The Link, part 1

* test number 42

Steven picked up a pile of mail strewn in his entryway. He despised front door mail slots, and the way each visit of the mailman created a pile of envelopes on the floor. He had every intention to replace it when he bought the house, yet here it was four years later still creating clutter. A mailbox was much more civilized, he thought. Once again he made a mental note to change it. Would he remember?

--Steven! Open immediately for a chance to win!--

He threw away the junk mail and neatly stacked the bills into a pile with a dozen or so still unopened envelopes. It had been five months since he had quit his university job. At first it had seemed like the best decision of his life, but now it was beginning to haunt him.

Steven was sure he had stumbled onto an amazing discovery -- a new property of atoms, one that would allow a faster than light communication device. Yet here he was, months later, with a growing stack of bills and a non-functional prototype. He wasn't yet at the end of his financial rope, but he was afraid, considering what he'd given up, that he'd lose his focus, that he'd lose the moment. He shrugged it off to complete his morning ritual, neatly stacking up the mail.

Eggs and toast provided a familiar smell as he continued his routine and mentally worked the figures over in his head. The previous day's experiment was a success failure. It pointed Steven in the right direction, but the atomic coupling was still failing. After thinking about the problem for a while, he looked down and realized he was staring at the sink, having washed and re-washed his breakfast plate several times. A familiar tingle of excitement caught him. It was such an exciting project, he couldn't wait to get to the workroom and attack the next hurdle.

Walking through the backyard, the grass was overgrown. Yard service was one of the first luxuries to go, and how could he spend his time mowing grass when he had history to make? At least it gave his neighbors something to complain about besides his oversize shed, not that he ever denied it. The oversize shed wasn't your typical small backyard storage. His test equipment was quite large, and a good third of the backyard was taken up by the barn-like structure. Inside was as neatly organized as the inside of his house; a few workbenches with parts carefully organized for use; a circuit board bath, some oscilloscopes; and various other tools he needed for the project.

The long chalkboard on one wall was filled with equations from working out complex mathematics. He don't know if it was the clarity of the morning, or just optimism as he stepped over and immediately saw an obvious fix for the calculations. Could it be that simple? After scribbling my corrections onto the board, he entered changes into the computer model.

It took several minutes for the simulation to complete, so while it was running he checked out the condition of the test unit. All the wiring was still in place from his test earlier in the week. The conversion coil looked a bit distorted and blackened from a power overload, so he pulled it out, placed a label on it, and stored it in case he needed to investigate further.

The conversion coil was a bit like an antenna, except that instead of resonating due to far away radio frequency signals, it responded to atomic vibrations deep within the molecular structure of the coil. A chime sounded out, indicating that the computer had finished the simulation. The readout indicated an 85% chance of success. The computer model was just an approximation, so even that high confidence didn't make Steven too optimistic.

He fired up the test sequence, and the computer powered up both portions of the device. Steven put on his safety glasses as the machine began it's low hum, a blue glow was visible from where the lasers focused on the new conversion coil. The sequence was designed to test end-to-end communcation. It was like having two wakie-talkies in the same room talking to each other. A communication stream was repeatedly sent through the transmission side, and the receive side was checked to see if it came out correctly. Even when the communication channel was up, his instruments were not sensitive enough to measure whether the data was sent faster than light, so later tests would increase the distance. The first stage was simply to keep the atomic resonance channel working. His test software was busy correlating frequency vibrations between the output and input side, or in other words, figuring out how to send and receive data across the channel.

As Steven looked over at the screen, his pulse jumped a little bit. The first set of test completion bars lit-up green, indicating that the channel was up and stable. His past tests had reached this point but had so far only held it for a few seconds. Steven crossed his fingers as the software paused to assure everything remained stable. The timer ticked by. Six seconds, then twelve seconds. It was the longest stable channel so far! Steven was frozen, expecting it to fizzle out any moment in a flurry of sparks and new failure data. However, forty-five seconds later the timer was still counting, the computer waiting for him to initiate the second phase of the test.

He was brewing with anticipation as he tapped the enter key, triggering the computer to begin it's automated sweep of the channel conditions. Steven wondered to himself, have I finally made it? Has all this work paid off? Despite his thoughts, he was an expert at keeping his optimism in check as the computer continued it's slow progress testing the channel. However, after four minutes, he couldn't help but get excited. Have I finally done it?

* a new home

"Here we are Andy, our new home. Pick a bedroom for yourself, and not the master wiseguy." Andy's father turned the key in the lock and opened the door. It had been a year since his mother died. Neither of them wanted to talk about it, but Andy knew they were moving to get away from the old house, the old memories. It wasn't far away. Andy had just finished his first year of high-school and didn't want to be forced into a strange place where he didn't know anyone. The backyard bordered a forest preserve, so it offered a bit more nature and privacy than their old house. He ran up the stairs and looked through the upstairs rooms. One of them faced the backyard, one faced the front, but wow, that master bedroom was something. Andy knew he could impress the girls at school with just the master jacuzzi tub. Okay, that room was for his dad, no way around that. He'd probably take the room in the back. It had it's own door to the bathroom and seemed to offer a bit more privacy. He skipped back down the stairs to check out the rest of the house.

