Now everybody knows that there is a vast underground
city in the american desert where the aliens work with the
earthlings to advance the human race and bring us up to par
with our spacefaring brethren.Mark just happened to be one of the
research scientists at this complex,and he knew the truth about
this complex.As he drove into the desert and through the various
checkpoints,he was pondering the problem he and the other scientists
had worked on for nearly 62 years now.What the aliens had given us
was their travel technology schematics,and it was up to the
earthlings to build the prototype device.What the aliens had
was a combination transporter/slider wormhole/quantum leap
chamber/time machine .Problem was the alien device required the item
to be atomized and stored in pattern buffers,and so far earth
atomizers tended to be messy.Thus while the aliens quntum leapt into
earth dogs and enjoyed the freedom and the sex,Mark and the
boys had swept up countless shards of burnt plastic and glass
from items they'd put on the Pad.They wouldn't think of putting a
living thing through the machine,and so far had just tossed pens
and paperweights on the device.
After the usual tests and adjustments,Mark tossed the pen
Judy had mailed to him on the Pad.There was the usual sparks
as the pen exploded into tiny burning pieces.Mark was about
to order the shutdown of the machine to sweep away
the debris of the pen when he was startled to hear the computer
announce that the human entity placed on the Pad had
had it's conciousness logged into the system and was ready for
transport.As Mark looked at the monitor,a hazy image of his girlfriend
materialized on the screen.Then another monitor displayed the
options available through the transporter.