Beyond the Veil

Beyond the Veil
By Steven Schrembeck

Part I: The Lab

Earth’s natural resources were nearly exhausted after a technological golden age that consumed all easily attainable natural fuel and metal. A combination of resource expensive world wars and inefficient recycling programs caused humans to go to new extremes by pumping molten iron from the Earth’s mantle. This eventually raised concerns of major shifts in weather patterns and volcanic activity, forcing an end to the industrial expansion of humans on earth. When it was clear the Earth would not be habitable forever men looked to the stars to sustain a new race of men.

Advancements in space travel had even exceeded the expectations of the century-old crackpot cosmoengineers. The fabrication of new ultra light, super dense metals afforded the invention of faster and more durable space craft. Some of the newer spacecraft could travel to Jupiter and return in just a few months. Great networks of space stations perpetually floated in low orbit around the earth like a metal circulatory system of the planet’s atmosphere. The capabilities of man’s machine creations seemed limitless. During the eight centuries after the second millennia human ingenuity had only been matched by expectation, and over that time each and every scientific endeavor man sought to overcome had been imagined, discovered, and crafted. It wasn’t until around 2810 that humanity finally reached a limit – a limit that scholars had warned about for centuries. Man’s creations could accomplish any task imaginable, but the human body itself could not withstand the harsh environments of space and therefore could not make the long journey to a new earth. Man’s genius was finally stifled by the physical weakness of its own biological form.

“Did you hear?” Asked Dean Nicholas, a forty something with dark hair and a mustache that, over the past few weeks, had grown to overflow his upper lip.

“Hear what exactly?”Hans asked him, though he had a pretty good idea what Dean was talking about. Dean’s only two passions in life were his miniature schnauzer Betty, and worrying about his job security. His face was wrenched with distress, and as far as he knew Betty was in good condition.

“Dr. Abbleman was escorted out of the building this morning.” Hans raised his eyebrows in forced interest.

“He’s been fired, Hans. He’s been fired and now he’s going to be crucified by the media.” Dean had worked himself into a light sweat by his elevating fervor, but he slowed his breath and lowered his voice when he spoke again.

“Those bastards upstairs are going to let him and his family rot because he was working counter to their agenda.”

“We all knew his research on regenerative steel might be just a cover. It’s a wonder that it took them this long to figure him out.”
Hans replied to Dean, placing his hand over the man’s shoulder in an attempt to calm him. Dean gave him one more concerned look and returned to his workbench on the other side of the lab.

The Earthen Directorate had been very careful about how it funded nanotechnology research. Any nanotech research that aimed to alter humanity in any way had been deemed reckless and immoral by a fearful government. Even as Earth’s resources dwindled and recycling efforts were met with failure on many fronts, much of human society was stuck in their old beliefs that colonization of humanity could happen without altering the human body. Humans shall not be tampered with and technology will pave the way for stellar colonization.This stubborn ideology led the Earthen Directorate to pursue any research path that promised to aid humanity in a way that can only be described as desperate.

In fact, Hans had ridden this wave of desperation to fund his own research. Hans’s research proposal to NANO (the North American Nanotechnology Operation), a research division of the Earthen Directorate, had gone so well that he had received the maximum grant size. It was customary for each researcher to give a formal proposal to the NANO research board, a group of over-zealous scientists appointed because of their exceptional pliability when it came to the government agenda. These formal proposals were simply a way for the research board to see if when they said dance, you would dance, and if they asked you to sing that you would sing—a way to make sure the puppet understands who the puppeteer is. No proposal has ever been denied and, for obvious reasons, the board has never heard a proposal it had not already decided to invest in.

Hans stepped up to the podium. The men and women of the NANO research board were seated around a semi-circular table in front of him. Their faces were already tense with pre-planned anticipation. Hans thought if had pulled a rabbit out of a hat at this moment that they would erupt in applause and laughter like the audience of a birthday party magic show. Instead he pulled out a sheet of paper.
“Have you ever wanted to go somewhere, but you didn’t have the motivation to travel there?” He paused to let his audience answer the rhetorical question in their heads.

“Of course you have, right?” Another pause, he folded his hands.

“Maybe it was just too far or maybe it would just take too long. You all are familiar with the progress in wormhole research being made in Norway.”

Using massive machines called space-time disrupters Norwegian physicists had punched holes in the space-time continuum at the sub-atomic level. They had created genuine, and stable microscopic wormholes.

“I propose to take this research and miniaturize it using microscopic machines, or nanites. My nanite approach could lead to advancements in micro and macro wormhole theory.” Hans could see his audience was getting lost in the details. He quickly unsheathed a marker and drew a circle on his sheet of paper.

“You are hear and your destination is here.” He said, drawing another circle on the same side of the paper.