The kitchen was decorated in darker colors than their old house. In fact, the whole house was. Andy figured it helped his dad to choose surroundings that didn't remind him of her. It was still hard to believe it had really happened. Andy's mother had been out running errands one night when a drunk driver in a hopped up F-150 ran a red light and hit her side of her car. The police listed his cars aftermarket modifications as one of the contributing factors to the severity of the collision. Translation... her door-panels and side-airbags were no match for some huge chrome aftermarket bumper sitting unnaturally high from unnecessarily oversize tires. It was tragic that a drunk made all the bad choices, yet she paid the price; Andy and his father paid the price.

A year had passed since the accident, and while things would never be the same, the terrible sting Andy felt every morning was beginning to hurt less. He opened a conspicuous door in the kitchen and found a staircase leading down to the basement. It was carpeted and finished, but not as nicely as the rest of the house. The stairs led into an open area, very much like his friend Sam's basement, where all their school friends hung out. This would be a cool spot once it was was furnished. Another part of dad's need for change was the way he donated away most of their furniture. I was sad to see some of our stuff go, but Andy could see why. This home would be a fresh start.

"Andy, maybe this should be your room." His father's voice startled him. Andy followed the sound through a door, and found himself in a basement bedroom. It had windows high on the wall, a sliding glass door opening to a small deck dug out of the ground, and a staircase up to the backyard. Another door led to a private bathroom.

"Are you kidding? This is awesome!" Andy opened the sliding glass door and peeked up the stairway. The outdoor space was small. Cement on all sides kept the earth from collapsing in on it. Having his own space and his own entrance would be killer. His friends could come by anytime. As he closed the sliding glass door, he followed his father back into the nearby den.

"I've always wanted a pool table, and it looks like we could fit one right in here," Andy's father started at him intently, "assuming you and your friends can take care of it. I don't want to see teenagers sitting on it and ruining the slate." Andy nodded profusely to him. A pool-table!? This new home would be awesome!

* the disturbance

After three hours, the computer was still busy testing. Apparently the quality of the channel was not as good as Steven had hoped. The computer had managed to send long streams of data through, but then the output would mysteriously become corrupted for several minutes. Something was working, but something was also very wrong. As the computer chugged away, the room was filled with the blue glow of the lasers. Steven wondered how to fix the disturbance in the signal.

Suddenly, he saw a spark on the transmission conversion coil. The computer screen flashed as it initiated a shutdown of the transmission lasers. It wasn't the first burned out coil he'd seen, and this one had lasted more than three hours. A dramatic improvement over the previous best of six seconds. Perhaps the laser power was just too high, or the alloy wasn't pure enough. He paced back and forth a bit thinking about the problem.

That's when it happened. The transmission laser was down, but suddenly there was signal again. He hadn't shut the test down, so the receive side was still running. Was this the disturbance that had confused the channel testing? The computer was registering and recording the signal. It lasted about four minutes, then stopped. Steven sat, puzzled about what was going on. He wondered if the data could be an echo of his original signal.

He rushed to the terminal and punched up a waveform display of the recorded information. It didn't look like anything the testing pattern should generate. Still, he brought up the test patterns to visually confirm. There wasn't any similarity he could see. He issued some keystrokes to name and save the mystery signal. He had left the receiver running for days before and it had never received any errant signal. As far as he could see from previous tests, there was no inherent noise in the channel. He was puzzled as to where this was coming from.

Then it started again, and the computer registered a new incoming signal. Steven brought it up and placed it along-side the previous signal. It looked too similar to be a coincidence. Two minutes passed, then three. At four minutes the signal stopped. He could now see that the two signals were almost identical. But where was it coming from?

Steven worked the facts over in his head. The device operated on properties of quantum mechanics and quantum entanglement. Scientists had previously demonstrated that two atoms which could be entangled would react to each other simultaneously, even when separated. However, this was of little use, as once the state of the atoms were read, the entanglement stopped. His insight had been a mechanism to cause entanglement in two atoms over a distance. By resonating both atoms with the same signal at exactly the same time, it was possible to cause them to entangle regardless of how far apart they were.

Of course providing them both the same resonance at exactly the same time wasn't trivial. His insight was to create a dynamic feedback pattern, where after the receiver started resonating, the transmitter would probe out the receiver by resonating and then adjusting it's pattern based on the feedback. In effect, the transmitter searched for a specific receiver by knowing it's resonance pattern.

Suddenly an idea occured to Steven, and he muttered to himself, "is that possible?" His feedback design allowed transmitters to find receivers. What if someone else had developed the device? What if his transmitter probe sequence had found and triggered a signal on their device? Would they have been able to detect it? Or understand it? How long had the transmitter been running before the first disturbance? He instructed the computer to bring up the history. Almost an hour, almost an hour with no disturbance, and then a four minute disturbance about every ten minutes for the rest of the test. This was astounding.

