Chapter 1

I was out on the first day of a five day hike in the Sequoia National Forest, well away from any cities or towns. Even my cell phone did not get any signal so it was stowed away in my pack. With my tent, sleeping bag, supplies, and other odds and ends I had a pretty good load but I wasn't in a hurry to get anywhere. I just wanted to enjoy the sunlight, exercise, and solitude.

Suddenly my vision flickered and I felt very dizzy and was forced to stop walking. Everything spun wildly and my semicircular canals did a short dance before settling down again. With the heavy pack on my back I almost lost my balance and fell but I was able to catch myself after a couple of staggered steps and remain upright. At the same time I noticed that things around me were suddenly different.

The first difference was it was now noticeably warmer and the sunlight seemed brighter also. Looking around me I immediately saw that somehow I was now in a completely different place than I had been before. Nothing in front of me looked like anything I had been seeing just a moment before now. I immediately stopped walking so that I could try to figure out what was going on.

"Hey, what's going on?" I heard behind me in what was very definitely a female voice.

I turned around and immediately saw two women, each of which was standing about five feet from me as well as the same distance from each other. Neither one of them was dressed for being outdoors as far away from civilization as I still though I might be. One was dressed for running, in shorts and tank top, and the other wore a business suit and still held the handle to a roll-around laptop computer case in her hand. However the woman got here she didn't do it by walking. Towing that laptop case through the dirt would have been a big problem. The other girl would not have had any problem walking here but the weather and insect life might be a problem.

The woman towing the laptop was an Asian woman, probably Chinese if I wasn't mistaken. The one in the running shorts was blonde and slim.

The two women were silent for a moment, still in shock from finding themselves suddenly in a very different place from where they had been just a few moments ago. This gave me a little time to look around and take stock of the situation. Everywhere I looked there was nothing that liked familiar, everything was different from how it was just a few minutes ago. Somehow, some strange way, I and the two women had been transported to this strange place.

I pulled out my GPS and I was shocked to find that while it powered up just fine there were no satellite signals at all being received and therefore I was not able to get any indication of our location. This was very strange since I know that the GPS system has worldwide coverage and there did not seem to be anything around that might be blocking the signal. Except for the lack of any signals the GPS seemed to be working perfectly.

Putting the useless GPS away I next looked down at the tracks I had made during the past several minutes since arriving. The tracks were even more of a shock than the GPS because I could only see my tracks for a few steps back and then no more. The tracks looked just as if I had suddenly been transported to this place in mid-stride. Moving to look at the tracks of the two women, I could see the situation was exactly the same for them. Somehow it seemed, no matter how hard it was to believe, somehow the three of us had been snatched from wherever we had been and then put down where we were now, wherever that was.

"Where are we? How did we get here?" one of the women, the Asian, asked.

"My GPS is not working so I have no idea where we are. As for how we got her, I haven't a clue. Your guess is as good as mine." I replied.

"What can we do to get back? I don't want to be left out here," the blonde said.

"You will have to ask that question of whomever or whatever sent us here. I don't know anything more than you do," I replied.

"What can we do then?" the Asian girl asked.

"There is nothing we can do about getting back to where we were right now," I replied. "All we can do is to make ourselves comfortable here until either someone finds us or we figure out how to get back."

I started looking around the area to see if there was anyplace suitable to make a camp while allowing us to remain near this same spot. The area where we had been transported was a small clearing in a larger forested area of perhaps a hundred feet in diameter. If anyone was looking for us from the air I wanted to stay within the clearing, this was just standard survival lore.

Scattered through the clearing were several clumps of trees and I thought one of these might be a good place to set up a temporary camp. At least long enough to take stock and see what we had to work with. From what I had seen so far it looked like most of the equipment and supplies we needed to survive until someone found us would have to be supplied by me.

Except for a half empty water bottle, music player, and her clothes the blonde woman did not seem to have anything at all to use for survival. The Chinese girl had a bit more clothes, a purse, and that laptop case, but nothing much of value in the wilderness. We would need to take a detailed stock of everything we had and decide what the best way to use everything was.

I looked around the clearing trying to decide which of the clumps of trees would be the best one for setting up a camp. How long we could stay here would depend upon if there was water close by but at least we could sit in the shade and take stock of what we had. I picked out a clump of trees that was on a small hill and decide that one would be the best one to head for.

