needs to be reconsidered, but even more dire than that… it breaks the very nature of mathematics.

Alice South

Mathematics?

Professor Ono

Without getting lost in the details, you can consider mathematics to be a programming language for the universe itself. It’s part of the universe’s structure, we can’t do anything to change it. We can only describe it, interpret it. They, whoever they are, may have learned to alter the laws of mathematics itself, which means they are capable of performing the impossible.

Alice South

Could it be possible that what we’re seeing is magic?

Professor Ono

Magic is the realm of superstition and fairy tales. It has no place in science and mathematics. And yet I have to concede that, with the evidence as it is, it seems like it could be one possible explanation. But if that turns out to be true, it means that everything we thought we understood about mathematics and science is wrong.

Transcript Two: The Bill Brogan Podcast, Episode 137 (Broadcasted at 16:00, three hours, twenty-two minutes post-Egress)

So, you guys seen this thing in the news in Canada? It’s been lighting up social media the past couple of hours, and I gotta say it’s wild. Apparently somewhere in Vancouver, a bunch of guys looking like rejects from a LARPer convention went crazy and started killing people.

And that’s not even the crazy part. The crazy part is that they came out of a tree that wasn’t there minutes before and they were riding dragons and shit. Yeah, you heard me right: dragons.

Now I don’t know what this is all about, but I’m telling you if this is some kind of viral marketing campaign for the next Game of Thrones series, I’m all about it. There’s some footage floating around on Twitter with hashtag… uhh… Annacis Egress, and it’s the craziest shit I’ve ever seen. People dyin’. Dragons flyin’.

Now it’s gotta be bullshit, right? That shit doesn’t happen. Especially not in Canada. When was the last time anything ever happened up there? If that shit’s going to go down, it’ll happen right on the White House lawn like Hollywood tells us. The most exciting thing to happen in Canada recent is a horny moose holding up a Tim Horton’s drive-through.

But let’s be real here for a minute. From what I saw, people are really taking this seriously. And I’m not sure if it’s a bunch of people who like… want to believe in dragons and portals and stuff, or if there’s legitimately something to it. Hell, I don’t even know where I stand on it. I mean it’d be pretty sick, right? Dragons are fuckin’ awesome. But people dying? Not so much.

Because if dragons come to life at the expense of human lives, I’m not so sure I want that.

Could be bullshit. But if it’s real, that’s a moment, right? A turning point in human history? The day we learned we had it all wrong? That there’s other people out there, and they can open fucking portals?

I dunno I’m pretty torn on all this. I want it to be real in a way, but I’m also terrified of that prospect. Let’s just say… life would be less complicated if it was fake.

Transcript Three: The Minuteman Podcast (Broadcasted at 16:30 PDT, three hours, fifty-two minutes post-Egress)

The elites have finally gone over-the-top! They’ve jumped the shark. How they could expect anyone to believe this sort of nonsense is almost as mind-blowing as the fact that so many useful idiots actually do. What can I say, folks, some people don’t just accept the wool over their eyes, they jump into it head first.

Magic portals and dragons. Whatever kind of psyop nonsense they’re getting up to, this has to be, by far, the most ridiculous attempt to distract us from the truth! You and I both know the truth, viewers. There’s no magic portal. No dragons. No giant wolves! Apparent eyewitness reports from the scene are crisis actors, and people on social media who say otherwise are nothing more than paid Russian shills and useful idiots!

The truth, folks, is that the elites have such disdain for us that they’re not even trying anymore. They think we’ll just eat this up, but no! This is too far! I’m calling it now! First there was the culture wars! Then they thought they could trip us up with COVID-19! But this is beyond the pale.

So now it’s time to fight back, folks! And the best way to fight the elites is to show them that we don’t need them! Be sure to visit the website and buy our new water filters and vitamin supplements for the lowest price we’ve ever offered and be part of the fight against the New World Order!