The signal started up again. Steven worked frantically. His transmitter coil was fried, but it should be only a simpler matter of replacing it to get it back online. Sure, it would blow out in a few hours, but he only needed four minutes. Four minutes to echo the message, to tell whoever was on the other side that he was listening. His normal methodical care flew out the window as he frantically tore out the burnt coil and put a new one in place.

It would take a few minutes for the transmission side to come back online, and several minutes more for the transmitter to resynchronize. Steven waited for the incoming signal to end before starting up the process. His leg was shaking. He felt like a kid impatient to open his presents on Christmas day. Would they hear me? Would they understand? What did the signal even say? He could figure all these questions out later. At that moment he just needed them to know someone was there. He found it hard to wait, minutes seeming like hours.

As soon as the channel came online, the computer patiently waited for Steven to initiate the test. He intervened, skipping the automated channel test, and instead feeding his recording of the signal back through the transmitter. The same signal reappeared on the receive side, confirming he was sending. He let it continue, second by second. When the whole four minutes elapsed there was silence. He didn't know what he expected to happen. If someone else had found his channel carrier in less than an hour, certainly they would notice the duplicate signal.

Then it came, another signal, this one only thirty seconds long. However, it was different! They must have heard him! Steven had no idea what the signal contained, but it was too much of a coincidence to be a mistake. He had no idea how long it would take to figure out how their signal was encoded, or who he was talking to. It could be other scientists, it could even be alien. Even if he could figure out the encoding, he might not understand the message. Was this first contact? His brain was on overdrive.

Steven calmed himself and did the only sane thing he could think of. He setup the computer to record a vocal signal to send through the channel.

"Hello. My name is Steven Lindstrom. I am a scientist..." He paused, not sure what to say. What would they even understand? He decided to keep it simple and not add anything more. He pressed the send button, transmitting the signal. Thirty second of silence passed, then a minute. An incoming signal started. He tapped out some commands to put the incoming signal through the speaker. It was an identical copy of his outgoing signal. "...name is Steven Lindstrom. I am a scientist." He wondered if he was communicating with someone, or echoing into some kind of cosmic chasm. Then it came, their message.

"Hello Steven. I am Catrina. I am also a scientist. I am pleased to meet you." The voice was female, with a hint of what sounded like a swiss accent. He briefly felt his heart sink. Hearing English come through meant someone else on Earth was working on a similar communication device. He wasn't the first. He wasn't even the best, as they had quickly discovered his carrier. Whoever was operating the other side clearly had much more experience with this science than Steven did.

Still, his hopes were not entirely crushed. The device had worked. The device he had quit his job to create, had slaved through five months of failed tests for, had been told countless times he was crazy for. It actually worked. Steven mentally prepared myself for the only sensible next step, to join their team.

* sophomore year

Andy's father worked fast in filling the new home with creature comforts. A used red felt pool table came right after some beds to sleep on. A couple weeks later couches for the living room and den downstairs showed up. His father had kept their old TVs, apparently a 50" 3d plasma screen didn't hold much emotional value. In just over a month the house looked full of stuff and lived in. It was missing something, maybe a bit of a woman's touch, but it seemed like his father wanted it that way.

The downstairs lair was a teenagers dream. Already Andy's friend Sam had taken to walking by and coming right in through the private entrance so much that Andy perpetually left it unlocked.

It was the first day of sophomore year, so Andy was still a bit disoriented between classes. He looked down at his printed class schedule, trying to figure out where he should head to next, when she walked by. Angie. She was the senior hearthrob of the school. She didn't look in Andy's direction, and honestly, she never would. Still, he paused from his classroom search to just watch her walk by. She had fiery red hair, and was strikingly tall, possibly taller than him in those heels she liked to wear. However, it was her figure that got her all the attention. In a school full of young girls, she looked like woman from a magazine cover. Curves in all the right places, and clothes to show them off. Today she was in a brown sweater that was cut to show both cleavage and a sliver of her middrif.

"A sight to behold isn't she?" Sam came up from behind and slapped him on the shoulder. "Let's enjoy the view while we can. She's only here another year. What do you have next period?" Sam grabbed the class schedule as Andy watched Angie through the crowded hallway. "Ahh we have history together, follow me." Andy followed Sam through the hall in the opposite direction he had been heading. History, his least favorite subject.

After school, back in his basement lair, Andy had survived the first day with only a moderate headache. After the relaxation of summer, the first day of school was a vice-grip of reality setting back in. He relaxed on his bed for a few minutes before Sam came crashing down the outside stairwell. "Still dreaming about Angie?" Actually he wasn't, but he was thinking about girls. There were a few girls in his class he had been getting to know before the summer came. One of them was in his English class. He wondered if he could impress her with his cool downstairs bedroom and recreation area. "Earth to Andy. Hey, I have an idea, lets go check out that big shed in your backyard. You never know what we might find in there."

