3. Aperature Failure

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"So it's an Einstein-Rosen bridge, right?" Thomas asked, looking over the bizarre circle of copper coils, fiber-optic cables, and cooling compressors. He set the thermos down on the table and set the cups next to it quietly.

"Yes and No, not really." Steve said, furiously typing away on the keyboard and watching the screens past his deeply furrowed brows. Anyone else would've thought he wasn't paying them any attention, but Thomas knew his uncle better than that. While not socially adept, he was a savant when it came to the technological aspects of their venture. He could run full-scale simulations in his head, and had a bad habit of solving his calculus problems in permanent marker on his arms. Thomas was the face and the feet of their operation, running back and forth, gathering grants, attending hosting parties, and assuring everyone his uncle wasn't actually bat-shit insane.

"Einstein-Rosen bridges create wormholes by folding spacetime in half, basically. This does something completely different." Steve muttered. Some days it was harder than others.

"These numbers..." Steve said as Thomas set a mug of coffee next to him.

"Don't you think you should take a break? You've been there for ten hours." Steve said.

"I can sleep when it's dead. I mean I'm done. I mean... You know what I mean." Steve said, sipping the coffee and returning to his computer. He looked down at the mug, and back up at Thomas, his dense mustache twitching once.

"It's decaf, isn't it." He said, almost accusingly. But he still smiled slightly.

"It is. I have to keep your heart from exploding somehow." Steve said, clearing off the desk's growing collection of energy drink cans into a trash can.

"As much as I appreciate your help, Tommy, I can't stop now. These numbers, somethings..." He stopped to stroke his beard.

"Off." He finished.

"The sims aren't running correctly?" Thomas asked.

"No. Nothing is." Steve said, taking his glasses off and rubbing his eyes.

"Do you think we can manage a proof of concept run?" Steve asked.

"They're still pressing us about that? I told them, we'll know it works, when it works. But no..." Steve muttered, standing up and cracking his neck.

"They won't approve the grant until we can manage a concept run. They won't be as pleased with simulations as the colleges are." Thomas said.

"If they would approve the power we need, we could do it. But no! Gotta have a Fucking CONCEPT RUN!!" Steve shouted suddenly, hurling his coffee against the wall. Steve stood silent.

"I'm sorry. That coffee was really good, too." Steve said, a single tear sliding down his cheek. Thomas had watched his uncle age twenty years in these past few months, each day harder than the last. The colleges, the grant offices, all of them pressing harder and harder for a concept run, or anything besides promises and simulations. But it was killing his uncle.

"Take a break, Uncle Steve. I can run the sims. Go to bed. I'll get you if anything shows up." Thomas said, gently guiding his uncle towards the stairs.

"The sims won't change, Tommy. We need more power." Steve said softly.

"She's still out there, Tommy. I'm so close." He said, taking his glassess off again to wipe his welling tears, and heading towards the stairs slowly.

"We'll find her, Uncle Steve. But you have to sleep. I can't have you passing out in the board meeting tomorrow." Thomas said.

"Fuck them, Tommy. I'll..." Steve paused midway up the stairs.

"I'll deal with them in the morning." Steve said, walking up the stairs slowly.

Thomas looked back at the generator and back up at his uncle. He knew it would run. The sims couldn't predict what would happen in a live run, or so his uncle said. He had been an electrical engineer before his uncle recruited him, and he had seen the designs for most of the campus' electrical grid. And he knew where the substations were. He patted his pockets to make sure he had his keys, and waited until his uncle's lights went out.

Steve laid in his bed, restlessly, staring at the ceiling, watching the numbers scroll by in his head. Something was off, way off. He couldn't find what it was, but all of his instruments were showing damned strange readings. He blamed it on the music festival on campus, but his gut was telling him otherwise. He was certain the portal would work.

"Portal." He muttered.

"What a dumb word." He said, shifting and realising his lab coat was still on. He scoffed and sat up, pulling his coat off. He hung it on his chair, and heard a piece of paper hit the floor. He picked it up as he sat back down on his bed. He felt his heart begin to sink in his chest as he looked at his niece's picture.

