Chapter Previews
Read some of the early chapters of the Quantum Gate.
Preface
Tears ran down the man’s face. He desperately wanted to deny this was happening, but he couldn’t. The sadness and regret of what he was doing, what he was giving up, weighed so heavily upon him that it found its way through his many barriers to the surface. He sat alone in his library, his fingers absently tracing the cracks in the aged leather of his chair, the once-smooth surface worn from years of restless contemplation. The fire in the hearth crackled and hissed, its golden light flickering against the high bookshelves, where the scent of old parchment and dust mixed with the lingering aroma of burning cedar. Shadows danced along the towering spines of forgotten knowledge, stretching and shifting like specters of the past. The weight of history coiled around him, unseen but ever-present, pressing against his ribs like a specter, reminding him that time was slipping away.
His gaze fell upon the compass resting atop the mahogany table before him. The brass casing gleamed under the dim light, polished by the hands of generations before him. He reached out, brushing his fingers across its surface, and as always, a faint hum of energy vibrated beneath his skin. The needle, unwavering, pointed not to the north but to something far older, something hidden, something meant only for the one who could unlock its truth.
For years, he had guarded it, protected it from those who would use it for their own ends. But now, it was no longer his to keep. His time had passed. The prophecy had spoken, and he could no longer deny its call. The compass did not belong to him.
It belonged to Ethan.
The man exhaled, his breath curling in the cool air. He had always believed the burden would be his, that he would be the one to stand before the Gate. But the years had proven otherwise. He had watched, observed, and come to understand that Ethan Cross was the one destined to hold the key. He had seen the signs long before Ethan himself could grasp the truth, though it was not only fate that had led the man to this realization—it was Maria.
The thought of her sent a familiar ache through his chest.
It had been years since she had left this world, but the void she left behind had never truly closed. He could still hear her voice, calm and resolute, the way it had always been when she led the Guardians. While he had been the scholar, the keeper of knowledge, it had been Maria who had been their strength—their true leader. When he had faltered, it was she who steadied him. When the others doubted, it was she who reminded them of their purpose. She had been their compass long before the prophecy demanded another.
And she had chosen to leave it all behind.
The very first time he met Ethan, he felt a change. It was at the Geneva Summit on Consciousness and the Quantum Realm, where the greatest minds in science and philosophy collided in their endless pursuit of truth. The conference hall buzzed with the energy of intellect, voices low yet urgent as theories were debated over cups of espresso and glasses of scotch. The air smelled of fresh ink and polished wood, of minds eager to carve fresh paths into the unknown.
He had been flipping through a schedule of lectures when a voice broke through the sea of murmurs.
“You know, most of the physicists here think consciousness is just an illusion.”
He looked up to find a man standing beside him, dark-haired, sharp-eyed, with a casual ease about him that set him apart from the rigid academics that filled the room. There was something in the way he spoke, a quiet confidence, a spark of curiosity that went beyond equations and data.
“That’s the flaw in modern science,” he had replied, setting down his espresso. “They fear what they can’t measure. But just because something isn’t quantifiable doesn’t mean it isn’t real.”
Extending his hand he said, “Andrew Park, and you are?”
Ethan shook his hand. “Ethan, Ethan Cross. Nice to meet you Andrew.”
Their conversation had ignited from there, a back-and-forth of theories and philosophies that stretched into the late hours of the night. Ethan spoke of quantum entanglement, of the possibility that consciousness itself was an inherent part of the universe’s design, not just a byproduct of biology. Andrew, in turn, had spoken of the ancient mysteries, of the Hall of Records, of the knowledge hidden beneath layers of history.
And that night, for the first time, Andrew felt something shift. The compass had chosen its bearer, even if Ethan himself had no idea.
But he hadn’t been the only one to notice.
Andrew let Maria know early on what he suspected, and as a result, she kept a close eye on Ethan Cross.
Months later, when Andrew told the rest of the Guardians what he had seen—what Ethan might be—Maria had already made a choice.
“I’ll watch over him,” she had said. “Keep him safe.”
It seemed logical. Ethan did not know the forces that surrounded him, the enemies who would stop at nothing to claim the power he would one day have access to. Maria would position herself in his orbit, guiding him from the shadows. But neither of them had predicted what came next.
