<span class="SFPTagline"> From SCIFIPEDIA </span>

Spoiler Warning: Plot details and/or information about the ending follow. If you wish to enjoy the work first, stop reading here and return at another time.

Inside a large silo, a scientist nervously adjusts an experiment in progress. Water flows down a long tunnel, and out of sight. She nods to a colleague. A metal sphere floats gingerly on a column, and then is sucked down a large tunnel. A moment later, another, larger sphere appears, appearing out of the tunnel in a flash of light. There's a note attached to the sphere. It says, "our balls are bigger than your balls." The scientists chuckle. Things are working perfectly. VEXCOR TECHNOLOGIES, the largest corporation in the world - has had a breakthrough unlike any other in human history. They've found a way to break through; to pierce the veil that holds the universes apart. Now they stand to reap the greatest bounty the world has ever known.

Elsewhere, a dashing detective tracks a missing person. He streaks through streets that look like our own; like Cape Town, South Africa - but not quite. This isn't so much our world, as our world one half hour from now. The man's name is CHARLIE JADE. He's the best detective in Cape City. Cape City is home to Vexcor - the largest of the five corporations that run the world. Not our world…the world of the ALPHAVERSE.

Alpha is a world where corporations rule, where human life is bought and sold cheaply, and where the sun struggles to pierce the veil of acid rain and greenhouse gases that choke the planet. Alpha-Earth is dying, and everybody knows it. For a guy like Charlie Jade, it's all you can do to just look out after yourself.

Amid the hell that is Cape City, Charlie's carved out a nice little life for himself. He doesn't work for the man; he's his own boss. He shares a beautiful loft with his gorgeous girlfriend, JASMINE. Not that Charlie doesn't have secrets: He's plagued by painful visions of things that aren't there. A train appears out of nowhere and nearly runs him over - but when he looks up, it's gone. The landscape changes before him; it's disorienting and troubling. When the visions come he seeks relief from PAPA LOUIS, whose pills and potions may provide relief; or at least the appearance of relief.

Charlie's life changes one evening when he finds a shivering, crying young woman on his office doorstep. She's been sent there by the police. She's lost. Or missing. Or something. Her name is Katie Grayle. Charlie takes her into his office and tries to make sense of her story. She talks about everything being different, nothing being right. The streets, the people - the landmarks. Nothing seems quite right. She claims to be from here. "Cape City?" says Charlie. "No, says Katie. Cape Town." Charlie shrugs. "Never heard of it." She mentions a club downtown called The Glass Door. Charlie's never heard of that club, either. And it's not in the directory. She becomes hysterical. She tells a tale of being out at the club last night, where she met a man. A man who viciously abused her, drugged her. "He said his name was Owen, or something like that." Charlie has a bad feeling that he knows where this is going. "I remember driving in the desert." Charlie attempts to calm her down fail, and she runs out into the night.

The next day, a tender moment with Jasmine is broken by a call from the Police. SEW SEW TUKARRS, Cape City cop, tells Charlie to meet him at the morgue. Once there, Charlie is shocked to discover the body of Katie Grayle. Sew Sew is vaguely accusing: he sent her to Charlie cause Charlie found missing persons. Charlie's affected by the poor girl in front of him, but he won't let it on to the flatfoot in front of him. "You notice anything else about her?" He asks. "Yeah," says Charlie. "She's dead." "No," says Sew Sew. "She doesn't exist." Katie Grayle is not in any database, anywhere. Charlie asks why Sew Sew doesn't read her chip. He looks to his own wrist, to the ID chip he and every Cape City citizen has implanted soon after birth. But Sew Sew tells him she doesn't have one.

Charlie picks up the trail and narrows his search to a likely suspect: not Owen, but 01 BOXER - the pampered, rich son of the founder of Vexcor Technologies, BRION BOXER. He trails him out to the desert, to a run down café. But 01 slips out the back door. Charlie follows him, but he seems to have disappeared into thin air.

