Herbert's Wormhole

by Peter Nelson

  “No worries, boys,” CA-ROL whispered. “I won’t knock you two for sneakin’ in before we’re opened! You two eager-mcbeavers don’t look like shonky bushrangers to me! It’ll be our little secret, fair dinkums?” CA-ROL winked a large, glassy black eye at Alex and Herbert. Herbert didn’t understand half the words that came out of her spike-filled mouth, but deduced from her accent that they were some sort of Australian slang. Alex thought for a second that her accented voice would’ve sounded quite nice if it weren’t coming out of the jagged mouth hole of a horrifying alien squid-beast with a funny hairdo.

  She turned to go, then suddenly spun back around. “Oh! I’m such a drongo—I almost forgot!” The boys squealed and flattened themselves against the diorama railing as her slimy tentacle shot past them and pointed to a large red button behind them. “This activates each historical scene—brings the past to life! G’day, fellas! Enjoy your day at the museum—and don’t forget to visit the gift shop!”

  Alex watched CA-ROL ooze off out of the hall. He looked from her trail of slime to Herbert’s face. “That’s it,” he said. “I’m outta here.”

  “What?!” Herbert exclaimed. “We’re in the future! Do you realize how much knowledge we can glean?!”

  Alex yanked his arm out of Herbert’s grasp. “Oh, I’ve gleaned, pal. I’ve gleaned that this is the future. And I’ve gleaned that in the future, Earth is crawling with aliens!” He turned and started down the hall again. “See you later,” Alex said. “Or earlier. Or whatever.”

  Herbert looked at Alex carefully. “Okay. It’s just a shame your suit is…broken.”

  Alex stopped. He looked down, then stepped up to Herbert, a little too close. “Give me yours,” he said. Herbert took a step back, but Alex moved in closer. “You wanna glean some more with those octo-freaks? Stay and glean yourself silly. Just give me your suit, and I’ll see you in a hundred years or so.”

  Herbert took another step back. “Tell you what. I’ll repair your suit and we’ll both go back together.” he said. “All I ask is we take in one quick history lesson before we go.” Herbert nodded toward the big red button CA-ROL had pointed out. “C’mon,” he said. “I did not travel one hundred years into the future at approximately two-tenths the speed of light to not learn anything.”

  CHAPTER 9

  As soon as Alex hit the button, he and Herbert jumped back. Music blasted from the diorama as the mechanized G’Dalien mannequins began to stiffly move, singing along to the very loud, very happy, and very annoying song.

  Alex and Herbert looked above the robotic singers as the belly of a large spaceship lowered over the scene. A trapdoor opened. Out of it flew dozens of strange technological devices of all shapes and sizes.

  The song ended as abruptly as it began. The mannequins snapped back to their original positions. The devices (attached by thin wires) were yanked back into the belly of the fake spaceship, which disappeared into the ceiling again.

  “Wow, did I learn something,” Alex said.

  CHAPTER 10

  Herbert had a look of delighted amazement on his face. “Do you realize what this means?” he whispered.

  Herbert bolted out of the hall, past a sign that read LOBBY/ENTRANCE. Alex stood there a second.

  Suddenly forced to choose between following Herbert or standing alone in an alien-filled museum with a broken time-travel suit, Alex made a quick decision. He caught up with Herbert in the vast museum lobby and immediately stopped running. Dumbfounded, he looked up.

  Filling the enormous space above the enormous lobby was an enormous G’Dalien MotherCraft. It was bigger than the spaceships in the dioramas—in fact, it was the biggest thing Alex had ever seen. He continued staring up at it as he walked and walked and walked—right into Herbert. Herbert stood just inside two gigantic museum entrance doors, each the size of a skyscraper. A whoosh of air blew in their faces as the massive doors began to open. Alex and Herbert stepped back as a soothing, Australian-accented voice suddenly filled the hall. “G’day. Your attention please. The Merwinsville Museum of Human History is now open.”

  “Did she say Merwinsville?” Alex breathlessly whispered.

  They stepped through the open doors, out onto the top of the museum’s stone steps.