Andy finally crawled up off the bed. His father had been planning to tear down the barn in his backyard as it took up too much of the yard. He'd noticed a bunch of junk inside, so he might as well check it out first.

"Sure, lets go Magellan, or is it Ponce De Leon? We can explore the shed."

"I was thinking Frankenstein." Sam made a humorous attempt at a sinister laugh and was out the door before Andy was.

There was still a padlock hanging from the door, but his father had unscrewed one side of the clasp, rendering the lock useless. Sam entered first and Andy followed. Inside everything was coated with what looked like a decade of dust.

"What is all this stuff?" Sam wiped his hand across the table, throwing particles into the air and onto the floor. The room was lined with workbenches and equipment. One side of the room contained a chalkboard. It looked like it had some math written on it. An old monitor was setup on one of the workbenches. "Hey check it out. Some archaic old computer."

"Ha, cool. My dad said the previous owner of this house disappeared mysteriously. Apparently he was some kind of crazy that quit his job and worked in here all the time. It took the family several years to give up on looking and several more to get around to selling the house. They had no idea what all this stuff was for, and they didn't care to cart it away." Sam had been dusting off the computer and apparently found a power switch as it flickered to life. "What are you now, the mad hacker?" Sam made a couple selections from the screen and in a few moments the room was filled with a hum and a blue glow. "Whoa, what's that?"

The sound was coming from an apparatus on the workbench next to the computer. It didn't look like anything Andy could recognize. The computer screen was flashing through a set of progress bars that eventually all filled up and turned green. Then the sound came. "Reslink calling Steven Lindstrom. Are you there Mr. Lindstrom?" The voice was female, she sounded hot. Andy was very surprised, while Sam calmly dusted off a nearby microphone.

"Negative. This is Sam Baker. Mr. Lindstrom is not available. Who am I speaking with?" Sam pulled up a chair and got comfortable.

"Sam, Lindstrom is the name of the guy that used to live here. They might not realize he's gone." A set of pictures were pinned onto the workstation next to the microphone. As Andy dusted one off, he could see it was of a women in a long white coat in what looked like some kind of science lab. She had brown hair and her face was rather cute for being an older geeky scientist, maybe in her thirties. Catrina was written along the bottom of the picture.

"Sam, this is Suzanne. I'm pleased to meet you. I don't believe we've spoken with you before. I presume you are working on Mr. Lindstrom's research. How are you today?"

"Yes, my partner Andy and I are Mr. Lindstrom's new assistants. We're still coming up to speed on the research. How are you involved exactly?" Sam played his part well on the microphone, and then burst out laughing after he finished. "What the heck is this? Some kind of cloak and dagger radio operation? What was this Lindstrom guy into anyhow?" Andy shrugged his shoulders.

"After Mr. Lindstrom developed his aphasic atomic transceiver, the device we're talking through now, we began collaborating on an aphasic matter accelerator. All tests so far have been successful." While she spoke, Andy shuffled through pictures. It didn't take long to find one of Suzanne. She was young, maybe not much older than he and Sam. The picture was a close-up shot of her face. She was blond and cute, though her hair was a bit disheveled. Andy held the picture to Sam, who snatched it out of the air.

"We found your picture here, and you look pretty close to our age. Are you a university student? You're a cutie. I have a girlfriend myself, but Andy here is single. Do you have a boyfriend? Maybe you two should meet." Sam never wasted any time with the girls. I felt embarrassed he used my name, but then again I was secretly glad he was breaking the ice. His informal message left nothing but silence for a bit.

"Sam, thank you for the compliment and sorry for the delay. I am not a university student, but an A3 qualified research assistant. I don't have a boyfriend, as there are no... How do I explain. I'm not supposed to tell you this, but we have no boys here. I regret that I can't continue this conversation now. Can you return in four standard hours to speak more?"

No boys? Perhaps it was some kind of all girls university research lab. "Message received. Yes, Andy and I will return in four hours to speak with you again. Signing off." Just then Sam's phone beeped. "No boys, aphasic something or other? This stuff is funky. Sweetness. That hot girl from my Math class just texted me." Sam reached his fist out towards Andy. "You know the priorities, I have to jam bro." Andy hardly had time to finish the fist bump before Sam was out the door and yelling some kind of victory chant about the text message. Andy had to give him credit, he did have a way with the ladies. He'd be happy with half as much action as Sam seemed to stir up.

Andy was alone in the shed and dusted off more of the workspace. It didn't take long to find another couple photos. Every one of them was of a female researcher. Every one of them was reasonably attractive. One of them was labeled Angelique. She was young, also not much older than he was. The picture didn't show much more than her face, but she was hot! Her hair was jet black, and her face was like that of a model. The closeup cut-off all but the shoulders of a white lab coat, but if the rest of her was half as attractive as this picture, this girl was in a league with Angie. What did that other girl say? Four hours? He would definitely be back. He wondered where they were transmitting from. Maybe a student at a far away university? He wondered how far he'd have to go to meet them in person. Then he wondered what Mr. Lindstrom had been working on anyhow?