She had fallen in love.
Andrew had seen it happening before she had even admitted it to herself. The way her voice softened when she spoke of Ethan, the way her resolve wavered when she was near him. For the first time, duty was not her highest calling—love was. And when she made her choice to leave the Guardians and stand at Ethan’s side, it shattered them all.
She had been their foundation, and without her, the Guardians lost their way. Some left disillusioned. Others turned bitter, angry at what they saw as a betrayal. Andrew had tried to hold them together, but it had been futile. Maria had been their guiding star, and now she belonged to another world.
She had chosen love over fate.
And she had paid for it.
Her death had not only broken Ethan—it had fractured him seemingly beyond repair. The car accident had stolen more than a life; it had ripped the soul from the man Andrew had believed would one day stand before the Gate. The night Maria died, Ethan had buried himself in his work, retreating into calculations and theories, hiding from the reality of what he had lost. And in doing so, he abandoned Sofi.
Andrew would never forget the moment he found her, sitting alone in the hospital waiting room, clutching a stuffed rabbit with small, trembling hands. She had only been twelve. Too young to understand why her father, the man who was supposed to be her protector, had disappeared into himself.
He had knelt beside her, his voice soft. “Sofi... I’m here.”
She had looked up at him, and in her eyes, he had seen something he had never expected—resignation. Even at twelve, she had already known she was alone. Ethan’s many trips, and late nights, had already made this apparent to Sofi, even as a young child.
And so, Andrew had stepped in. He had done what Ethan could not. He had been the steady presence in Sofi’s life, the one who made sure she was not forgotten in the wake of Maria’s loss. Encouraging her studies, he also connected her with others who shared her world view. Unfortunately, this world view was devoid of magic and mysticism, instead it was firmly grounded in facts and equations, Sofi’s way of making a statement about her father and his delusions. She was brilliant, just like her parents, and was now a respected astrophysicist, marrying Dr. Steven Carter MD, grounding her firmly on solid, predicable, and deterministic ground.
Ethan never saw this, he simply let his guilt consume him, and as a result, emotionally isolated himself from Sofi. Even now, years later, Ethan was still lost. Still running from the pain. But fate did not wait for men to heal. The prophecy did not pause for grief. Ethan’s time was coming, whether or not he was ready.
The fire crackled sharply, pulling Andrew back to the present. He looked down at the parchment resting beside the compass, his fingers ghosting over the inked words. He had read them a thousand times before, but tonight, they felt different.
"When sands of time reach their final toll..."
The words had never felt so close.
He stood, his joints stiff, and crossed the room. Pulling aside the heavy curtains, he stared into the night. The sky stretched out before him, dark and infinite, indifferent to the struggles of men. Somewhere out there, Ethan was living his life, unaware that the storm was coming for him. Andrew had made all the preparations, set all the wheels in motion. Only one thing remained.
Andrew turned back to the table, picking up the compass one last time. It was cold against his palm.
It was never intended for him.
Carefully, he placed it inside the wooden box, locking it with the delicate key. It was done. He set the final piece in motion. Taking one last look at the place he'd called home for so long, he put on his coat and gathered his things. He stepped outside, locking the door behind him. He placed his hand on the door, feeling the essence of it; the wood he helped shape in creating it. He made his way down the steps to his car.
And with that, Andrew Park slipped away into the night.
Chapter 1: The Disgraced Physicist
Ethan Cross stood at the podium, the harsh glare of the spotlight pressing down on him like an unblinking celestial eye. The air in the lecture hall was heavy, thick with the quiet tension of unspoken judgment. Rows of seats stretched out before him, occupied by familiar faces—colleagues, students, and peers who had once celebrated his mind. Some had toasted his research at conferences, others had debated theories with him late into the night over whiskey and half-scrawled equations. But tonight, they did not see a scholar or a scientist. They saw a man on the edge, a mind unraveling in real time.
Behind him, the screen glowed with his findings—a lattice of quantum equations intertwined with esoteric symbols, spirals resembling ancient alchemical scripts, and a diagram of consciousness fields mapped alongside theories of quantum entanglement. The numbers were perfect, the logic sound, but none of that mattered. He had long since crossed the invisible threshold between science and something else, something they would never accept.
