All Strings Attached

-All-strings-attached-

A science fiction novel based on Stephen Hawking’s string theory

Written by Carl Delprat Storymaker.

© Copyright 2015 Carl Delprat.

Cover design painted in acrylic by Carl Delprat. (04/01/15).

Yes, you can judge a book by its cover.

This story’s all for Dora Hogan, and what a wonderful woman she was.

And a big thanks to Herb, Carmel and Carmen.

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This e-book is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This e-book may not be resold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to your favourite e-book retailer and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

ISBN 978-0-9807377-4-5

This first edition completed 20th May 2015

This e-book is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This e-book may not be resold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to your favorite e-book retailer and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

As per all fiction I have written, any resemblance to persons living or dead is purely accidental and with no intention of insult or offence.

Note: My stories are in Australian English, and … indicates talking while ‘…’ signifies thinking.

Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

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Other excellent stories by Carl Delprat are ~

31 LAMAN STREET. Is where an evil ghost wreaks havoc amongst the locals.

THE THREE TREES. An international serial murder mystery set in the 1950’s.

GIRL SOLDIERS. A futuristic global adventure where the girls have taken over.

THE STORY OF ANNIE. The long life of a MG-TC roadster.

THE TWO BROTHERS. A crime and passion novel with a serial killer on the loose.

A FEED OF FISH WITH FREDDY. A chocolate box selection of short stories.

DREAMMAN. Is where a young man uses his dreams to fight for good over evil.

WHAT ABOUT MADELYN? A political catfight between two rivals.

THE HARPSICHORD MAN. A tale about a criminal harpsichord builder.

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Contents

About Carl Delprat, Storymaker

Other titles by Carl Delprat

A word from the author

Chapter 1: The Dragline incident

Chapter 2: Alterations

Chapter 3: A gaggle of geese

Chapter 4: Now you see it, now you don’t

Chapter 5: I’m on holidays

Chapter 6: Visit the ‘Hunter Valley’

Chapter 7: The Professor talks

Chapter 8: Gone to ground

Chapter 9: On the run

Chapter 10: The Dé-jà-vous

Chapter 11: Return mail

Chapter 12: Hunter Valley reunion

Chapter 13: When too much is not enough

Chapter 14: Lady with the answers

Chapter 15: Meanwhile back at the next brane

Chapter 16: Run for your life

Chapter 17: Hiding out in Stockton

Chapter 18: Double or nothing

Chapter 19: Flight and fight

Chapter 20: Trev and Julie make out

Chapter 21: Share an egg with friends

A word from the author~

The idea of All Strings Attached came to me after visiting an open cut coalmine outside of Cessnock.

I was once a manager of a large foundry at the time and some of our castings were used in dragline construction.

To watch one of these monstrous machines in action is a jaw dropping experience.

They crawl about using two great eccentric wheels that slightly lift then slide this huge structure in various directions.

A bucket, big enough to contain a car is hung from its great crane like jib … then dropped to ground and dragged backwards to scratch away the surface, and giant Euclid trucks wait nearby for loading. Reader: You must look this up on your computer.

Within such a setting, I wondered what could my monstrous machine uncover?

Well how old is coal, and what if something very strange had been buried back when these coal seams were just rotting forests, way back in Permian times, way back around 250 million years ago?

And what if this dragline happened to … find it? …

Right!

Uncover a ‘something’ buried for all this time? So lets tie it all together with … tie-it-with-string, yes tie it together with Stephan Hawkins’s string theory, that goes all the way back to the ‘Big-bang’ and that’s about as far back as we can currently go . . . Now I’ve got hold of a story.

Well Dear Reader, slip your spurs on and … get ready to ride through the wacky world of quantum physics.

Don’t be afraid because it’s all around us ... yes its everywhere … and there’s nothing you or I can do about it. Anyway, I can’t understand most of it and the characters told me what to write . . . so don’t be faint-hearted.

There are great adventures ahead, and sex yes sex is very important because … if all goes to plan … we are about to experience a change in the human DNA.

Parallel universes and … rides on motorbikes … and people on the run … and very advanced dinosaurs? Well … now … you just must … come and have a look.

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Readers please note: All-Strings-Attached is written in two fonts. ‘Times New Roma’ and ‘Calibri.’ The reason being this is a parallel set of quantum physics stories. From Chapter 10 onwards Calibri appears and that font will indicate what ‘brane’ or parallel universe the story is now set.

Chapter 1: The Dragline Incident

"Somewhere, something incredible is waiting to be known." Carl Sagan.

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Not again, now this is all too much, Alex looked about the dragline cabin … what an untidy mess. That lazy bastard Michael Swift, well . . . he just had to be a dead-set-slob.