“Basic wormhole theory states that you can fold space-time” He folded the paper in half so that the two circles touched on opposite sides.
“And then you can punch a wormhole through and travel to your destination in a short time, no matter how far apart the two points are spatially.”
“You could travel to the market, to work, to Spain or China, or even another planet!” Upon hearing this the research board rose in applause. Hans had pulled a rabbit out a hat. Though he couldn’t help feeling a little guilty for appealing to the sensationalism of humanity’s desperate need to colonize another planet, he decided that they were less likely to fund his project so enthusiastically if he had told him his real goals were to simply make the Norwegian space-time disrupters smaller.

There was no way a wormhole large enough to be visible with the naked eye could even be opening from just one side, Hans thought as he pushed around some metal filaments on his work bench. Both ends of the worm hole would have to be opened simultaneously. How could that be done if we don’t even know where the other end is? Besides, wormholes are incredibly unstable and collapse in an instant. There must be some way to hold it open.

“You would need a trillion space-time disrupters at least.” He thought aloud now.

“What’s that?” Asked Dean, worry still written on his face.

“Nothing, just lost in thought I guess.” Hands cleaned off his work bench and slung a backpack over his shoulder.

“See you Dean.”

“Take care” Spoke Dean, as he took a glance at the security camera aimed at their work benches before returning to his research.




Part II: Epiphany

Hans dripped the rest of the bacon grease from the pan into the waste receptacle and set the pan aside. As he made his way to the dining room table he waved his hand over a panel and the lighting changed from fluorescent to an amber color. Hans stood next to the dining room table and began to sit down in mid air, and as he did so a chair rose from the floor to meet him. A knife, fork, and napkin followed suit by rising out of the table next to his plate.

“Play a little pick me up for me, please.” Hans said to his pancakes and bacon. A soft beat emanated from the walls and the sounds of Billie Holiday’s music could be heard throughout the apartment. The tapping of Han’s feet joined the rhythmic beats. With his hands he grabbed a strip of bacon, still alive with bubbling hot grease.

“Gah!” He hollered, dropped the bacon and rushed over to the kitchen sink; Holiday’s “I’ll never be the same” still played throughout the apartment. Hans ran the sink as a waterfall, letting his burning hand cool under the curtain of water. He slid his hand back and forth, entranced by the way the water parted underneath his hand. It’s strange how the amount of water doesn’t change it simply flows around his hand, he thought, creating an empty space beneath. Holiday continued to play.

“And when the song birds that sing”

It is as if the water going around his hand is being condensed – pushed out of the way.

“Tell me it’s spring, I can’t believe their song”

Could this effect be used with space-time? He wondered. Can you push open a hole in space time? And with what? What is going on with this water on a smaller scale?

“Once love was king but kings can be wrong”

Hans’s eyes widened. This water was just tiny water molecules being pushed away by the particles of Hans’s hand. Perhaps Hans could use his nanites like a microscopic hand, pushing apart the curtain of space-time to open a wormhole.
“but kings can be wrong…”
Holiday’s voice faded and Hans left his dinner to go work on his theory in the apartment’s office.

The next day, back in the NANO labs Hans had constructed a small test for his theory about being able to push open a wormhole with microscopic nanotech robots. On his work bench was a large glass case with sand covering the bottom of it. A small glass vial labeled “Test 1” lay on top of the glass case. Dean stood next to Hans and they both squatted and peered into the case.

“Again, thanks for letting me use your nanites on such short notice Dean. The NANO paper work needed to officially borrow them would have been hell.” Hans spoke, still gazing at the sandy bottom of the case.

“You’ve got the hardware. They’re nothing special, just basic nanoassemblers.” He replied, “but I have no idea how this is going to work.”

Hans smiled and turned to his lab mate.

“Well, I spent all of last night writing the code for a cluster of nanoassemblers.” Hans tapped the little vial on top of the glass case.

“I’ve uploaded the code into the ones you gave me. If everything works correctly each nanite should follow a simple set of instructions:

1) Gather enough raw material to build two other nanites
2) Copy its own programming over to the new nanites
3) Push away from all other nanites”

“What is the purpose of all of this? What is going to happen?” Dean’s interest had been snagged.

“To put it simply, the sand represents space-time and with a little luck I’ll be able to punch a hole in it.”

Hans attached a rubber tube to a round opening in the side of the case and turned on a pump. A gray gas leaked out of the tube into the container. This gas was mineral rich air, not unlike smog, that was to serve as the raw material for the nanites to construct other nanites with. Hans carefully lowered the vial into the case through a door in the top, pulled out the stopper and then turned it upside down. Hans stuck a UV lamp next to the glass case and turned it on.

“Energy source.” Hans said quickly.

“Of course.”

