“Will it hurt?”

He was surprised by the fear in his voice. He’d been preparing for this for so long and had been psyching himself up for the promised adventure. It had taken him years to get to this point. That kernel of fear in his voice was surprising after all this time when he had been training to feel no fear.

Siobhan gave him a kind smile and she came closer to check the electrodes on his forehead and the port that had been inserted into his forearm. She gave his hand a pat. “It’ll be okay, Clarke.” She checked the heart monitor that was attached to his finger. “It’s normal to be afraid. No one has gone where you are about to go.”

At her words, a little bile rose up in his throat and he swallowed thickly, trying to shove the fear down with it. He started to shake his head and stopped when he became a little dizzy. “Will it hurt?” He asked, his tone of voice more confident.

Looking at the temperature read outs on the screen in front of her, Siobhan flicked her eyes to him for a moment. What he saw in them was kindness. “No, it won’t hurt. We’ve been over this before, Clarke. As you well know, once the sedative hits your bloodstream, there will be scant moments before the portals will open in front of you.” She looked at metal wall that was in front of them. It held three doors. “You’ve been through all of this before.” Her tone was kind instead of impatient and he loved her a little for it.

He had in fact been training for a long time. When he had first received the email several months ago, Clarke had thought it was a joke.

It had looked terribly official and when he clicked it open, a small hologram had appeared in front of him. Clarke was looking down at a smaller version of his old boss, Dr. Franklin. Clarke had worked with the good doctor for years, looking into how to morph and change viruses so that they could cure themselves. The work had ultimately been a failure, but he had obviously made an impression on the good doctor. “I require your assistance,” the doctor said. “Please find the details inside. Respond within forty-eight hours if you accept.” The little hologram of the doctor had given him a small bow and faded away as if he had never been.

Clarke had most certainly accepted.

Though his work on virus manipulation had not been able to find a cure, it did mange to do one very specific thing: it had opened portals.      

*

The portals themselves were a side effect of his work. He had been trying to manipulate the genes of the viruses themselves, with the intent being that they would rework themselves into something new. He had meant to have the viruses cure themselves by having them reshape without the virus contained in their DNA chains, but something had happened. The doctor had called to his attention in one patient where they had been attempting to cure her cancer. The good doctor Franklin had told Clarke to look at the patients left eye. “Look into it, won’t you? You don’t mind, do you Sandra?”

When the woman had shaken her head no, Clarke leaned in close and looked right into the woman’s eye. What he saw there took his breath away. He watched a memory playing on a loop in black and white. In the scene, he watched as a young girl was given a gift, a box that was wiggling slightly in her grasp. When the young girl had opened the box, it was to discover a puppy, wagging its tail happily. It licked the girls face and the young girl had laughed.

Pulling away from the scene in the Sandra’s eye, Clarke turned to look at Dr. Franklin. “What am I looking at, exactly?”

“Don’t you see, dear boy? You’ve opened a portal to the woman’s past! It’s playing the woman’s happiest memory for her from a time when she was very young!”

Clarke’s shoulders slumped in defeat. “I’m sorry, Sandra, I meant to cure your cancer.”

The woman shook her head again and took Clarke’s hands in hers. “We all knew that this might not work, but don’t you see? You’ve given me the greatest gift. I had forgotten about this memory, and yet now I can hear the sounds the puppy made, feel the joy running through me, hear the music of my laughter.” She patted his hands. “You’ve brought me so much joy.”

When Sandra had passed away shortly after that conversation, Clarke had left Dr. Franklin’s labs. “I wish you wouldn’t go, dear boy. There is so much work to do! Surely you see that we’re on the cusp of something grand!”

Clarke had told the doctor no. “I’ve seen too many people die. Do you realize that Sandra was the tenth person to die, even after they received my gene therapy?” He shook his head. “I can’t do this anymore. I can’t care for another and be unable to do anything about the disease that they are suffering from.”

He had left the lab that day, and yet here he was agreeing to go back to Dr. Franklin. He wondered what the good doctor wanted now. He had sent back his own hologram saying that he would be there the next day before he could even think about it. When he had left the lab last time, Clarke thought that he would never go back, yet after reading the details in the email, he really had no choice but to accept Dr. Franklin’s invitation.

After a sleepless night, Clarke arrived at the lab to find the doctor waiting for him at the building’s front doors. “I’m so glad you accepted, dear boy!” Clapping Clarke on the shoulder, the doctor enveloped Clarke in a hug. He had always appreciated that about the doctor; he wasn’t afraid to show emotions and feelings. It wasn’t something that doctors normally did.

“I’m surprised I am,” Clarke said softly.

“Clarke, you can’t let the ghost of Sandra haunt you forever. Wait until you see what your work has been able to do.”

“And what is that, exactly?”

Dr. Franklin smiled. “All in good time, all in good time. Now walk with me.”

He had thrown his arm around Clarke’s shoulder’s, and they walked down the hallways toward the heart of Dr. Franklin’s labs. “Do you know why our research wasn’t successful last time?”