* building the mesh-link

In the months that followed Steven Lindstrom's initial contact, he realized that things were not as they seemed. The more he asked to know about where his contacts were, the more evasive they had become. Catrina was the head of the research team there, but he had eventually spoken to many researchers. The fact that all of them were female was a bit unusual, with science being a profession much more typically interesting to men.

After formalizing an encoding for pictures, Steven was able to receive photos of their staff. He printed head shots to help remember who he was talking to. All of them were quite fetching, but one in particular was downright stunning, Angelique. She had raven black hair and a light complexion. Even a full length lab coat couldn't hide body proportions that had been causing men to swoon for centuries. Steven sent them a photo of himself as well, and was surprised at how many of them went out of their way to comment on how handsome he was. Simon didn't scorn flattery, but he knew he was decidedly average among his male peers.

Steven eventually inquired about joining their team, and Catrina happily accepted, with the condition that it would take her some time to make the arrangements. Everything she said seemed to be an attempt to agree yet stall in disclosing their location.

Therefore, it was with some trepidation that he started to work to build an apparatus that they sent over plans for. They talked about how their research had gone far beyond the initial communication channel. Their next milestone was triangulation and matter acceleration with an aligned resonance pattern. They explained it, but Steven had to admit, he couldn't follow all of the science. When they weren't explaining their own work, they were clarifying his. He was closer than he thought to the proper model for his device, and with only a few key adjustments he was able to stabilize the transmitter and receiver substrates so they could operate indefinitely with no heat buildup or failure. It was strange to have left a world of science that considered him a crackpot chasing an impossible dream only to come into contact with a group of experts that found his questions trivially easy to answer. After his equipment was operating smoothly, Steven followed their plans to build a device that looked a bit like the mesh of a gym-stretch station, then he prepared to test it.

When in operation, the entire mesh glowed white. Even having built it, he wasn't clear on what was producing the phosphorescence. His end of the tests were fairly simple. The remote scientists asked him to find and place pure specific elements in front of the mesh. They identified them by atomic number, but they seemed to use the same words for most of them anyhow. Each time the results were the same. Steven would hear the status of their tests through the audio channel, and the element would occasionally vibrate a bit on the floor in front of the mesh. Once he could have sworn a piece of copper disappeared, but he looked again and it was right where he had placed it. He didn't understand what it was they were doing until a few months in.

---

That morning was a session with Suzanne. She was another one of the young research assistants, blond with soft facial features. "Steven, for this next test, I need you to place a composite object in front of the mesh. Any object will do, just so long as it contains several elements. Let me know when you are ready." Steven looked around the lab. There was a hammer nearby that would do just fine. He placed it down in the target ring painted on the floor.

"I've placed an object in the ring, and I'm at a safe distance. Proceed." With that the mesh glowed brightly. When in operation, it had a bit of sparkle to it. After a few seconds the glow faded, and his computer registered an incoming coded picture message. "The picture is identical to the object."

"That's excellent news. Catrina will be very pleased." Steven had spoken with their head of research on many occasions. While the assistants performed experiments, conversations with her touched more personal topics. She was especially interested in his family relationships. Among other details he had confessed to Catrina that he never married, a consequence of professional obsession perhaps.

"Steven. Shield your eyes. The next test will commence in 1 minute." He donned some protective eyeware. He scolded himself for not wearing it all the time, but the relatively safety of the apparatus made it feel unnecessary. A bright flash occurred, and suddenly the hammer was gone!

Steven anxiously queried into the microphone, "what just happened? The hammer disappeared." There was silence. He repeated the question. Another moment of silence.

"The test was a success Steven! We have the object on our end. It looks just like the picture. I repeat, the test was a success."

What in the world? Matter acceleration? Had they really transported the matter from location to location? How was this possible? Steven had so many questions he didn't know where to start. He didn't understand half of the science behind the mesh, but he had assembled it from fairly common metals. This was astounding. His mind was reeling with the possibilities when he heard her voice return.

"Steven, we are going to attempt to send the object back. Please use a barrier to protect yourself or vacate the location. The test will commence in one minute." A strong glow returned to the mesh. Steven wheeled a steel barrier into place. He had used it in the early days of testing his transmitter, to protect himself from exploding parts or errant laser impulses. It had quite a bit of dust on it from disuse. From behind the barrier, he could see the light growing brighter. A sound started to permeate the room, then a flash, then it all stopped. Peeking around the barrier he could see the hammer had returned. It was set in a different orientation, and picking it up I could see there were some new markings on it.

--To Steven Lindstrom, without whom this achievement would not have been possible. -- Suzanne @ Reslink. --

* four standard hours later

As Andy sat in the shed watching the time tick by, he didn't know if Sam had any intention of returning. Despite the fact that it was he who had setup the meeting. Andy had never even talked with her. In fact, hardly a few sentences were exchanged at all, and he had no idea who she was. However, Andy had looked at the pictures of her and Angelique more than a few times during the four hour wait. He wondered where they were.

