Portals

by Ann Christy

  “You send a thousand portals at a time, right?” I ask, finally noticing the difference between the number of rooms and the number of portals estimated by officials on Earth.

  Rosa tugs me along by my hand, a little smile on her face as she speaks. “As you already noticed, not all of the transfers go as planned. Lately, we get as many as half that are incorrect. Either no transferee, the wrong one, a non-transfer, or something else altogether. Some of the rooms aren’t ready by the next round. There should be a thousand human transfers each time, but there are usually far fewer. We’re getting another section going so we can keep up the pace. It won’t do to fall behind. Won’t do at all.”

  I’ll just bet they have rooms not available. I can imagine some of what comes through. The image of that second, slightly darker portal comes to mind. In particular, the way it winked out as I approached it. Or rather, how it winked out as I hurtled toward it through a portal out of my world. Transfer. If my mom would have been tossed through as planned, would she have gone through that second portal and landed somewhere besides here?

  I could be mistaken. It’s possible that the second portal was some artifact created by the mere act of going through, a sort of mirror image or something. But the word transfer keeps ringing in my head.

  We round the curve, which just keeps right on curving, and more hallways branch off from this central area at precise intervals. This place must be monstrously huge given how long this curve is taking to get around. The colors graduate from greenish-yellow to green to a sort of blue that I remember from a trip to the Caribbean; not quite blue, not quite green. It’s one of my favorites. It doesn’t take a genius to understand their labeling system. This is the human color spectrum, a march across the rainbow.

  As we get to a pure blue, Rosa stops and faces the interior. It looks no different from any other spot on the wall, but she holds up her hand and a fairly standard looking elevator control glows from a spot in the white. I bend to peer at it, wondering if I can see through whatever it is, but it really does appear to come from within the wall itself. Rosa waves, and the down arrow glows brighter, a countdown evident in the blinking of the arrow.

  Rosa sighs while we wait, and I suppress a laugh. It’s so normal. Sighing while waiting at the elevator is a totally human thing to do. She clears her throat as the countdown continues and asks, “You don’t have motion sickness or agoraphobia or anything like that, do you?”

  I have no clue what agoraphobia is, but I do have a tendency for nausea when I sit in the back seat during road trips. I like to read, but it’s a sure recipe for a queasy stomach on a train or bus. “I do get a little car sick sometimes.”

  Rosa looks around, like maybe she’s trying to think of where to get another towel, so I say, “It’s not bad. Mostly it happens if I sit in the back seat or don’t keep my eyes on the distance.”

  She smiles rather mysteriously at that. “Well, then. You should be fine. Everything is distant from here.”

  With that enigmatic statement, the wall dings and a door slides open. It’s just an elevator, but the walls are glass. Through the glass there’s only the pale grey of the elevator shaft at the moment. We step in and Rosa waves, scrolling the lighted numbers that pop up until they reach H4. I notice we’re on 4-MA19.

  “Get ready,” she says, squeezing my hand. “I’m right here.”

  What are we going to see? An alien planet or a ship or something even more bizarre? Clearly, it’s something that will be new to me, or else I wouldn’t need to prepare myself to see it. The elevator starts smoothly, none of the jerking most elevators have when they start and stop. I’m looking, but so far, there’s only the grey walls. That’s it. Rosa is looking at me expectantly, and I know it’s about to happen when she squeezes my fingers again.

  And then it does. The gray walls rise and in their place is the universe. A vast blackness filled with stars so bright and numerous that the sight is dizzying. The blackness is clear, and so very, very dark. It’s like I could reach out and touch the stars.

  I stumble against Rosa for support. All I can manage is a weak, “Oh!”

  “Does that answer your question about where we are?” she asks, her voice amused.

  “Yeah. Well not all of it, but yeah.”

  “Look over here.” She tugs my hand, so I’ll face the opposite side of the elevator. Her free hand waves like someone displaying the view from their living room.

  A pair of braces the elevator is riding on bisect the view, but opposite the vast black of the universe is the overwhelming sight of what must be a space station. To say it’s huge is entirely inadequate. The place we were is a blob above me, but if that module is like the other five spaced around the perimeter of this circular structure, then it’s surprisingly beautiful from the outside.

  The modules, or whatever they are, look a bit like stylized beehives attached to a circular ring. The ring surrounds yet another structure in the center. The one in the middle is a substantially larger version of those on the periphery. The central structure isn’t just bigger, but longer, like a beehive stretched out by trick photography or something. And that one isn’t featureless on the outside.

  Bands of what look like windows stripe the central structure. They look like very thin lines from my perspective, almost too small to distinguish. Lights dot the stripes at different points, which serves to reinforce the notion of its massive size. Based solely on the tiny strips of windows, the structure is too enormous to exist. If I estimate the height of each level the same way they are in houses, let’s say ten feet, then it must be at least two miles tall. At least that high. I’m probably vastly underestimating given how long it’s taking to get to the ring connecting the modules.

  A flash of movement to the side draws my eye. A ship—an honest-to-goodness spaceship—zips away from the ring in the distance. It looks tiny from here, but it must be gigantic if I can see it all the way from here. Lights flash on the ring, then go out as the ship moves away. A portal just like the one that appeared in my living room opens in the blackness and the ship disappears through it.