"We're coming, Lilly. Just... hang in there." He said, choking on his words. He laid down in bed, clutching Lilac's photo tightly as he began to sob. He hated being alone with his thoughts. He'd never applied himself to his work like he had in the past few months, but after that storm, his whole worldview changed. He knew he was killing himself, but if he had applied himself earlier, he would probably have her back by now. The timer on his lamp ticked out, and the room went dark, leaving only Steve and his pounding heart alone in the dark. He heard a car door slam, and it brought back memories.

"Why did everyone leave." Steve asked the dark that surrounded him as a car's headlights flashed briefly in his window. His wife, his kids, his friends, everyone left him when he started this project. Everyone but Tommy. Tommy was a good kid. The best person he'd ever met. He wasn't even related to Lilac, not directly, but he applied himself to this project just as much as Steve himself did. The only reason it wasn't killing him was probably because he was twenty-three, and not fifty. Steve sank into a deep, troubled sleep as a car roared out of the parking lot.

Thomas floored it out of the parking lot, following his gps as fast as his car would take him. He pulled up next to the first station and got his bolt cutters out of the trunk. He stopped at the gate, and asked himself if he really wanted to do this. He remembered his uncle before the storm, and now. He'd lost more than a hundred pounds, and almost completely lost his mind. And if this didn't work, Tommy didn't know if he would be able to live. He took a deep breath and cut the lock to the substation, slipping inside and plugging his computer up to the box. He set the redirect for one hour, to last for five minutes, and pulled the plug. He dashed out and saw a campus officer leaning against his car.

"Hey Tommy." Bob said calmly.

"H-hey... Bob." Thomas said.

"Whatcha... whatcha doin' in there, Tommy." Bob said.

"Just getting some energy readings. We've been seeing some weird energy spikes back at the lab, and Lacy said she'd seen some in her lab too, so I figured I'd make sure it wasn't anything wrong with the grid." Thomas said, feeling his heart leap into his throat, but he kept his calm composure nonetheless. He talked for a living now. Surely he could do this.

"What's with the bolt cutters then?" Bob asked, nodding to the bolt cutters on the ground.

"Look, Bob, we need a proof of concept run, and we can't do it with these fluctuations all over the charts. And if I told the board, they'd drag their feet for months, because it's just a flickering light here and there. It's nothing to them, but it fucks the sensors all over the place for us. And if we don't get a concept run going, they'll defund us in two weeks. If I show them where the fluctuations are happening, they'll fix them ASAP, and we can run the test tomorrow, or the next day." Thomas said. The best lies are those rooted in truth, after all. Bob looked at him questioningly, and back at the bolt cutters.

"All right, Tommy. But only because I like your uncle. How's he doing, anyway?" Bob said, standing up off Tommy's car and relaxing.

"He's... not doing good. I'll catch up with you later, Bob, but I gotta go. If I don't get to each substation within a time limit, I can't get a a solid read." Thomas said, rushing into his car.

"Hey, what if I gave you an escort?" Bob asked, before Thomas slammed the door. He stopped and looked up at him.

"You can do that?" Thomas asked.

"Sure. Just not all the time." Bob said.

"That would save some time, for sure." Thomas said.

"Hell we can just take my car." Bob said, unlocking his cruiser.

"Saves more time." Thomas said, hurrying his gear into the passenger side of Bob's cruiser.

"But we gotta haul all the ass, Bob." Thomas said.

"Hauling it then." Bob said, flicking on the lights and siren as he floored it, and roared away from the substation.

By the seventh substation, they had developed a smooth system, in and out in less than thirty seconds. But Bob had also developed a strong suspicion that Thomas hadn't been completely truthful with him. They got back in the cruiser and were headed to the last substation.

"How long we got?" Bob asked, zooming through an intersection.

"We got ten minutes." Thomas said.

"Plenty of time." Bob said, coming to a complete stop in the middle of the vacant campus street.

"You're planning on running it tonight aren't you? It's not a test run, is it?" Bob asked.

"You've come this far, Bob. Why stop now? You're already part of history in the making." Thomas said.

"Damnit. If I get fired for this-"

"You won't get fired, Bob. This thing, once we get it started, will provide more than enough energy to keep itself open, and it'll instantly refund all the energy it used and then some, back into the grid, it just needs a lot of power, really fast, but not for very long." Thomas said. Bob looked at him closely for a second, and then floored it towards the last substation.

"How long will the campus be down?"

"Five minutes, tops."