As the time arrived, Sam was nowhere to be found. Andy's hand cautiously approached the microphone. What should he say? He wanted to sound official. What had they called themselves? Reslink? He pressed the transmit button. "Andy Beck, assistant to Dr Lindstrom, calling Reslink operations team on duty. Please respond."

"Hello Andy, this is Catrina. Steven, er Dr. Lindstrom hasn't mentioned you. Are you to help us with today's testing?"

"Hello Catrina, I was expecting Suzanne." I shuffled through the stack of pictures. That's right, she was the research head. He wondered if one day he would meet them. "Yes I can help you with today's testing."

"Good. Today is day three organic matter acceleration testing. You'll need to place an organic compound in the mesh target. Let us know when you are ready." Matter acceleration? What in the world was she talking about? Andy was happy to help, but he just didn't know what to do. Looking around he did see a net-like object. It looked a bit like a soccer net, but with bigger holes. He started to dust it off. There was too much to remove with his hands, so he grabbed a broom and swept it clear. He could see it was starting to show a faint white glow.

After a few minutes, it was clean, and he did his best to sound official. "Instructions slightly unclear. Please rephrase."

"Andy, we need a living animal in the target circle." Living animal? Where in the world was he going to get one of those? He didn't have any pets. Would an insect do? From his science class last year he could remember that insects were in a distinct family from animals. I didn't want to sound like a child, so he didn't ask if a bug would be acceptable.

"Will the animal be harmed?" His question was really just stalling for time. There were squirrels in the yard, but how would he catch one of those? Maybe he could ask a friend to bring a pet over. He supposed he could ask for more time.

His thinking was interrupted by her response. "Our previous two days testing have been successful. Our calculations show a 99.99942% chance no harm will come to the animal. Are you ready to proceed?"

His drivers education class put the chance of dying in a car accident much higher. That sounded really safe. He decided he only lived once. "Ready to proceed," he responded, before stepping into the circle. A minute later the mesh began to glow brighter and brighter. Even with his eyes shut the bright light filled his view with red through even through his eyelids. A hum was becoming louder and louder, and became almost defeaning before a bright flash. An instant it all stopped.

"Andy!? You used yourself for the test!? Suzanne, get me a nurse, and quickly!" Andy opened his eyes, but only saw swirls of black and red after the intense bright light had temporarily blinded him.

* organic testing

Steven looked at where his workroom hammer proudly hung on the wall as a trophy of success. He could still hardly believe that the science behind his theories had been capable not only of communication, but of transportation of matter. The hammer had been instantly sent through the device, and returned. That day more than any other had made him feel he was part of something.

Subsequent tests transported several objects, to be sure that regardless of the feature size or mass of the object it transported well. Then came the ultimate test, transporting living organic matter. he procured a couple pets from the local pet store, a hamster and a rabbit. He doubted the Humane Society would approve, but he needed animals to send. At first he wondered why they always requested that he send from his side, when clearly the channel was bidirectional. However, when they first discussed the animal transfer, they reviewed their safety quarantine procedures. Clearly their lab was better equipped to contain unknown substances. They had confirmed yesterday's tests as a success, and had reported that the animals arrived with no anomalies. Steven wasn't sure how they could be so sure so quickly. Then they asked if he was ready to step into the circle and become the first human transport subject. Were they crazy? Steven suggested they monitor the animals to assure they remained healthy. That was the day before.

"This is Reslink calling Steven Lindstrom. Reslink calling Steven Lindstrom."

"This is Steven Lindstrom. Go ahead Reslink."

"Hello Steven, this is Angelique. The animals you sent are perfectly healthy and normal. Have you considered our offer? We would like you to be the first human transfer subject. You've asked many questions that we have avoided answering. If you step into the circle, we can explain it all, and you can join our research. Our purpose goes far beyond the matter transfer mesh. Will you join us, Steven?" Her demeanor was calm, and made the entirely insane request sound reasonable. He wondered what he was doing this all for, if not this. For science. For learning. What was he waiting for? To gather up findings and wait? He probably wouldn't get far before their research lab trumped his discoveries with their own much more impressive achievements. Joining them was the only option.

"Part of me finds this crazy and irrational, but I am excited for the unknown. My zest for discovery led me to your operation, and it is my zest for discovery that motivates me now. I am entering the ring, prepare for the transfer." He knelt in the ring and lowered the protective goggles over his eyes. He could hear the hum charging around him. Even with his eyes closed and covered, he could see small flickers of light working in around the edges of the goggles. Then came a deafening noise and a flash and all was dark.

* Welcome to Reslink

Little by little Andy's surroundings were coming into focus. The walls were covered in some kind of shiny metal. He was standing in front of a large mesh that resembled the one earlier. However, this one was incredibly clean, as was the entire room. Aside from this, the room was empty. One wall of the room suddenly turned from silvery to clear, and at a distance he could see two women sitting behind a large desk, staring at him. Was one of them Catrina? She looked somewhat familiar. Another woman entered the room. They were all wearing white lab coats.