For a few minutes there were no visible changes in the case, though Hans noted that the amount of mineral rich air had decreased some. This was a promising sign that the nanites were indeed using the material to build something, though it gave no indication that they would behave as expected. Affirmation did finally come when Dean pointed out that some of the grains of sand in the center of the case were vibrating. A few moments later the grains of sand were slowly being pushed away from the center, leaving a circle of bare glass in their wake. It was exactly as Hans had hoped for. After reproducing, the nanites’ were programmed to push away from each other, consequently pushing the sand away. Twenty minutes later the circle uncovered from the sand was nearly three inches in diameter. Hans turned off the UV lamp and pulled out the rubber rube. The two men carried the case into the radiation chamber and once secured, they flipped a switch to bathe it in gamma radiation to ensure no nanites continued to function. Hans grabbed Dean by the shoulder and the two of them walked out of the radiation room with Hans mentioning something about a celebration in store for them and Dean not understanding, nor caring why.

Part III: Test 212B

Two years had passed since Test 1 and Hans’s project was now the focus of a huge media storm. Many of NANO’s research projects had been scrapped in order to reallocate resources, personnel, and funding to create a working prototype of Hans’s nanotech wormhole. Dean’s project had been one of the dismantled projects, but there were no hard feelings between the two of them as Dean was now a leading researcher on the new assignment. Hans had also promised Dean that this new position would offer more job security since Hans himself was the lead researcher and authority on the project.

The physical design of the wormhole nanites had changed drastically since Test 1. NANO researchers had indeed been able to equip each nanite with the miniaturized space-time disrupters that Hans had promised so long ago in his research proposal. Though they were altered in many ways, the nanites basic behavior remained very similar.

“Now after they duplicate, instead of simply pushing away from each other like they did in my first tests, the nanites will fire a tiny, tiny, tiny space-time disrupter pulse and then move into the newly formed abscess in space time to repeat the process.” Reporters yelled questions at Hans and the team of researchers standing behind him. Hans stepped forward again to speak into the microphone, but a NANO research board member stepped in front of him.

“Everyone, I assure you that the first test of Dr. Hans Frederik’s prototype wormhole will answer all of your questions. Until then I will have to ask you to follow the press escorts out of the conference area and into your closed circuit viewing rooms.”

The board member waved his hands to signal the escorts that it was time to vacate the courtyard of the research facility. The air was thick with pollution that day and it caused the board member to cough as he ushered the last of the press out of the courtyard. Hans never wanted a public viewing of the first tests, but the board members explained that the Earthen Directorate was more desperate than ever to produce some fruit of all their colonization research efforts. There was already talk of a potential overthrow of government sectors in southern Africa. The people of earth were displeased with the directorate’s failure to produce meaningful results in colonization research, and they would not sit idle while the world died.

People in white lab coats scurried around the lab yelling things to one another and moving around information on holoscreens. Hans stood awkwardly in the middle of the room staring at the sheet of paper suspended in mid air in front of him. Dean watched a woman with red hair slide a hologram panel of information across the room. When she turned around he nodded at her as if this result was satisfactory to him. He looked at his watch for a moment and then walked over to Hans. The two looked at the floating piece of paper in silent reverence. Hans pulled a marker from his coat pocket and drew a large red circle on the floating paper. The lady with the red hair touched him on the shoulder and gave him a nod. Each scientist stood in the back of the room to stare at the floating paper. They were joined by a small group of armed military personnel. Hans wondered what a couple of gauss rifles would do to stop a space-time anomaly, should it occur.

Of course they had taken every reasonable precaution they could. There were two fail safes that would stop the nanites from opening a wormhole. First the mineral rich gas would be stopped to cut off the supply needed build new nanites. Secondly the massive UV lamps would be turned off to instantly cut the only power source fueling the nanites. Without the countless firing of all those tiny space-time disrupters the wormhole would almost instantly collapse, just like every subatomic wormhole created in the past.Dean has suggested that a third failsafe be implementedthat could disable every single nanite immediately if should something go wrong. Each nanite was equipped with a tiny radio receptor that would render the nanite innate if it received a certain emergency signal.

Tension filled the room as a man with a small vial approached the paper in the center of the room. Hans wanted to tell him to wait, but could find no inkling of a reason why he should listen. A strange mixture of emotions filled him. He felt fear of disappointment and yet he acknowledged that this moment could change humanity’s fate – his fate forever. The man unplugged the vial and pressed the opening against the suspended paper, letting the lip of the vial rest in the center of the red circle. Gray fog was sprayed generously through vents on the floor in the center of the room. The UV lamps overhead sprung to life with sudden. Except for the ever present hum of the UV lamps, all was silent. Even Hans’s heart, which had pounded fiercely since the press conference, seemed to pause in anticipation of what might come. “I’ll never be the same” played softly in Hans’s head.

