Loki opened his eyes, surrounded by darkness. Suddenly, he was blinded by bright headlights of a vehicle - an SUV. It swerved, the side of it coming straight at him. It slammed into him, pain coursing through him that he was surprised to feel—where was his magic? Why had it failed him?
After a beat, there were voices.
"I think that was legally your fault." Rei said.
"Get the first aid kit." Kurisuta said. "Come on. Do me a favor and don't be dead, okay? Open your eyes and look at me."
Loki opens his eyes to see Kurisuta Selvig staring at him, concerned. She looked beautiful, and familiar. "C-Chaos?"
"Wow. Does he need CPR? Because I know CPR." Rei said.
Xxx
Kurisuta regretfully watched the storm evaporate above their heads. A thought struck her.
"Where did he come from?" Kurisuta said.
They exchanged puzzled looks when Loki groaned again. He sat up abruptly, and Kurisuta toppled backwards in surprise.
Loki staggered groggily to his feet, then turned and offered Kurisuta a hand up. She took it hesitantly, and he easily pulled her up.
"Uh, thanks. Are you okay?" Kurisuta asked.
Loki searched the heavens.
Kurisuta noticed something on the ground around them. She shined her flashlight down at the sand.
"Father... look at this." Kurisuta said.
He joined her at her side and saw it. A faint, discernible pattern was etched into the sand. They exchange a look.
Amazed and excited, Kurisuta hurriedly took out a camera and snapped some photos of the runes. A breeze began to blow them away.
"We've got to move fast before anything changes." Selvig said. "We need soil samples, light readings, everything."
He pulled out a light meter, held it up, took some readings, jotted them down in his notebook. Kurisuta looked at Loki, who stared up at the sky.
"Why can I not use my magic?" Loki shouted.
"Father, we need get him to a hospital." Kurisuta said.
Selvig knelt and quickly scooped up a soil sample in the canister.
"Not right now. It'll take too long. County's an hour away. We'll drop him off after we're done here." Selvig said.
Kurisuta looked uncertain.
"Look at him, he's fine." Selvig said.
Loki stared up at the stars, shouted up at them angrily. "Father! Heimdall! I know you can hear me! It's Loki and you know it! Open the bridge!"
"Okay, you and Rei take him to the hospital, I'll stay here." Selvig said.
"You expect me to leave you alone in the middle of the desert?" Kurisuta said.
Loki turned to the others, frustrated.
"You! What world is this?" Loki demanded.
The group was intimidated by his fervor.
"It's all right. We're going to get you some help." Kurisuta said.
Kurisuta touched Loki's shoulder. Blue spread from where she touched him. Loki shoved him off, growing agitated, belligerent.
"Where am I?! Answer me!" Loki asked.
Rei reached into her fanny pack, pulled something out of it.
Kurisuta looked on, concerned.
"Kurisuta, just back away..." Selvig said.
"You're in a cornfield outside the town of Lawrence." Kurisuta said calmly.
"What Realm?! Alfheim? Nornheim?" Loki said.
"Uh... Kansas?" Rei said.
Rei raised a taser at him. Loki looked at the weapon, unsure what to make of it.
"You think you can harm me you mewling—"
Rei fired, the electrified wires shooting out of the taser, zapping him in the chest. Loki convulsed, fell to the ground unconscious. Kurisuta and Selvig stared at her, shocked.
"What? He was freaking me out." Rei said.
As Selvig still took soil samples, Rei and Kurisuta struggled to drag an unconscious Loki to the SUV and lifted him inside.
"Next time you decide to taser someone, do me a favor and make sure they're already inside the truck." Kurisuta said. "Dad, come on..."
Reluctantly, Selvig joined the others inside the SUV.
The SUV headed off into the distance. Behind it, high overhead, a hole opened in the sky. A last blast of Bifrost energy burst forth from it, and a small object came firing into our world. It burned across the desert sky like a meteor.
County Hospital
The SUV sat parked before the emergency room entrance.
Selvig watched the unconscious Loki with interest as two orderlies set the Asgardian onto a gurney. Kurisuta and Rei stand before a sweet, ditzy admissions nurse.
"Name?" The admissions nurse said.
"He said it was "Loki." Kurisuta said.
The Nurse painstakingly typed it into the computer, one key at a time. Kurisuta watched as Loki was wheeled out of the room.
"L-O-K-I. And your relationship to him?" The admissions nurse said.
"I've never met him before." Kurisuta said.
"Until she hit him with the car." Rei said.
