Geoff Burns - Rob W

Geoff Burns is a 35 year old physicist from Texas who has no family or close children. This is about as much information one would get from asking about him, as two weeks ago at the motel it seemed as if he was a man on the verge of breaking down. As nervous as he appeared, he would have been reluctant to leave, and one of the last onto the bus. Searching the internet for Geoff would return little other than citations and papers he has authored in the field of particle physics.

He opens a gate from the Motel and steps through into the void beyond. This is no other universe, this is no place bounded by laws and limitations, and here death will not touch him and time will not hinder him.

In the space between worlds he is free. Unconstrained by any natural laws, he has creation unbridled at his fingertips. The purest form of science, experimentation and expression he finds before him an entirely blank canvas. The world he was born in behind him, there is only one other world nearby, a shining bridge connecting the two. Of the realm of ash there is no sign, not in this place, not outside of the known worlds. In the emptiness he begins to create, to mould and to shape new worlds and dimensions, experimenting with what could be and expanding into the vastness of the void that lies before him. Getting further and further away from the start leaving a breadcrumb trail behind him as he goes, searching for anything that might lie beyond what he can see.

Finally he finds it, far out along his lifeline of small island worlds the bright lights of other universes, new clusters of life and existence, full of life and potential and so very very different to the ones he knew so well. He cannot enter them, he knows that to leave the void is to become subject to the rules of the physical, but he can watch them and they are *fascinating*.

Sometimes he looks back on his creations, his pocket universes, and sees signs of movement from within, the borders of the world he once called home overlapping with the nearest of his creations. They are following his breadcrumb trail out into the vastness of existence and following in his wake.

Every now and then he finds himself less alone in the void than he thought he was. A figure moves swiftly on the edge of sight, never moving when observed, but never where you thought she was. Relentless, eternal… and fundamentally lazy. Avoiding Norma throughout eternity was always going to be tricky but the confrontation when it happens is not what you’d necessarily expect. She never had been one for rules and regulations if she could possibly help it and soon an agreement is reached. When you cross paths, you create her a world in which the sun shines, the sea is a perfect blue and the sand is soft and warm. In return she brings you chocolate cake and reminders of home. You ask her once what she tells the others when she’s away for so long? She smiles and say that ‘hunting for Geoff’ is a great filler for her timesheet…