“Hey Einstein, are we going to fire this thing up today or not?” Dr. Field asked Dr. Lang who once again checked his calculations before giving the okay to start the largest atom smasher the world has ever seen. He was called Einstein because of his long unruly hair and the fact he was a brilliant mathematician.
“You know I’m concerned with the possibility of tearing the fabric of space. According to my calculations once this baby’s fired up we’re going to be creating some miniature black holes, and once we do, there’s the possibility one of them may be linked to another black hole and we’d possibly be opening a tunnel through time and space. If we open one, we won’t have any way to control the tunnel,” Dr Lang replied.
“You and your wormholes, we’ve got over three thousands physicist here to observe the culmination of their combined efforts, and you’re going to make them wait for you to do more calculations? Let’s just start the damn thing,” He almost bumped into Dr. Lang as he turned and close enough to touch appeared the deformed side of Dr. Lang’s face. Dr. Field shut his eyes in revulsion. A generic experiment went errant and Dr. Lang’s mother who participated in the trial gave birth to a uniquely malformed infant.
Half his face appeared perfectly normal and an absolute straight line divinized his forehead. The line ran from there through the center of his nose on down through the middle of his lips and chin. The other half of the infant’s face appeared to belong to some prehistoric monster. The skin, rough and wrinkled was of many colors and could have been melted wax from colored candles roughly molded into the shape of a face. Numerous surgeries and skin grafts were tried during his childhood, but somehow soon after the procedure the original face always reappeared.
Though he had turned thirty five last month, the good side of his face was winkle free and he appeared to be in his early twenties. The bad side wrinkled, twisted and deformed by the genetic experiment made it impossible to tell if he was nine or ninety. He tried to date, but even though having a nice personality and being extremely intelligent women couldn’t get past his malformed flesh.
“Wait! You know sometimes when a new collider is started we may need to abort the beam. If we have to, the energy has to go somewhere and I don’t know what’ll happen if that much energy is dumped somewhere it shouldn’t be? We’ll be dumping 10 Tera Watts of power,” Dr. Lang said, as he returned the switches to their original positions Dr. Field had switched them from.
“Don’t worry! You know the accelerator and collision halls here are deep enough underground, along with numerous safety precautions in place so danger’s practically non-existent.
“So you say. Ten Tera Watts is half of the world’s total instantaneous power output. I can’t risk just dumping Ten Tera Watts just anywhere.”
Dr. Field called Dr. Golden the director of the collider, “Dr, Lang is redoing his calculations and holding up the start of the entire experiment.”
Soon Dr. Lang spoke with the boss who told him, “You two are adequately protected in the control room. The walls are impenetrable so you have nothing to worry about.”
“I’m not wor . . .”
“Just start the experiment;” Dr. Golden yelled into the phone, “You know the world’s foremost physicists are on hand to see the startup, and whatever you’re calculating has probably been done a thousand times already. I don’t believe any last minute calculations on your part are going to change anything.”
“Okay, the boss says to go ahead regardless of the consequences,” Dr. Lang engaged the startup and Dr. Field joined him in switching all the instruments on.
A humming sound filled the control room, which was built in the center of the tunnels because protons would travel almost at the speed of light and the closer to the action the faster communication between instruments and collision, thus a better chance of recording any reaction that sometimes lasting only a millisecond. A whirring sound filled the room as beams of antiprotons would be accelerated simultaneously with a counter-rotating beam of protons to an energy of nearly 7 teraelectronvolts (TeV) of energy. When they collide the instruments would record every action and reaction.
No sooner had the scientists activated the collider than alarms sounded and Dr Lang hit the abort button. Nothing stopped. He pressed the button again and again. A bright deep purple light enveloped the entire facility, so bright and forceful it could have been the energy emanating from a slow motion explosion. Alarms sounded, evacuation procedures were begun.
“What’s that light, what’s happening?” Dr. Field asked
Looking at the video screens the Doctors In the fortified control room could see the light penetrated everything, machinery and humans alike. Nothing stopped the strange light. This light cast no shadows. Everything glowed purple and the scientists in the control room could see through the men running in fear as though they were looking through a fluoroscope.
