THE CAPISTRANO EFFECT
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Peter Cooper lives in the town of Capistrano. After being dumped by girlfriend Amelia his friend James arranges a job at Trans-Port, bossed by the famous Professor William Carver. Carver’s assistant is an American woman called Claire. Peter is pressurised into being a guinea pig for the company’s teleportation experiments and gets sent to another reality ‘The Projection’. On returning he's told Trans-Port have mentally imprisoned him in Capistrano slnce ten. The programme is a wormhole to another reality and Peter is forced to go back there and bring home its creator, his brilliant scientist father John, so Trans-Port's teleportation system can work successfully. The Projection is only programmed for John and Peter’s DNA. Peter finds the alternate reality called ‘Guildford’ similar to Capistrano but landscape and identities have changed. He meets another ‘Claire’, now English. She helps him find his ‘parents’ who informed his doppelganger (Other Peter) is a successful scientist, married to Amelia and working for Kilgore Industries in ‘Cambridge’. They are also building a teleportation device. Realising 'his' John might have gone there, Peter follows. At Kilgore he finds another ‘James’, now ‘Other Peter’s’ Project Manager. He pretends to be his doppleganger's non-existent brother to find out about an 'accident' on the site. That night a dream shows ‘Other Peter’ involved in a metaphysical reaction to the accident. John asks Peter to help him find out more about it. They force Amelia to take them to ‘Other Peter’ at Kilgore. They find him trapped between two states of reality just like Peter’s dream. Peter forces John to return to Capistrano but Carver appears telling him neither realty actually exists. The accident killed Peter and he is now purely cyber intelligence. But is this true? Can Peter’s REAL life still be saved?
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THE CAPISTRANO EFFECT Chapter Ten
Claire invited me round for breakfast. The fact that her flat appeared smaller than mine was solely down to it containing twice as much clutter. Overflowing bookcases and piles of magazines climbed walls plastered with art nouveau posters and moody black and white stills from old films. A large wooden desk holding notes scribbled on jotter-pads and a thin and rather battered machine, what I took to be some sort of mini-computer, was crammed into the bay window. There were newspapers everywhere. Mugs of crystallizing coffee dregs perched on various surfaces.I took a peek into her bedroom while she made us toast; same deal, half-open drawers and clothes spread randomly over chairs and duvet. A bulging wardrobe’s door hung half off its hinges. Trans-Port Claire’s attitude had seemed neat and professional. I hadn’t seen her at home but she couldn’t have been as sloppy as this. Here was another difference between the two Claire’s despite their identi
THE CAPISTRANO EFFECT Chapter Nine
I trudged through the housing estate in what I knew to be the town’s general direction. My extremely brief visit to the offices of SES had established beyond doubt that the two worlds were indeed very different. For a start we’d got the name of this place wrong. It wasn’t Capistrano Two, or Capistrano anything. No matter what it called itself I had to get organized. The crappy glowing suit had begun to decompose as wisps of it floated in the air around me. I looked like a human Dandelion. A police car slowed to observe me before moving on. Perhaps Jervis had made a report about some eccentric turning up for a non-existent interview. They’d probably be back and I obviously had no ID on me. Camouflage was needed quickly. I began to jog into town whilst attempting to hold the remainder of the suit together.The first thing I did when I got there was to find more suitable clothes. I bought something called a Smartwatch, some casual clothes an
THE CAPISTRANO EFFECT Chapter Eight
I hesitantly opened my eyes, wary of what I might see. For a moment the dazzling light seemed no different from the Projection beam that had bored into my optic nerve. Had this second jump ended in failure? But then came the realisation that this was a mere sunbeam blinding me. The turgid mess of the Sending Dish no longer clung to my face; now a warm breeze caressed it. There was a bright cloudless sky above and to either side of me grassland, only this time the grass was dry. And it was daytime. Head spinning, I sat up slowly and took stock of my surroundings. The cathedral’s sheer wall and square tower loomed above me just as it had before, the whole unlikely edifice giving the appearance of a pile of vast bricks reconstructed by a five-year-old child. On top of it I could still see the angel pointing across the valley, her solid golden sheen now reflecting natural sunlight. There came an abrupt realisation of something I’d missed in the sheer overwhelming terror of the p
THE CAPISTRANO EFFECT Chapter Seven
I’d reacted badly again. Carver wouldn’t give me any more information until I agreed to take part in another Projection. There was more to come but only if I signed a compliance form that I’d do the farcical task they required. I said I needed time to think about it. It wasn’t discussed what they’d do if I refused apart from never telling me anymore about dad. Maybe they’d wipe my memory and start again from scratch again? I’d arranged to see Amelia again that evening at her posh River-way flat. I had the afternoon to kill so decided to take a look at that mysterious old guy’s house properly, the one glimpsed when I’d helped him home on Sunday evening. The grand old place towered above me as the sun cast its shadow down the steep road. I lifted the large brass doorknocker then let it drop. After a minute there came the sound of a handle turning. “Yes, can I help you?” A small grey-haired woman gave me a querulous smile. “Have you made a booking, what’s the name?” She
THE CAPISTRANO EFFECT Chapter Six
I lay on my bed. Framed in the window The Keep’s elongated shadows crept across its neat Victorian gardens, momentarily tricking the sculpted topiary animals into life, while the setting sun blasted holes of light through its crumbling walls. I’d left Trans-Port impotent with rage. That had been three long days ago. I’d spent the intervening period catching up on daytime television whilst drinking some of the awful lager I thought I’d dragged back from Magaluf but had probably purchased from Sainsbury’s in the High Street. Was that how things had worked? What else had I done under Trans-Port’s mind immersion techniques, what other tricks had they pulled? Getting me off with Amelia, obviously. That must have taken spectacularly little effort on her part seeing as I was a pushover for any smidgen of emotional comfort going. My thoughts were those of a bitter man, plus I was still physically recovering from the Sending Dish experience. Maybe I was suffering from Projection Lag?