His voice, once a steady beacon of authority, carried the quiet tremor of a man standing alone against the tide. "If we accept that consciousness plays an integral role in quantum collapse, then we must consider the possibility that it is not simply a byproduct of the brain, but fundamental to reality itself," he said, gripping the edges of the podium as if anchoring himself. "And if that is true, then what the ancients called the Hall of Records—the repository of all knowledge, all time, all human thought—may not be a physical archive at all, but an informational field encoded into the very structure of spacetime. A library beyond the constraints of matter, accessible only to those who can shift their awareness beyond the limits of perception."
Silence filled the space where curiosity should have been. It was not the reverent silence of minds awakening to possibility, but the quiet dismissal of an idea too far beyond reason.
He scanned the crowd, searching for something—anything—that might tell him they understood. But their expressions remained carefully blank, a sea of composed skepticism. Dr. Charles Alden, the university's dean, exhaled heavily before rising from his seat, his movements slow and deliberate. The weight of his authority filled the room before he even spoke.
"Mr. Cross," Alden said, deliberately stripping him of his academic title, "while we appreciate your... enthusiasm, I’m afraid your hypothesis ventures beyond physics into the realm of mysticism. And mysticism, however fascinating, does not belong in this institution."
A ripple of muffled laughter swept through the audience, the kind that cut deeper than open ridicule.
Ethan clenched his jaw, willing himself not to react. He had known this would happen. He had known the moment he chose to present his work in a setting that demanded proof, when all he had were connections, theories, and something far more dangerous—belief.
"I’m not asking you to accept mysticism," he said, his voice steady despite the quiet fire rising in his chest. "I am asking you to consider that science has spent too long dismissing the role of the observer. What if the greatest flaw in our understanding of reality is our refusal to acknowledge that consciousness itself is the missing variable?"
Alden merely shook his head. "And yet, you provide no proof. Only conjecture."
"I have seen the proof."
The room did not erupt into jeers, but the silence that followed was somehow worse. It was the final breath before the guillotine fell.
He gathered his notes, his hands stiff with barely contained frustration, and stepped away from the podium. As he walked down the aisle, whispers followed him like shadows, voices too low to decipher but carrying the unmistakable weight of dismissal. At fifty-three he should be at the pinnacle of his career, yet now the world of academia, once his sanctuary, had shut its doors to him.
Outside, the night air was sharp against his skin, a stark contrast to the suffocating heat of the lecture hall. The streetlights cast long shadows across the damp pavement as he stood there for a moment, listening to the distant hum of the city. He had built his life on equations and reason, on the belief that truth would always triumph over doubt. But now, all he had left was the gnawing certainty that he was alone.
His study was a chaotic shrine to years of obsession. Books lay open on every surface, their pages littered with frantic notes scrawled in the margins. Stacks of journals teetered precariously, a mixture of theoretical physics and esoteric philosophy. The walls were covered in chalkboards, equations tangled with symbols from civilizations long gone. The air smelled of old paper and burnt coffee, but beneath that was something else—something heavier. The ghost of a life that no longer existed.
He sat at his desk, his fingers wrapped around the edges of a worn photograph. Maria.
She was frozen in time, her dark curls tousled by the wind, her blue eyes alight with a laughter he could still hear if he let himself remember too much. His thumb traced the curve of her face, and the past pulled him under to a much happier time.
The sun had been merciless in Morocco, baking the excavation site in golden light. Ethan crouched in the dust, brushing sand from an engraved stone tablet while Maria stood beside him, arms crossed, her expression hovering between amusement and exasperation.
"You’re obsessed, you know that?" she teased.
He smirked, but didn’t look up. "That’s why you married me."
Her laughter was soft, knowing. "No, I married you because you were brilliant. And because I knew that one day, you’d either find the Hall of Records... or die trying."
Back then, the pursuit had been about discovery. About unlocking the secrets of the past. But Maria had been his tether, the force that kept him grounded when his mind drifted too far into the unknown. And she had carried secrets of her own.
She had been sent to watch over him. To protect him.