The light moved in a circle and spun slowly in the beginning. Within seconds the spinning accelerated and the light formed what looked like a purple tornado with the large end enveloping the collider and the vortex narrowing down as though looking into a very long tunnel and the perspective caused the tunnel to appear closed at the small end. The revolutions increased continuously. Truly a tornado in reverse, it started sucking in small objects through the large spinning light and sending them flying toward the small end of the vortex.
Doctors Field and Lang observed all this on the video monitors picking up feeds from cameras spread throughout the facility. “They better hurry up and evacuate, the suction is getting stronger every second,” Dr. Lang said.
“Oh shit! There they go,” Dr. Field pointed to one monitor showing three men trying to hold on to a metal railing. They were horizontal and the vortex sucked at them like a giant vacuum. One by one they let go of the rail and went spinning down the vortex until they were in so deep they vanished.
Soon hundreds of men and some women were being spiraled down the vortex.
“Shut off the energy,” Dr. Field shouted.
“I’ve aborted and have every switch in the off position, but the power remains on,” Dr. Lang said.
“Kill all the power then.”
“Sure, the main power switch is over there,” Dr. Lang pointed to the window where the switch stood out clearly marked, but it was on the other side of room, outside of the protective barrier of the control room.
“What in the hell is the emergency power switch doing over there. Whoever designed this thing must be an idiot,” Dr Field kicked the wall in frustration. He knew better than to try to cross to where the main switch was.
“By the way Field, the idiot who designed this section was you.” He looked at him with a half smile on the good side of his face. The deformed side never smiled.
After a few minutes when every loose object or person had been sucked into the purple lighted vortex. The vortex coalesced into a spinning circle twenty feet in diameter and bounced around until somehow it penetrated the tunnel and emerged outside the accelerator. As the light coalesced the intensity became brighter and covered a smaller area until a circle formed twenty feet in diameter.
They watched on the monitors as a rabbit crossed in front of the light. “The force of the suction has diminished, did you see the rabbit didn’t get sucked into the light. Let’s go find out what’s going on.” Dr. Field said.
“You go ahead. I’m staying right here until I notify security that three hundred of the best minds in the world have been kidnapped,” he picked the telephone off the wall.
“Kidnapped? Are you crazy? What happened here was a fucking tornado or some other kind of natural anomaly. How can you even think they were kidnapped?”
“I calculated the odds of three thousand of the world’s best physicist disappearing in one day and the odds are a million to one.”
“All right Einstein, I know you’re good with numbers, but this was an exceptional day. They were all in one spot on the same day and it got hit by a tornado or something.”
“Mathematics never lie, this event couldn’t be an accident.”
“Okay you stay here I’m going out to investigate and see if there’s anybody left besides us.”
Every loose object had been sucked into the vortex. Not one item that wasn’t nailed down remained. Dr. Field went outside and wondered what the shimmering circle of purple light represented. He never heard of a light with these peculiarities and certainly not one twenty feet in diameter. He cautiously approached and as he got within twenty feet he felt a force pulling him towards the light. He grabbed onto a tree and stopped his forward motion. He stood staring for a long time.
“Here tie this around your waist,” Dr Lang handed him a rope at least a half inch in diameter. “I’ve got the rope anchored to the steel railings,” he pointed to the other end of the rope tied to a handrail leading to the building’s entrance.
Dr. Field held onto the tree and used one hand to wrap the rope around his waist before he let go of the tree. He then tied a secure knot. “Thanks, I thought the purple monster would suck me in like everyone else.”
“The suction is dying down and we have to figure out why. And figure where everyone ended up who got sucked in,” Dr. Lang said.
“Figure, you’ve got a hell of a lot of figuring to do. What the hell is this purple light thing? Where did it come from, what’s it doing here and how long will it stay here?”
“You forgot to ask where it leads.”
“Okay, where?”
