After a while, I complete nodal portals and set up my existing portals to be connectable to any others by entering specific parameters. By upgrading the transportation systems I set up to use these, I'm able to get more funds for continuing my research.
Unfortunately, somebody figured out how to hack into my portal system, and they bring themselves right to my base. We have an intruder, here for who knows what purposes, cabable of who knows what, and no security beyond cameras and microphones. Not being a part of any nation, we can't call for any sort of help.
Lunie is able to see where he is and gets a sense for what brings him down what paths. Pretty soon, she's able to attract him down the corridors she wants him to go down until he's trapped at a dead end. Then she blocks the exit with her physical body and starts asking him the obvious questions. He says he'll only talk to me, so I go there to see what's up.
"Dr. Shay?", he asks.
"Yeah, that's me. And you are?"
"I'm Ray Sebright."
"Why are you here?"
"A few reasons. First, you remember those 'healing' chambers you made?", he questions, bending his index fingers like quote marks on the word "healing."
"Yeah... What about them?"
"My mother used one a little while back after being badly burned in a car accident she survived. Unfortunately, the coccoon stuff binded partially to the baby she was carrying."
"In the training of people to operate the healing chambers, it's specifically pointed out never to put a pregnant woman in one."
"We didn't know yet. She was the only one who knew, and she was in a coma."
"That's terrible."
"Yeah, it is. And you know what else is terrible?"
"What?"
"We put the insurance money and much of our savings into internet security stocks. We figured it's something people would always need, so it would have to do well, but your stupid program put them all out of business. And after all that, my father lost his job as a subway engineer when our city replaced the system with your damned portals."
"So, I take it you're not here on friendly terms... What is it you want from me? Money?"
"What do I want? Everything you do seems to damage my life, and I'm sure the lives of many others. What I want is for you to die and go to Hell!" With this statement, he pulls a gun from his pocket, aims it towards me and fires. Lunie, however, walked in front of me faster than I could even realize a gun was being pulled out.
"Ow!," exclaimed Lunie, clutching her right shoulder with her left arm, "Do you have any idea what this cost me?"
"Huh?" Ray was confused. He had clearly shot somebody, but they weren't writhing in pain.
While the Ray was confused, Lunie rushed at him and pulled the gun away. Our first thought was to simply portal him back to where he came from, but we quickly realized that he would just come back, probably with more guns. We take him to one of the labs, where we can seal him off temporarily. The rest of that day, I work on an encryption system for the portals, and Lunie designs some security robots. Once the encryption is in place, we send him home.
Lunie orders all the parts she needs for the security robots, and to repair herself. It surprises me that I don't get a bill for it, and after asking her about it, I find out that she has more money than she knows what to do with. She has some sort of online business, but refuses to tell me anything about it.
She's designed two types of robots. One type is built into the walls, and looks like a slightly concave wall surface, like the rest of the walls. When activated, it's pushed out of the wall by a lever mechanism before it moves a few joints around to take its shape. The other type of robot is created as reinforcement for the first type. They have a photosensitive exterior. They send the light data they record on one side of the unit and display the output on the other. This makes them almost invisible. They're not completely invisible because there's a slight delay between recording the light data and displaying it, creating a blur when there's any motion.
After installing these machines, the lab looks exactly the same, but it feels much safer. Once I've set up a five dimensional portal, which can go much further, I decide to use it to start up a space program. Although we hope to use the portal technology to allow it to move pretty fast, we first decide to just design and build the initial space station. Lunie designs machines specifically to handle the construction process. Like the security robots, these machines would be controlled directly by her.
Chapter 12: Invasive Action ->
Copyright 2006 Sean Breslin