It sometimes happens that exceptional people are born to ordinary parents, and into ordinary families. Daniel is one of these people.

His parents were good honest folk, but not exceptional. Dad was a mechanic and worked for the same car dealership his whole life. He did not have any hobbies, he did not play any sports, had little ambition and did not concern himself with world events or domestic politics. He read the local newspaper to find out what is happening in his town, and occasionally enjoyed a few beers while watching sports on TV.

When Daniel and his two brothers were old enough, Mom started work at the elementary school as a secretary, until cancer took her the same year Daniel turned 25. Everything she ever wanted or needed came from Dad, and she did not ask for much. Good thing too because Dad did not offer more than a place to stay, food to eat and clothes to cover your butt. Their lives and marriage were inconsequential, their three boys the only mark they made in the world.

***

Daniel is the middle of three brothers. His older brother Derek joined the army right after graduating high school and will probably stay there for life. Just like Dad, he found his comfortable place in the world. Donald is the youngest, and the troublemaker. He did not graduate high school, and still lives with Dad. He is frequently unemployed and nowadays spends most of his time playing online computer games.

Daniel could never figure out what’s up with the D-names he and his brothers were given. His dad was Al and his mom Peggy, just like that TV show ‘Married with children’. At least they were not named Daryll, Daryl and Darrel!

Daniel breezed through school and excelled at sport. His athletic ability served him well with a full scholarship to a nearby college. He played baseball for them, and they gave him a free education. Daniel not only looked different from his brothers, but his worldview was also completely different. He looked outwards, always wondering what was behind the horizon or under the covers. He studied Neurophysics and after obtaining a doctorate at the young age of 27, he was recruited by NASA. His doctoral thesis on multi-dimensional processing got him the job.

Daniel theorized that even though we live in a three-dimensional world, the brain contains structures that have up to eleven dimensions. In his paper he postulates that humans are able of abstract thought, reasoning, emotions, intuition, language, mathematics, art, and consciousness, all because of this amazing architecture. He got NASAs attention when he drew a parallel between the brain and the universe, suggesting that our universe is structured similarly, thus allowing for many different realities.

Interstellar travel is a dream of many, and Daniel’s theories suggested that there might be other ways to travel using hidden backdoors and pathways. This will remove the need for impossible spaceships, with impossible shields and fuel capacities, trying to reach impossible speeds just to get to other stars in a human’s lifetime.

Daniel had girlfriends, but it never lasted. He cared more for his work and studies than any single person, and he often forgot important dates and even appointments because he was always working or thinking about work, even when he was home with someone. His last girlfriend got up and left the restaurant they were dining at, because Daniel had an idea and was drawing diagrams and making notes on one of the cloth napkins. He noticed that she left when he looked up to ask if she was using her napkin. He is a charming man with devilish wit, but he has not met anyone that interest him more than the secrets of the universe.

***

Luna was born the only child to average parents. Her mother was an accountant, and her father a middle manager at a local telecommunications company. They lived in an average neighborhood, in an average house on an average sized lot. Luna’s parents looked like the average midwestern American couple, a little too heavy and a little bit out of shape.

Luna is not average. She is trim and beautiful, and even though she only stood five foot five she towers over everybody. She possesses a commanding presence, and the way she carried herself made her stand out. Even the way she walked made people notice. You just knew that she was on her way somewhere to make it better.

If you put a picture of Luna, at any age, next to the word ‘beautiful’ in the dictionary, people will truly get the meaning of the word. She knew that her appearance had a powerful effect on others and understood the power it gave her. She also learned early on that not everyone appreciates the way she looks and carries herself. This realization drove her to develop her personality and charm. She has always been genuinely interested in people and loves to learn what motivates others. She cares about their feelings, but never at her own expense. She intrinsically knew that she was responsible first to herself, then she could care for others. You cannot be a blessing to others if your own house is in disarray.

Luna possesses a natural curiosity in all things and could focus intensely on what interests her. If she chose a STEM career, she would have been supremely successful and quite possibly would have made some world changing discovery.

She liked people, and she was intensely curious about people’s motivations, and the thinking that leads to their behavior. To her most people on the planet have an unique perspective of the world, and she was very interested to know what that was. She accepts that some people are just basic and will remain like that for their whole lives. These people blunder though life completely unaware of its beauty and the pleasures it offers. They are forever chasing the next shiny, or tasty, or sexy thing that caught their attention that they absolutely must have, blind to the perfection of the world.

