An Untitled Novel

“How have you been feeling lately?” ACE asked Basil as he stared into the sealed room. Basil instinctively rubbed his arm where the injection had occurred. “Nothing so far, is that a good sign?” ACE reminded Basil of their previous conversation. “We will not know for some days.” The two remained in silence as several maintenance drones set up a device in the room before sealing it off. The device had been made in the fabricator from the cached schematics and had a peculiar design. The base of the device had the shape of a trapezoid, and the top of it had some sort of diamond shape on top. Once ACE had made several Basil immediately recognized it as the same as one of the smashed devices that he had seen previously in the facility, but two now sat powered in the sealed room. “They seem like they are supposed to communicate with each other, I am going to tell one to communicate with the other” ACE said, before both consumed a momentary burst of power, and the room looked oddly distorted for a second. “Is it a holographic device like the thing in my implant?” Basil asked.

ACE seemed unsure. “I do not believe so” ACE replied, before running some calculations and continuing. “There does not appear to be any disturbances: no energy, radiation, or gasses released. I am uncertain as to why the last ones were set up in the sealed room.” Basil seemed a little less baffled, “Maybe they didn’t know that at the time?” but ACE was much more intrigued. “Hold on, I am going to send a more consistent stream of power to them.” They both powered up and two images appeared on top of them. “See, holograms,” Basil said, but ACE remained silent and instead started moving one of the maintenance drones to the image. The repair drone disappeared into the first image and came out of the second, prompting a look of surprise on Basil. “Wormholes” ACE replied, in a one word sentence. “You think this is why they tried to kill us?” Basil asked, before second guessing his question. “Wait, why would somebody want to kill us over something as revolutionary as this?” ACE replied, seeming to have already thought this through. “Perhaps it was because somebody wanted to control this technology, or perhaps it has to do with the elements in storage previously unknown used in their construction, but most likely there is a lot more to this than we are aware of.”

“So now what?” Basil asked, unsure of what to do with the newly acquired information. “We still have more tests to perform” ACE replied. ACE went on to explain something that Basil mostly couldn’t understand. What he was able to grasp, however - at least after a lot of questions - was that there were coordinates that had to do with a gravitational field in the devices. There were three variables used in the last test, but there was a fourth that could be used, as well as pre-configured coordinates cached in the part of ACE that he used to communicate with such devices. The first test was to try to calculate the fourth variable and create a connection that way, which he was about to do. “Shit!” Basil said as he watched the receiving device go up into flames. The fans kicked on in the sealed room and blew away thick black smoke as one of the repair drones put out the fire. “What happened?” Basil asked ACE. “I am not certain, but it appears it requires some better precision that I cannot calculate at this time.”

“So what about the pre-configured coordinates?” Basil asked. “I would like to test them, but I am somewhat concerned as to where they may lead. They have a fourth variable pre-set, and I am not even sure if there is a similar device on the other side.” Basil shrugged. “Well, we don’t have much better to do right now, do we?” ACE didn’t seem to share Basil’s laissez-faire attitude about the events, but indicated he was about to try them anyway. Moments later they could see what looked like a beach while the pressure in the sealed room quickly adjusted. “Where’s that?” Basil asked, as ACE quickly closed the wormhole. “I do not know, but without stepping through there is no way of knowing. The maintenance drones could not make it through sand, so-” Basil cut ACE off. “Already on it” he said, stepping into the pressurized room that ACE had just stabilized to the facility’s pressure again. “You need to be very careful” ACE said, and for the first time Basil thought he heard a fleeting glimpse of emotion in ACE’s voice; although he was unsure whether it was real or only imagined. Regardless, it quickly returned to monotone once again.

“I am pressurizing the room now to meet what I detected earlier. The readings indicate that everything is fine, just take a few steps out and tell me more of what you see.” The door shaped wormhole opened and Basil took a few steps out. Basil looked out, seeing a vast ocean in one direction and a dense tropical looking forest in another direction. He couldn’t see any people or a receiving wormhole device, but saw what looked to be buildings off in the distance. Basil, who had spent most of his remembered life in a partially constructed concrete building, was absolutely amazed at the scenery he just witnessed as he walked back through. “What did you see?” ACE asked Basil. “A tropical paradise. It looks pretty sparse, but I did see some buildings off in the distance.” ACE seemed to take a moment to make a plan. “Do you have that flip phone on you that we have been spoofing the signals on?” Basil nodded, and ACE continued.

“Well, I did not pick up any signals when I opened it, but I want you to go back through and walk towards the buildings. Figure out where exactly you are, which we will know for sure when you pick up GPS or cellular signals. It might also be a good way to get supplies from now on if you can walk through a wormhole to do so.” For once Basil seemed more concerned than ACE. “What happens if it’s some sort of secret military base?” ACE replied, having already considered and dismissed the possibility. “There were no signals, there would be some form of electronics everywhere giving off EMF radiation if somebody turned an island into a secret military or research base.” Basil turned around, “Let me grab my gun, just to be safe.” As Basil made the quick walk to grab it ACE made a short chastising comment. “Remember, do not make a scene this time.”

One quick walk later, however, and Basil was about to step back through. “Remember, be careful, and make sure not to draw any attention. I will periodically activate the device to send data to your PDA, which will be re-directed to the phone to be less conspicuous.” Basil just nodded, before adding “Alright, let’s do this.” Moments later he was stepping out on to hot white sand, and beginning to walk towards the group of buildings he saw in the distance.