Free Wormhole by Richard Phillips

hovered over the child like a mama bear, alert for any sign of danger.
    Through the window, the pink evening sky darkened to purple. The chirps of birds in the trees outside Mark’s open window grew in volume as more and more of the creatures settled in for the night, each determined to outsing its neighbors.
    Heather reached out to turn on the lamp, its soft orange glow pushing the gathering shadows away from Mark’s bed. Somehow those shadows seemed to have acquired the thickness of San Francisco Bay fog swallowing the Golden Gate Bridge. As long as she was here, Heather wasn’t about to let that dark fog touch him.
    Heather shook her head to clear it. She no longer required sleep, but the stress of the last two days had worn her down to the point that she longed for the relief of sleep’s healing embrace.
    Suddenly Mark shifted, rapid eye movements indicating he’d entered a vivid dream state. Pain lanced through Heather’s fingers as Mark’s grip tightened. With a strong tug, she managed to pull her hand free from the iron grip, just as Mark awakened.
    Heather felt him enter her mind with a force greater than any she had experienced during their headset links. A gasp of surprise slipped from her lips as her gaze shifted to his face.
    Mark’s eyes had gone milky white.

President Leonard Jackson sat behind his desk in the Oval Office, the bright television lights adjusted to balance the light from the window directly behind the president’s chair. He hated waiting almost as much as he hated giving speeches, but it had to be done.
    The cameraman nodded. On cue, the president leaned forward ever so slightly.
    “My fellow Americans, I come before you today to correct a wrong that has been done to one of our true heroes. I do not speak of a war hero, but of an American who has spent a lifetime of hard work, a lifetime of true brilliance, sacrificing everything in the hopes of bringing about a better world, a world free of the damaging impact of fossil fuels, a world free of horrible diseases like AIDS and cancer.
    “Late last year, this great American scientist found himself caught up in a maelstrom of disinformation, the victim of themost sophisticated con job ever conceived, framed for alleged crimes by a man the press has dubbed Jack the Ripper. This rogue operative conceived of and executed an operation so intricate in its attention to detail that, for months, it even deceived the US government, and in the midst of that deception, caused us to imprison the wrong man.
    “Dr. Donald Stephenson, deputy director of the Los Alamos National Laboratory, has been accused of conducting secret and horrifying experiments on helpless patients at the facility known as Henderson House and of making unauthorized modifications to the Rho Project’s nanite serum, allowing the nanites to be remotely programmed for nefarious purposes. However, after a thorough investigation, we have determined that these allegations are false.
    “Let me give you a brief overview of what Dr. Stephenson actually did instead of the propaganda to which we have all inadvertently succumbed.
    “It is true that a highly dangerous experimental nanite trial has been operating in the secret laboratories at Henderson House. What you haven’t been told is that this program was not originated by Dr. Stephenson, but by the chairman of the Henderson House Foundation, Dr. Anthony Frell. When Dr. Stephenson discovered that his serum was being misused in a wrongheaded attempt to regenerate missing limbs and correct genetic deficiencies, he made a special trip to Henderson House to see for himself exactly what was going on so that he could put a stop to it.
    “That fateful trip resulted in the now-famous picture taken by the Pulitzer Prize–winning investigative reporter Freddy Hagerman.”
    The president paused, placing his elbows on his desk, steepling his fingers.
    “Now, let me be clear. Our strings have been pulled by a master manipulator and