At first, he had been furious. But that feeling had been short-lived, eclipsed by something far greater.
"You were supposed to be my guardian," he had said to her one night, standing in the dim glow of their Cairo apartment.
She had smiled, stepping closer. "I was."
"But you fell in love with me."
"I did."
She had left the Guardians for him. Abandoned them. Shattered them.
And then, one storm-slicked night, she was gone.
His fingers tightened around the photograph as reality snapped back into place.
Her death had not just broken him. It had hollowed him out. He had buried himself in his research, in his search for meaning. He had shut out the world. Shut out Sofi.
His daughter had been twelve when Maria died, just a child. And instead of holding her close, he had locked himself away in his grief. She had grown up in the shadow of a father who had once been brilliant but had since become a ghost.
A soft knock at the door jolted him from his thoughts.
Sofi stood in the doorway, her arms crossed, her face unreadable. Her short curly hair and blue eyes reminded him so much of her mother.
"Dad," she said softly, "I heard what happened at the university."
Ethan exhaled. "Oh, you know. Just another day of being called a lunatic."
She hesitated before stepping into the room, her eyes sweeping over the cluttered mess of his study. Her gaze lingered on the photograph of Maria.
"Why do you keep doing this?" she asked, her voice barely above a whisper. "Why can’t you just let it go?"
"Because if I let it go, I have nothing left."
She flinched, just slightly, but enough for him to see the hurt behind her eyes.
Ethan had no answer for that.
That night, long after Sofi had gone, he sat alone, turning Andrew’s letter over in his hands.
Andrew Park had been dead for nearly two years. And yet, here was a letter, written in his own hand.
"The answers you seek are not in the equations. Go to where the sands whisper to the stars. Find the Hall before it finds you."
With it came the compass. Andrew’s most prized possession. And the moment Ethan touched it, he knew.
The brass felt cool against his palm, heavier than he expected, as if it carried the weight of the years, having passed down through unknown hands. The intricate engravings along its surface shimmered faintly in the dim lamplight, ancient symbols woven into the delicate filigree. He ran his thumb along the etchings, tracing their curves like a man reacquainting himself with something half-remembered from a dream.
It had always fascinated him, the way Andrew had guarded this compass as though it held the secrets of the universe itself. Ethan had asked about it once, years ago, in one of their long conversations over whiskey and philosophy. Andrew had only smiled and said, “This compass doesn’t show directions. It shows destiny.”
Ethan had laughed, dismissing it as one of Andrew’s more poetic musings. But now, with the weight of it in his hands, something stirred deep within him—a feeling both foreign and familiar, like déjà vu whispered from another lifetime. The needle, thin and dark, trembled slightly before settling, not pointing north, but somewhere else. Somewhere unseen.
The rational part of his mind screamed for a reason. A compass was a simple instrument, bound by magnetic forces, guided by predictable physics. But this—this was different. The moment his fingers curled around it, a pulse thrummed through him, subtle but undeniable, as if the metal itself carried a heartbeat.
Was it possible? Could it truly be what Andrew had hinted at all these years?
His throat tightened. He had spent years chasing the Hall of Records for knowledge, for proof, for something tangible to validate his life's work. Then, after Maria, he had chased it for redemption, for the desperate hope that understanding the mysteries of consciousness might bring him peace.
But this wasn’t about knowledge anymore. It wasn’t even about Maria.
It was about something greater—something inevitable.
The compass rested in his palm, a quiet challenge. A summons.
Andrew had known exactly what he was doing.
Ethan inhaled sharply, the decision forming in his mind before he even realized it had been made.
He wasn’t running from this.
Not anymore.
He rose from his chair, the exhaustion of years burning away beneath the first embers of purpose he had felt in ages. The surrounding room, cluttered with the remnants of a life spent chasing ghosts, suddenly felt too small. Too still.
This was his moment. His threshold.
He reached for his satchel, sweeping notebooks, maps, and Andrew’s letter inside. The photograph of Maria, once a weight in his pocket, now felt like something else—an anchor, a reminder, but not a chain. He tucked it carefully alongside the letter.
Then he picked up the compass once more, watching the needle tremble, waiting for it to settle.
It pointed forward.
Ethan Cross did not hesitate.