A Time & Place for Every Laird by Angeline Fortin (reading comprehension books .txt) 📗

like a tunnel with each end in adifferent space/time, connecting two points even a million milesaway from each other with a pathway between. They always use theexample of a folded piece of paper where two ends that were farapart are suddenly right next to each other.” Sorcha drew two dotson the back of one of the pages in the binder, representing them asblack holes and bending the page so that the dots met as ademonstration.

Hugh nodded again. He could visualize that.“Carry on.”

“These wormholes aren’t constant. Again,it’s all theory—I mean, we don’t know, because we haven’t beenthere to see it—but we think they form and collapse pretty quicklyand they exist at a Planck-scale level. I mean, it’s far belowsubatomic levels …” She paused at his petulant scowl. “It’s really,really, really small. So small that it is pointless to try tophysically measure them. Anyway, at that level it’s believed thatspace/time is unstable and chaotic. They call it quantum foam, andthe wormholes form pretty easily in those conditions.

“Most of the quantum wormholes in the foamlead only a few Planck-lengths away. About this far,” Sorcha said,pressing her thumb and forefinger together with no space between.“But sometimes they can span light-years or even across theuniverse. Well, one theory leads to another and someone gets theidea that you can cross through it. Then comes the idea of atransversible wormhole that says you should be able to go back andforth across it. But all in all it’s a naturally occurringevent.”

“In space,” he clarified.

“Yes, in space. That’s what makes this wholething so weird,” Sorcha told him, picking up the binder and idlyflipping through the pages. “There’s this organization calledINSCOM—it’s an acronym; the military is big on them. It stands forU.S. Army Intelligence and Security Command. Basically they are thecovert sector of the Army tasked with counterintelligence,information warfare, and electronic warfare.”

“They’re spies?”

Claire waggled her hand back and forth.“It’s a gray area. It’s hard to be an Army wife without getting afeel for these kinds of things. I would say they are spies as muchas they wage a little warfare electronically themselves. These daysyou can cripple a nation with just a few keystrokes.”

Hugh only raised his brow. “Verra well.Carry on.”

“Okay, so this whole thing started whenINSCOM contracted DARPA—another acronym that stands for DefenseAdvanced Research Project Agency. DARPA is a military think tankpaid by the government agencies to just spout out new ideas.Mark-Davis works with them a lot, kind of like two brains in thesame head. Apparently there are places already that can create awormhole, but DARPA has been trying to develop a way to take one ofthose short-lived wormholes, stabilize it, and expand it formacroscopic use … Making it big enough to actually see. Theywant to trap one end and stabilize it using negative energy.Theoretically, negative energy is the stuff that caused the initialinflation of the early universe.”

“The early universe?”

“Are you too early for the Big Bang Theory?”she asked, but read Hugh’s closed expression well enough to knowthere would be no answer forthcoming. She rubbed her eyes again,tiredly. “Oh, I so don’t want to argue creationism with you rightnow. Let’s just leave it at the idea that with this negativeenergy, you could open one end of a wormhole and expand it, okay?Are you with me so far?”

Surprisingly enough, he was. Other than afew of her terms, Sorcha’s explanation had been simple enough sofar. “So how are they employing this power?”

“DARPA hooked up with Dr. Fielding to startdeveloping new surveillance technology for INSCOM usingwormholes. Basically, they started out wanting to be able toopen a tiny wormhole into a room or area where bad guys are meetingor whatever. From their end, they could open a large enough one tosend through a small camera or a microphone so they could see andlisten to conversations even in bunkers far underground. Itwould be virtually undetectable.”

“Would they truly attempt something sofar-fetched?” Hugh asked after a moment’s thought. “It doesnaesound like ye believe it either.”

“I wouldn’t normally but since INSCOM ispart of the same organization that tried to develop parapsychologicmethods in the seventies and eighties, I guess I can’t be toosurprised. They were trying for this thing called remote viewing,where a psychic or seer could look into the minds of people acrossthe world and see what they were planning.”

Hugh snorted at that. “And ye think my timewas filled with witchcraft and other such nonsense!”

“I agree with you on that point.”

“But if a wormhole is a natural phenomenon,how are they controlling it?”

Sorcha shuffled through the pages once more,obviously not searching for an answer but occupying her hands. “Anelectrical charge—we’ve gone over electricity, right?—well, thecharge steers the destination end of the wormhole, which stays onEarth rather than taking off across space because it is the nearestgravity well to the opening. I mean, it could go somewhere else butthe tendency is for it to stay on Earth. But it requires vastamounts of power. We’re talking a whole grid devoted to keepingthis thing running for just a few minutes, so they can’t keep it onall the time.”

Hugh nodded as he processed the informationshe had provided. “So how did I get involved in all of this?”

“Well, now that’s where Fielding reallyscrewed up—or I guess found their moneymaker, depending on how youlook at it. They found out through a little trial and a lot oferror that if the power was shut off abruptly rather than slowlybacking it down, the negative energy construct—the force that washolding the wormhole open—would just collapse. As the negativeenergy collapses, it momentarily enlarges the wormhole. Thinkof it as an implosion followed by a larger explosion. Whenthis happened, the opening would enlarge and last for a second ortwo, leaving no trace once it was gone. Fielding stumbledonto a gold mine here, Hugh. That is why the NSA was called in onthis whole thing. The government agencies are notorious about notwanting to share their toys, and INSCOM obviously doesn’t want thisability to become common knowledge among the other agencies or ourallies. Can you imagine the power in being able to get somewhere,knowing that there was