Meanwhile, at the nearby Vexcor Facility, the final test of the machine is underway. The scientists are watched over on video screen by ESSA ROMPKIN, Vexcor's CEO. She makes a short speech wishing that Vexcor's founder, Brion Boxer, could be here to see this marvelous achievement. They're ready to flip the switch…

Elsewhere, a beautiful woman walks down a verdant, lush green road. Her name is REENA. She's met by her lover, BERN. They embrace and look around at the fresh, pristine beach. "Look at this place, Reena. Remember it. This place must never change." Reena nods. Reena and Bern aren't standing on a beach in our world. Or Alpha. They're in another universe altogether…the Gammaverse. It's this world that is under direct threat from the Vexcor machine. Unless somebody does something about it…

Reena and Bern run up a gangway toward the Vexcor facility with a large metal box…

The scientists power up the machine…

Charlie sees the ground shift beneath him, and suddenly he sees…Reena and a man running away - taking fire.

Elsewhere, another man pounds on the gate of the facility, demanding to be let in. He's informed the facility is in lockdown, and he drives quickly away. His name's ELLIOT KROGG. We'll get to him later.

Meanwhile, the Vexcor scientists beam as the machine roars to life. Alpha is connected to Gamma. But something's not right…

Charlie watches as Reena runs down the causeway of the reactor. She's there…but he blinks and she's gone. Then… she's standing right in front of him…holding a gun. Then she's not. The ground shakes beneath Charlie's feet.

Inside, the scientists look confused. Then, scared.

Then, there's an enormous explosion. The entire reactor and the land around it erupts in a giant fireball.

Charlie Jade wakes up covered in sand, in the middle of the desert. Confused, tattered and alone. A young girl rouses him. "You're not invisible any more," she says. Her name's Jodi, and she warns Charlie they have to get away from the explosion. "What explosion?" Jodi points Charlie to the horizon and he sees, for the first time, the enormous mushroom cloud rising.

News crews jockey for position, people scuffle, the military loads civilians onto trucks for evacuation and transport. A man steps to the microphone: JULIUS GALT, President of Vexcor. He gives a short statement about the explosion. They don't know what caused it. They haven't ruled anything out. One man watches Galt with a skeptical face. Dressed nattily in a linen suit, he confronts Galt as he tries to slip away: "You can't keep a lid on this Galt, it's too big." Galt smiles. "You live in a terrifying world, Mr. Lubinsky. Full of ghosts and goblins. How do you sleep at night?"

KARL LUBINSKY shrugs and watches Galt go. Lubinsky has been on Vexcor's trail for 20 years. He runs a website devoted to uncovering conspiracies: all the dirty little secrets the powers that be don't want you to know.

In the staging area for explosion refugees, it's utter chaos. A woman, dazed, looks at the hundreds of displaced people around her, and shudders. It's Reena. And this, she thinks, is all her fault. She climbs aboard a transport truck and is driven away. Charlie staggers around, and sees the café he visited before. Lubinsky notices the little girl, Jodi, watching Charlie, and asks her if she knows him. Jodi smiles. "He used to be invisible but he's lost his powers." That's enough to pique Lubinsky's attention. Charlie walks into the cafe, and everything about the café's different: the décor, the layout - the fact that there's no scanner to pay for anything. He orders a cup of coffee and the woman behind the counter asks to be paid in Rand. Rand? Lubinsky buys the coffee for him, and then offers him a ride into Cape Town. Cape Town? Where has he heard that before?

Lubinksy's convinced that Charlie knows more about Vexcor and the explosion than he's letting on, but Charlie is disoriented and confused. Nothing looks right. Lubinsky takes him to his Loft, but it's an abandoned building. The visions come again, but when he goes to Papa Louis for relief, she's not there. Eventually, the road leads back to Lubinsky, who has a startling theory: Charlie's an alien - and the Vexcor explosion wasn't caused by a reactor: it was the machine that brought him here.