  “Holy macaroni,” I whisper, letting go of Rosa’s hand to press my fingers against the glass. I do feel dizzy now, but not in a sick way. I feel dizzy in an OMG-I-can’t-believe-this-is-happening way.

  Rosa chuckles and says, “I wouldn’t call it macaroni or holy, but it’s home.”

  “Home,” I wonder aloud. How cool is it that she can look at this and call it home, like this amazing place in space is just another house in the suburbs?

  I like science fiction in books, movies, and on TV. I’m that sort of girl, and I have a pretty good visual imagination from all the reading I’ve done. No one has ever imagined it like this, including me. No movie, no matter how elaborate the special effects, has ever captured space like this or made me feel this overwhelming sense of wonder before.

  This is real.

  Eight

  The view disappears suddenly, hidden once again by the walls of the elevator shaft.

  “Here we are,” Rosa says brightly, once again taking my hand as the elevator stops and the door slides open.

  “Where are we? Are we in that big circular part? Is that the hub or is where we were before the hub?” I stop there, because I have a bazillion questions.

  She laughs, but answers freely enough. “The whole station is called the hub. Where we were before is called a module, like I said. It’s really a diminutive name for something so large, don’t you think? And yes, you’re in the ring right now.”

  “What about that big thing in the middle?”

  “That’s called the central station.”

  A thought occurs to me and I could slap myself for not thinking of it when we could see the stars. “Where’s Earth? I mean, we can’t be too close, or someone would have seen something as big as the hub, right?”

  She nods as I ask, still smiling her little smile as we walk down another hallway, this one a very pal
e beige color. She waits a tick before answering me. I wonder if she’s waiting for that voice to break in, or maybe for permission. I don’t see anything like an earpiece—and I did look while we were in the transfer room—so I don’t know how she’s getting the information if she is.

  After a brief pause, she says, “Earth is very far away from here, but that’s about as much as I can say. I’m no good with the stars. It’s not my thing.”

  Her response is so normal that I believe her. That does lead to some interesting questions though, like how they send portals at long distances and why they would do so. What possible interest could they have in us if we’re so far away? We’re nowhere near having the capability to travel beyond our solar system with anything other than an unmanned probe.

  Basically, we’re no threat to others out here among the stars, so why bother with us?

  If we’re in the ring part of the huge station, I can’t tell. There’s no detectable curve to it, though it isn’t a simple hallway. There’s plenty of stuff to look at. It reminds me of an empty airport, maybe a terminal not in use or something of that nature. There’s even a darker stripe along the floor some distance from us that I’d swear was one of those moving walkways found in long terminals. The place is quite brightly lit, but it has that distinctly creepy vibe of a big, uninhabited space.

  We turn off the main hallway into yet another corridor and things start to look ordinary, even familiar. There are borders around the doors, so that I can see them and latches right where they should be. There’s even a push bar on one and a lighted sign with the pictogram for exiting to stairs and the little flame I’ve seen on a thousand emergency exits. It’s a relief to see something so normal.

  “This can’t be an accident,” I say, waving toward one of the latched doors.

  “Well, perhaps not, but it’s more comfortable for you, isn’t it?”

  I nod, because it is. It’s amazing how much little things like that matter. The ordinary is comforting.

  Ahead is a relatively short hallway. There’s a small panel set at a tilt next to a nice, normal door that would be right at home in my high school. It even has scuff marks on the brass kick-plate across the bottom from shoes bumping into it. Rosa steps up to the panel—it looks like one of those information signs at museums, except mostly blank—and presses her hand on one of the two silvery ovals. It looks the same as the one that I put my hand on to get my identity.

  There’s no bright light for her, just a dim blue glow and a ping. She nods for me to put my hand on it and the same thing happens for me.

  “What’s that? A lock?” I ask, peering into the oval to see if there’s anything behind it.

  “Exactly. You’ve got an ID now, so it’s making sure who we are before letting us in.” At my confused look, she takes my hand and turns it palm up. She traces her finger on a spot in the center and says, “Right here. When it read your identity, it also imprinted it here. This is your identification.”

  “Cool,” I say, lifting my hand and turning it this way and that against the light to see if I can see anything. I don’t.

  Rosa oomphs as she pushes open the door and waves me through. The notion that the door reminded me of a school was a better comparison than I thought, because I’m pretty sure I’ve just entered a place meant to look like a college. A big reception desk awaits, with a woman in slacks and a sharp, sapphire-blue button-down shirt standing behind it. There are several short hallways in a semi-circle branching off, each one with a half-dozen doors.

  The woman behind the counter smiles in welcome and waves us over, as if inviting us to cut to the front of a non-existent line. Rosa walks me up like she’s done this many times. She might have for all I know.

  “This is Lysa. You should already have her file.”

  “Hello, Lysa!” the woman says, far too excited for the situation. “I certainly do have you in our system already. All I need is your hand and we can head on back.”

