Alex Harris

The minister shook his hand and then walked over to the podium before the viewing stand and the waiting crowd. Kinetoman flew down and stood beside Alex. A reporter from www.internews.com with a live-feed stereo netcam strapped to his head walked up to Alex as the Minister was speaking; Alex had given the Internet Network News an exclusive interview moments ago and now they were being allowed a close-up view of the event. As Alex spoke, his words were being recorded, transcribed and transmitted to billions of users worldwide.

"The days of the internal combustion engine ended with my fusion breakthrough; cars of the conventional variety became obsolete. Now, with the invention of The Gate, so will aeroplanes and shipping. No more oil spills, no more crashes. Everyone and everything can instantly be transported from one part of the world to another, safely. With enough power and large enough antennas, we may even be able to teleport to other worlds - explore Mars without the need for expensive and dangerous rocketry."

"Incredible! How does it work?"

"It breaks down the dimensional barrier, allowing two locations in space-time to be temporarily fused together. You establish where you want to go and then a null-pocket is created that is basically a spherical region that exists in neither of the two places it connects. You then step through and ...you're there."

"So what is going to happen today?" asked the reporter.

"We're going to transport this crate of wheat - ", Alex indicated the crate dangling from a crane nearby with a big maple leaf on its side, "from here to Somalia. Once the Gate is activated, the crate will be lowered into the field and will reappear and touch ground in the designated co-ordinates."

The Minister made his speech, rife with historical references to Canadian breakthroughs in communications and transportation "uniting a nation" and then gestured to Alex. Alex smiled and waved and then pressed the big green button on his remote.

The air crackled with static electricity. A huge glowing sphere appeared where the blades of the Gate machine had been, brighter than the sun overhead. The humming, once just background noise, became all anyone could hear. Alex punched another control and moved a tiny joystick on the remote, causing the crane to lower the crate slowly into the glowing mass. Then, after a breathless minute, the chain started to grow slack and Alex stopped the crane arm's decent.

Food bundles being lowered through the gate to the Somali plains

The television monitors showed satellite video of the Somalian terrain, lit up by a small sun hovering above the ground. Dangling from it was a length of slackened chain and a crate marked with a large maple leaf.

The crowd was enthusiastic. Hands were shaken, hugs exchanged, mouths hung open, applause followed.

"What do you think of that Kine-..." Alex said and then stopped. Kinetoman was not standing beside him any more. He looked up.

In the sky above, Kinetoman appeared to be in mortal combat with a man in a bright yellow radiation suit. The pair glowed an eerie green colour.

"This is Jason Caine of InterNews with an exclusive fast-breaking bulletin. The demonstration of Alex Harris' Gate has apparently been interrupted by members of the NFLQ or Nouveau Fronte du Liberation de Quebec. You can see the fierce battle raging overhead between government agent Kinetoman and one of the NFLQ's operatives, known as Meltdown. Around me, the Vanguard are currently engaged at fighting the ground forces of the Fronte. This is an incredible sight. I only hope that your web browser has the capacity to show this battle in its full-colour stereovision glory."

Kinetoman felt weak and nauseous, the result of the extreme radiation exposure, but kept fighting. Meltdown held him tightly, his hands burning searing pain into Kinetoman's ribcage. Finally, Kinetoman freed himself and tried to fly away. Meltdown emitted a bright beam of energy from his hands, but missed Kinetoman who was losing consciousness and altitude. The beam struck the Gate's glowing orb and then it, Meltdown and Kinetoman, vanished. The rumbling roar which had been deafening moments ago, now gave way to a chilling silence. The chain dangled from the crane, its end a severed molten link. The video from Somalia, temporarily cut off, now resumed, showing a leveled blackened field where the crate had been.

Alex looked in horror at the machine. A small black sphere had formed in the centre of it and was growing larger.

The NFLQ was already leaving.

Vanguard did what they could to control the panic in the crowd.

Arial view of the Harris Institute, aka The Igloo in Sudbury, ON

Alex screamed, "Everybody into the Igloo! Now!" The Harris Research Institute (HRI) was a large white dome made of a super-strong polymer-alloy created by one of the scientists residing there. It had been nicknamed the Igloo by a visiting government official when it first opened and the name had stuck.

"What's wrong, Mr. Harris?" asked the reporter.

"If that thing keeps on expanding," indicating the black void now a metre wide, "it'll swallow the Earth hole...everything, all matter, will...", he snapped his fingers, "Gone... The only thing we can do is to drop a nuclear weapon on it and flood it with energy before it can expand out of control. We'll be safe in the Igloo. It can survive a direct impact of an asteroid and it's completely radiation proof." He pulled out his cell phone.

"Madame Prime Minister, I need a favour..."

Nulspace distortion effect

The press, the guests, the RCMP and the remaining members of Vanguard stood in silence as they watched the black void expand on the monitors from deep inside the Igloo. A murmur of voices was only broken by the occasional chatter of radio traffic from the armed forces. A fighter-bomber had been scrambled with a nuclear device and was on its way.

Alex Harris sat on the floor with his head in his hands. "All my fault...all my fault..." he kept moaning.

"Trap One, this is Greyhound. I am approaching the target, over," came the voice on the radio.

Another voice answered it. "Greyhound, this is Trap One, proceed."

There was a long pause and then, "The bird is away, repeat, the bird is away."

Seven seconds ticked by and then the picture was lost in a brilliant flash of light. A radio transmission followed. "Trap One, this is Greyhound, the target was hit, minimal collateral damage. Negative on energy readings, negative on radiation, over."

"Greyhound, what do you see, over."

"Transmitting now, over," and the monitors came back to life. It showed a green field, undamaged by the nuclear explosion it should have suffered. The apparatus was still there, but cleanly sheared off at the top.

"It's gone! The void is gone! It must have completely absorbed the energy of a 40 kiloton nuclear warhead, but it's gone," Alex exclaimed.

"So the danger is over?" asked the reporter.

"Yes, that's the last it will trouble us ever again," proclaimed Alex Harris, not knowing how completely wrong he was.

The detonation destroyed the null pocket in that location and in that time, but it created an instability in the time/space continuum. Rather than a controlled, predictable artificial gate, the null pockets appear randomly, and without warning.

Within the sphere, which can be virtually any size, time and space don't exist. One can step through a null pocket and have one foot in one world and the leading foot in the next. It is a bridge between worlds. Sometimes it connects two periods of history, whether it be the past or the future. Sometimes it opens a door to an alternate present. Sometimes it simply connects two points in space. It can be any one of the above or any combination thereof.