  Spread out before them was twenty-second century Merwinsville. The sky was so clear and so blue it almost hurt to look at it. The cityscape that stood up against this beautiful blue backdrop was made up of incredibly huge buildings. Giant football-shaped pods seemed to balance on thin white legs that curved to the ground. Clear transport tubes connected these structures, twisting and curving in all directions. Between the distant city and the museum was a grove of tall, green trees, like a little forest connecting the plaza to what looked like some sort of archway entrance to downtown. Alex and Herbert watched in amazement as a large rectangular object rose from the distant edge of the forest. It floated silently toward the plaza and landed, as if on a cushion of air. Alex and Herbert could read the writing on the side of it as the door slid open noiselessly: MERWINSVILLE ANTI-GRAVITRAM. Alex and Herbert looked at each other. Their mouths hung open, almost as wide as their eyeballs.

  They watched in amazement as a stream of humans and G’Daliens exited the tram together, spilling into the fresh, sun-drenched air.

  In the Hall of Human History, a squatty G’Dalien in an orange vest angrily pushed a mop in front of his short, blobby body. His name badge read GOR-DON. The G’DAY! part looked like it had been scribbled out with a black crayon, and his sour expression said, “Don’t ask me anything.” He looked down and spotted a pair of dirty footprints on the otherwise spotless floor. “Ugh,” he muttered to himself. “Disgusting two-legged apes.”

  An extra harrumph shot out from beneath his bristly fake mustache as he dunked his mop into his bucket. He glanced up. The clatter of the mop handle hitting the floor echoed down the hall. GOR-DON’s tiny, lipless mouth fell open. As he faced the destroyed caveman diorama, his inky-black eyes scanned the cluttered pile of mannequins along with the trampled, fake fire. GOR-DON looked back down at the footprints he’d been mopping up and followed them with his squinting, liquid-black eyes. The footprints led straight toward the lobby.

  GOR-DON pushed the museum visitors aside as he rushed through the entrance door. He looked down at the clean white steps and saw more footprints. He spotted two humans as they reached the bottom of the steps and ran across the plaza toward the grove of tall trees that led to the city entrance. The angry G’Dalien squinted at their strange silver suits, shining in the sun.

  His tiny mouth widened into an evil grin, revealing a pile of craggy, sawlike teeth.

  “At least they’ll be easy to track,” he said.

  CHAPTER 11

  “See? You’ve got nothing to worry about.” Herbert directed Alex’s attention to the huge outdoor archway that towered above them. It was a giant statue of a smiling G’Dalien. Its six tentacles were stretched out, shaking hands with six humans. Their group handshake formed an arched gateway to the city. There were words carved in the stone:

  FRIENDS FOREVER, REACHING ACROSS SPACE AND TIME. WELCOME TO MERWINSVILLE!

  “See?” Herbert said. “Happy and friendly! No worries, mate!”

  To Alex, the sculpted giant alien looked more like it was reaching out to grab a six-course meal. “If they’re so happy and friendly, why do they look so nasty and creepy?”

  “Who cares what they look like,” Herbert said. “Look what they’ve given us!” Herbert and Alex stepped through the archway, onto Main Street, Merwinsville.

  Except it wasn’t really a street. It was more like a giant sidewalk. An unbelievably clean, sparkling sidewalk, filled with unbelievably clean, sparkling storefronts, cafés, and restaurants. Dozens of MonitOrbs, like the one they saw in the museum, floated about in all different sizes; some filled the sky above them, while smaller ones drifted at eye level—transmitting public service messages, upcoming town events, and general happy thoughts for the day to the happy
people and G’Daliens coming and going.

  Weaving throughout the sky were clear transport tubes twisting like spaghetti in all directions overhead. But aside from that, there was no clutter in this city. There were no telephone wires. There were no trash cans. There was no trash.

  “There are no cars,” Alex said.

  Herbert smiled back. “Who needs cars when you’ve got those!?” Alex looked up to where Herbert was pointing. Another Anti-GraviTram, like the one they’d seen land in front of the museum, drifted silently over the statue gateway and landed right in front of them. The doors slid open, and the citizens of Merwinsville began to disembark.

