Journey looked frustrated. “But anything could’ve happened to him.”
“Let me finish,” Lou said gently. “His wife, children, and two neighbors who were passing by all witnessed him vanish in full view. His wife screamed and his children were speechless. They, along with the neighbors, all rushed to the spot where he disappeared. This was a plain open field with no trees, bushes, or depressions. He was just gone. People searched frantically for him but found nothing. The really odd thing was that the grass died in a fifteen-foot circle around the spot where they’d last seen him, as if burned by some sort of energy. For days after, his wife said she could hear him faintly calling her. She would answer, but his voice eventually faded away.”
“That was seriously creepy,” Journey shuddered.
“I’m not sure those stories contain any information of value we can use,” Reno muttered in an even tone.
“Other than indicate that people disappear more often than we realize,” Lou defended her research.
“Maybe.” Folding his arms over his chest, Reno stared out the window. “Did you gain any insight with Sculler? Anything we can use?”
Lou nodded slowly. “Yes, I think so. Unfortunately, the information I gained was both encouraging and frightening at the same time.”
“In what way?” Reno sat down and pulled his chair close to the table.
Lou pressed her lips together. “I’ll explain everything, but I want you to realize how dangerous this could be. I can offer you no assurance of any kind.”
Reno took a sip of coffee, then held his cup in both hands. “I don’t believe I’ve ever asked or expected a guarantee from you. I know you can’t give me one.”
“All right. We’ll work through this together. I don’t want you to rush into a decision.”
“I’ve already made my decision.” Reno’s statement was matter of fact as he took Journey’s hand. “We both have.”
“What do you mean? We?” Lou looked from one to the other.
“I’m going with him,” Journey announced evenly.
Lou’s eyes widened. “I don’t think that’s possible.”
“How do we know?” Journey asked, determined to push the issue.
Abruptly, Lou stood and patted her papers. “I need you to know that this isn’t just about a paper I’m writing. Or an earth-shattering scientific discovery. Those things are both true – but this is about you.” She indicated them with her hand. “My friends. This is about your life. Your existence. I can’t stress what I’m about to say enough.”
“Well, say it.” Journey encouraged.
“All right.” Lou sat down again. “After meeting with the research group and looking at their data, I was hit by how random and volatile this might be. We’ll go over the data I gleaned, but this is the main point I want to get across.” She paused, took a deep breath, making sure that both of them were listening to her. “Yes, I believe there have been other people who, like you, have traveled through a portal. The crux of my concern is that, other than you, we have no idea where these folks are or where they’ve gone. We don’t know if they went into the past, into the future – or somewhere else.”
“We know where I came from, Lou,” Reno wasn’t arguing, he was just trying to point out the obvious. “We also know where I want to return.”
Lou hit the table with her fist, then soothed over the spot as if to apologize. “We do know where you came from and where you ended up. What we don’t know is how. How to control it. If we’re going to send you back, we not only have to figure out how to activate the portal, we also must figure out how to control your destination. If we don’t, you might find yourself facing down a T-Rex.”
Reno looked to Journey for help. She responded automatically. “A T-Rex is a huge, flesh-eating dinosaur that lived seventy million years ago.”
“Damn. I see what you’re saying.”
“In other words, going through one of these portals can make a person virtually disappear off the face of the Earth. As we’ve learned from the scarce data, cases like yours are virtually unheard of. If the portals on Earth are connected to the ones in our magnetosphere, there could be bodies of the vanished floating hundreds of miles above the Earth – and we’d never know it.
Journey gasped at the starkness and bluntness of Lou’s commentary. “Floating above earth?” She could imagine a scene from some space odyssey nightmare. “Why is this happening?”
Reno covered her hand with his. “Nothing’s happening. Lou’s just talking to us, that’s all. Go ahead, Lou.”
“I believe I told you that NASA had sent up four unmanned space probes to collect data on the interaction between the Earth’s and the sun’s magnetic fields. The portals Dr. Sculler observed in the data they collected were completely unpredictable. They opened and closed in an instant.”
“Well, that makes sense,” Journey commented, trying to find something positive in what was being said. “The opening disappeared right after Reno went through. Right?” she looked at him to see what he thought.
“Yea, that’s true. Kinsella and his raiders weren’t able to follow me.”
Lou rubbed her hand across the papers as if testing the texture of the fibers. “Correct. Just like with Morgan Heimer, the men he was with didn’t even realize he was gone for a few seconds. It’s so quick. So complete.” She hesitated, searching for what she wanted to say. “It’s one thing when you’re talking electrons, quite another when you’re speaking of a human being. Very risky.”
“What if I’m willing to take the risk?”
“That’s up to you.” Lou glanced from Reno to Journey. “You’ll have to decide that if or when the time comes.”
Reno scooted his chair