She strongly suspected that marriage neuters men and turns women into caregivers. She did not want that for herself, the world was just too damn interesting.

Luna’s insight into others lead her to combine marketing and hospitality management. She wanted to combine psychology and marketing to create memorable and transformative experiences for people. After graduation she started a company, simply called Luna’s. She started out planning events ranging from weddings to seminars, and eventually started to specialize in seminars and other business orientated events. She has many churches as clients, churches are big business and very profitable.

Her company quickly grew, becoming known for the unmatched level of insight and service Luna brings to her clients. She just knew what they wanted, even if they could not describe it. She always knew exactly what her clients could not articulate. Her company’s reputation grew in prominence, and before long she catered to the rich and famous.

Her services were so high in demand that she became an employer herself. Her ability to read and understand people served her well, and she hired others that had a similar mindset as herself. Business was booming and Luna became very wealthy, very quickly.

Men wanted her, and over the years she learned how to let them know that she is not romantically interested, but kept them as lifelong friends. Luna is a healthy woman, and she enjoys sex and male companionship, but her belief that marriage is a prison kept her from making any long-term commitment.

***

Daniel and Luna met by chance. Good things often happen this way, and sometimes even great things. Luna had a meeting at the Ames research center in Moffett Field, California, to discuss an upcoming event, and Daniel was on his way to work. When he first laid eyes on her she was in the process of changing the wheel on a jeep. The way she was dressed caught his attention. She was wearing sneakers, and dress pants with a hoodie. His mother made sure he was raised a gentleman, so he stopped to help.

He parked his Bronco behind the Jeep at a slight angle, with the emergency blinkers flashing, and walked over. ‘Morning! Can I help you?’ Without looking up Luna answers, ‘I don’t know, can you?’. She is trying to loosen one of the wheel lugs but appears not to have enough mass to break it loose. The rear of the jeep was swung open, presumably to get the needed tools. A pair of high heels and a neatly folded jacket that matched her pants was visible in the cargo area.

‘Sure, what do you need’ Daniel takes his own jacket off, folds it neatly and places it on the hood of his Bronco. Luna smiles at this, ‘Ok then, see if you can loosen this last nut. I got the other ones, but this one is stubborn’. Daniel puts all his weight on the wrench, and the nut pops loose. ‘Thank you, that’s what I needed. Stand aside and let me finish.’ Luna takes over and lifts the car a little higher with the jack, so she can remove the nuts and pull the wheel off. ‘I can change the wheel for you’ Daniel offers. Luna looks up at him, ‘I don’t need you to. I love working with my hands. My name is Luna by the way’ she extends a dirty hand with a smile. ‘I’m Daniel. Nice to meet you’, he smiles back. Something in her mind shifts, and she sees him for real for the first time. ‘Ok Daniel, I can use the help. I’m going to be late for an appointment, and your help will make me less late. I’ll take this wheel off, and you grab the spare form the back.’ Daniel’s smile widens, ‘Together is better’. Luna realizes she is still holding his hand, feels flustered for a second, then recovers her poise. ‘We probably need to let go?’ she says, and now it’s Daniels turn to be embarrassed. ‘Yeah’, he laughs, ‘ we probably should.’

They change the wheel, and they work well together. While they work their conversation flows easily and playful. Luna does not save any time with his help, their conversation is too enjoyable, and she does not notice the time. Once everything was stowed Luna hands him her phone and asks him to type his number. She calls him immediately, so he has her number. ‘Let’s connect later, I owe you a drink to say thanks for the help’, Luna suggests, ‘I’ll be in town for the remainder of the week.’ Daniel agrees and promises to text her later today. He knows a cool place where they can get a drink and dinner. They say their goodbyes and drive into the day, each lost in thought about this chance encounter that just felt so amazingly right.

***

Luna was reading meeting minutes in the cafeteria when her phone announced a message. With her phone lying on the hard surface of the table, she felt it vibrate before she heard it. Her phone is always set to quiet mode, it is the considerate thing to do. She first finishes the paragraph she is reading, then glances up to see the banner. ‘Daniel!’ She grabs the phone, and it unlocks to her face. ‘Get a hold off yourself woman!’ she quietly tells herself, but there is no controlling her increased heartbeat. ‘Hello again! What are you reading?’. The message puzzles her for a second, then she looks up and around and sees Daniel entering the cafeteria with a big grin on his face.

‘May I join you?’ He asks when he reaches her table. Luna laughs, he remembers her correcting his grammar earlier! ‘Yes, you may’ she responds while gathering her work together, making room.

