"Into the Fourth Dimension" by Ray Cummings is a science fiction adventure story set in 1946, when mysterious glowing apparitions resembling human figures begin appearing around the world. Initially dismissed as ghostly phenomena, they grow increasingly ominous as encounters between the apparitions and Earth's inhabitants turn violent. The narrator, Robert Manse, witnesses one of the first apparitions near Rutland, Vermont, alongside his closest friends, chemist Wilton Grant and Grant's sister Beatrice. Grant has spent years researching the nature of matter, time, and dimensional vibration, and he has long anticipated the arrival of these entities. His research has led him to conclude that matter is fundamentally composed of vibration, and that altering the time-flow governing that vibration can shift a physical body into a secondary state of existence, allowing it to occupy the same space as matter in its primary state without conflict. Grant has developed a chemical compound capable of inducing this transformation in a living organism. He has also created a special suit of transmutable inorganic material. After returning from an initial solo expedition into what he calls the Borderland, a transitional realm between his world and another plane of existence, Grant is shaken but resolved. He reports that the apparitions represent beings from a parallel realm of consciousness, and that their incursions into Earth's physical world pose a genuine threat. He insists on returning immediately, this time taking Manse and Beatrice with him. The three take the compound together and undergo the disorienting transition into the Borderland. There they meet Ala, a young woman from the other realm who has ventured out to observe events and has already made contact with Grant on his first visit. She leads them further across the threshold into her world entirely, a realm where existence is fundamentally mental rather than physical. Matter itself is composed of concentrated thought-substance, and the beings who inhabit this plane, whom they come to call Egos, live lives centered almost entirely on mind. Their guide through this world is Thone, Ala's father and a leader of the dominant civilization, the Big-City. Thone explains to Grant that a renegade named Brutar first discovered the Borderland and the existence of Earth by accident, through the narcotic effects of a plant called lolos, whose blood induces a trance in which the mind wanders beyond its own realm. Brutar has since organized followers, constructed a hidden encampment in the void of space, and cultivated lolos in quantity to enable his army to reach Earth. His intention is to invade Earth, conquer it, and rule it with his followers. A public meeting called by Thone to organize resistance is disrupted when Brutar's forces storm the gathering. In the chaos, Manse and Beatrice are captured by Brutar and taken to his encampment. There Manse observes Brutar's preparations, including the manufacture of specialized inert bricks of thought-matter designed to materialize inside the fabric of Earth's physical structures, causing catastrophic explosions as two incompatible states of matter attempt to occupy the same space simultaneously. Beatrice forms a bond with one of Brutar's younger followers, a gentle youth named Eo who has begun to doubt the morality of the invasion. With Eo's help, Beatrice escapes and finds Grant, Thone, and Ala in the void. Eo, however, is mortally wounded by Brutar during the escape and drifts into death. Manse escapes separately and reunites with the others just as Thone's army moves to engage Brutar. By this point Brutar has already begun his attack on New York City, deploying his bricks inside its major structures. Manse witnesses the destruction of the Woolworth Building, the sinking of a warship, the toppling of the Statue of Liberty, and the collapse of the Brooklyn Bridge before he is able to rejoin the allied forces. Thone has organized an army of trained Thinkers whose concentrated mental power takes the form of a weaponized thought-substance. The battle in the Borderland is entirely a contest of mental force, with opposing streams of thought-matter meeting and struggling for dominance. Thone's strategy includes the deliberate emission of a subtle influence designed to force Brutar's followers to materialize inside the physical ground beneath a small Westchester village. Manse and Beatrice manage to warn the village's residents to flee in time. When Brutar's forces complete their materialization within the solid earth, the result is a catastrophic release of energy that obliterates the village and annihilates the invaders entirely. With the threat ended, Grant, Beatrice, and Manse prepare to return to Earth. Ala has developed feelings for Grant, and he for her, but both accept that each belongs to his or her own realm. After exchanging farewells with Thone and Ala, the three make their way back across the Borderland to Grant's garden and resume full physical existence. The story closes with Manse and Beatrice together, profoundly grateful for their world and newly in love.
By Ray Cummings · First published 1925 · Genre: Science Fiction, Adventure, Hard Science Fiction · 21 chapters