“I’m going to make a wild guess, according to my calculations, what happened was a worm hole opened between our time and the future. It’s being kept open by an inherent push in space-time that possibly can keep the mouth of a wormhole open indefinitely of course I’m more or less guessing.”
“How long do you think before the tunnel will close up and disappear? And what caused it to appear in the first place?” Dr. Field asked.
“If you would have let me finish my calculations, I’d have answers to all those questions for you.”
*X*
Military vehicles with blazing lights poured into the compound and hundreds of soldiers ran into all of the buildings. An officer yanked on the ropes holding the Doctors who stood staring at the circle of light. They turned at the feel of the tug and he waved for them to come to where he stood. The suction started gaining strength and they had to go hand over hand on the anchored rope to get to him without being sucked into the light.
“I’m Commander Anderson — my orders are to evacuate everyone. He stepped back in alarm when he saw Dr. Lang’s face. “Do you need medical care? Your face is . . .” he saw the injury wasn’t new. “Where’s everybody else?”
Both scientists pointed to the light slowly spinning on the point touching the ground revealing when seen from the side it was less than a foot thick, but looking into the front or back of the light, it appeared to extend into infinity.
“You’ve got to be kidding. Over three thousand scientists were here today,” he scratched his head not knowing if he should believe what they said or not. At the instant he tried to decide, two of his soldiers overcome by curiosity walked toward the light.
Dr. Lang yelled, “Get back, wat . . .” They got sucked into the circle of light and they went spinning down the vortex until they disappeared from sight.
“Does that answer any other questions you had?” Dr. Lang asked.
“Are they dead?” The Commander asked.
“We don’t know, but I’d sure like to find out what happens after they get sucked into the light,” Dr. Field said.
“Here,” Dr. Lang handed the Commander an end of the rope. “Throw this toward the light and we’ll see if the suction grabs hold of the rope and sucks it into the light. Then we’ll extract the rope to survey any abnormalities or damage inflicted.”
“What good’s that going to do?”
“We have to start somewhere, and this seems risk free, so go ahead and throw the rope.”
He coiled and flung the rope as hard as he could towards the light. The suction pulled the rope so it stood straight. One end attached to the railing and one end in the center of the light.
“Pull,” Dr. Lang shouted and the Commander yanked on the rope that came out of the light cleanly cut at the point where it had passed through the light.
“God! Does this mean we can’t pull anyone out of there?” The Commander asked
“We can find out soon enough,” Dr. Lang said, “we’ve some lab animals in cages which didn’t get sucked into the light. Let’s harness one and put the animal into the light and then pull it back out to see if it survives. Commander, we’ll need one of your heavy vehicles with a winch to slowly send the animal into the light.”
The commander and three of his soldiers brought a Humvee with a winch attached to the front bumper. The Doctors had rounded up two caged rats and three caged rabbits. Dr. Lang used surgical tape to affix one rat in a stretched position so he could put the rat in head first. He taped the other rat too, but in a reversed position so he could put this one in rear-end first.
“Okay, here goes,” he tied the rope around his waist as a safety line, and attached the cable from the winch to the cage. “Give me enough slack on that cable to get close to the light. I only want part of the rat to go through the light. Once the rat’s head went through the edge of light it disappeared. The body remained alive without its head. They could tell because the tail and hind legs moved like it was trying to back out of the light.
“Pull it out,” Dr Lang said.
A soldier started the winch and pulled the rat from the light. Blood spurted from where the head used to be.
“Apparently the animal remains alive while half in the light and half out.”
“I think this little guy is the second rat to ever go through a wormhole. Don’t worry little rat, you’re going to be famous as rat number two when this is all written in the history books.”Dr. Lang picked up the cage with the squealing, terrified bound rat, and attached the winch’s cable to the cage so the rat’s rear end would enter the light before its head. “We can observe if it’s painful inside the light by watching its reaction. Also we’ll get to see if it’ll live indefinitely, half in and half out of the light.”
The rat lived for an hour and appeared to be only frightened and not in pain before they tried to extract the rat from the light. Once they extracted the cage, both cage and rat was cut neatly, at the point where they had penetrated the purple light.