Just like earlier their conversation is easy and enjoyable. She learns about his work at NASA, and he is delighted to learn that she will be managing a few upcoming events aimed at large donors, which means she will be in town often. The work at NASA requires lots of funding, so there will be many events.

***

Attraction is a complicated thing. People are often physically attracted to others, with zero romantic attraction, or completely sexually attracted with no emotional component. Others just like the way someone looks, or how they might make them look like when together.

Luna and Daniel are attracted to each other on all those levels. It felt like they were made for each other, two halves of a single being. They were connected to the extent that they were often thinking about the same things. Once Luna drove them to lunch, with Daniel browsing the results of an experiment on his phone. ‘I think I’ll have the pad Thai today’ Daniel remarked without looking up. ‘Good choice’, Luna commented. She did not tell him they were getting Thai food, he just knew, and she knew that he knew.

They were completely at ease with one another. They did not agree on all things, but instead of fighting to win arguments, they had lively debates, each ready to admit defeat if the other had the most compelling argument. They were a perfect match, each complementing the other, like they had known each other forever.

***

Their attraction matures into love, and they are married six months later. Nothing changes for them; they are as close to each other as ever. Daniel remains his independently handsome self, not requiring Luna to be his caregiver. They always go to bed together but get up at different times. Daniel is an early morning runner, and loves seeing the sun rise. When he gets home Luna usually joins him in the shower.

When they are intimate the world ceases to exit. They are attuned to each other’s needs, and knows when to be gentle, and when to lose themselves in passion.

Neither of them wanted kids, completely satisfied with each other’s company and still laser focused on their careers.

***

A couple of months later Daniel is chosen to be part of a mission to the international space station, the ISS, as chief science officer. This mission will apply elements from Daniel’s research and perform experiments designed to detect other dimensions. He will be gone for six months, living and working on the station. It is the opportunity of a lifetime, a chance to test his life’s work, and he will be doing it in space. He was told that sunrise and sunset can happen up to sixteen times a day, and he can watch some of these while doing his daily run on a treadmill.

He did not need to ask for Luna’s blessing, when she heard about this mission there was no other choice, he must go. She is just as curious as he about what might be discovered.

They might be married, and feel like one person, but they are still individuals, and not each other’s property.

***

The experiments are promising and yield loads of useful data. Based on their analysis the team adjusts various parameters between attempts. In the last week there was an accident, and an unexplainable thing happened. During one of these experiments some equipment malfunction and needed to be swapped out. Daniel was physically moving cables and replacing components when the experiment suddenly restarted, with Daniel in the room.

The team rushed to Daniel’s assistance. He was no longer in the room. There was nowhere for him to go, he had to be right there. After eliminating all possibilities, the only explanation that remains, no matter how insane, had to be true. The experiment worked, and Daniel is now elsewhere.

***

The team leader brief command on the situation, and include their theory, causing concern and excitement. Concern for Daniel, but also excitement for the possibility that he might have traveled along one of the multidimensional paths they were looking for.

Teams on Earth and on the space station pour over the data, trying to understand what happened. They repeat the test with the same parameters, but nothing happens, or at least the data indicates nothing. One of the physicists suggests that the only difference was the presence of the now absent Daniel. They cannot risk another person and decide to use an apple, the organic kind, a Granny Smith.

They write the date and time on it with a sharpie, place it in the room and fire up the equipment. The apple disappears in front of their eyes. With awe they watch the video recording they make of all scheduled experiments. The apple seems to move sideways, and then disappears behind something that is invisible.

***

Daniel could not find anybody in the station. The equipment started up with him in the room, but again nothing happened. He left the room disappointed, just to realize nobody was watching. All their stuff was there, but they were not. He searches their wing of the station and tries to make radio contact with Earth. Nothing! Eventually he goes back to the lab to think.

He hangs in the spot where he was when the process started unexpectedly and is amazed to see an apple slide into view. It is a Granny Smith. Nobody likes Granny Smiths. He then notices the writing. He jumps up and rushes to the observation room, and hit the space bar on a real Apple to wake it up, so he can see the time. The time on the apple is one minute earlier than the time on the Apple, give or take a few seconds.

If this was a parallel universe there would have been other people, but he is obviously alone, still in the same place, just a different time. He must have moved forward in time!

***

Luna learns about Daniel being missing when two senior officials deliver the news in person. She closes the door in their faces when they express their condolences. She refuses to accept that he is dead. She believes that she would have known. It still feels like he is just in another room and will appear at any moment and smile at her like he always does.