Charlie is skeptical, but it's true that he's definitely a fish out of water: a fact proven when he doesn't recognize a picture of Nelson Mandela on Lubinsky's wall.

Meanwhile, Reena wanders this new world disoriented and alone. She gets sick, and is eventually kidnapped by terrorists who are up to no good.

Meanwhile, back in Cape City, Alphaverse, Vexcor Chairman Essa Rompkin defends herself against an irate Board of Directors. The three facilities are destroyed, and hundreds are dead. Worse, they have no idea what happened, or any way to communicate between the Vexcor divisions in Alpha, Beta, and Gamma. Their business is suffering. They're deaf dumb and blind. Building new facilities will take months. In the meantime, they need someone to re-establish contact. Essa blanches. "That person will destroy this company."

Summoned to the Vexcor inner sanctum, 01 Boxer affects a contrite air about the terrible tragedy. The board tells them that he's needed. He demands an immediate promotion. He'll run the show in Beta and Gamma. Essa smiles. "The job we had in mind was company courier." 01 is stung. "You won't let me run any part of my father's company because my vision is too radical." "No," says Essa, "it's because you're a psychopath."

The next time we see 01, it's in the bathroom of a dance club: The Glass Door. The same club that Katie Grayle was talking about. Somehow, 01 can travel between the universes. The club's owner lets him know that the police were asking about that girl. 01 responds by bashing the owner's head against the sink. He exits to meet Julius Galt, who's none too pleased about having to come down here. He wants future meetings to be in his office. 01 lays down the law: he's the one who can travel; Julius brings the mail to him. He hands over the slate and Galt says he'll have a response in a few hours. There's a scream from the bathroom as a waitress finds the club owner's body. "You were just in there," says Galt. 01 just smiles.

Charlie and Lubinsky, meanwhile, have teamed up in an uneasy partnership. Charlie just wants to get home. Lubinsky wants to find out as much as possible about Vexcor: and for the moment, their agendas intersect. Charlie's crashing on Lubinsky's couch. And Lubinsky's learning that Charlie has some amazing abilities…a knowledge of computer systems, and a device that makes hacking a snap. Whereever he's from, their technology is superior. Charlie is stunned to discover things that are familiar in an unfamiliar world: a waitress at a downtown café is the doppelganger of his lost love, Jasmine. But this woman's name is Paula. And in Cape Town, he spots Reena - the woman he saw just before the reactor went up. When he discovers the Glass Door, and that 01 Boxer is also in Cape Town, Charlie finally realizes, with Lubinsky's help, just what happened to him: somehow that explosion cast him into a parallel universe. If he could only figure out how the pieces fit together.

Reporting back to Essa, 01 reveals what they feared all along: the Vexcor explosion was no accident. The suspicion of sabotage falls upon a disgruntled scientist named Elliot Krogg. 01 shows video of him driving away from the site in Beta just before it exploded.

Charlie and Lubinsky are on the trail of Krogg, as well. Krogg's girlfriend is picked up by the police - but is released soon afterward, with a little help from…01 Boxer. 01 interrogates Krogg's girlfriend, and dopes her up. "Remember what I told you, Karen…" he says.

When Krogg's girlfriend resurfaces, she has a new tale to tell to the police. She implicates Vexcor Beta's Board of Directors in the destruction of the reactor. Julius Galt smells 01 behind it. This is a power play, pure and simple. 01 tracks down Elliot Krogg, and after interrogating him, learns the terrible secret Krogg has been carrying all along. It's a secret that only 01 knows, though, because soon after, he murders Krogg and makes it look like a suicide. Charlie and Lubinsky arrive too late to save Krogg - but Charlie sees 01 fleeing the scene. Now he's got two reasons to want the guy dead…

Vexcor solidifies its story; admitting that the explosion was an act of sabotage. They deny that Elliot Krogg was the perpetrator, however. They point the finger at another suspect, whose picture is splashed all over the television as the "new face of terror."

Reena.