Andy could see them talking but heard nothing. A moment later, he saw a flicker of light in the room. She turned to him, the one he thought was Catrina, and he could hear her. "Andy, we're so happy you have come. This is our nurse, she is going to check you out after the transit." After Andy nodded, the woman walked closer. She was blond and really tall. Really really tall. Suddenly, Andy realized she was huge! He found himself instinctively backing away in shock until he was standing flat against the wall. As she paused her approach, Andy felt trapped.

"It's okay Andy. I'm not going to hurt you." He could see now she was holding a silver cylinder in one hand. However, it was her size that held him in shock. Andy was hardly taller than her waistline. She waved the cylinder. "This is a medical device, I'd like to use it to take a blood sample. It will sting a little. May I?" He didn't know how to respond. Where was he? How had he got here? What had he done? "Catrina, I think he's in shock. May I give him a sedative?"

Andy could hear her respond from behind. "Please just give him a moment. Andy, she won't hurt you. She just wants to make sure you're okay. Please nod if she can take a small blood sample." Andy didn't know what else to do. He nodded, keeping his position with his back firmly on the wall. The nurse moved closer and he felt even more trapped. The giant woman knelt in front of him, bringing them almost eye-to-eye.

"Andy, I need to place this on your arm." Her face was quite beautiful, framed by multi-colored blond and brown hair. As he extended one arm forward, her huge hand wrapped underneath and held it tight, pulling him in a little closer. She placed the silver cylinder against his skin. She bent forward, watching the device, offering him a distracting view down the neckline of her lab coat. "Try to hold still, this will take a minute." Despite the stress of the moment, Andy couldn't help but stare at the exposed skin and cleavage held up by some dark fabric. He heard the device beeping softly. "Just a minute more Andy." His teenage mind briefly fantasized about touching her bosom. He wasn't supposed to move. Should he close his eyes? He couldn't bring himself to. They were so big! Then came the sting. His arm jerked in response but she held it firm. "Almost done Andy."

Andy could hear Catrina in the background. "His vitals look normal. Slightly irregular heart beat. Blood is clean. Thank you Andy, that's all we need. Nurse, he's clear of quarantine." The nurse still held his arm.

"We're done Andy." When he finally tore his eyes away from her cleavage, she was watching him patiently. "Yes, he looks like a healthy adolescent boy to me." She smiled and let go of his arm, slipping the silver device into her labcoat pocket before standing to retreat from the room. Almost out the door, she turned and smiled at him again before disappearing down the corridor.

Catrina addressed him again, "Well Andy, seems we have some explaining to do. Where should I start?"

* Steven Abducted

Steven stood and removed the goggles. It took a moment to understand his surroundings. They looked nothing like the lab he had seen photos of. He was standing in front of a similar mesh, though this one was a bit larger than the one he had built. Behind it, he could see white furniture and then a window darkened black by tinting. It looked to be an apartment of some kind. The walls were a deep shade of aqua. Turning around, far across the room he could see a huge workstation, and behind it a familiar face was seated. Angelique.

"Hello Mr. Lindstrom. That certainly is an unexpected twist. Our records didn't say anything about our ancestors being a different size." Steven didn't understand what she was referring to.

"Hello Angelique. Where is the lab? Where is Catrina? I should like to meet her in person." Steven took a step, only to bump into some kind of clear barrier. Perhaps acrylic? It was so clear he couldn't see any reflection off it. Angelique had stood and was walking over towards him. At first he could only notice how stunning she was in person. Her face was pristine, youthful and wise at the same time. Even under the white lab coat, the slender perfection of her figure was apparent, but something wasn't right. She looked impossibly tall, like he was seeing her through a distorting lens. He scanned her from head to toe as if to discover some explanation for which she appeared so large. Her remaining steps towards him made the obvious all the more apparent. Her size wasn't an optical illusion, she towered over him. She was at least nine feet tall! His eyes were not much higher than her waistline. Steven wondered if what he was seeing was even real.

"I'm sorry Mr Lindstrom. Seeing Catrina will not be possible." She pulled a chair over and sat down facing him. Her labcoat parted at the waist revealed a medium length red skirt. Her crossed legs folded around the fabric. His vantage point felt very impolite as he noticed her oversize legs shifting against her skirt, but it didn't stop him. He finally looked up to find her face. She was staring at him with a look of fascination. "An unexpected twist indeed." The top of her labcoat was bunched up and between the buttons he could see the same red fabric, obviously a dress not a skirt.

"What is going on here? Where am I?" He frantically tapped against the invisible barrier, though it made no sound. He pressed his hand and then leaned his weight against it. "What is this barrier? Part of the biohazard protocols?" She stared back at him with a curious look for a moment and then laughed.