The men take it in stride, they have seen all the possible reactions from loved ones over the years, from hysterical laughter to violence directed at them. Having witnessed this particular reaction before, they linger for a while, in case she returns, before stepping away from the door to return to their car.

***

Daniel tries to wrap his mind around this dilemma. Thanks to his colleagues he now knows more about his situation. It stands to reason that with him being ahead, the ‘now’ should catch up to his time, suggesting that he can leave messages where it can be seen a minute later. How would he receive answers? Maybe with more apples? He hopes they have something other than Granny Smiths. He does not like them apples!

‘This is Daniel. I am still here, just ahead by sixty seconds.’ Daniel types this message and emails it to his colleagues and Luna. He repeats this every minute for five minutes, then takes the laptop with him and waits for a response.

The apples show up twenty minutes later. It takes a while to charge the high voltage capacitors used to supply the energy spike needed to start the process. Half a dozen sour green apples appear out of thin air. Many messages were written on the apple skins. One apple simply reads ‘Luna knows you are alive’. The others are marked with sequential numbers and packed with words. The team has been working on the problem of returning him, and they promise not to stop until they know how to do it. One thing they know is that he must do it from his time.

Always the scientist Daniel checked the kitchen, curious to know how many apples existed in his time. There is an unopened bag of green apples. This means that things in his time are different things and not the same things that are on the ISS with the team.

When he moved this place came to being, to accommodate him. They created a new reality, quite possibly void of people. He looks at the planet below and realizes he might be the only human here.

The possibilities are endless. With enough time and resources, they can populate this world. He can imagine how large numbers of the world’s population can be sent over here, not to the ISS, but from installations on earth to the surface of this new earth. Then from here they can jump again, and again, creating as many new worlds as they need.

He can already hear Luna sell this to the super rich that might be able to afford their own planet, then use those funds to move many others!

Insane? Maybe! People said that about going to the moon and look how that turned out. Daniel starts composing his ideas and sends them to everyone that might be interested.

***

Daniel’s message causes quite a stir. The prospect of unlimited worlds, just separated by time is very appealing, and orders of magnitude cheaper than those impossible spaceships everyone has been dreaming about.

With so much interest the money and resources flood in. Luna of course is right in the middle of it all, coordinating and organizing the flow of goodwill towards NASA, every donor wanting the promise of a new and emptier world for themselves.

***

The last message Daniel received covered a good-sized cantaloupe. It also had several pages of data attached to it. It occurred to Daniel that he did not arrive naked, and they figured out that nonorganic material can be sent if the ratio of luggage to traveler is fifty-fifty or less.

It appears to be impossible for him to return. Contrary to popular time travel stories you can only move forward in time. It appears the universe abhors a vacuum, and the idea of you meeting yourself.

To reward him for this astronomical discovery, Earth+1 is his to keep. Luna is tidying up some final arrangements and will join him on his version of the ISS. A facility is being setup on the ground to send volunteers and their families to the Earth+1 surface. These volunteers include doctors, nurses and technicians that will prepare what is needed to pick up Daniel and Luna when they use the Russian Soyuz return capsule on the ISS. That piece of equipment is mostly automated, and Luna will bring documentation that contains a crash course, ha-ha, on how to launch the capsule.

***

Luna joins Daniel in their new reality. The hardest part of the journey was getting from Earth to the space station. Traveling the last leg to join Daniel was almost instantaneous. They joined the 254-mile-high club and renewed their membership a couple of times on that first day.

Daniel and Luna enjoyed watching Earth+1 from the cupola. The cupola is a six-sided structure with windows that afford 360-degree views, and it has a glass roof. These windows are covered with hatches when not in use. Neither of them is religious, but like most people of their generation their parents were, so they knew the bible stories. ‘We are like Adam and Eve’, Luna remarks while they were enjoying spectacular views of their planet. Daniel laughs out loud, remembering the apples that was used to carry those first messages to him. ‘Yeah, but I did not eat the apples of knowledge. Thank goodness I don’t like Granny Smiths, so we will not be refused access to our Eden.’

Much work was needed on Earth+1. There were nuclear reactors to shut down, and automated weapons systems needed to be decommissioned. Once this is done, any new worlds that are spun off will not have these things operational. The same activities are underway on Earth, and once completed the exodus will begin.

The pioneering couple makes love in zero gravity with the hatches open. Their new world patiently waiting for their arrival.