Free Overture (Earth Song) by Mark Wandrey Page A

visible light. Coherent light of the type we use doesn’t act the same. Shit, it really doesn’t even follow the same rules, other than the speed of light, of course. Officer Einstein enforces that regulation.”
    Volant snorted and looked from the Portal dais to the scientists. “So we’ve spent almost three weeks and about thirty million dollars on the glowing piece of shit without learning a thing? I need to know what the hell it is!”
    “ I’m not prepared to make any conclusions,” Osgood stated flatly, “there is far too much research left to do.”
    “ I’m afraid I need an answer of some sort. The president has been sitting on that initial report for weeks now. We need more.”
    “ What’s the hurry? We’re gathering data, which should be all that matters. We’ve just had a sound hypothesis put forward by one of these guys and-”
    “ The hurry is that this isn’t the only one.”
    “ What?”
    Volant stepped forward and handed Osgood a clipboard. The pictures it contained sent his mind racing. “There are nine others that we are sure of, located in Moscow, Beijing, Sydney, Berlin, Buenos Aires, Tokyo, London, Berlin, and Johannesburg. There might be one in Paris but the frogs are not being very forthcoming.”
    “ Ten of these Portals. That’s stupendous!”
    “ And ominous. What are they here for? What do they mean? And what do they do?”
    “ Well,” said Osgood, stepping up on the first step of the base of the dais, “some centaur-like alien dropped it off then stepped through it to disappear.”
    “ I’ve read that account and tried to get this witness in the bag. The NYPD let him go three days after this appeared. He’s some street thug, no address and no way to find him. There’s an APB out and we have agents scouring all the usual drug user haunts throughout the burrows.” Volant shrugged for emphasis. “So far, no luck.”
    “ It was probably just a story told by a nervous police officer.”
    “ We considered that, but the account still stands as the only story of this thing being delivered. Some of those other Portals are in less than friendly countries. Is this thing some kind of gift from galactic neighbors, a way for them to invade our world? Or the alien equivalent of a Chinese finger puzzle? What can you tell me that’s substantive at all?”
    Osgood sighed and told Volant about the laser scientist’s idea. Volant listened intently, taking mental notes as Osgood elaborated. When he was finished Mark Volant did something that he rarely did, he smiled.
    “ Now that is the kind of decisive thinking I’ve been begging to get for weeks! What took you so long?”
    “ And you could have done better?” scoffed Osgood.
    “ Absolutely not, that’s what I have you for!” he laughed. They all scowled back at him, offended, but none of them said anything. Volant snorted dismissively and stepped to the top of the dais. The Portal image sprung to life and he leaned close to try and get a better look at the cryptic markings in the small circles around the edges.
    “ What are those anyway?” he asked and pointed at one of them.
    “ We haven’t a clue,” Osgood said and stepped up to stand next to the agent. “Some of them seem quite obvious, others are a mystery.” He pointed to some of the images. Volant leaned still closer, eyeballing the glowing white thing suspiciously. Osgood noticed his reluctance and enjoyed a little sport. “Come take a look at this one; I think it’s pretty obvious.”
    “ Are you certain we should be standing on this thing if it’s made of pure energy? I mean, if what he says is true, your kneeling on more energy than was released by the bombs at Hiroshima and Nagasaki.” Osgood knew from weeks of working with the agent that while he was no scientist, he was also no fool.
    “ Well, if we couldn’t scratch it with a one half megawatt laser, I think walking on it is probably safe.”
    Volant grunted and stepped up without further hesitation.