"Steven. May I call you Steven? Yes, I think I shall. We won't be needing that." Just as he pressed his full weight into the barrier, she waved her hand and he fell forward at full force. He awkwardly crashed into her knees before slumping to the floor at her feet. While quickly picking himself back up, he marveled at her form. She was both a model of perfect female proportion, and somehow larger than any human was supposed to be. She was so tall that when he was back on his feet, her knees came up to his waist. How was she so big?

"That barrier was a safety precaution to protect me from you. I can see it was unnecessary." He met her eyes as she looked down. "You are not far from Vancouver. It's not where you are that is important but when. It is the year 2522." Her face took on a sorrowful look as she peered toward the window. "Sadly, several horrible wars took place since your time. These were not like the wars you have seen, with soldiers and guns. These were genetic wars. The last of which attached a retrovirus that killed every man on the planet. At first population went into massive decline as only the wealthy could reproduce. Then, as we improved incubation and cloning techniques, we started scientific reproduction on a massive scale."

Her eyes returned to him with a sparkle of optimism. "We were only cloning at first, but in the interest of genetic diversity we began mixing DNA. What started as a quest for survival began an enlightened period of human improvement. We eliminated disease, we perfected appearance and structure. By 2300 society had achieved what most believed to be the perfect human. Of course there was room for some personal preference and variance." Her hand twirled a bit of her hair. "My mother was blond, so she insisted on having a dark haired child. I rather like it. Though I admit, the history classes don't teach anything about changes in size. I suppose I can imagine how it happened. One parent asks for a taller child, then another, and soon everyone wants their children to keep up. It probably happened in the course of just one or two generations. Is everyone from your time as small?"

Steven nodded. "I'm five-foot-eleven, which is about average for men, though some are as short as five feet and others as tall as six and a half." Angelique had a puzzled look on her face, like she didn't even understand what he'd said. He quickly realized that in over five hundred years, they had probably finally abolished the English units of measurement. "Ohh of course, 140 centimeters is the minimum while the maximum might be 185cm ." Her face registered a look of understanding mixed with a little superiority. "Is everyone in this time your size then?"

"There is some variance, again for preference. Of course some choose to make freak children, there is no accounting for that. However, among most of society 290cm is considered the ideal height. My parents picked the ideal on the nose, but of course there are some environmental factors. My height came out a little below the projection, but I have no complaints. Some other selections are less precise and turned out better than expected." It took me a moment to do the conversion calculation.

"Ten foot three!" Steven blurted out in surprise. She was even taller than he thought! Though her size wasn't the only question puzzling through his mind. "That barrier wasn't physical at all was it? It was some form of projected energy." She nodded a confirmation. He looked away towards the darkened window pane. This was a strange new world. He struggled to get his head around it. "If society is perfect already, why bring me here?"

"We are anything if not curious. There are some who believe we lost something great when we lost our counterpart in the species. Others have an interest purely for scientific purposes. Some simply want what they can't have." Steven was afraid to ask which motivation drove her. "It was Catrina's insight that brought us to you. You see, we have long known that travel through space was possible." She stood and walked to the window, the tint softening as she approached. As she spoke, her hand gestured him closer. "These endpoints are a backbone of our modern society." Steven felt even more dwarfed as he approached her at the window. Below, he could see a huge sprawling city, though he was more preoccupied inspecting the size of her fingers spread against her hip just a couple inches below his shoulder height. "Look out there. What do you *not* see?"

Steven pulled my glance away from her to better inspect the city below. They were a good thirty stories up. The city was pristinely clean, the buildings separated by well manicured paths of cement and greenery. Pedestrians could be seen everywhere, walking those paths. The sky was as blue as he had ever seen it. Other than some futuristic styling, it appeared as one might expect it to be. Except, of course, "I don't see any cars." He searched the horizon. "Or trains, or planes. I don't see any vehicles. Where are they?"

Steven felt her huge hand rest on his shoulder for the first time. "We don't need them. We use the aphasic endpoints. We have vehicles for sure. Some use them for recreation, some use them for going places without a power grid or an endpoint. However, we mostly get around using the endpoints. Catrina was a maverick. She theorized the endpoint could move matter through time as well as space. However, it's harder to test than you think. It's very hard to lock an endpoint which is physically close. They tend to generate too large a feedback loop and become unstable. This isn't usually a practical problem, as we primarily use them to travel over larger distances."

Of course! Steven suddenly realized that was why he had so much trouble stabilizing his setup. The endpoints were too close!

"However this property is problematic for locating another endpoint in time. We needed another endpoint far enough away in time. Catrina came up with the idea of creating a chrono-listener, a listener seeking out any other transmitters. That's how we found you."

The gravity of this discovery was starting to sink in and both excite and agitate Steven. He paced back away from the window. "You're saying that the device I built, the one in my shed, projects objects through time!?" She nodded. "This is astounding. Think of the things we can do with it. The good we can do. We can send back cures for disease and famine. We can stop wars." His mind was rambling on faster than his mouth.

"For what purpose Steven Lindstrom? We already have the perfect society. We had but one goal in creating the device. To bring you here."