"Grazed him, actually." Kurisuta said. "Oh, and we tasered him, too."
"Must have been quite the spat." The admissions nurse said.
"I told you, I don't know him. I just want to make sure he's okay." Kurisuta said.
"I'm going to need a name and contact number." The admissions nurse said.
"Kurisuta Selvig." Kurisuta said.
"K-U-R-I-" The admissions nurse said.
"Oh, for God's sake..." Selvig said.
He reached over Kurisuta's shoulder and handed the Nurse his business card.
"Here. Let's go." Selvig said.
Selvig, Rei, and Kurisuta headed out.
Hospital ER
Loki, now in a hospital gown, winced in pain as he awakened on a gurney to find a Nurse standing over him, a syringe in his arm.
"Hi. Just taking a little blood." The nurse said.
Loki slapped the syringe away angrily, started to sit up.
"We're trying to help you!" The nurse said.
"Then bring me a healing stone, you savages!" Loki said.
The nurse injected him with a sedative.
Loki struggled a beat, then passed out.
Lone Star Lake
Steam rose from the now frozen Lone Star Lake, though it was mid-summer. At the bottom of the lake glittered the Sword of Winters, Excalibur.
A Townie pulled his pick-up to a stop at the lakes edge. He climbed out, peered down below, his curiosity piqued by what he saw.
"Huh." The townie said.
The Townie approached the center of the frozen lake. The light from Excalibur bathed him in an otherworldly, blue luminous glow. He reached down, touched the ice, and screamed. His skin froze solid as all the water in his body turned to ice and his skin turned blue and black from frostbite.
The townie fell to the ground as his friend in the truck screamed, got in the truck, and sped away.
Selvig's Lab
The distant mountains glinted snow in the early morning light.
Kurisuta appeared with a cup of coffee and surveyed the vast cornfields. She turned back into the lab and saw Selvig, busy at his workstation, soldering a piece of equipment.
A printer churned out blown-up screen-cap photos of the Bifrost footage. Rei hung them on the wall.
Kurisuta surveyed the scene, watched how Selvig worked, impressed. She noticed a monitor which displayed a complex program entitled "E. SELVIG ALGORITHM ANALYSIS". She looked proud.
The three of them had been up all night, fueled by caffeine and excitement.
"Rei, when you're done, take the soil samples to Professor Meyers in geology. Remind him, he owes me." Selvig said.
"We might want to perform a spectral analysis." Kurisuta said.
Selvig got up, inserted the piece of equipment she's been working on into a rack-mounted server.
"You know what would be really useful? Do you still have that friend at LIGO?" Selvig asked.
"He was more than a friend." Kurisuta said.
"Could you call in a favor?" Selvig said.
"You don't think this was just a magnetic storm?" Kurisuta said.
"If I'm right, their observatory must have picked up gravitational waves during last night's event." Selvig said.
"Meaning?" Kurisuta said.
Selvig headed over to a computer monitor. Kurisuta followed.
"Meaning these anomalies might signify something bigger." Selvig said.
"How "big" are we talking about?" Kurisuta said.
Kurisuta indicated the footage on the monitor. As the last of the Bifrost cloud disappeared into the night sky, there appeared to be a blister in space, bulging out in convex and covered with stars.
"I think the lensing around the edges is characteristic of an Einstein-Rosen Bridge." Selvig said.
"A what?" Rei said.
"I thought you were a science major." Kurisuta said.
"IT Major." Rei said.
"An Einstein-Rosen Bridge - a "theoretical" connection between two different points of space-time." Kurisuta said.
Rei stared blankly.
"A wormhole." Selvig said.
Kurisuta printed out a frame-grab off the monitor.
"Dad, look..."
Kurisuta indicated the print-out showing the constellations seen through the "bubble" in the clouds.
"What do you see here?" Kurisuta said.
"Stars." Selvig said.
"Yes. But not our stars." Kurisuta said.
She spread out a star chart, barely able to contain her excitement.
"This is the star alignment for our quadrant, this time of year. So unless Ursa Minor decided to take the day off... those are someone else's constellations." Kurisuta said.
Selvig was intrigued, in spite of himself.
Rei pulled another frame-grab of the Bifrost footage from the printer and hung it on the wall, when something in the image catched her eye.
"Hey, check it out." Rei said.
Kurisuta and Selvig examined the photo, amazed.
"Is that...?" Selvig said.
"I think I left something at the hospital." Kurisuta said.
On the photo was: Inside the Bifrost funnel cloud was a figure - the vague, but unmistakable shape of a man.