“What’re we going to do?” Dr. Field asked
“I don’t know about you, but I’m tempted to step through the circle just to see what’s on the other side,”
“You know once any object goes into the light it’s not coming out again.”
“You’re right of course, I’m being impetuous, but we’ve got to find out if this is in fact a wormhole, and if possibly those who have been drawn through the vortex could be alive in another time and another place.”
“How’re we going to find out?”
“That’s the question I’ve been asking myself over and over.
The entire world heard the news in shocked silence. Three thousand scientists disappearing on the same day in the same hour, practically at the same minute couldn’t be comprehended. All suspected a heinous plot by one or more nations to capture this accumulated brainpower for their own nefarious ends. Irrational thought was the reaction to this stupendous event. Most couldn’t conceive the implications of a wormhole appearing unexpectedly and extracting so much of humanities intelligence in one fell swoop.
An overexcited emergency meeting held at the U.N. ended up with nations accusing one another of being responsible. Only Dr. Lang had any idea of what and why it happened, and he and Dr. Field were the only staff remaining from the management of the collider. They were put in charge of the investigation under Swiss military command because the facility was located in Switzerland. Members of all nations’ military that contributed to building the collider were present in smaller numbers.
Dr. Lang gathered as many theoretical philosophers and scientists as he could get to come to the area to meet and discuss different possibilities. The purplish glow from the light saturated the entire area in a ghostly glow. Any who met up with Dr. Lang in the dark usually let out a yelp at sight of his disfigured face bathed in the purple light.
The eighty or so scientists met in a large conference hall where all had microphones to speak into when they had a viewpoint to express. They all had a viewpoint, and pandemonium reigned until Dr. Lang took control by yelling into his mike, “Sex! Sex!” He laughed when silence filled the hall. Like a magic word, sex always caught people’s attention. He had conducted a study years ago and discovered if someone yelled HELP, 86% of people passing by ignored the call, But if the word “SEX” was shouted 98% of people at least looked to see what the shout meant.
“My theory is a wormhole has been opened between our time and another,” Dr. Lang said.
“How do you explain the suction if that’s the case?”
“A simple enough explanation, temperature and pressure differences are probably what caused the suction. The suction progressively gets weaker which leads me to believe those factors are equalizing.”
“Why were the rats sliced to pieces when they were pulled from the light?”
“Of course this is all new to me, but I figure there’s tremendous one way pressure right now. But once that is equalized we may be able to enter and exit the wormhole without being harmed.”
The meeting went on and on for hours with so many scientific explanations Dr. Lang’s head was spinning.
The next morning there was no suction at all and Dr. Lang was able to walk up to the light and slide a rabbit’s cage with a rabbit in it into the light and extract the rabbit in one piece.
While he speculated exactly what this development meant he heard a yell. “Something or somebody is coming,” he looked into the light and saw in the distance what looked like many figures.
“Step back Doctor,” the Commander said, “I think we’re about to be invaded.” He alerted his troops and tanks and artillery pieces were aimed at the center of the light.
“Wait don’t shoot or anything. This might be our guys returning.” He heard what sounded like a low wail. It got louder and as the figures got closer. Scientists and two soldiers popped out of the light and were apparently as healthy as they were when they went in. All of them kept running once they exited the light.
The returnees were corralled by the soldiers and questioned by military intelligence officers.
“It was deliberate kidnapping. They were looking for a specific scientist and they couldn’t pinpoint the one they wanted so they took all of us,” one of the returned scientists complained.
“Did they extract any information from you or any of the other personnel they took through the wormhole?”
“Yes they did.”
“See, I knew it.” Commander Anderson who listened to the interrogation said, “Arm those nukes. We’ll teach these characters not to mess with our planet,”
“Don’t do that, you misunderstood me.” The scientist said, “When I said they extracted information it wasn’t the kind of information you’d be concerned about,”
All the other returnees who heard what was going on tried to join in telling the commanding officer what really happened.
