Nova walked down from his office to the main floor of Operations. A steaming cup of coffee in one hand and almost a smile on his face. Gar was on duty, watching over the station through the night.
“All quiet,” Gar stated.
Nova took a sip of his coffee and then asked, “Has Agent Justin reported in?”
“He has not. He isn’t due to report for another hour.”
“Good. When he...”
Robot 10915 said, “Communication from Agent Justin, emergency line one.”
“Put him through.” Nova turned back to the screen.
Justin appeared. "Nova, good. We have a situation."
“What is it? Don’t tell me the tear in space is open again?”
“No. I was inspecting the area and found nothing out of the ordinary. Lady Echidna is soundly bound deep. However, using these new spectral sensors, I picked up another tear in space.”
“Where?”
“It’s in the station, or I should say the station is passing through where the tear is showing up. If I am reading this right, it should be on Deck M.”
“The Mess Hall?” Nova frowned.
“Yes.”
“Get back here, now. I want that sensor on this station. Meet me on Deck M as soon as you get back.”
“Aye, sir.”
Nova turned to Gar, “You have Operations. I will head down to see what the hell this is.”
The Mess Hall was noisy as usual. BADGE officers, heroes, and a few trainees were having breakfast. A robot tried desperately to manage a few younger children who had super powers. It was so uncommon to see Nova around here that most people stopped to look at him as he passed their tables.
Arx walked up, holding a large cappuccino. “Sir, is something wrong?”
“Yes. Have you noticed anything... unusual today?”
“EB made another pass at Chase and she didn’t threaten to neuter him.”
“This is serious.”
“Sorry. No, nothing to report.”
EB ran in from a hallway and looked around. He seemed to look for something.
“EB?” Nova and Arx walked over to him.
“Oh, hey buddy.”
“Don’t tell me you heard what I said? You were in the training room.” Arx replied.
“I’m sensing something is wrong. There is something happening in here.” He looked around for a moment.
Everyone noticed a blue flashing light from inside the arboretum.
“That has to be it.” Nova left them and hurried toward the entrance.
Arx and EB followed. EB said, “And, I heard you. Hello, bunny ears!” He pointed at his head.
“Oh, sorry.”
They left the metal station for the grassy sprawling park of the arboretum. In the middle of the open grounds, a flickering blue light appeared in the middle of the air.
“What is that?” Arx asked.
EB said, “That feels like a rip in space.”
“Good senses,” Nova examined it from afar. “That’s precisely what it is. And I don’t like it being here.”
“How did it get here?”
“I can explain, at least some of that.” Justin walked up with a bulky scanner in his hands. “The top layer of space has had extreme stress from the gravimetric distortion of the recent tear from Lady Echidna. Subsequent gravitational waves have caused instability in the event horizon of the original rupture. That has led to further instability across the area. Influx of verteron particles have condensed the disturbance into a compressed anomaly, which has created another tear, which is becoming increasingly unstable.”
EB clapped, “Wow, that was pretty good. Nice analysis.”
Arx said, “All I heard were a lot of big science words.”
EB said, “What it all means is that the big hole that Lady Echidna ripped has caused some problems, and they all came together to create this. Which is another hole in space.”
“Oh... wait, how did you know that?”
EB scoffed, “I was traveling in starships and learning about space before Galileo was born. I’m technically a space alien.”
Nova said, “What I want to know is how we close this. I don’t want another gateway for god knows what. We barely survived Lady Echidna.”
Justin said, “I don’t know, sir. The last tear took Midgard to close and he... sacrificed himself to make that possible.”
Nova looked at Arx. “Get your ATLAS teams ready for this. We might have an invasion or something worse. EB, I want this station evacuated and locked down. Justin, have Dr. Henderson and all the other scientists looking at the data and find answers. MOVE!”
A blue hand reached over and held a glass of wine in front of Nova’s face. Strange Quark said, “Cool it, you’re gonna burst a blood vessel. Have some of this. It’s a good year.”
“Quark! Where in the world did you come from?”
“I was minding my own business, being a duck, swimming in a pool filled with whiskey... fantastic stuff at that, then I suddenly felt this disturbance in the space force.”
“Can you provide answers?”
Quark walked up to the disturbance. He peered at it, then paced around it, and finally walked right through it. For a moment, Quark split into five different-colored Quarks...one even had white feathers covering him. They looked at one another and waved, then he stepped back out and his doppelgangers vanished.
“What you have here is a tear in the spectral lens.”
“The what?” Justin asked.
“There are different universes spread across the quantum continuum. We are but one of them. Keeping them apart is a force that is hard to define. Let’s just say it keeps us from seeing each other. However, the rip in space and all the mess out there has created a fracture in that barrier. Now, we have a glimpse into the multiverse. It really isn’t that dangerous, though if it keeps expanding it will wipe out all existence on Earth.”
EB said, “Not dangerous, but it could kill everyone! That makes little sense.”
“Okay, so here’s the deal. If we contain it, give it a frame so it will have a boundary. It will stop expanding and settle.”
“Can we make it go away?” Nova asked.
“Nope. This is one tear that will stay. It might fade and disappear for a while, but it will show back up.”
Justin asked, “How do we contain it?”
“Create a gateway to put it in, one that is lined with anti-matter. Anti-Matter cannot cross into other universes, and other universes cannot cross it. So, it will contain it permanently.”
“Can we do that?” Nova asked.
Justin nodded. “I think so. But we’ll have to work fast. This thing is expanding as we stand here.”
“Then move!”
Several hours later, a team of robots walked into the Arboretum with a large archway. They set it up near the larger tear and slowly moved toward it.
“Nice and easy, boys. That’s our only gateway.” Quark said.
Nova, Arx, EB, Chase, and Gar watched from a distance.
“Are your teeth chattering? Mine are.” EB asked.
“Don’t fret. This will work,” Gar said.
“We hope so,” Chase added.
EB said, “If this is the last of our time, and all this universe is about to be eaten by that portal, I just want to ask for one thing.”
“No.” Chase said.
“Just one kiss?”
“No.”
Bright flashes of blue light flickered for a moment. Everyone put their hand up to their eyes and even Nova looked a little worried. However, the light stopped and turned to a gentle glow as the tear filled this archway and became stable.
“There you go.” Quark said.
Nova walked in, a little caution to his gait. “Are you sure this is good?”
Quark knocked on the side. “It’s firmly in place. You can even move this arch and take the tear with you.”
“Good, I don’t want this in the middle of the arboretum.”
“Can we go through that and check out other universes?” Arx asked.
Quark said, “Yes,... and no. If you step into another universe, you will step into another version of yourself. You will know who you are, but you won’t be the same. Once you return here, you will assume you original form. Does that make sense?”
Chase said, “Hardly anything with you makes much sense.”
“That’s the best compliment I’ve received in ages.”
Nova said, “Okay, Justin, find a suitable place for this and keep it under constant monitoring. We will consider the best use of it. Until then, the arboretum is off-limits.”
“Got it.”
Everyone walked out to get back to their normal duties, and Justin explored sections of the station, searching for the right location.
Hours later, as the station orbited the dark side of Earth, the Arboretum basked in the bluish glow of the portal. There was a flickering, and a hand came through and gripped the side, pulling the person into this universe with a great thrust. Mostly made of energy, the being sniffed the air and then said, “So, I am dead here. Good. I can be anyone I want.” The glowing person melted away, the energy passing through the decks and flying toward the Earth.
]