They May Have Been Building It From The Other Side
In a Singaporean skyscraper, a wormhole becomes the topic of discussion over drinks
Jan Chu is a digital native, who first published via Telnet in the 1990s. Based in Hong Kong, Jan usually writes science fiction and political allegory. Jan’s work is published or forthcoming in Soft Star Magazine, Deathcap and Hemlock, Diet Milk, Maenad Review, Whimsical Press, and Culinary Origami. Short stories by Jan Chu are collected in the book Route One and Other Stories, available on Amazon.
"It was the last thing we expected to come out," I continued. "It was diminutive. It had giant eyes. For Christ's sake, it was cute."
“So what had you actually been expecting?” Angela asked, taking another sip of her drink, dripping with icy condensation, and brushing her long, black bangs away from her forehead. A tiny drop of sweat had traveled down the side of her throat, its path curving towards a place I couldn’t take my eyes off of.
"Energy? Nothing? Dark matter? Space rocks? Definitely not a Mogwai."
Her blank look made me realize that she was too young to have ever heard of Gremlins. I'd watched it back home, at the age of six or seven. In the sweltering half-darkness of the terrace bar, I peered self-consciously at the backs of my hands. That drive-in in Pennsylvania was a long way from the sixtieth floor of this skyscraper in Singapore. Across the water, the lights of the casino, held aloft atop two even higher skyscrapers, glittered like an alien starship.
"I mean, not something that looked like a plush toy." The comparison worked better, and she giggled. "Not something with pink fur and little purple claws, that looked like I needed to protect it from my fox terrier."
I held my breath as she unselfconsciously tugged at the neckline of her beaded top, bringing it a half-centimeter back from the brink. "So what did you do?" she finally asked.
"What any self-respecting scientist would do in the same situation: we broke out every recording device we had. We took video from all angles. We did infrared and ultraviolet scans, and electromagnetic tests. We measured its height, its weight, and its respiration. It was making a kind of chattering noise, so we took audio, too — although it turned out that most of its sounds were outside the range of human hearing."
She stirred the melted remains of her cocktail once more, meaningfully, and I called the waiter over. "One more?" I gestured, and she nodded. The Singapore Slings were adding up, but I was no longer acting under my own power.
"That does sound unexpected. But if you're going to open one end of a wormhole, don’t you kind of have to be ready for anything?"
"Well, we thought we were constructing a new wormhole, not opening an existing one. Ever since we started the VLHC ASEAN project, we were operating under the assumption that the chance of creating a wormhole in the exact same place as an existing one would be infinitesimally small."
"I see. So, what happened to the creature?"
"It's not a happy ending, unfortunately. The wormhole existed for less than a second before spontaneously winking out of existence. And the creature clearly was not built to survive in this environment. It had been breathing, at first, but each breath was an obvious struggle. Within a minute or two, it stopped chattering, and closed its eyes."
"Oh, no! The poor thing."
I gazed deep into her eyes, trying to avoid ogling anything else. It made me feel even more awkward. "There was nothing left to do but to preserve and dissect the body." Damn! Why had I mentioned the body? My own shirt was damp, although I was in short sleeves. Earlier, at four o’clock in the afternoon, when the short, daily rainshower arrived, I’d been inside, shivering in the air conditioning. Now, my pocket protector — what on earth had I been thinking? — created a square of sweat on my chest.
"So why hasn't this been in the news?"
"You think NUS would let us talk about this? And even if we did, the Singapore government controls the media."
"The government knows what's best for us."
"Sure they do."
"What exactly are the chances, anyway? I mean, the chances of creating a wormhole in the same place as an existing one?"
"We wouldn't know that unless we knew how many wormholes there already were in the universe. This universe, I mean. But even if the number of existing wormholes is ten times our highest estimate, the chances would still be astronomically small. One in 1 x 103695. Or thereabouts."
"So, either you had truly astounding luck, or there are a lot more wormholes out there than we know about."
"Or the guys on the other side knew we were building one, and met us halfway."
"Which one do you think it was?"
The waiter returned, and I offered my eye, which was duly scanned for payment.
"I think someone on the other side had to have known,” I mused. “But who? Was it the little Mogwai things themselves, who built it from their end? Or was there someone else over there, who sent us a friendly gesture in a form they hoped we’d appreciate?"
Angela had finished her drink, more quickly this time, and started acting as if she needed to be somewhere else. “So, Mike, thanks for the drinks. It’s been nice talking to you.”
Her dismissal was surprisingly abrupt. “Can, we, um, maybe meet up again?”
“I don’t think so. To be honest, there is a pretty big difference between what you put on your profile versus you in person. Yes, we’re both scientists, but I’m more interested in someone who has a future in industry, not just academic research like you’re doing. Even your profile photo — that must have been taken about 15 years ago at a minimum. In any case, your reference to Gremlins makes me think you probably lied about your age, too.”
I tried to rescue myself, but I felt like a drowning man trying to act as his own life preserver. “Well, you know how it is on dating apps — people always fudge their age a bit.”
“I value honesty. Come on — you said you’re 39, but you’ve got to be closer to 50. Meanwhile, I really am 29. And your story was mildly entertaining, but I didn’t come out here to listen to some kind of creative writing project. I can get plenty of that online. You didn’t ask me a single question about myself, and spent most of your time staring at my chest like a typical middle-aged ang mo with yellow fever. So, again, thanks for the drinks, but I don’t think it’s going to work out.”
I stared at her, dumbfounded, as yet another trickle of perspiration dripped down between my shoulder blades.
“Well. It was nice to meet you, too.”
I stood up and we shook hands, as if concluding a business deal. I shoved my hands into my pockets as she walked toward the exit, away from the steamy terrace and into the artificially-chilled restaurant interior. Deep in my pocket, I felt the little box containing a tiny scrap of a purple claw, a single strand of pink fur wedged into its splintered point. I thought about how I had smuggled it out of the containment area, and I thought about the future of humanity.
I opened my mouth, as if about to call out to her, to ask her to take a look.
But the distance between us was too great.
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