(Ivan Wight looked at the new card the system had dealt him. How was he going to to use a portal to move his adventure along? Starting the second hour, everyone else had multiple cards on the field. He had blown his first hour on just one, and a montage where his players had to heal their characters so they wouldn't die like one of the players in the space fighter game at the other table.

  It had been just luck that Fosswell had ruled that their npc butler could be used to keep the player in the game. He didn't have a friendly NPC like that for his players if one of them died during the adventure.

  He had to get started, and improvise a little better if he wanted to use up the nineteen cards demanded by the contest.

  “Dunwich and Harris have an invitation to a meeting in the science department,” said Ivan. “How do you want to handle it?”

  “I think we should go,” said Quin. “Maybe we can find out more about the ghost guns.”

  “We also need more information about the guy who tried to kill us,” said Wade. “Ashe is going to keep digging into the mysterious death of Paula.”

  “You don't think it was a suicide?,” asked Howie.

  “It could have been, or someone other than us has one of those guns and is using it,” said Wade.

  “Using it on us,” said Clark. “I am going to spend my time grading papers until I am needed.”

  “So let's start with this meeting,” said Ivan. “Then we can move back into action.”

  “So why do they need Dunwich and Harris?,” asked Howie.)

  Dunwich and Harris arrived at the meeting ahead of everyone else. The head of the science department, Dr. Coates, nodded at them. He had a notebook full of paper in front of him at the podium at the front of the room.

  They took seats at the back of the room. Dunwich had almost been barred from the building, but had saved his job by being shot at because of the Dean. Harris was an engineer and worked in another building altogether. She wasn't clear on why she was there except to make sure Dunwich didn't blow something up.

  Other professors and grad students drifted in ahead of the meeting time. They took spots at the work desks that made up the larger portion of the classroom. Harris noted that most of them avoided sitting near Dunwich.

  (“I might have overstated the mad scientist reputation of the character,” said Howie.

  “It's fine,” said Quin. “Only a mad scientist could build a laser that isn't a laser.”)

  “Thank you for coming,” said Doctor Coates. He smiled at the assemblage. “I have made a revolutionary discovery, and I need to build a proof of concept. That's why I asked the Dean to ask you to come to this meeting. We could change the way the world works in the near future if this works like I think it will.”

  “And what did you find?,” asked one of the professors in the front row. Too much hair for an old man and a querulous attitude. Dunwich had nearly punched the man often enough in the halls.

  “I have mathematical proof of the creation of a wormhole in a laboratory setting,” said Coates. His thin face split in a smile at the group's reaction. “Before you write me off, I have physical proof of test firing. I am willing to show you that I am ready for the next step.”

  “What is the next step, Doctor?,” asked Dunwich.

  “I need to build a working model and test it on live animals to make sure that I won't kill anyone trying to use the wormhole,” said Coates. “So we will have to use animal testing first, then we will have to test it on a volunteer to tell us what they found on the other end of the tunnel.”

  “Can we see the projected prints for the mechanism?,” asked Dunwich. “You do have schematics?”

  “I certainly do,” said Coates. “I will be glad to pass them around for you to look at before signing on. I have to keep the power source a secret though until I am sure it works the way I imagined it.”

  “How big are you proposing building this portal?,” asked Harris.

  “A lot will depend on how much I can miniaturize the power source,” said Coates. “I feel that it won't shrink below a room like this, maybe a little larger than this. The prototype will suggest ways to shrink to a smaller but still usable size.”

  This content has been misappropriated from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

  “How sure are you of the math?,” asked another professor from the physics department.

  “I am reasonably sure,” said Coates. “I testfired something I built on the principle but it didn't last long enough for me to record it before it exploded.”

  “How safe do you think this will be once we get it together,” asked Dunwich.

  “I am fairly sure that once we have the prototype built, it will be as safe as walking across a room,” said Coates. “But there may be some unknown dangers that the math didn't outline.”

  “What kind of peer review needs to go into this?,” asked one of the senior engineers in the front row.

  “Obviously, I need some people to check my math, then we need to build a prototype, and the power source, then do testing,” said Coates. “There is a chance that anything that goes across the event horizon can't return.”

  “How big a chance?,” asked Dunwich.

  “Not large, but it is big enough for it to be a concern,” said Coates.

  (“Either he has a Stargate, or a portable black hole that threatens to eat through the planet,” said Howie.

  “We need a good look at his plans,” said Quin.

  “Ask him,” said Wade. “Maybe he will give you a sneak peek.”

  “It can't hurt,” said Howie.)

  “Can we take a look at the prints?,” asked Quin. “That way we'll know if we are wasting our time.”

  “Certainly,” said Coates. “I have a set of slides with each of the relevant parts separated out for us to go over in parts.”

