Chapter 2

Todd sat in the observation room with Tetsuo, trying to make sense of what he had been told. If what Tetsuo was saying was true, then portals would have to function completely differently than teleports. Either that or the theoretical models were completely wrong. There had been a lot of theories and speculation about portals since Tetsuo had placed Tenkei into orbit, but they all agreed that the maximum distance at which a portal would work was somewhere around 150,000km, or less than half the distance to the moon. Yet the portal Todd had just seen was well over twice that distance.

"We suspect that Alice was in phase one of MORFS when she came through a portal to the city," Tetsuo explained. "Somehow the portal affected her body, and now she has the ability to create them. She's never been conscious for more that a few minutes since phase two finished. Every time she starts to wake up a portal is opened to somewhere. Depending on how far away the other end is, she'll last a couple of seconds or a few minutes and then she'll pass out again."

"Hold on a second," a thought had just occurred to Todd. "You said the duration is dependent on the distance, right?"

"Yes, the farther away the other end the shorter the time the portal is open," Tetsuo confirmed. He already knew what the next question was going to be, but he let Todd figure it out for himself.

"If that portal was open for almost twenty seconds, how far away have the shorter duration ones been?" That was the question that Tetsuo knew was coming.

"The furthest one was measured at just over one AU and lasted just less than one second," he answered. The shock on Todd's face would have been funny if the situation wasn't so dangerous.

"You're telling me she can open a portal for one second on the surface of the sun from here?"

Tetsuo simply nodded before saying, "She hasn't opened one in that direction yet, but yes. Also, she's only done that once and was out for 24 hours afterward. Most of the portals have been much closer than that." Tetsuo opened the door of the observation room for Todd and they headed back to the monitoring station.

"You really need to get her out of this city," Todd stated after a moments thought.

After they entered the monitoring room Tetsuo walked to a screen showing power charts on it. "Well, that's where we run into the second problem. We have no idea what will happen if we attempt to take her though a portal, even if she's not generating her own. If we do, there's no way to guarantee that it will remain stable. And we can't put her on a shuttle either."

"Why can't a shuttle be used?" A shuttle had been Todd's first thought and not a portal at all. He knew the theories on portals showed that two portals would have a destabilizing influence on each other. Sending a portal generator through another person's portal was just a recipe for disaster. Tetsuo indicated the power charts that were on the screen before continuing.

"It turns out she's also an energy converter." The first chart showed bio energy used during the last episode. It showed no noticeable change in her energy usage. The second chart however, was from the city power grid and it showed a significant spike in power usage for 18.7 seconds. "She's constantly draining power from the city grid, but you can see the spike that is generated when she opens a portal. If that happened during descent in a shuttle, there is no way it would be able to safely get to the ground."

"Have you tried to isolate her from the city power?" Todd suspected that they would have, but he asked the question anyway.

"This facility is already completely isolated and runs off a separate power source," Tetsuo explained. "Somehow she's still able to tap into the city grid and get power."

Todd was lost in thought for several seconds before finally saying, "Well, I see you have quite a challenge for me."

"So you'll take the job then?" Tetsuo asked excitedly. It was the first time that Tetsuo had shown any emotion during their entire conversation. It was something that Todd noted closely. There was more going on here than he was being told, and his curiosity was getting the better of him.

"I'll have my lawyer forward a standard contract to you," Todd explained. "If you have any questions, or need any section revised, let me know. I'm sure we can come to some agreement. In the meantime, I'll need to get a few things from my place before I'll be able to start. Like a change of clothes, first of all."

"I have already taken the liberty of setting up an office here and a suite in a nearby residential section for you to stay in while you're with us," Tetsuo confessed. "Your tablet can be added to the computer grid, and given access to all the data on Alice, or you can make use of the one that has been setup in the office. If you need anything at all, call my personal assistant, she will get whatever you need."

Todd was becoming even more curious but didn't comment on it. "I'll have to contact Sarah and see if she can cut her vacation short." Todd hated to admit it at times, but Sarah McIntyre was essential to his success. She was one of the few people who could understand his equations and build the devices that he designed. She was quite simply a genius and easily the best in her field. She held Master's degrees in electronics and mechanical engineering while understanding quantum physics and string theory.