Episode 26

There were mixed reactions to Sharp’s bear analogy. Most people laughed, but a few were puzzled by it. “There are no bear conventions,” and “Who would invite bears to eat them?” drifted over the intercom, but it was Syd’s “We should all be so lucky” that earned a snort from Sharp.

Sharp rolled his eyes, then headed back to the storage closet. After rummaging for a few moments in the dark, he came out with a screwdriver and headed to the back of the lab. They hadn’t cleared the floor yet this far away from the portal. The clutter and detritus from the wormhole experiment was everywhere.

Sharp made his way past the machinery that was parked inconveniently close to the restroom door, and began banging at the door hinges with the hammer and screwdriver. He was surprised to discover that the “restroom” was another closet. There was a toilet in the back, as well as a janitor’s sink, but it was also filled with metal shelves loaded with cleaning supplies and other items he couldn’t make out in the dark. He made a mental note to come back later to catalogue what he found. He also needed to visit the resource closet and do the same.

Being careful not to let the door drop, Sharp pulled it from the hinges and made his way back towards the portal. He hadn’t worked out how he was going to attach the door, but he trusted that he could figure things out once he got it there.

The sky in the world beyond the entrance was a dark, forest green seeping into black, and desaturated orange and gray cumulous clouds were sprinkled across the far sky. The mounds on the beach were reflecting the red light from the lab on their black, shiny shells. They were also closer than he remembered.

That’s not creepy at all.

Sharp positioned the door with care into the portal’s opening, then let go. He flashed a giant grin at Lady Primguard as the door stayed in place. No sunset could be seen, which meant that no red light from his side could leak over. At least, he hoped.

“Hey! It worked! This should give us a little peace of mind. Our sounds may carry, but not the light any…”

His voiced drifted off as the wormbox behind him began to give off sparks. He looked over at his pinned timer. It read “24:46”. Then the restroom door in front of him shimmered. Sharp stepped back as the door faded away and another sunset took it’s place.

“Shoot…we lost the door.” Sharp reset the pinned AR timer with a glance.

“Hold on a moment. The door to the water closet is gone?” Lady Primguard seemed more alarmed by that news than anything else since he met her.

“Yep, apparently the door was too deep inside the event field.” Sharp cocked his head and began thinking of a new solution.

“You nincompoop! How am I supposed to use the water closet in private now?”

This story is posted elsewhere by the author. Help them out by reading the authentic version.

“Do your business quietly?”

“Sharp!” Darity could be heard scolding him.

Whatever retort Sharp had planned was cut off as the floor began shaking. The wormbox sparked again, and Sharp looked at his timer. “2:06”

That’s too soon, isn’t it?

That odd, rusty hinge sound filled the WMD lab again, but it was overpowered by a loud, repetitive banging. At the far end of the room, the towering wormhole apparatus was running again, making that MRI-like sound he had heard the first time things went screwy. Alarmed, Sharp looked back at the wormbox, but there was no wormhole being formed—not of the basketball-sized pinhole variety at least. Then the portal rippled and a new vista took its place.

All was quiet.

“Sharp,” Isabelle spoke over the intercom, “what happened?”

“I’m not sure. The portal changed too quickly that time.”

“Are we sure we know what is a normal period for the portal?” Kyle added.

A spirited discussion erupted in the observation room as the various experts in their fields argued over the phenomena they had been witnessing. Sharp could see Isabelle was in the thick of a conversation with her colleagues. The lights hadn’t come back on, but he couldn’t mistake that poofy hairdo.

“Kyle, are you guys making analog observations? Is somebody taking notes?” Sharp called out. Lady Primguard had forgotten to hold up the tablet. It hung limply by her side. It was clear the cacophony of If Sharp knew his friend, he was sure Novell was losing patience with the view of the floor and was already heading over, if he hadn’t already been driving over to begin with.

Kyle replied that many of his staff had already been doing that, but Sharp wasn’t satisfied.

“We don’t even know why it’s changing!” replied Sharp with some alarm. “How is this portal still going? The wormbox is dead, but why does it spark like that when the portal changes? If we only have power for emergency lights and the intercom, where’s it drawing power from? We have an awful lot of questions and no answers.”

“How will you bring me back home?”

“Yes, Lady Primrose, that’s one of the questions.

“PrimGUARD.”

“Yes, yes…” Sharp said pensively. “Look, can we call you something else? We’re trapped in a lab hundreds of feet below the Earth with no food or way to escape. There’s no need to stand on ceremony, is there?”

“I don’t see why you and I have to be on informal terms simply because you can’t remember my family name.”

“I know. You’re right, but I’m having everybody call me by my first name—even the guys who hate me. With everything so stressful, and me not familiar with formalities, I’m just going to keep offending you. Can you help me out? What was your first name? Cattleprod, right?”

Lady Primguard’s face exploded in shock, her mouth open widely along with her eyes.

“I’m kidding. It’s Cattleya. My Grandmother used to grow them in her greenhouse. It’s a beautiful orchid.”

Lady Primguard was quiet for a moment as she mouthed the word ‘orchid’, then spoke softly. “I’ve never seen them. A Traveller from ages back used to paint flowers from his home world—from your world, I suppose. He wrote their names in his journal, and he painted them, but he never labeled them. Their names passed into our culture as popular names for girls, but we don’t know which flower is which. None of them grow in our world.”

“Let me see the tablet for a moment.” Sharp took the tablet back from her and noticed that the connection with his friends had closed.

They’re definitely rushing over here.

He opened up a browser and typed in a keyword, then handed the tablet back to her trembling hand. Her right hand was busy clutching her tail again.

“This is a cattleya, Cattleya. If we can get out of this mess, I’ll try to show you a real one.”

He left Cattleya holding the tablet, her mouth open again, but in awe instead of shock, and walked over to the observation window to continue his discussion with Kyle. Behind him the wormbox sparked again, the room shuddered with the tumultuous noise, and a new vista appeared.

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