  Every single commuter, whether human or G’Dalien, gave Alex and Herbert a hearty hello as they got off the tram. They chatted pleasantly with one another, whistled cheery tunes, or just plain smiled as they wandered off in different directions.

  “See, I told you,” Herbert whispered. “Friendly.”

  “No, I told you,” Alex whispered back through a forced grin. “Creepy.”

  Alex and Herbert watched as nearly all the commuters crossed the sidewalk and headed toward an area with a big sign that read MERWINSVILLE TRANSPORTUBE STATION. On a large platform, dozens of clear tubes were lined up like a bunch of one-man, see-through elevator shafts. They all extended straight up, then each one curled and twisted off, over and across the city toward different destinations.

  “Amazing,” Herbert said as he approached the platform. “It appears to be some sort of individualized pneumatic transit system.”

  Alex’s curiosity was beginning to overshadow his fear and disgust of the G’Daliens. “What, kinda like mini-wormholes?”

  “Nice theory, Einstein,” Herbert said as he closely watched an old man step toward one of the tubes. What little hair the old man had on his head suddenly stood straight up as the tube began making a gentle sucking noise. “But no,” Herbert continued, “these appear to be more like—” FOOMP! In an instant, the old man was sucked up the tube, twisting and turning as he bulleted off somewhere in the city

  “—Crazy straws!” Alex exclaimed. He leaped onto the platform and lined up behind the others. Herbert cautiously followed, watching each Merwinsvillian go shooting off—FOOMP! FOOMP! FOOMP! FOOMP!—one by one, in different tubes, to different destinations. He noticed a small suction cup device that shot out and stuck to each traveler’s forehead. A green light on the tube would blink, and a soothing, computerized Australian voice would say, “Patrick’s Surf Shop, 2307 Whelan Street” or “Charles Joseph Art Gallery, 342 Brentwood Avenue”—and the passenger would be instantly sucked away.

  “Uh, hold up, Alex,” Herbert said. “I’m not too sure about this—” But it was too late. Alex ran to the first available tube and stood beneath it. The suction cup popped out and stuck to his head. The light blinked red. “Transport denied,” it said. “Unable to access I-DNA data in Global Directory. Please exit TransporTube. G’day!”

  “What?!” Alex yelled at the tube. “That’s so not fair!”

  “C’mon.” Herbert quickly ushered Alex out of the tube and off the platform, away from the other waiting commuters. “We’ll walk.”

  CHAPTER 12

  Herbert and Alex made their way down the spotless walkstreets. “I wonder where everyone is,” Herbert said.

  “They’re all up there,” Alex moped, pointing above them. He was right. High above their heads, the tangle of clear tubes was filled with people whooshing by, on their way to wherever they were going. “I don’t get why we can’t ride the tubey thing. We lived here first—a whole hundred years before any of these—”

  “Will you shush it!” Herbert snapped, turning to Alex. “We don’t know how people will react if they find out we’re from—the past.”

  “Oh, relax. Who’s gonna hear me, the dogs, or their robo-walkers?” Alex pointed out practically the only other living creatures sharing the giant sidewalk with them—dogs of all shapes and sizes, with leashes attached to what looked like miniature doughnut-shaped spaceships. They had blinking lights and antennae on them, and they floated along a few feet off the ground as they held the ends of the dogs’ leashes. One of the dog-walking doughnuts stopped in front of Alex. A tiny door opened, and a mechanical arm extended, holding a small baggie. Alex rudely pushed it out of the way. “Hey, I’m walking here!” he said. It bobbled in midair as he nudged it aside and stepped—

  SQUISH. Alex looked down. The robo-walker’s dog, a furry Labradoodle, was staring up at him apologetically. “Oh, great.” Alex said, lifting his shoe. “This would never have happened if we’d taken the tube.” The robo-walker steadied itself and drifted back to its responsibilities. As the mechanical arm scooped up the poop not stuck to Alex’s shoe, another door opened and a little sprayer-hose popped out. It blasted Alex’s feet with water. “Hey!” Alex exclaimed, then realized what it was doing. “Oh. Er, thanks.”

