The Missing Town Read online

  The Missing Town

  The Portal Investigators Book One

  Marcel Liemant

  C. J. Clemens

  Contents

  Also by Marcel Liemant

  Foreword

  Prologue

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Join a New World

  Also in the Newton’s Gate Universe

  Acknowledgments

  Copyright © 2019 by Marcel Liemant

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

  Cover art by Nicole at www.significantcover.com

  Created with Vellum

  Also by Marcel Liemant

  The Portal Investigators - A Newton’s Gate Series

  Book 1 - The Missing Town

  Coming soon -

  Book 2 - The Paradox House

  Book 3 - The Jurassic Murders

  The Mercury Sisters - A Dark Fantasy Series

  Book 1 - Nerve

  Coming soon -

  Book 2 - Teeth

  Book 3 - Untitled

  Foreword

  Welcome to the Newton’s Gate Universe, where The Portal Investigators series takes place.

  What is the Newton’s Gate Universe?

  On New Year's Eve of 2050, humanity launches Newton's Gate, a gateway meant to enable interstellar exploration. But when the gateway explodes, our greatest achievement morphs into our greatest disaster. Portals begin to appear around the world. Some open and close briefly, others swallow entire cities, while some remain permanently active, linking Earth to a wide array of planets, galaxies, universes, dimensions, and alternate times. Earth has become Grand Central Station for all of existence, bringing humanity into contact with alien humanoids, fantastical creatures, and everything in between.

  One consequence is certain: chaos reigns everywhere.

  The NGU and the C.J. Clemens pen name have emerged from the combined efforts of over thirty authors, featuring series ranging from space opera to urban fantasy -- epic fantasy to steam punk -- thrillers to military sci-fi. Virtually something for everyone!

  For Laura, Daniel and Ruby.

  “We only have to look at ourselves to see how intelligent life might develop into something we wouldn’t want to meet.”

  Stephen Hawking

  Prologue

  The front door was ajar. Richard Farrell paused, his hand stretched out, holding his keys. The lights were off too.

  “Monica?” Richard said.

  He checked his watch, he said he would be home by seven and it was 6:50pm now. Richard blinked rapidly and stepped over the threshold of his home.

  “Monica? Tom?”

  The hallway rug was askew. Richard’s pulse quickened. He dropped his travel suitcase onto the floor and hurried into the kitchen but it was still and empty. There was a half chopped pile of vegetables on the cutting board. The knife was on the tiles. Richard picked up the broccoli, ran out of the kitchen and up the stairs to the second floor.

  “Monica! Tom?” He yelled.

  Richard slipped at the top of the stairs but caught himself on the wall. There was something slick on the floorboards. Was it blood?

  He dropped the broccoli and pulled his phone from his pocket. Despite his shaking fingers he rang his wife’s number. The shrill sound of her phone came from the bedroom. He ran towards it. The room was lit by the white glow of his wife’s phone, lying on the bed. She wasn’t there. Richard scrolled through his wife’s phone, hoping for some kind of clue about where she was. But there was nothing, there was no explanation.

  He was finding it hard to breathe. He dropped both phones and scrambled into his son’s room. Everything was dark.

  “Tom?”

  Toys covered Tom’s bedroom floor. Richard stumbled over a doll. Tom’s bed was still made from the morning. He was such a good boy.

  “Tommy? Tom! It’s Dad. Are you here, Tom?”

  Richard strained his ears to listen. There was something under the bed.

  He crouched down, his heart racing. As his sight adjusted to the darkness, his eyes met his sons. They were huge and round with fear. Richard got onto his knees and leant in further. He smiled gently at his son, trying to calm him. He reached out a hand to him and Tom inched his own towards his Dad. Richard opened his mouth to speak when something wrapped around his ankles.

  Before he had a chance to turn, Richard was ripped out of the room and down the stairs. He struggled to sit up and free himself. Something sharp dug into his thigh. Numbness spread through his leg and within seconds he could no longer move anything. Richard was frozen, his eyes darting around. His heart pounding. He saw the frame of his front door, his porch roof and then the stars. Richard wished only that his son was still safe, while he was pulled out into the night.

  1

  Dr. Natalie Kyle loaded a new slide into her Omniscope. She switched from the cellular level to the atomic. The sample belonged to a new breed of frog, recently collected from a temporary portal outside of Sydney. She catalogued the same results from the previous 313 slides she’d analysed that day. Before writing her own notes, Natalie stretched and cracked her back. She checked her watch, it was well past her normal shift hours, but she wanted to get through these frog slides before the next shipment came in on Monday.

