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Friday, May 7, 2021

Microstory 1620: Limerick’s World

There is nothing particularly special about Limerick Hawthorne’s universe. There is no defining characteristic, or historical anomaly. The only thing truly remarkable about it is that Limerick is from there, and he’s one of the most special people in the bulkverse, so it’s worth mentioning. There appears to be no known cause for his unique ability. I suppose it really just comes down to probability. There is an extremely, extremely, extremely low chance of someone being born with the ability to open a portal from one universe to another, but that probability is not zero. It could never be zero. Limerick seems to be the winner of this lottery, because out of the infinite number of people who exist, if it has to be someone, it might as well be him. He didn’t realize what he was when he first started showing signs, but I did. I saw the power, and I had to make sure this information somehow got to him. Otherwise, he would have never realized, because his ability takes a lot of work, and it’s not something that would happen completely on its own. A lot of what The Prototype, The Transit, and The Crossover do is about navigating the outer bulkverse, and figuring out how to enter a different universe than they left. But before that, they have to break free of the first universe, and once they arrive, they need to find a way in. The walls of universes are called membranes, which is why I sometimes refer to them as branes. They’re thick, tough, and practically impossible to pierce.

There are three major ways of accomplishing this. The Prototype goes in surgically, using its small size as an advantage. The smaller the object that needs to pass through, the smaller the portal can be. Of course, it’s not that easy. You still need the technology to access and channel the bulk energy that keeps the portal growing, and then keeps it open, but that’s how it can work on a smaller scale. The Transit uses speed to open a bulk portal. Again, it takes more than that, or everyone who approached the speed of light would randomly be transported into the bulkverse, but that’s how it’s done when you’re using a ship with propulsion. Meanwhile, the Crossover uses intense pressure and heat. Limerick... I don’t know what Limerick does. He can quite literally punch what are called shatter portals, which are stable enough to allow crossover for him, and a few of his closest friends, but I’m not sure why it’s possible. Each time you crack a leak in the membrane, you let a little concentrated bulk energy into your universe, which you use to power another strike to make the leak larger, which powers your third strike, and so on, until it’s large enough to pass through. But each strike is harder than the one before it, and even then, it doesn’t explain how Limerick is able to come up with enough force to make the initial leak in the first place. It’s not like he completely vaporizes people when he hits them in one of his many, many fights. It’s not like he can punch a hole in the bare ground, or stop a speeding train in its tracks. I suppose it’s just something we’ll never fully understand. We just have to be both grateful that he can do it, and regretful that this ability passed down like a virus to the ancestors of the Ochivari, ultimately leading to the multiversal conflict known as the Darning Wars.

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