"Ladies, lets go over to those trees. We can get out of the sun and talk a bit more comfortably," I said, pointing to the clump of trees that I had picked out.

The two women looked at each other and then the Asian girl said "OK."

I turned and started walking toward the clump of trees; they were tall pines with a nice carpet of needles under them. I could hear the Asian girl's laptop case dragging its wheels in the dirt behind me as we walked.

When we got to the trees I started looking around for a good place to stop and found it almost immediately. Underneath one of the trees there were five rocks large enough and rounded enough to sit on, that seemed to be a good place to rest and have a talk. I walked over to one of the rocks and set my big backpack down beside it before sitting down on the rock. The two women each found their own rock and seated themselves. They both looked at me, apparently expecting me to try and explain what was happening.

"First, let's get out names. I'm Ray Jennings," I said to start things off.

"I'm Kathy White," the blonde girl said.

"Susan Li," said the Asian woman.

"OK, now that we have introduced ourselves I would like to talk some about our situation here." I told the two women. "I would like to talk for a couple minutes without any interruptions and then you two can ask any questions or make any comments you might have. Would that be OK?"

The two women nodded their acceptance so I started into my spiel:

"Good. I don't know where we are or how we got here. Before this happened I had just started out on a hiking trip in the Sequoia National Forest. Because of this I have a small amount of supplies and equipment suitable for survival in the outdoors, but only for one person for a few days. Even so I think we are very lucky to even have this much to work with."

"When I checked our position with my GPS a short time ago I wasn't able to get any satellite signals at all, even though the unit seems to be otherwise OK. I'm hoping that the GPS is busted because the alternative is pretty scary, that we are no longer on the Earth. Until I have more information I'm going to assume that we are still on the Earth and someone might find us here if we keep our heads and survive long enough for it to happen. And that course of action makes sense for the scarier alternative as well."

"The first thing we need to do is take a complete inventory of everything we have, all three of us, and then pool our resources for survival. Anything that we have brought with us here must be carefully saved and used as little as possible. Every supply must be stretched to last as long as possible, and we need to live off the land as much as we can. There don't seem to be any stores here where we can go buy anything. So, for now at least, we are on our own."

"In order to survive here with our very limited equipment it is very important that we cooperate as much as possible. We will need to find food, water, and shelter very quickly, and every one of us work together to do that. That is all I have to say for the moment, now it is your turn," I finished.

"You really don't know where we are?" asked Kathy.

"Yes. Do you want to check the GPS for yourself?" I replied.

"Please."

I pulled out the GPS and passed it over to Kathy. Susan moved over to stand next to the other girl so that she could also see the display on the device. Kathy turned on the GPS and studied it for a minute, and then worked the controls for a few seconds. Then with a frown she passed the device to Susan, who also tried to get a location. Neither girl was able to accomplish anything with the GPS so after a minute more Susan passed it back to me. I turned the GPS off and put it away.

"Now you know as much as I know about where we are," I told the two women after I had put away the device. "If either of you have any idea where we are, please tell me."

The two both looked at me blankly; obviously they had even less of an idea of what was going on than I did. So I took that as the signal to proceed. I pulled out the ground cover for my tent and spread it flat on the ground, setting my backpack down next to it. It was time to see what we had to work with in trying to survive here.

"Ok, what we need to do next it take a complete inventory of everything we have with us. Kathy, since you seem to have the least amount of stuff, please set everything on the tarp," I told the blonde girl.

Kathy hesitated for a moment and then started setting her meager possessions out on the tarp. She had:

• A half full plastic water bottle.

• A digital music player

• A cell phone

• A set of keys

Kathy also had a pair of shoes and socks, her shorts, shirt, and sports bra. That was the sum total of her possessions.

"OK Susan, now it's your turn," I said turning toward the Chinese girl.

Susan pulled her laptop case over to the tarp and opened it. Inside she had a rather nice business laptop computer with accessories, though how long it would continue to work without AC power was a question. She also had several file folders from her work which were useless here, except perhaps as scratch paper. She also had the lunch she had been bringing to work, two cans of soda, and a full unopened bottle of water.