THE CAPISTRANO EFFECT Chapter Five
I awoke in a darkened room, not my room though. And from another dream. This time it was a brand new one. Someone, not me but the guy whose head I was in, was driving at night. We seemed to be following the taillights of another car along a moonlit highway running parallel to a beach. Behind in the mirror a distant city shone with a brilliant neon carapace. I/he lowered the window. We the ocean breeze on our face and its sharp tang in our mouth. The car up ahead slowed then turned onto a makeshift track heading towards the dunes. We followed at a stalking pace, lights off now and guided just by the moon. The car stopped so we cut our engine and got out onto the sand, shutting the door quietly. It began to rain. We looked up. A heavy sky threatened a violent storm. We began to walk, the sand sucking at our shoes as we misplaced our footing, tripped on rocks and stumbled through pools. Despite this the other car’s occupants were obviously still unaware hear our approach. There was a m
THE CAPISTRANO EFFECT Chapter Four
I had one of the other dreams that night. There were a few I regularly get but this was by far the creepiest, the one I really hated. I was a few years older than the swimming pool one. Instead of under the water I was underneath a cold scratchy blanket with no bed-sheet apart from the one on the bone hard mattress that I could never get to sleep properly on. The blanket smelt musty, as if rarely washed and then not dried out properly. There were other boys in the room that I couldn’t see in the darkness although I could hear their breathing. My own was laboured with Asthma, something I managed to lose later in my teens. There was something in the bed with me; I felt stabs of fear as its wet scally skin brushed across me. There came a terrible stink of sweat and beer although I didn’t know what it was at the time. I felt disembodied hands holding me down, trying to roam over my body. I kicked out in panic and heard a snorted yelp then a fist punched me hard in the face. I couldn’t b
THE CAPISTRANO EFFECT Chapter Three
“Peter, how have you been love?” Joanne gave me a big hug, wrapping me in her arms so effusively that I almost dropped the wine. It was the evening after the interview. I smelt the familiar Lilac Blossom perfume and the childhood memories flooded back of the smart little house high up above the town. Number seventy-one The Mount had witnessed my progression from a ten-year-old child to the young student who’d left to live in the university’s flats and thence to the home Mike had found for me. I’d thought at the time they might object to my living on my own after graduation but they’d been happy enough for me to have my independence. They’d even given me the Vespa to get around on. It was one of the reasons we continued to get on; they’ve always been there for me whenever I needed a shoulder to lean and sometimes cry on. Let’s face it, I’d been incredibly lucky they’d adopted me after the accident. Whatever else had happened since that terrible day I couldn’t fault the Keans’ steadfa
THE CAPISTRANO EFFECT Chapter Two
My Castillo Street flat was situated half-way up the steep hill behind Arco de las Conquistadoras, or Arch of the Conquerors, in the High Street. It was also opposite the ruined Spanish-built Castillo de Capistrano with its high mound and moat. There were lots of Spanish names still floating about from the old port town’s mixed and violent history when the Spanish Armada chose to land its advance party at the natural harbour in July 1588, a precursor to its aborted invasion attempt. I was certainly lucky to live in such a picturesque location, although the three-storey terrace house itself had seen better days. I rented the attic room with a narrow staircase tethering it to the larger ones below. Despite it’s cramped mustiness and sloping ceiling it gave me a panoramic view of the River-way estuary stretching out below into the distance. Sometimes I would just sit at the window with a glass of red wine and idly watch the sun set behind the Keep’s jagged walls. As dusk grew darker an
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