Pip Rippon's Curated Guide - Chapter two

Pip Rippon's Curated Guide - Chapter two

This is the second part of an updated version of my Curated Guide, which I first released about fifteen months ago. It was intended as a resource to help you (and me, to be honest) understand Hellsborough and The Dark Peak. 

I try to explain a world on your doorstep. A world that you probably have no idea that exists: The unexplored parallel world of Sheffield, S6 – Hellsborough and The Dark Peak. I think that I now understand the place. When I say understand, what I mean is, that I can cope with it.

How is Hellsborough accessed?

That meteor and the massive forces that ruined the Earth and the dinosaurs isn't what interests us in this chapter.

Right now, we're more interested in tiny forces, infinitesimal ones. Changes so small they're not visible to the human eye.

When that meteor hit, it caused a quantum fracture that forged the creation of two parallel worlds.

Apparently. Our universe, it's a strange place.

There's this thing: Quantum gravity. If spacetime is time and space wrapped into the same thing, then quantum gravity is just space and time and gravity all wrapped up into the same substance. How can I explain it better?

Think about doing the washing up -- when you wash the dishes. Them bubbles of soap. Each soap bubble clings to the other, each a shining rainbow of light. Occasionally, some pop, that's life; that's the universe, I guess.

You've heard of Albert Einstein, right? Pretty much heralded as the cleverest bloke who ever lived. But this quantum gravity, that's the bit that the great man couldn't work out, bless him.

Einstein predicted light speed travel and black holes and all that crazy stuff -- which turned out to be spot on -- but this is the bit he didn't get to: Gravity is a quantum element. Just as a photon is the quantum element of the electromagnetic field, so the graviton is the quantum element of the gravitational field.

With quantum gravity, each of them soap bubbles is a universe that exists in its own right. I know, hard to get your head around, but stay with me.

These soap bubbles, they all rub up against each other. They're all jostling, all the time. Mostly this jostling is harmless, but sometimes -- every once in a while, given a sufficient source of energy -- like that almighty meteor strike of 66 Ma -- them bubbles get severely agitated.

In times like that, they move apart. Maybe only a Plank length (which is an almost incalculably minute amount), but that's enough.

That meteor strike in 66 was enough. It caused a fracture. A rift. A rupture in quantum gravity spacetime.

That's when the illimitable cleavage happened. One world became two.

Hellsborough and Hillsborough. The town within the city and the town within the city. The same, but separate. And this was before either town existed; don't forget that.

At the time though, no-one noticed. Not really. Most inhabitants of the world had died in that instant, when that split occurred.

This ain't really my thing. I'm more of an anthropologist and folklorist, but if you've followed so far, this is my summary of it:

• A meteor struck 66 million years ago. The dinosaurs and 75-90% of life on Earth was wiped out

• Some creatures survived, otherwise life wouldn't have

• Two parallel worlds were created (possibly more, but there are two that we know about, so let's stick with two for now)

66 Ma was under a week ago in geological time according to our yearly calendar from the last chapter.

Of those survivors though, milting were amongst them. Milting knew that parallel worlds existed. They also knew that there was nothing to stop anything crossing between those parallel worlds -- everything was the same. There were no sides as such, there wasn't left and right, it was the same on both sides, and a river ran through it -- as rivers do.

A river, the Loxley in this case, runs through these parallel worlds. Like clouds and air drift across the boundaries, like the murk pays no attention to this border between worlds.

So nothing noticed, and nothing cared. For millions of years, it was the same place. It looked the same, it was the same. But it wasn't the same. Things were developing differently on each side of that invisible fissure.

Who knew?

Well, Milting knew. Ask Milting today, they remember the illimitable cleavage. I think I know what you're thinking. How can anyone -- how can anything -- remember that?

Milting. They might have been travelling to the stars, or they might not. Their history doesn't go into detail (if it does, I've yet to locate and interpret it). But they recorded things, they wrote things down -- not in any language that can be readily understood, but written down nonetheless. And remembrance for them is hereditary, passed through their lineage. Their life history is recorded in their DNA.