Then it happened.

A bright dot appeared in the middle of the paper. Over the course of about thirty seconds the dot expanded to the size of a quarter. The hushed whispers that snuck through the air were replaced with unmitigated gasps of awe as the bright edges of a circle formed on the paper. The entire audience of researchers and guards crowded around the wormhole as it slowly ate up the paper from which it was born. Someone pushed Hans to the front of the crowd, putting him about three feet from the expanding wormhole. As it expanded to the size of the paper Hans was able to peer through it for the first time. What he saw on the other side nearly knocked the consciousness from him.

In the center of the bright, white ring a group of humanoid creatures with reptilian skin stared back in what he could only assume was mirrored amazement. Their skin was colored in green, and yellow, and pink, and teal, and so many other colors that Hans couldn’t even hope to name them all. The crowds of humans were as awestruck as Hans, their sounds of muted amazement stolen from them by a sight too unfamiliar for words. The strange alien people on the other side started making sharp clicking noises and there was sudden movement all throughout their side of reality. Han’s tore himself away from his transfixion and looked around his laboratory.

“Turn off the gas!” He choked.

“Cut off the lamps!” Someone behind him yelled, but it was already too late.

By now the worm hole had expanded to the size of a trash can lid and it’s rate of expansion seemed to be rapidly increasing. The last of the gray fog seeped out of the vents, and the hum of the UV lamps had gone away, but still the blindly bright edges of the wormhole grew outward. Hans fell to his knees and stared straight ahead in stupor. On both sides of the wormhole creatures ran around frantically changing things, exchanging information, asking questions in their own ways. None of it really mattered at this point. The edges of the wormhole were already racing to the edges of the room, soon all of the building’s walls would be consumed. Red lights flashed on the walls and sirens blared at Hans who sat dumbfounded, looking into the massive portal. A computer generated voice began to speak.
“Emergency wormhole shutdown signal sent in ten.”

Hans was lost in his own mind. How could this have happened?

“Nine.”

The mineral rich gas should have run out by now. Certainly the nanites would run out of building material once they breached the walls of the laboratory.

“Eight.”

“Unless…unless the polluted air outside the building proved a sufficient fuel source. After all the air pollution was quite similar in composition to the mineral rich air used in the tests.”

“Seven.”

Even so the nanites would have no energy without the UV lamps. It was dusk outside so the solar UV rays would never be enough to sustain them and the wormhole would collapse anyways.

“Six.”

No collapse yet. Why hadn’t it collapsed?

“Five.”

Maybe the wormhole wouldn’t collapse because it had some alternate fuel source. What could possibly provide enough energy to all of those nanites?

“Four.”

Fusion, that’s what, a voice in Hans’s head told him.

“Three.”

Rapidly compressing space-time would compress the matter at the edges of the wormhole. In fact it would be so heavily compressed that the atoms at the edge might undergo fusions.

“Two.”

They can build with our pollution, and they can power themselves with fusion. There is more than enough metal in the space stations in Earth’s orbit to open the wormhole even farther.

“One.”

How far will it go? The metal in the asteroid belt alone would be enough to carry it at least a light year… surely the emergency signal will stop it. And then a horrible grinding sound was heard as an old world antennae was pulled from the ground and the radio signal that would turn off the nanites was sent out. The whole world was filled with insatiable panic. Hans could hear gauss rifle fire and inhuman screams as he lost consciousness.


Part IV: Prologue

“As we speak the wormhole is expanding to the outer edges of the Milky Way. “ Hans told me.

“Why didn’t the emergency failsafe work? Why didn’t the signal turn off the nanites?” I ask him. I’ve thrown aside my notepad of questions.

“The failsafe did work and it will turn off the nanites. When it will do so is anybody’s guess. By the time the failsafe signaled the nanites’ growth had accelerated so much that the edges of the wormhole were nearly to Mars. This suggests that the growth rate will continue to accelerate until it is nearly the speed of light.”

“Nearly?” I push a little further.

“The nanites’ reproduction process will never reach the speed of light. Therefore the signal will eventually reach them and turn them off. Of course some deep space anomaly like a pulsar, or a black hole could emit a radio wave that might disable some of the nanites as well…” Hans drifted off into mumbled speech and the nurse seated at his bedside gave me a look that said “It’s time for you to leave.”

Dean Nicholas was right to be worried about the wormhole project. He has since become the Earth’s greatest ally against space-time research—what’s left of the earth anyways. After the wormhole opened the known universe was essentially split in half, leaving 30% of the Earth fused with 70% of the alien world Iastra on this side of the wormhole. I’m nearly certain the other side of the wormhole, an unreachable dimension now, is experiencing mirrored effects