  As they got deeper into the heart of downtown Merwinsville, they saw fewer dogs being walked, and saw more residents. On every street corner and in front of every major place of business, there were TransporTube booths. As Alex and Herbert passed them—FOOMP! FOOMP! FOOMP! FOOMP!—transported Merwinsvillians arrived at their destinations, looking happy and relaxed, but with their hair standing straight up on end. Conveniently, attached to the side of each booth was a domed, helmet-shaped object.

  Alex and Herbert watched as one woman stepped out of the TransporTube booth, her long blonde hair jutting out like she had a giant sea urchin on her head.

  She stepped to the helmet and stuck her head in it. A light blinked, and the dome beeped. She pulled her head out, her hair perfectly combed, curled, and coiffed. There was even a tiny bow in it. She smiled at Alex and Herbert, then turned and entered a nail salon.

  “Fascinating!” Herbert rushed to the hair-helmet and studied it, careful not to put his head inside. “I wondered how they’d offset the inevitable side effects of static electricity. Genius!”

  More residents also meant more G’Daliens. “G’day!” said one tall and skinny extraterrestrial. He tipped his toupee as he passed, but Alex just stared back at him suspiciously, careful not to turn his back on him. When it was safe, he looked at Herbert, who was still gleefully inspecting the hair-helmet. “Look at you,” Alex said bitterly. “Here we are, totally surrounded by alien slimebags, and all you’re interested in are these stupid inventions. You’re happy as a pig slopping around in the mud.”

  “I suppose I am,” Herbert said. He stood and faced Alex. “If by ‘pig’ you mean scientist, and by ‘mud’ you mean technological miracles.”

  “They’re aliens,” Alex said.

  “Benevolent aliens.”

  “Trust me, there’s no such thing.”

  “You play too many video games.”

  “Oh yeah?”

  “Yeah.”

  They turned to face a boy about their age. He was wearing jeans, a T-shirt, a baseball cap—and a very amused grin.

  Alex and Herbert glanced down. In their N.E.D. suits, they looked like a pair of walking Hershey’s Kisses. Alex thought quickly. Too quickly. “Uh, laundry day?”

  “We’re not from around here,” Herbert chimed in. “Because we’re from, er, somewhere else.”

  “Yeah, I guessed,” the boy said. “That’s cool. Not your outfits. Those are very, very not cool. I just mean, I hardly ever get to meet anyone from somewhere else.” He stuck out his hand. “Name’s Chicago. Chicago Illinois. How’d you guys like a tour of the most boring town of all time?”

  Alex and Herbert smiled at each other, and followed Chicago, Illinois.

  As they made their way through downtown Merwinsville, a MonitOrb followed them. It was unusually large for a street-level sphere, and was showing one of many Gladvertisements: streaming video images of very happy humans with very happy G’Daliens doing very happy things, produced by something called the Department of Human/G’Dalien Harmony Enforcement, whose logo was prominently displayed in the bottom corner of the pr
oduction.

  The other curious thing about this particular MonitOrb was that even though it was effortlessly floating along, it appeared to have feet—or rather, tentacles. Six of them. As the sphere began to show video images of humans and G’Daliens playing Frisbee in a park with a golden retriever, GOR-DON peeked out from behind it. The MonitOrb he had in his grip suddenly blasted happy, cheery music, startling him. GOR-DON fell down and was clunked in the head by the video-sphere as it drifted past him and rose back into the air. Landing on his blobby butt, GOR-DON squirmed like an overturned turtle. A passing troop of helpful human girls in StarScout uniforms rushed to help him up, but GOR-DON pushed them aside. “Get away from me!” he snarled. Then he stole their cookies and oozed off to continue his undercover pursuit of the two silver-suited humans.

  CHAPTER 13

  Chicago pointed to a strange-looking building. It was basically a moon-sized, see-through bubble sitting atop a single long white leg. “That’s City Hall,” he said.

  “It looks like a giant golf ball on a tee,” Herbert said. The ball had dozens of clear TransporTubes connected to it, and they could see G’Daliens being pumped in and out of it.

  “A golf ball full of slugs,” Alex added. He could see hundreds of G’Daliens inside the transparent golf ball, working and bustling around, like slimy bees in a hive. Evil, plotting slimy bees, he thought to himself.