That evidence of recorded intelligence I mentioned? In my research, I found it. Semagrams, like fossils -- hidden, buried, closeted by the time of eons past.

Where they came from, no-one really knows; I investigated. I talked to the librarians. I spoke to the Vice Principle. No one knows what they are. I had them spectrographically analysed -- they told me that they shouldn't exist, that they were impossible, that I had somehow fabricated them, that they were fake. They wanted to keep them though, course they did. I said I needed them for my research.

It was around then that my troubles with the university began.

I know what these semagrams are though: They're the most ancient data in the universe.

Until I found them they languished in a deep cellar, far from inquiring eyes. How I came to be in that deep cellar is a whole story in its own right, and not one I'm going to explore further here, but if your interested, read these diary entries:

• Part one

• Part two

• Part three

They're made of stone. Pumice. When you look at them, the first thing I thought of was a QR code. They are, I guess, of sorts. But they're more than that, they're like poetry. Think of a road sign in the off-world, they're like that -- lexical symbols with no spoken referent. They're hieroglyphics, with meaning.

What are they about? The junction, mostly.

66 million year ago, no roads existed, so what was there to do? It was just the gushing Loxley cutting its way through the limestone scarp.

But as the two worlds developed -- independently -- yet forever and inherently linked, and as bridges and roads were built over the river, and then those roads became a crossroads, Milting realised that a centre of liminality was forming. Had formed.

It was called the junction. The most powerful source of liminality in existence.

Even though the two worlds could be transgressed easily and had been for eons, the dark of the murk, the antimatter of Hellsborough was seeping into the off-world -- your world -- and Milting stepped up foreseeing the dangers of massive leakage from one side to the other -- dark matter from Hellsborough leaking back into the off-world and visa-versa. The light and the dark cannot ever mix, to do so is certain destruction, this much Milting knew well.

Milting used the semagrams of the junction to conceive The Hinge.

The Hinge. First time I've mentioned it (in this book). The Hinge is that place, that plank length gap between Hellsborough and the off-world.

Milting were the creators, and the observers and the curators of the after, after the aftermath.

Milting locked the portal -- The Hinge -- so that it should never be breached. That lock was never meant to be opened. Milting knew what would happen if it did.

Dark matter is also known as antimatter. Subatomic particle that have the opposite electrical charge to the matter in the off-world. Its electrons carry a positive charge, the off-world a negative. And conversely, its protons are negative and the off-world's are positive. The dark matter of Hellsborough is a mirror image of the off-world's matter.

When matter and antimatter come into contact, it results in a catastrophic release of energy. Total and abject annihilation.

Cross-over from the off-world to Hellsborough has long been expected, but not witnessed. In fact, it is commonplace and the off-world is "infected" by many things from Hellsborough and The Dark Peak, and of course, over the eons, the portal has been breached.

The portal is leaky, I'm sure I haven't helped with that, sorry about that. I'm not sure it's doing my general health any good at all either.

I have documented everything I understand -- a number of possible ways that The Hinge can be accessed, there may be more. In summary, they are:

• semagrams

• quantum manipulation

• rockcrust

• download

• simulation

Some of these methods are tried and tested, some just supposition, but when you do make it through The Hinge, going from the off-world in, what do you see?

If you know anyone else that you think might find this interesting, then please forward this email to them :)

I have launched a new series of diary entries that I call “Pip Rippon — Stranger in a Strange Land”, in which I describe my struggle to survive as an immigrant in Hellsborough and The Dark Peak, and how I make ¢hits, and how you can use my knowledge to make money in the off-world. I think you’ll enjoy it, check it out here: Stranger in a Strange Land.

In other news, Hellsborough Chronicles book one “Dark Peak” is now available on Kindle and paperback.

If you can leave a review of Dark Peak on Amazon, I'd be more than grateful.

Hellsborough Chronicles book two “Darker Peak” is now being worked on — look out for early releases.

Cheers, until next time,

Pip :)