"Five whole minutes!?" Bob asked, narrowly dodging a cat as they neared the last substation.

"It's not that long. And it's two am, Bob. Here it is." Thomas said as the cruiser screeched to a halt. Thomas rushed into the substation and chopped off the lock, not even waiting for Bob to get his keys out. He rushed in, hooked up his laptop, set the timer, and was back out in a flash. Bob had just gotten out of his cruiser.

"Already?" Bob asked.

"We've got less than eight minutes before the redirect, Bob. We gotta haul ass, now!" Thomas said.

"I don't know where your lab is." Bob said, hopping back in and roaring away from the substation.

"I can get you there." Thomas said, looking at his watch nervously.

"How far away?" Bob asked.

"Six minutes." Thomas said.

Thomas never knew how fast campus cruisers went, or how capable a driver Bob was, until that night. They stayed at a constant one hundred miles an hour, on roads meant for thirty five, and amazingly, didn't die horribly in a fiery wreck. They slid into their building's parking lot, and Thomas raced down into the cellar, fumbling with his keys at the door. Bob pulled him aside and kicked it open with a single blow.

A sudden bang jolted Steve out of his sleep, and he thought it was the portal exploding, or another of those storms outside. He grabbed his lab coat and glasses and raced down to the portal. He saw Bob the campus officer standing next to Thomas as he threw switches and lit the whole room up. The portal whirred sadly, lacking enough power to even light up properly.

"There's not enough juice, Tommy. We can't even get the lights on." Steve said, yawning.

"There's about to be." Thomas said, glancing at his watch as he stood next to Steve.

"How much power? And how?" Steve asked.

"The whole campus, and about fifteen miles outside of it. And because I redirected all of the substations for about five minutes." Thomas said, looking at his watch and counting down.

"You did what!?" Steve shouted.

"For how far!?" Bob shouted.

"Three, two, one." Thomas said, clicking. Nothing happened for a split second.

"Wh-" Was as far as Steve got. The room was flood with a brilliant light and a deafening roar, as lights exploded, and the computer bank shut off as the power bar caught fire.

"It's working Tommy!! LOOK!" Steve shouted, laughing over the deafening roar. From the center of the portal apparatus was a brilliantly glowing pinpoint ball of swirling color.

"We did it!!" Thomas screamed, ecstatic.

"How long will it stay like this!?" Bob screamed over the noise.

"We've got five minutes to gather readings!!" Thomas shouted.

"Five minutes!? That's way too long, Tommy! The aperature won't hold for that long!! It's got maybe thirty seconds before..." Steve stopped mid-sentence as he looked back at the portal in horror.

"Before what!?" Thomas yelled. Steve grabbed his face and turned him towards the portal. The orb of color was now a pinpoint of pitch black, but somehow, still glowing brilliantly.

"Is that a singularity!?" Thomas asked, backing up from it as the wind in the room began to pick up.

"I think we're dead, Thomas." Steve said, barely audible over the howling winds.

"But it's working! Can't you shut it off!?" Bob asked.

"No! It's self sustaining now! Or it will be until the aperature fails!!" Steve said as they all began backing up towards the door.

"What happens then!?" Thomas asked. He was answered by a thunderous crack, and the wall of the cellar was sucked into the pinpoint, and dragged the portal aperature with it. The all felt gravity shift suddenly, and everything in the room suddenly fell towards the pinpoint.

"Steve!!" Thomas screamed, grabbing onto the railing as the computer monitors fell past him and into the pinpoint. Bob grabbed the door frame as Steve grabbed his leg.

"GRAB MY HAND TOMMY!!" Steve screamed, reaching out for him.

"I can't!!" Thomas yelled back, feeling his clammy hands slipping on the handrail.

"But it's working!! We know that now! You can build it again! You can get us both back!!" Thomas said.

"NO!! TOMMY! GRAB MY HAND GODDAMNIT!!" Steve screamed at him.

"We know she's alive! I can make it! You've got this!!" Thomas said, feeling the gravity increasing.

"NO-O-O-O-O!!" Steve screamed, letting go as Thomas' grip gave way and he fell down in to the pinpoint. As Steve was falling, he saw the pinpoint suddenly widen, and the pitch black maw of the void swallowed the only person on this planet that ever trusted him. He hit the handrail, breaking his shoulder, and the pinpoint vanished suddenly, with a subtle pop, as gravity returned to normal.