“Calm down,” he put his arms in the air to signal silence and once they all quieted down he said to the scientists, “Could you please clarify what the hell you’re saying?”
“Once we got sucked through the wormhole to the future Earth, there were thousands and thousands of teenage girls waiting for us. They passed us one by one through the crowd. Almost like being thrown into a mosh pit.”
“Passed you to where or who?” The commander asked.
“Passed us straight to the ground once they saw we weren’t the one they were looking for.”
“Well, who in the hell were they looking for?”
“You won’t believe it unless I tell who was looking, and why.
“Okay, so tell me, and hurry up.”
“This feat wasn’t perpetrated by scientists at all, but by teenage geeks from 2,999. Evidently building wormholes is a common occurrence in their time and all that is needed is a power source. All they had to do was look in their history videos to see the exact time the LHC would start up. They simply hijacked the TeV’s needed once it started and opened a wormhole to our time.”
“Damn troublemaking kids,” muttered the commanding officer.
“Wait until you hear why they did it,”
“Do I want to hear why?”
“I think you better listen, they’re going to come here.”
“Call the U.N. Tell them there’s an invasion force coming. You men, arm your weapons. All you civilians, out of here now. This is considered a war zone from this time on.” The commander barked orders at everyone until he heard.
“Calm down commander, the only ones coming will be teenage girls.”
“Teenage girls,” he repeated dumbfounded by this news.
“That’s right, after inspecting each and every one of us without finding who they were looking for they decided to come and get him.”
“But they can’t come to the past from the future. Physics states that if something didn’t exist in our time it can’t be sent here from the future.”
“Whatever physics says, they found a way to overcome any laws that caused some one to theorize that.”
“Okay, enough of the scientific talk. Tell me exactly who’s coming here and why?”
“Have you ever watched videos of Elvis or the Beatles?”
“What’s that got to do with our current situation?”
“If you watched the videos you must have noticed how crazy the girls were, screaming, fainting, and tearing their clothes off. …”
“Get to the god damn point will you.”
“That’s the point. The ones coming here are crazy teenage girls. But brace yourself for when you first see them.”
“Okay, I’ll bite, what’s so unusual about them?” the commander asked.
The scientist didn’t get a chance to answer as a horde of teenage girls exited from the light faster than anyone could count. They surrounded Dr. Lang screaming and swooning.
“Look,” Dr. Field said, “every last one of them has a disfigured face exactly like Dr. Lang’s. The commander looked and couldn’t believe his eyes. Half beautiful women fell at Dr. Lang’s feet. The commander took him by the arm and escorted him to a secure area where the shouting girls couldn’t get to him.
The girls surrounded the building and wouldn’t leave. Dr. Field interviewed a few girls to try and understand what was happening.
“You’re not going to believe this Einstein, but you’re the reason for the wormhole and for these girls being here.”
“How can that be?”
“You’ve got the face that launched a wormhole,” he laughed at his own joke. “Genetic experiments ran wild from our century well into the 22nd and somehow the human female genome got screwed up and every female born after the 23rd Century is born with half her face disfigured, much as yours is, but you were the only male ever born with an identical deformity. Over the years the deformity became a beauty symbol. The more wrinkled, melted, deformed, or ugly their face is by our standards, the more beautiful by theirs.
Their problem, the males are considered ugly because they don’t have any deformities. No one ever figured out why you were the only male ever born with the same deformity as the females. Genomic experiments were outlawed after the plague deformed all females. So they were never able to figured out how to create males to match the females. Some guys take blow torches to their faces to try and become beautiful, but that makes a poor copy of the women’s beauty.
A satellite T.V. signal with you on the news talking about the accelerator got picked up by future Earth, and this generation of teenagers decided to go back in time to get you. The geeks figured out how to do that too. Once they saw your beautiful face: their words, not mine, they clamored to open a portal between their time and ours so they could come and convince you to return with them to father their children. In the hopes the children would be as beautiful as you. Their geek friends used the energy from the collider to open the wormhole for them.”
“I never calculated something like this happening,” Dr Lang said.