  Another of those silvery ovals awaits me on the counter, but I hesitate before letting my palm touch the surface. Turning to Rosa, I ask, “Does this mean you’re leaving me?”

  Like the grandma she appears to be, she brushes the backs of her fingers across my cheek, then squeezes my shoulder ever so gently. “I must. I’ve got transfers to facilitate. It’s my job.”

  “Does that mean I won’t see you again?” I ask, feeling a bit like that first day of school when my mother dropped me off and I realized she wasn’t staying with me.

  There’s a hint of mystery in her smile when she says, “Oh, I wouldn’t go that far, dear.”

  That’s better. For whatever reason, I’m okay with that answer. I lower my hand and the blue glow shines.

  Nine

  The woman at the counter—her name is Esme—checks me in and sets me on the path of the non-transfer, whatever that may be. While the reception area reminds me of an older school or college, beyond that it’s more like a dorm combined with an office building.

  There aren’t any people about, which makes me wonder how many of those who’ve been shoved through—or perhaps gone through on a whim like I did—share my designation as non-transfer.

  That’s still a puzzle to me. On the one hand, it could be a good thing. Maybe that means I’m unsuited for whatever nefarious activity is planned. On the other hand, maybe that means I’m unsuited for whatever awesome thing they have in mind. It could go either way at this point, and I’m not the kind of person who worries about things I can’t control.

  I’m more inclined toward positive thinking. While it may seem like my impulsive act puts the lie to any claim I might have on the status of thinker, I’ve been thinking of little else since the portal invasion began. I’ve been thinking about what happens beyond the portals with a burning curiosity I didn’t often share with others. My mom flipped her lid when I told her that if it came for me, I’d hop right through.

  Shortly after that conversation the handcuffs appeared, so I’ve been keeping mostly mum since.

  Yes, I’ve listened to the so-called smart people who yack incessantly on TV, but aside from a few reasonable people who are invariably made fun of by everyone else, none of the smart people are very smart.

  Fear defines everything they say. Fear has defined everything since that first portal came. No one wants to push aside that fear and ask themselves why the portals are coming without limiting all the responses to bad ones. Everyone starts with the premise, it’s happening to us. No one starts with, it’s happening for us.

  The exceptions are the various old and new religions that believe the portals are a supernatural thing. Well, there’s also a segment of people who believe the portals are sent from our future selves, meant to help us skip past some terrible thing that will happen to the earth. That notion has a little merit, which means the fear-mongers on TV never mention that possibility.

  To me, all options are equally likely. Hopefully, I’ll find out that it’s a positive thing, because there’s no correcting what I’ve done if it turns out to be negative.

  “Lysa, sorry to interrupt, but your catalog is coming, along with your dinner. Is this a good time?”

  The voice coming from the ceiling belongs to Esme, who calls herself a general factotum and lost person wrangler. It’s very cute the way she says it, clearly meant to make others feel at ease. I’m not saying I trust everything at this point, but I will say that whoever is doing this is very good at making sure everyone involved is easy to like.

  “Perfect timing,” I answer back, though it does feel strange to talk to the ceiling. And it is perfect timing. I just got out of the shower—they have incredible water pressure here—and put on a new pair of pajamas waiting for me on the bed. I don’t think they’re truly pajamas, or maybe humans that come here wear pajamas all the time. Either way, I’m good for the moment.

  And I’m starving. I missed dinner.

  “You remember about the bot?” Esme asks.

 
“Sure do. Bring it on.”

  She laughs from the ceiling of my room like I’m a hoot, then says, “When you’re done, just use the panel like I showed you. You’re on your own for the rest of the evening, but we’ll get started fresh in the morning. If you need me, just call.”

  “Gotcha.”

  That pleasant ping sounds out once more, but this time the small sound is accompanied by a pink light above my door. I open my very normal looking door to find the bot. It looks like a rolling cabinet about the height of my belly button. So, no aggressive robot overlords after all. That was one of the many possibilities floated about since this began.

  “Hello,” I say. It has no head or anything even remotely head-like, but it does have one of those silvery patches on the side. A smiley face glows on it at the moment.

  One of the doors pops open and a tray rolls out. “Your meal.” Even the robot voice is pleasant.

  “Should I just grab it?” I ask, not entirely sure what manners are called for when dealing with a robotic cabinet.

  “Yes,” it says, then a second tray rolls out under my meal. I can’t see what’s on it, so I grab the tray and hurry to set it on the little table in my room. By the time I get back, the first metal rack has retracted, and I see a good, old-fashioned catalog sitting on the second tray.

  “Ah!” I say, hefting the heavy block of colorful paper. “Thank you.”

  “You’re welcome,” it says, then the smiley face changes to a winky face as it trundles off. It’s sort of cute for a cabinet, a little squat and almost chubby looking, which is very weird to think, but also happens to be true.

  Like I did when I first got to the room, I look down the hallway to see what I can see. There’s no one around, just more doors. Nice normal doors in a nice normal hallway. It really is like a dorm at college, only without litter on the floor or posters or graffiti. Sighing, I close the door, but I can’t resist making the shh-snick noise that doors make in almost all science fiction movies. I grin and hope no one that might judge me immature is watching.