There were newspapers everywhere, and to top that off … the stale smell of abandoned fried food wrappers and . . . and beside the seat — a-half-eaten-meat-pie!

Wherever you looked cigarette buts littered the floor.

Now Alex could go on and on then, what good would it do?

The only relief in sight was the ever-changing positions on the shift roster.

‘Another four days behind messy Michael … and then I get to be back behind him again,’ and that was something to look forward to

Alex Keppel typed his commencing shift code number on the cabin computer, then … checked over all the current data connected to this gigantic machine.

Now content with the relevant grid map, Alex rang through to Strategic Coal’s main site office to report, No problems and I’m ready to start.

Yes all was ok! And working this dragline was pretty straightforward.

It would be 7:30am in 3 minutes, … and time to start up procedures.

The first being another cross on the noticeboard planner, there were biro crosses leading towards Wednesday 20th March 2002, the start of their grand European holiday.

‘Well Doreen is the one who wants to visit the place.’

Alex sat at the controls and waited for 7:30am to arrive, the big needle on the wall clock flicked its tiny movements.

"Right, off we go again."

He could see from this excellent location there were five Euclid trucks in line with black diesel smoke coming out from their cold engines.

‘Best get the tractor to pull the electrical cable further away from the direction of operations, sloppy Michael’s work again needing rectifying.’

Now it was time to start up the Dragline.’

The great bucket drawn by steel travelled out towards the end of the boom … and then dropped onto the partly excavated surface; the return drag clawed through the surface and filled the bucket that was then raised.

Then the giant machine rotated and dumped the load of overburden into a pile.

As Alex swung back to recommence another drag … the waiting front-end-loaders were filling those huge yellow Euclid trucks

And so it was until the entire surface in range of this boom was scratched away and dumped.

Perhaps in another week the coal seam should appear.

"You dirty mongrel," came from Alex’s angry mouth, he’d found Michael’s chewing gum under the armrest.

"This prick is just a waste of oxygen … well that’s it … at the end of this shift, I’m going straight to the Union."

With that outburst out of the way Alex resumed his duties, to any observer the act of moving such a giant machine about with … only a few small handles, buttons and switches was … was simply incredible!

The dragline structure itself without the huge boom was the size of a large office building, and the ability to walk such a huge structure about … well!

Who would’ve ever imagined?

Alex sipped from his dirty coffee cup and watched for the-ten-thousandth-time the return trip of the bucket; it was cutting through the clay and shale like a knife across butter.

About another four hours of this then … lunch while William takes over as relief.

The bucket was half way home through a drag run when — suddenly the ropes to the boom shook and Alex saw one corner of the huge bucket — just leap up out of the ground.

"Holy Shit!"

Ding-Ding-Ding, red-lights-and-alarms automatically took over Ding-Ding-Ding as Alex shut off all the winches and stood the dragline down.

All this was a new one on him . . . this clay soil had been so soft?

Nothing offering resistance at all . . . let alone something that would cause the ropes to flex then fall loose and — could it be kinked?

What ever it was stuck in the ground will require a dose of dynamite to shift it.

‘That means dynamite blasts, and they always get on Tiny Olsen’s nerves.’ pondered the day-shift dragline operator.

Alex surveyed the bucket with his personal binoculars . . . "Shit!"

Not only a tooth … but the whole tooth holder was ripped from the cutting edge indicating that this will be a round the clock maintenance welding operation for at least five shifts.

Alex was straight on to the Main Office in case they needed to stand down the front–end loaders and truck drivers.

It would be early lunch for him today and probably an early roster day tomorrow …

‘Doreen will certainly be happy about that.’

He could see a shopping trip to the Newcastle shopping malls coming up again, ‘waiting about while she feels fabric and tries on shoes and bras that are never the right size, …

blast that bloody thing in the ground, it is the sort of thing that filthy Michael Swift would do to me, … bury a huge rock so-I-have-to-take-Doreen-shopping-in-Newcastle.’

The imagination of Alex Keppel had no bounds; there was always something to get angry about.

A Toyota 4-wheel drive Ute bounced its way across the torn surface towards a crowd of maintenance staff stuck out in the middle of the freshly excavated open cut field.

Plant engineer Bruce Young could see blue flashes, so welding was underway … however there were no welding screens were in place.

‘Work-Cover will have my balls for that.’

And he made a mental note to get up Tiny Olsen at the next maintenance meeting.

"How long to go with that bucket tooth mounting?"

The words were shouted from the Toyota cab before the door was opened.

Tiny Olsen turned towards his boss and replied,

"We just received the casting from spares at 3;00am this morning … have two welders and two relief using our heaviest MIG’s.