"Jesus Christ." Bob prayed, sitting up slowly, looking at the mangled mess of the portal aperature. Steve rose to his knees, sobbing silently.

"No..." He whispered. The pinpoint roared back to life, but gravity was sent the opposite way now, and something heavy and covered in fur hurled out of the void and smashed into Steve, breaking two ribs and knocking him out, just before the pinpoint sputtered out, like someone let the air out of a balloon.

Steve woke up in a lightly colored blue room, with a throbbing headache, like someone was playing dubstep in his frontal lobe. He was laying in a hospital bed, and there was a US Army General sitting next to his bed. He was about fourty, with a tight jawline, and various medals that Steve didn't recognise. He had closely trimmed silver hair, and was reading a clipboard full of notes and reports.

"He's awake, sir." A nurse said to the general.

"Welcome back, Doctor." The general said, standing and offering Steve his hand.

"Doctor? Please." Steve said weakly, shaking the general's hand loosely.

"No, it's doctor now. You have no idea what you've done for us. For all of the United States." The general said.

"Really?" Steve asked, sitting up slowly, and wincing in pain as his the bones in his shoulder scraped together, held in place by a stiff cast.

"Easy. You've been out for a while, almost a week, actually." The nurse said, helping him sit up.

"A we- Oh my God, Tommy! I have to get back to my lab! NOW!" Steve said, trying to get out of bed.

"Doctor, please remain in your bed! We've got your lab, and we've got your back, just relax, we've got it all covered." The general said, keeping Steve in the hospital bed.

"Tommy... I'm so sorry." Steve said, beginning to sob.

"We can get him back, if we rebuild the portal. But I need all my notes. And it was all sucked in." Steve said.

"Not exactly, doctor." The general said.

"What do you mean?" Steve asked.

"Your computers backed everything up to the cloud in the instant before the event. We've got all of your data, doctor. And we've got all the raw materials to rebuild it. But we have something even more important to show you, once you're back on your feet. Take your time." The general said.

"I don't have time! I have to get that portal working now! I have to get them back!" Steve said.

"We've got a team of doctors, physicists, astrophysicists, the best and the brightest, from across the globe, all working off your notes. We'll have it built in a matter of hours, with some improvements." The general said.

"Like what?" Steve said.

"Well, we're making the aperature stronger, for certain." The general said, trying not to smile. It didn't work very well.

"So take a nap, heal up. We won't run it without you, doctor. And by the by, my name is General Crusher." The general said.

"Thank you, General." Steve said, laying back in his bed.

"No, thank you, doctor." Crusher said, walking out of the room.

Steve dreamed, but it was strange, as if he was afloat outside of his body, able to fly through walls at will. He felt a strange energy, like a breeze blowing past him, guiding him deeper into the base. He reached a solid steel cell suspended in a vast chamber, and inside was a strange, alien creature, bizzare, yet familiar, somehow. As he approached, it opened it's eyes, and he was sent hurtling back through the complex, until he slammed back into his body.

Steve jolted awake, scaring the nurse that still sat by his bedside.

"Oh Jesus, doctor, you scared me half to death." She said, laughing.

"Get me the general. I need answers, now." Steve said, replaying his dream in his mind over and over. It was crystal clear, and not fading like a normal dream. It stuck with him.

"You seem better, Doctor." General Crusher said, walking into the room.

"What came through that portal general? I need to see it. Now." Steve demanded.

"That's where I was taking you. As soon as you're a hundred percent again." The general said. Steve stood up out of his bed, and yanked the sensors off of his arms and legs, and tied his thin sheets around his waist.

"A hundred percent then. Let's go." Steve said. The general just grinned slightly.

"Follow me then." He said. Steve hurried past the general as the nurse handed him his glasses.

"You had a strange dream, didn't you doctor? Floating through the walls, then sent hurtling back? Jolted awake, and it's still in your mind even now, am I right?" Crusher asked.

"Yes, how'd you know that?"

"Because everyone here has had that same dream, or a slight variant thereof." Crusher said as he led Steve through an obscene number of security checkpoints, one checkpoint every ten feet.

"And what causes it?" Steve asked, hurrying along.

"We're calling it an Anthropomorph. We're not sure what else to call

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