Chapter 17 (July 31st, 2033)

“Down the Rabbit Hole”

Thor found a system 99.9 light-years from Earth that would work for his purposes, Nu Draconis, a Binary system. After opening a portal and verifying there were no planets there Thor began mining asteroid belts and dead planets well inside the goldilocks regions of other stars that had already been surveyed near Earth. If this didn’t go horribly wrong this system would be another one that was a perfect candidate for power generation and safe portal creation away from habitable areas.

In two weeks, Thor had created what wasn’t really a planet but wasn’t a giant asteroid either. It had been dropped into an orbit around both Binary stars. The Nanites made the process incredibly quick. Within days the basic structure had been made. An internal base had been created and this could legitimately be a base away from Earth for quite a few people. Thor was also making three more of these planetoids in the system and was utilizing heavier elements to artificially increase the gravity near the surface as close to Earth Normal as possible. It was truly incredible what Thor could accomplish these days. My intelligence allowed him to keep up with Thor if I wished to but the pace, the pace was something that was completely astounding as Thor could multitask Quadrillions of tasks at the same time.

Once the base was ready, I stepped through a portal and linked to Thor to look over everything. For obvious safety concerns, Amanda and Abi were watching through a two-tier portal connection that would allow Thor to shut down any links to Earth in a nanosecond if things went haywire. I need not have worried, at least on this end of the trip. I stepped into the room, Set my internal Nanites to completely defensive and self-sustainment. Disconnected all Quantum links to everything save my stored body and Thor and initiated the Portal.

“Ready?” Abi asked

“Ready,” I said out loud so Thor, Amanda, and both versions of Abi could hear.

Normally a portal would appear as a pinpoint of blackness that quickly expanded to the dictated size, then showed what was on the other side. This time, however, the portal expanded turning red, to yellow, to green, then finally violet before solidifying and showing a room that looked, for all intents and purposes, like some sort of medieval library. “Thor close the portal as soon as I’m through. If we lose our connection through the quantum links before you’ve closed the portal, do not open the portal to that location again, that will only happen if somehow the two Universes are temporally out of sync. I will have to figure out how to get back on my own if that happens. If the quantum links don’t drop out, then open a portal every day around this time and I’ll make a report, or try to step back through.” I said. I Remembered a quote from George W. Cecil: “On the plains of hesitation bleach the bones of countless millions who, at the dawn of decision, sat down to wait, and waiting died.” I waved to the cameras and stepped through into the unknown.

I stepped through the portal which closed behind me as intended. My quantum links existed but I couldn’t feel anything on the other end of them. There would be no help coming from Thor. I concentrated on the quantum links and tried to push past the blockage. I could not feel anything from the other side. Quantumly I was still connected to Thor and my backup body. They were just out of sync somehow. As I was thinking about that the most excruciating pain wracked my body as I fell to the ground. As the pain receded and the nanites compensated for the damage my mind was flooded with millions of prompts.