But on a serious note. SHIT! Though I shouldn't be surprised, If there was one person stubborn enough to punch through space, it was Sandy. I tried sorting out my feelings. I mean, sure I was excited for my friend, it was great that he had accomplished something so amazing...but it was also kinda a distant excitement. Five minutes ago I didn't even know he had been working on it and now it was done? That’s sorta like someone telling you they made a sandwich and had eaten it already, which reminds me: I’m hungry.

“Congrats man! your dad would be proud.” I said. It was the best I could do.

“I know, Thanks!” His cheery mood quickly turned sour as he wrapped his knuckles on his table and sucked at his lower lip. “...but that’s not all. I wasn’t the first to discover it.”

“WHAT?”

“When you do something like tear a hole in space-time you leave a mark. A scar. That’s how I got mine to work. I found an old scar and picked at it.”

“I appreciate you dumbing down the science, I really do, but what does that mean?” I asked, enunciating the last word.

“I think it means the Government is already there. On this other world they...we...found.”

“Doing what?” My voice rose in indignation, popping and cracking as my old burnt vocal chords protested at the range. It was followed by an itchy sensation as the nanobots in me swarmed over them trying to repair any damage.

“I would presume they are gathering resources as they first planned eighteen years ago. I sent a surveillance bug through when I found out how to stabilize the tear and I messaged you once I reviewed the information. Do you want to see it?”

I pushed my annoyance of the governing powers aside. They hadn’t done shit to help the people. Hadn’t in years, and If i'm being honest I can't remember the last time there was an election. Come to think of it, it could have just degraded into a band of rich bastards that only looked out for their own interests. I shouldn’t have been surprised that they chose to keep something like this a secret.

“Lets see what you got.” I said, hopping off the bed and making my way around the curvature of Sandy’s desk to stand beside him.

He slapped his cube again and started pulling the resulting cascade of screens together. I watched in amusement as he struggled through it. The result, once he had finished huffing and puffing and the frames for each individual screen blurred together before disappearing, was an 85” holographic screen.

Pulling up the file, he tapped it and stepped back so we stood shoulder to shoulder.

A thick forest appeared on the screen and I gasped. It was beautiful, all those colors. The vibrant greens of the leaves and mottled browns of their trunks. Sunlight, so bright and clear, seemed to reflect and bounce off every surface. The sky was a deep light blue so beautiful I almost cried as it destroyed the archived images I used to have stored in my brain of old Earth’s sky. Sue me! I know I said I didn’t care about that shit, but you try seeing something that beautiful and not give a damn.

“Beautiful, isn’t it.” Sandy murmured quietly beside me.

The video must have been taken from one of the flying surveillance drones that Sandy liked to tinker with because the forest on the screen dipped alarmingly as if it fell out of the sky. The screen shook and stabilized and a sea of green grass filled it, stretching off into the distance to meet the beginning of the forest..

“The bot had to adjust to a different gravity. Readings suggest its at 10.2g’s” Sandy commented. I rolled my eyes, more than happy to watch without the directors commentary.

The image once more changed as the bot flew up and banked towards the tree line. Flashes of colour and life whipped past the screen as it dodged between tree trunks as thick as buildings and travelled further into the strange world.

I stayed glued to the screen as something I hadn’t expected appeared in the distance before rapidly expanding as the drone flew closer. A bridge, made of thick white rope. It hung between the upper branches of the massive trees. I could make out something that may have been a platform surrounding the trunk when the screen suddenly went dead.

“What the fu-!” I stepped forward to smack the cube when the screen wavered with lines of static. Which was stupid because...well holoscreen, duh.

“Just watch.” Sandy said so I did.

Black swirled in from the sides of the screen like ink from an old Earth pen. In seconds all that remained was an 85” pure black square that I couldn’t even see through. White text appeared on the screen, the words forming in fits and starts as if the writer was unsure of what he was trying to say.

The screen once more turned black as the message faded away only to be replaced by more.

“Okay, what the hell is that?” I asked as casually as possible. My finger only shook a little as I pointed at the screen.

“Contact.” Sanderson said. “It talked to us.”

“And when you say it you’re meaning...?”

“The planet.” Sanderson replied, like it was the most obvious thing in the world. “The planet talked to us. I don’t know how yet, but I know it did! And it requested aid-”

I had a horrible sinking feeling and prayed it was the nanobots moving about in my stomach and not a sixth sense of dread.

“-that’s where you come in!” Sandy finished happily.

“GODDAMIT!” I swore explosively. I knew it wasn’t the stupid nanobots. I just knew it!

“What?” Sanderson asked, blinking his bloodshot eyes at me. “You once told me that if I ever needed your help all I had to do was ask. Well, this is me asking.”

“What happened to your stutter?!” I said, pointing at him. If I had hoped to distract him it didn’t work. He knew he was right. I had said that and he knew I never go back on my word. It’s a whole thing with me; I’ll happily lie, cheat, steal, bamboozle, trick, swindal and/or otherwise mislead an idiot but I’ll never go back on my word once given.Doesn’t mean I had to be happy about it.

“Dammit, fine! You’re right. I owe you my life. I owe you more than that, actually...but Sandy, IT’S A TALKING PLANET, what aid does it need? English lessons? And you just want to send me off to help? Just like that?”

“Yes.”

“Fine!” You may think I folded like a cheap suit awfully quick and you would be right. More often than not if Sanderson says jump I say how high. You would have to understand our history for it to make sense and I would love to tell you more about it...but later okay? I’m about to travel to a new world.

Clapping his hands like a little child Sandy grabbed my shoulder and started to half push half pull me away from his desk and towards the far wall.

“I need you to go to this planet, NOW! Primary world: Aeris. Gather data, touch everything, taste it, eat it, remember it! Also find out what this central life core it mentioned is and what it meant by connecting branches. OH this is SO EXCITING!” He stopped next to a raised platform I had never noticed before. “And remember, the Government may have already sent people through, and knowing them they didn’t make friends.”

“How do I get back?”

“W-W-Well,” Sandy suddenly looked nervous, or was that guilt? “Y-You see...I haven’t f-f-figured out how to keep the gate open. It’s a-a-a one way trip.”

“WHAT!”

“B-but t-the government will need to keep their gate open. T-to transfer resources and such, I would imagine. St-stop them and you can come home using theirs!”

“Uhhh…Why are you backing away?” I asked as he left me standing on the platform and moved away. There was a little oblong box that came up to his waist and he pressed his palm above it before twisting his whole hand, like he was turning a doorknob. “Sandy, what’s happening? SANDY!”

“You can’t take anything with you. The gate doesn’t allow it! So there’s no reason to wait!” He shouted at me “Remember, the video showed signs of life!” He twisted his hand back the other way and suddenly I couldn't move. My body, so ridiculously powerful it could squat a ton if I was willing to burn through my energy levels, refused to budge.

Sandy gave me a sympathetic look and twisted his hand again. Glowing blue veins ran down the sides of the box from where Sandersons hand contacted it before spilling across the floor in straight lines that crept closer and closer to me. A roaring noise filled me head and I adjusted my hearing so I wouldn’t go deaf, but that didn't help, which meant the noise was in my head.

“The video showed signs of life,”Sanderson continued to shout at me. His voice barely audible over the noise in my head. “Help them if you can! Don't let our people hurt them like they’ve done us. Help them and help the planet. For me. Please! Don't let them use my fathers research to further their own evil agenda!”

“I CAN’T BELIEVE YOU JUST SAID EVIL AGENDA YOU ASSH-” I started to roar but then everything went black and the last thing I felt was my body falling...but up.

Da faq?