  Natalie glanced over at her superior, Dr. Henry Martin, he was frowning at his computer. Gravity pulled at the loose skin of his face, making his eyes look sunken into his skull. He was proof reading a research paper that Natalie had researched and written. But that would be published under his name.

  Natalie took a sip of her cold coffee. She reminded herself what her parents had always told her; that all the great discoveries in science that changed the course of history, were actually built upon mundane repetition. The familiar sharp pain spread through her chest at the thought of her parents. She took another sip of coffee.

  Natalie returned her gaze to the slide. She shifted the lens outward, expanding the field of view. The cells really were unique. Even though she had been staring at them for the past eight hours, Natalie felt her interest return. She reminded herself, not for the first time that shift, that it was the best time in history to be a scientist.

  Though ten years had passed, the scientific world was still reeling from the Newton’s Gate incident. Earth had had to adapt very quickly to contact with infinite worlds and the lifeforms that came along with them. There was still so much that wasn’t understood, not at the levels of Biology, Chemistry and Physics the scientific community had become accustomed to. There were new species to understand and new dimensions to fathom. Somehow, magic too, was real and present on Ear
th, blowing every theory of human life wide open.

  “Those blubbering idiots!”

  Natalie was torn from her reverie. She looked up, Henry was staring, wide eyed at his computer screen, red had began to colour his blotchy cheeks.

  “What’s wrong, Dr. Martin?” She asked, tentatively.

  Henry jerked his head up.

  “These idiots have released another article on magic. In a scientific journal of all places!”

  Natalie walked over to Henry’s desk. “What does it say?”

  “Who cares! It’s nonsense. It’s…absurd!” Henry sprayed his screen with saliva.

  “Absurd but apparently undeniable,” Natalie said.

  Henry narrowed his eyes at her. “We do not live inside the tales of Harry Potter. What on Earth is the world coming to?”

  Natalie shrugged but flashed a polite smile. She usually enjoyed Henry’s rants, in fact she often encouraged them. But tonight, it was late and the old man looked as tired as she felt.

  “It will all make sense one day,” Natalie said.

  Henry grunted and slammed shut his laptop screen. “I’ll never respect a man… or woman who believes in magic,” He said and then stood. “Well, you know better than anyone. Goodnight,” He added, before hobbling out the door.

  Natalie sighed and sat down at her microscope. She examined and made notes on slide after slide, until her vision blurred. After another hour, she checked her watch again. It was time to get home. Natalie packed up her stuff and headed out of the lab.

  It was a cool night, with a light spattering of rain. Yellow light reflected off the slick roads. Natalie hummed to herself as she walked towards the train station. She was itching to get home for many reasons, but by far the most important was her dog Wolfgang. He was an Australian shepherd who had been her closest companion for the last five years.

  In the carriage of the train Natalie took home was a group of five elves, huddled together in a corner. On the seat across from her, a middle-aged human woman, clutched her bag to her chest and eyed the group.

  Natalie lived a few stops out of the city, where she could have a bit of space to herself, without being too far from work. At her stop, Natalie walked the short distance home. As soon as her foot landed on the step to her front door, she heard a whine of anticipation. Natalie grinned and unlocked the door, she pulled it open and a black nose appeared.

  “Hi Wolfy.”

  Natalie flung open the door and the Australian Shepherd leapt onto her. She laughed as Wolfgang sniffed her and tried to lick her face. She lead the bounding dog inside and locked the door behind her.

  Wolfgang barked and ran up and down the hallway.

  “I missed you too,” She said. She couldn’t wipe the grin from her face.

  Natalie dropped her bag onto the couch and went over to her desk. She looked up at the wall of pictures and articles and notes. She had re-arranged everything the night before but couldn’t remember the logic behind it. Natalie frowned.

  Natalie made herself and Wolfgang some dinner and went back over to the wall. She stood and ate as she thought. Wolfgang chewed loudly in the kitchen. Finally, her thought process from the previous evening returned to her. She still wasn’t anywhere near an answer. The answer. To the one question that had not left her mind for five years.

  Why do portals form where and when they do?

  Natalie placed her bowl with the others on her desk and went over to the green cupboard. She unlocked it and rifled through the magical texts she had already read and re-read. After all, magic caused the Newton’s Gate incident, the event that had opened portals to endless dimensions and worlds.

  Natalie picked up a small purple device. Knocking a pile of scientific papers on magic and portals onto the floor as she did. She returned to the desk, Wolfgang whined and she found his head, giving him a gentle pat. Her tiredness had gone. She felt alight with excitement.

  Natalie switched the device, which she had named DaVinci, on. It beeped to life and that familiar tingle went into her hand. Natalie would never get used to how magic felt. Wolfgang pushed against her leg, he always grew quiet around magic. Like during a thunderstorm. Natalie tapped the interface and a purple glow emanated from the top of DaVinci.