  “No paper?,” asked Dunwich.

  “Not yet,” said Coates. “They are locked away until we can figure out the best way to build the prototype.”

  “Let's see these slides,” said the professor Dunwich didn't like.

  “Certainly,” said Coates. He gestured at a man next to the lights as he cut on the overhead projector. He produced a set of transparent sheets and placed them one at a time on the light screen.

  (“Roll a skill check,” said Ivan.

  “A fifty three,” said Howie.

  “A thirty eight,” said Quin.)

  Dunwich and Harris realized that the prototype worked on the same principle as the ghost guns they had built. The power source was almost the same from the slides.

  “Are you sure this will open a portal into another universe?,” asked Dunwich.

  “The math says it will,” said Coates.

  Harris put her hand on Dunwich's arm to prevent him from telling Coates they already had a prototype even if they weren't quite sure what it was doing when they opened the aperture at the end of the muzzle.

  That would throw a spark on dry grass to have their ghost guns examined and spread around when they hadn't even tested them properly yet.

  On the other hand, they couldn't stay at the conference. They would be accused of stealing Coates's idea.

  He would have a claim on their work from the papers they had found at that abandoned cabin.

  <“I don't think we can take part in this,” said Harris. “We already have a similar project that we are working on from something Professor Ashe found. I think there will be a conflict of interest problem going forward.”

  “How big a conflict?,” said Coates.

  “We have already built power systems similar to what you have outlined here,” said Dunwich. “We have done some other things, but nothing on the scale that you are suggesting. If we participate in this, the similarity in ideas would cause claims of idea theft in the community. I think we, as a group, don't want that.”

  “You have a working prototype for this small reactor thing?,” asked one of the crowd.

  “Yes,” said Dunwich. “I don't know if it will power the facility that Doctor Coates is thinking of building.”

  “Could we examine this prototype?,” asked Coates. “I would like to see it if you have it built.”

  Dunwich and Harris exchanged a look.

  (“We're going to have to let them see it so they can't say we lied,” said Quin.

  “The prototype I built for the giant gun,” said Howie. “Not the small one for the personal units. We have to keep them hidden so we can use them in case of more trouble.”

  “All right,” said Quin. “Who knew school politics would come into this?”

  “I did,” said Clark. “That's why I got an archaeologist so I could start an adventure away from the campus and these vultures.”

  “Clark is a teacher,” said Howie. “He should know.”)

  “I think the set up is still in the lab,” said Dunwich. “I have been trying to see what else I can do with it. We thought about new batteries for Evs some time in the future.”

  “Evs?,” asked someone.

  “Electrical vehicles,” said Dunwich. “Elon Musk will pay through the nose to keep our batteries from being added to competition for his Teslas.”

  “Let's go down to the lab,” said Harris. “We can show you what we have done.”

  “Sounds good,” said Coates. “This will make things easier if we can adapt it to my design work.”

  “All right,” said Dunwich. “Let's go down and look at things.”

  (“Scene break, Ivan?,” asked Howie.

  “Sure,” said the game master. “All of the science department assemble in the lab that Dunwich stole from the science department to look at the early ghost gun set up on its table with the battery-sized generator next to it.”

  “Maybe bigger than that,” said Wade. He held out his hands. “A battery is this big. Maybe something like a whole car engine.”

  “A battery would be what Dunwich and Harris built to power the smaller guns,” said Clark.

  “I can go with that,” said Ivan.)

  “This is your engine?,” asked Coates. He gestured at the thing on its own table.

  “Yep,” said Dunwich. “We don't know how it works.”

  “Then how do you know it does anything?,” said Coates.

  Dunwich threw the switches on the device. The generator lit up with a small vibration and hum. He took a lamp and plugged it into a socket set up for that before he had built the first ghost gun. He pushed the button on the lamp. It lit up.

  “We don't actually know how much power we can get out of the device yet,” said Dunwich. He turned off the lamp and generator. “We thought of using it as power for a vehicle, but Harris and I haven't been able to think how we could do that. We thought of calling someone from the auto industry to help us out.”

  “We could use this for the prototype portal,” said Coates. “I would have to change the design a small amount, but it could be done.”

  “We haven't tested it enough to get a patent for it yet,” said Dunwich.

  “I will sign paperwork declaring the generator as yours,” said Coates. “I, of course, want to keep the portal design for myself.”

  “Ashe and Jirel are our partners on this,” said Harris. “We would have to include them on this deal. They helped put together the thing for us.”

  “I will be glad to include them on any paperwork for the generator,” said Coates.

  (“He wants this bad enough to be a megalomaniac,” said Howie. “I can see he is going to cause trouble down the line.”)