The good doctor had never been one to start with subtlety. “I have no idea. We weren’t able to cure a single person with all of our work.”

“Exactly! It’s because we were looking at the diseases as things rather than a living organism. Do you know how you created the portals?”

Shrugging, Clarke said, “I have no idea. I was never able to replicate the genetic effect. I didn’t want to run further tests to find out.”

“Exactly, because you cared for her. Don’t you see? She had stopped being a test subject and started being someone you loved. That’s why it hurt so much when she passed on.”

“What do emotions have to do with science?”

“Plenty, dear boy, plenty, the least of which is that emotions can lead us in different directions as they give us completely different starting points. Think on it, won’t you? Do you end up going to different places when you’re angry then when you’re happy?”

Clarke thought of the dark places he went when he was angry instead of the bright places he went to when he was in a happier mood. He always ended up doing something he regretted when he started to think of what he had done under the cover of darkness. It was like he needed to wipe what he’d done from his mind. “I see what you mean.”

“Then you should have no trouble grasping what all of this is about, what we’ve stumbled onto. Dear boy, we are on the precipice of a great discovery, and you are at the centre of it. Don’t you see?”

Shaking his head, Clarke said, “Not really.”

Dr. Franklin let out a laugh. “You don’t see now, dear boy, but you will! You will!”

*

That had been months ago.

 Since that first return visit, Clarke had undergone test after test to make sure that his body was in peak condition. The doctor demanded that his body be the absolute best it could be. They had no idea of what lay ahead for him in any of the portals or what lay on the other side of the door.

“Who better than you to test out if the real-life portals work? You’re the one who discovered them in the first place, you should be the first one to cross the threshold, don’t you think?”

Since then, he had undergone all sorts of tests that took stock of his physical stamina and his ability to stay under the influence of different drugs.

“I don’t understand why drugs are necessary in the first place.” Clarke asked.

Siobhan, who was in charge of the different tests that they would be running, gave him a kind smile. It was one would come to know well. “It’s easier to convince the brain that what you will be seeing is true.” She had told him. “Imagine if you stepped through a portal and found yourself in a world with alien lifeforms that you discovered were dinosaurs? Or you entered a room full of men made of shadows and they had no human flesh? Maybe you end up in a world that’s made completely of fire? What would your brain do if that happened?”

“I don’t know,” Clarke said. “Freak the fuck out?”

“Exactly. We don’t want that to happen. These aren’t heavy drugs, just a mix of a liquid sedative mixed with a combination of LSD and CBD. Nothing that will harm you, only keep you relaxed but aware enough should you find yourself in danger, all right?”

He had nodded, but there was still that element of fear of the unknown. He believed in the unknown and that it contained power. The portal that he had created in Sandra’s eyes flashed behind his own gaze. Clarke realized that he was going through with all of this for her. He still carried the pain of when she had passed away and he hoped that it would slip away from him when he stepped over the threshold of the first portal.

“Okay,” he had said.

The first few times they had used put the drugs into his veins, he had found it difficult to do much else afterwards. Dr. Franklin waited until the effect of the drug cocktail had set in before testing his strength and his mental capabilities. Again and again, the good doctor had forced Clarke to reach beyond the buzz and maintain his focus. When he had maintained his mental facilities despite the drugs in his system, the doctor and Siobhan had tested his physical strength. Clarke could now run for miles on the treadmill while still maintaining a measured and steady heartbeat.

Still, after all the months of uncertainty, he asked the first question that came to him. “Will it hurt?” He took a breath. “When I step into the portal?

Giving him a gentle pat on the hand as the drugs entered his system, Siobhan said “I don’t know. I’ve never entered one. You’re going to be the first to do so. Don’t worry, we will be documenting everything, and we’ve tested all the video and sound equipment. We will be watching every move you make, so you won’t be alone.”

He took some comfort from that. Clarke nodded and stood. Now came the part he was most concerned about: taking off his clothing. They had the tracking equipment in a small nodule that he wore around his neck, so he didn’t have to worry about anything, except maybe protecting his modesty. “I still don’t understand why I have to be naked while I’m doing this,” he said.

Siobhan had the grace to let out a small laugh. “Well, I can understand why you’d be uncomfortable,” she said. “I know that I wouldn’t be comfortable walking around nude, but you don’t know what the other worlds will be like. Every time we attempted something like this before, the clothing ended up melting onto the host’s skin. We want to prevent any damage happening to you at all, hence no clothing.”

Adjusting the ring that held the transmitter so that it didn’t choke him, Clarke scoffed. “Well, that’s some comfort I guess.” He stood naked starting at the three doors that were in front of him. They had speculated about how many portals Clarke would be able to go through for the first try using a human trial subject. They had settled on three, the reasoning being that they had no idea what kind of world would be on the other side of the door.

“As you know, the worlds on the other side of the doors are random,” Siobhan said. “Whatever clothing you need will appear in an instant, once we see what world you are in.”