  If Henry or anyone at her company found out she had this thing, that she had built it. She would be fired. Her career would be over. Natalie clenched her jaw, she had to do what she had to do.

  DaVinci started up and scanned Australia for new portals. The permanent portals pricked the sensors, but Natalie scrolled past them. These were long established, well explored, and often were open to the public. She checked the outer suburbs and then scrolled past the Great Ocean Road portal, a favourite among portal tourists. It linked the beautiful cliffs of the Great Ocean Road, with an uninhabited world of lessened gravity. Natalie had liked it there, though Wolfgang hadn’t been much of a fan.

  Natalie kept searching, there had to be something new. She glanced at the wall ahead of her, she had so much data but no way to piece it together. Deep down she knew the answers had to be out there. She just had to be smart enough and persistent enough, to find them. The device beeped.

  “Alright Wolf, what have we got?”

  DaVinci had located a portal, a way out of Melbourne, in a small town called Quuorn.

  “That’s new,” Natalie murmured.

  DaVinci calculated that the portal had been live for under 24 hours. It was showing a lot of activity, a lot of lifeforms were passing in and out of it. Natalie frowned, this wasn’t in the official records so nobody had called it in yet. A thrill swept through Natalie, she had to get to Quuorn, now. Natalie grabbed her travel bag, whistled to Wolfgang and headed out the door.

  2

  Will Sanderson’s eye hurt, like someone had punched it. He forced open his swelling eyelids. Sure enough, a blurry figure swayed in front of him, fists raised. Will took a step back and raised his own. He couldn’t remember the last few minutes or even hours.

  Damn, they make their drinks strong here.

  Will shook his head to clear his senses. A fist came flying at him and he ducked. A second fist clipped the side of his head and then a third fist, followed, smashing into his nose. William squinted to focus his blurred vision. The guy had three arms. He squinted harder. He also had brown eyes that took up half his face, four ears on each side of his head and razor sharp teeth. With his three arms raised, he was swaying back and forth like a dancing crab.

  “Look buddy-” Will began, but was cut off by another flurry of fists.

  He blocked each of them with his forearms, and responded with four hard jabs. The alien stumbled backwards, catching himself on the silver bar with his extra arm. Not that Will knew which one was extra. A fuzzy memory came back to him. He had been drinking with this guy. They had been communicating in a mix of alien languages, English and sign language. Something had gone awry. The guy looked pissed. More than pissed. He looked ready to kill Will. A look Will knew well, in any language, on any kind of face. As a private portal contractor, he had encountered many languages and many kinds of pissed off faces.

  Will took a moment to scan the bar. It was lit in a blue tinged light that wasn’t designed for human eyes. While the alien recovered, Will pulled out his glasses from his jeans and put the on. He could make out few other aliens in the back corner of the room. They were deep in discussion, flailing their many arms. Nobody was paying attention to the fight. The exit was to Will’s left, it was unobstructed. He could feel his weapon still in its holster.

  The guy he was fighting, whose name was a collection of sounds Will’s alcohol drenched brain couldn’t retrieve, finally pushed himself off the bar. He began to swing, barely controlling his limbs as they flew through the air towards Will. Will had returned to his senses, he grinned and dodged or blocked the blows. He grabbed one of the guy’s fists, then the other and twisted them behind his back. He pressed the guy into the bar, holding down the third arm.

  Will nodded at the
bartender. The bartender had been watching the fight with huge dull eyes as he pushed glasses into the cleaner.

  “I’ll have another drink, mate,” Will said.

  The bartender put down the glasses he was holding. His large eyes flicked from Will to the guy struggling against the bar. The bartender opened his three palms.

  “Yeah, no worries. I’ve got the coin.”

  Will pressed the guy a little harder into the bar and managed to hold two of his arms with one of his. He reached into his back pocket, and grabbed his wallet, showing it to the bartender. The bartender let out a series of barking like sounds. They were forceful, rude even. Will caught a few of the words. One of them roughly translating to, out. The pinned alien had began to growl, Will could feel it rippling through his body. Will stepped back, releasing him. The guy stumbled backwards, but Will ignored him.

  “I’ll have another drink,” Will said.

  The bartender repeated his sentence, if that’s what it had been and repeated his gesture. Will clenched his jaw. He wasn’t done drinking and he hadn’t started the fight. In his travels, Will had noticed a definite bias against different species. He didn’t think it was one particularly against humans, but it sure felt like it sometimes. He’d been told repeatedly that humans were widely considered one of the ugliest lifeforms.