Chapter 50：One step, one large warp

James' eyes slowly opened to some gentle shaking. Abigail was standing beside his infirmary bed trying to wake him up; she hadn't woken up too long ago herself though.

"James! Come on, get dressed! We're leaving in three hours!" she urged. Rolling out of the bed into a standing position, James could already feel the affects of the Zamerium in his blood. Although he still had the energy inside him, it was a lot calmer and less dense than previously.

"Alright, alright! I'll go see what clothes have survived these last fifty years." said James in a cheery but mostly concerned tone. The orange jumpsuit he was in was ripped, stained, burnt, and smelt like old shoes.

Once in the main lobby area, Abigail split off to go to her own room and James climbed the stairs to the second floor. He turned to his room and placed his hand on the handle ... but he hesitated before opening it. It seemed to him that every time he went through the door he either past out, fell unconscious, got knocked out, or some other kind of state where he lost control of his body. Soon he mustered the courage and entered the room.

He waited for a few second. Nothing happened. He walked a few steps to his wardrobe and waited again. Still nothing happened. James concluded that he should be fine and opened the wardrobe. From left to right it was empty apart from a single brown cardboard box on the base. James picked it up and walked over to his bed where he placed the box down. He slipped the lid off and peered inside. Within the box there was a pair of brown boots, on top of a white shirt and a red and blue jacket with some light, metal armour along the arms. To complete it, there was some green trousers with knee pads and some more of the armour on the calves and outer thigh. James put the clothes on and looked at himself in a mirror located in the corner of his room. It felt like something was missing so he looked in the box again where he found a black, cloth scarf which he put around his neck. It fell to his waist so he turned it until the ends were falling behind him.

Once downstairs, the group leaving was already set up. Abigail, William, Kyle, and Sophie. The six of them - that's including Jack - were going to travel to the universe Alcie came from and hunt her down. After that they'd get her to remove the plague and all would be good.

They took a car to the building where Jack and Jasmine were and parked inside a secluded parking area. Inside the building, Jack was already suited up and James removed the chains from the portal.

"Right. If my calculation are correct, and they should be, I should be able to change the output of this portal to the entrance of the universe that Alcie came from. If not then you'll all be lost in the network of infinite universes." said Jasmine as she rapidly typed some stuff on a laptop connected to multiple machines and sensors by wires of all shapes, sizes, and colours. Suddenly, the portal lost it's golden colour inside of the ring and instead could be used to view straight into a room that looked exactly like the one they were all in except the walls were a different colour.

James stuck a hand through and it past straight through to the other side. Jasmine looked at the other side of the portal but couldn't see James' hand coming through. Her face lit up and she started to celebrate a little bit.

"It works! The inter-universal portal works! Go on! Walk through to the other universe." she excitedly encouraged. James continued through the portal and into the other universe.

Instantly, James could feel a surge of fresh and unknown energy flow through him and the others felt it too as they quickly joined him. James turned around towards the portal.

"Shrink the portal so no one in this universe finds it. We don't want people accidentally travelling through to another universe and getting lost." ordered James. Jasmine happily agreed and the portal shrunk down so far that it was invisible to the naked eye.

"We seem to be in the same building but in the other universe." stated William. He looked at his watch and tapped it a few times. "Seems like technology from our universe doesn't work here though."

The chirp of a bird outside alerted the group. They made their way to the front door and pushed it open into the bustling city. People and aliens of all kinds walked the streets together in families. Others could be seen flying through the air in cars and bikes and trains. A few people noticed the group; James in particular. Soon and crowd started to form around them and people took pictures of them. Suddenly, someone fell down from above and landed in front of James. The woman stood up wearing a black suit that covered their whole body and a metal mask with green rectangles for eye holes. She removed the mask and her ginger hair fell lose. Her green eyes lips were as red as blood made James recognise her instantly.

"Alice?!" he said in shock. The woman's eye's lit up.

"James! You're back!" she cried. Pulling James' head close, she planted a deep kiss on his lips.