It never occurred to Chandler to wonder how Pete knew; only that he realized it was true as soon as Pete said it.
Legally, the government would consider it enabling terrorism, but Chan understood the moral difference between organized efforts to oppose government restrictions and an individual drive to follow his own inner voice. It was the same logic by which The Brotherhood took their chances by allowing anyone whom they welcomed to have the ability to harm them. People do what they do, and The Brotherhood operated from a sense of moral obligation to do what they did. How it turned out was part of the adventure, the crux of being alive.
Pete stepped away as Chan moved to tear the plastic envelope. “This device is much more precise about DNA recognition than your watch, even detecting whether you are alive. But it also relies on your watch as part of the activation process. All of our watches emit a field just large enough that mine could interfere with initialization. Your presence becomes your signature.”
Once Chan was registered as the sole authorized user, Pete showed him how it worked. Without Chan’s signature, the pages appeared to be glued together. Even getting those pulp novels wet once could produce that effect, so it was not uncommon to check for that when handling them. When Chan opened it, only the last few pages remained glued together where the actual electronics were concealed. It could all be flexed like a real book. When Chan trained his vision on any page of the book, all the pages covering the electronics became transparent and the display was revealed. Pete had him hold it up to the mirror on the wall behind them. Without his actual eyes on the page, they all turned back into discolored paper with poorly printed text.
“You can turn the pages from time to time as if reading it, but you’ll have to learn how to stroke the display to control what you see. There are multiple screens of icons and so forth. Explore at your leisure, as some of them will teach you more about using the device itself. For example, this one allows you to stand the book on one side and use it like a tiny terminal. The facing page becomes a keyboard. You’ll eventually need to send messages to people once you understand the subspace network.” Pete wasn’t wasting time now, leaving lots of unanswered questions that Chan figured he could ask the device itself eventually.
Pete ended with explaining, “The primary objective is that you would have access to our library wherever you are.” Then he waited a moment.
Chan decided this led to another idea. “Something tells me I won’t be coming back to this facility again.”
“Quite so,” Pete said resignedly. “But we also wanted you to have continuing access to the gym machines. You really are going to need as much fitness as your body can develop. It’s also a basic part of our philosophy, as you’ll understand once you start exploring our library. What we have to do is establish another portal near you that links to a different facility.”
Abruptly Peter turned and led Chan out into the corridor. The large fellow who let them in quickly followed to close the door behind them.
Back upstairs in the portal foyer, Pete was pulling a box out from under a table while Chan changed back into his street clothes. The box was about half the size of a briefcase. “The physical requirements for a portal are actually quite small in themselves. Things get complicated when we have to use scanning to identify a likely endpoint that doesn’t already have a portal. I won’t even try to explain how that works, but you’ll be placing this one. The instructions for using it are in our library. This one can be moved and still work just the same, but has no masking. You don’t want to set it up just anywhere and leave it open for very long. It needs to be in a very secure place or at least a place where no one will notice it while you visit the life support facility on the other end. Then again, I’m sure a furniture craftsman could find a way to make it hard to see.”
Pete gestured to the portal on the wall. “Unlike that one, this model allows you to create whatever size portal you like, so long as you can pass through it physically. The portal on the other end will match the one you make and our members won’t be surprised to see you crawling in on hands and knees.”
Pete waved at the room around them. “This is a lab where things like this are designed and built. Most foyers are much smaller and simpler. Most facilities are much smaller.” Tapping the box, “This will take you to a that is fairly compact, hidden in the basement of a building in your time zone. Aside from a smaller gym and library room, the cafeteria is smaller and fully automated and there’s a meeting room. Nothing else.”
He started to hand Chan the box. “The controls do allow you to automate a shutdown for emergency purposes if you think you can’t come back. If you do try to come back, things get pretty dicey.”
“Dicey how?” Chan frowned.
Pete took a deep breath. “Would it surprise you to discover we have no idea what things are like above this facility?”
Chan was really puzzled. “You mean, like there’s no physical exit?”
“None,” Pete confirmed. “Subspace does not connect directly to our time-space continuum. When we scan, we use subspace communications as part of the process before identifying a space for facilities like this, so we have no idea where in the history of earth we are. All we know is that a large chamber already existed.”
Chan stood open mouthed in shock.
Pete went on. “We aren’t exactly sure if it’s even on the same time line. We suspect not. Right now, you and I and everyone here in this lab facility are probably in a totally different universe than the one on the other side of that portal. We try to avoid finding out. Our only interest in monitoring external conditions is to prevent being surprised by catastrophe. To reduce that, we chose to search for a depth below the ocean floor that requires we constantly pump air pressure out of this place. That’s why we have to use the noise dampening curtains, because the corridors are where most of the air is drawn out.”
Chan’s head was spinning.
“So while there’s virtually zero chance anyone could find us from the outside, they also know that. The greatest vulnerability is the portal system we use. Government agents are focusing all their efforts on finding those not under government control; resistance agents are seeking those not under their control. We are simply trying to keep ours hidden from everyone, so we have invested more effort in shielding. Unfortunately, it appears that someone has found a way to detect the shielding itself. It makes no difference what they represent; we have to close the portal on the other end. We also have to remove everything there and leave an empty building.”
Pete glanced at his watch. “It’s dark now on the other end. Shortly after you pass through we’ll send technicians behind you with a similar portal to this one” – patting the box Chan held – “and they’ll take it all down. Those technicians have a version of the suitcase portal that will deactivate after they leave and short-circuit it’s own battery. All the programming will be erased. Anyone who manages to find it wherever the technicians hide it won’t have a clue where it used to point.”
He patted Chan’s box again. “While yours will keep the programming, I can’t guarantee the portal at the life support facility can find yours again when you try to reactivate remotely. It’s virtually guaranteed you’ll miss the timeline sequence if it does. Your watch will help by telling you how badly you missed, but no one on this earth can fix the discontinuity.”
Chan decided not to ask what it would be like to meet himself coming and going.