The bucket’s been pre-heated and wrapped with insulation wool … so … I would say … another two shifts welding … then dressing and gauging of the tooth mounting for final fitting … say-five-shifts-all-up."

The look on Bruce Young’s face was not welcoming so Tiny got in early.

If you remember Bruce, I asked for overtime some months back to grind and gauge the spare tooth mounting casting … just in case, as you know this would have reduced the down time by at least two and a half shifts.

‘Tiny’ thought he was safe with this remark; yes it was an excellent time to stick it into Bruce, however that backfired.

"And the welding shields … well … missing again, with this wind coming up there will be sparks everywhere and the argon shielding will be affected not forgetting bloody Work-Cover on my back again, I bet some pesky union bloke has been on his mobile to them already.

And I take it that the cables were changed last night?"

Tiny knew this was not the right time at all and more on this subject would probably be said later on. The sound of voices calling his name made Bruce leave the bucket site and walk towards a group of the day-shift’s truck drivers gathered about where that bucket must have hit something.

As he drew nearer he could see some of them digging away at something in the ground with shovels.

Wait till you see this Brucey, now a smart bloke like yourself might be able to tell us what the f--ck it actually is.

Harry Milson standing beside three other Euclid drivers pointed towards a heap of uprooted clay and waited to see the look on Bruce’s face.

Bruce Young in his best pair of shoes walked straight into the sticky wet clay and as he came closer — the air felt a few degrees colder.

‘Now this is a hot day say around 35 degrees, and yet my legs are getting cold as if some one left the fridge door open?’

The four smiling faces waited for the expected reaction … and they would not be disappointed.

Bruce was now standing where the hand digging had uncovered this bright blue shaped thing sticking up out of the ground.

‘This’s one for the books,’ thought this very surprised Chief Maintenance Engineer.

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Lights were set up around the unidentifiable discovery now referred to, as ‘The Object,’ and those approaching headlights bouncing through the darkness should be the scientists from Newcastle University.

Bruce Young and plant manager Harold Spinner watched the two Toyota Land-Cruisers find every rut and ridge on the site.

Then — as expected — turn towards the bucket maintenance site by mistake.

Trust them to go the wrong way, remarked Harold.

Eventually the Land-Cruisers stopped dead about 10 meters from the welcoming committee and out came a collection of scientific types who … each in turn found the softest piece of clay to get stuck in. The party stumbled in the direction of Harold and Bruce and were directed with large flashlights towards the waiting exhibit.

A Professor by the name of Smiles got down on his knees and soiled a good pair of pants; he just had to touch this now orange-yellow luminescent surface.

A few hours previous, it was sky blue.

"Its rather cold, like marble only much colder … and the surrounding lights are absorbed and then reflected back … and it appears to be some form of ceramic … the surface is both hard and slightly flexible?

There’s a scar from impact with the bucket tooth and … there are lots of small craze marks like surface veins indicating the point of contact."

The Professor looked up at Harold and remarked,

"I was told this ‘object’ was bright red, well it’s obviously a very bright orange?"

"It was a orange-yellow for a while before you came, Bruce told me it was blue earlier when he looked closely, just wait and see if it changes some more, have you any idea what exactly we are looking at Professor?"

Harold thought that should be enough to confuse them and never expected an answer.

He raised his head to the heavens where there were billions of bright and not so bright stars and gazed a while at this celestial canopy covering his small world of draglines and open cut mining.

‘Well I wonder where this strange annoying Object’s come from, it could be from anywhere up there?’

By now most of the other University Staff had joined Professor Smiles at the sight of the ‘Object,’ one with the Geiger counter declared it was not radio-active, another tried to get a reading on a gas detector.

So far about four square meters of the surface was uncovered, this could only be described in layman’s terms as a huge orange/yellow capsicum or bell-pepper that was made from an unidentifiable material, it appeared cold and the surrounding air temperature was 15 degrees colder than the current ground temperature.

It also reflected any available light by some form of chemical reaction.

Harold Spinner knew his troubles were far from over and if things come in three’s, then there’s two more unwanted problems yet to appear.

One of these expected problems arrived the following morning in the form of J.P. MacMillan, and his appearance set in motion a fresh wave of rumours that ASIO was now on the site.

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"My name is John Paul MacMillan, I represent the Commonwealth of Australia and this associate is known as Frank van Helsen, and there will be others like us arriving later in the morning.

Now I want this site cleared for at least one kilometre from the current excavation.

We will refer to it as Site Alpha and from this moment on there will be a further closing of the mine site to everyone but those who pass successfully through a security inspection … that will be conducted later in the day."

"What about mining operations," interjected a concerned Harold Spinner?

The Government man looked coldly across at the worried mining manager,

"You can recommence work when your drag-line is operational … but I want it moved further away, I know this