Clarke nodded again. They had tested this feature virtually after he had expressed worry over appearing in a world that was full of people completely naked. The transmitter around his neck would project clothing onto his skin as long as he didn’t remove it and it would observe the clothing of the others around him to make sure that he was dressed properly for the whatever world he found himself in. “We want you to blend in,” Dr. Franklin said. “That’s the whole point of doing this. What if we find a way to beat death, dear boy? Wouldn’t that be something?”

“I’ll just settle for a shirt and pants for now. We’ll worry about beating death another time.” Clarke said.

“Are you ready?” Siobhan said.

“I think so.”

“Okay, it’s now or never dear boy.” The good doctor said over the transmitter. He was watching all the video in a room behind a pane of glass. He raised his arm in a salute which Clarke returned.

The light above the first door began to flash and the door slid open. The first thing he heard was wind. He tried to see into the whirlwind of snow but couldn’t see anything. Trying to find a way forwards, but the wind kept him where he was. “I can’t see anything,” Clarke said.

“I was afraid that this might happen,” Dr. Franklin said. “We had no way of knowing where the doors would open up.”

Clarke nodded. It’s why they had chosen three doors for the first human trial. If one or two doors were useless, at least there was another chance left to them. Clarke tried to step through the door, but when he felt the wind actually take hold of him and forcefully back into the lab, he wondered if it was actual wind or an ethereal being that held no real form that kept him out.

“Abort,” Dr. Franklin said. The door in front of him slid closed and the sound of wind was quieted once more. He let out a loud sigh. “Well, we figured this might happen, dear boy. Not to worry, not to worry! We have two more portals to go! Onward to the next one!”

“Are you ready?” Siobhan asked.

“Let’s go,” Clarke said.

The second door slid quietly open, and Clarke found himself looking into what looked like a parking garage. There was concrete as far as the eye could see and dark shadows with pulsing light in the distance. There was no wind or storm, no snow or freak weather. Turning to the good doctor, Clarke said, “Do you think it’s safe?”

Dr. Franklin nodded. “Nothing is being picked up by the transmitters. I think it’s safe, dear boy. I think you’re going to be okay.”

Turning to Siobhan, Clarke gave her a wink. “See you on the other side.”

“I’ll be waiting for you.”

Taking a deep breath, Clarke stepped over the threshold of the portal into the world beyond. There was a sound in his ears that he realized was his heartbeat and he could feel the clothing materialize on his body. The transmitter had dressed him in dark blue jeans, a white t-shirt and an aged black leather coat. He wore black boots upon his feet.

Clarke waited to hear anything from the doctor or Sibohan but heard nothing but the sound of his own breathing. Making his way towards the dark light that seemed to throb and ooze on the concrete walls seemed to be his only option. He wondered what this world held or if he would have time to discover where the portal had led him.

With every step he took, the black light seemed to be coming closer to him. Indeed, as he watched, it slid across the concrete and seemed to be alive. He stopped walking and fully expected it to stop moving, but the light didn’t stop. It moved like a sludge over the surface of the concrete and made its way towards him.

“Dr. Franklin?” Clarke said. “Siobhan?” There was no answer from the transmitter, only the garbled sound of static.

Now the glowing sludge was in front of him. As Calke watched, it stood, though Clarke saw no legs or appendages of any kind. It just seemed to grow taller. Clarke wondered if he had stopped breathing or had ceased to be. He viewed the being with fear and also a sick sense of wonder. That wonder increased when the being stretched out what Clarke thought must be its face, if it indeed had one.

Watching from what felt like far away, Clarke reached out with a shaking hand and bought his hand slowly forwards so that he could touch the being. His breathing was coming in shallow gasps now, but he still brought his arm forward, even though he wanted to turn away and wanted to run.

When at last his finger made contact with the alien lifeform, there was a resounding crash, the sound of screaming and the world exploded with light.

*

“What the actual fuck?”

Clarke blinked in the bright light. He was standing in the living room of some unknown apartment. He had no idea how he had ended up here. He blinked and looked around him. There was an angry looking woman brandishing what looked like a fly swatter at him.

Looking down at himself, Clarke saw that he was naked. Where did his clothes go? Where did he leave them this time? God, he wondered how much blow he had done.

“You sick fuck. You just wait for the police.”

Clarke had no intention of waiting for anyone. He turned and ran naked into the hallway, leaving the woman screaming after him. As he ran, he thought of the doctor and Siobhan, he wondered if they were all right and if they were wondering where he had gone. They had been so real; he refused to believe that they were just a hallucination.

As soon as he ran into the hallway, he knew where he was. Clarke was in his apartment building, but he had never seen the woman before, but then he never paid attention to who his neighbours were. He was usually drugged out of his mind so that he could finish his work. It was the only way he could cope.

Clarke ran into the stairwell and took the stairs two at a time. He would reach his apartment soon. There, he would put on a new set of clothes and take another hit of the blow that was in the little wooden box on his coffee table. Once the drugs hit his system, he could go looking for Dr. Franklin and Siobhan.

They would be waiting for him.