Disclaimer: Superior Defender Gundam Force is owned by Bandai and Sunrise. I just write about it in my spare time. Also, the lyrics used in this chapter belong to Boston.
Spectrophobia
Chapter 2
"Just put it over there, Captain."
"Here?" the Gundam in question asked as he placed the purple-tinted mirror in a corner of Shute's workshop. He stepped out of the way so that his human friend could see.
"That's perfect," Shute said, nodding. "Mom almost never comes back here, so it should be safe. I hope she likes it!"
"I'm certain she will, Shute," Captain replied, running a finger along the frame. "I am no expert in interior decorating, but I do think it looks sturdy and aesthetically pleasing."
"Well, if it turns out she doesn't, I could always keep it in the guest room or something," the boy mused. "Or give it to somebody else." He looked over his reflection. "I just hope nobody minds the purple edges. It looks like someone tried to stain the glass, but gave up."
Captain gazed into the mirror and lowered his head. He let out a soft, "Hmm..."
"What's up?" Shute asked, looking at him. "Something wrong?"
Captain looked up at him. "This may be hard to believe but...," he began, "this material may not be glass."
"Huh? Come again?" Shute raised an eyebrow at the Gundam.
"You were concerned about this mirror potentially containing dangerous substances," Captain explained, "so I took the liberty of scanning it while we were on the bus. While the reflective backing is normal silver, I did not pick up any alumina or silica within the glass itself. I did not even find germanium. If it is a type of glass, it is not one that is in my database."
"But what is it then?" Shute walked up to the mirror and gave it a suspicious stare. "Is is plastic, or something?" He gave it a poke.
"I'm afraid I don't know," Captain answered. "I checked to see if it was acrylic, but it came up negative for carbon. I compared it to other minerals, and results were inconclusive."
"By any chance did you find traces of anything dangerous?" the boy asked, backing away from the mirror. "I mean, I was just kidding when I said that!"
"Well, I did not pick up any traces of toxic or flammable materials," Captain replied. "I am also not detecting any radioactivity. For now, it seems safe for you and your family to use."
"Well, that's a relief," Shute said as a bead of sweat rolled down his brow. "Especially about the radioactivity!"
"Still, it is difficult to be certain without knowing what exactly this substance is," Captain replied. "Its anomalous nature has me curious. While I would like to bring it to Blanc Base to study it, I would not want it to get damaged along the way. Perhaps I could download more advanced mineralogical software and re-scan it on my next visit?"
"Okay, but...what if we can't figure out what it is before Mom's birthday?"
"Your mother's birthday is a month away, correct?" the Gundam said. "I am ninety-percent certain that I will be able to identify the substance by then."
"Great! And if for some reason you don't, well...I guess you can take it, and I'll buy Mom something else then." Shute scratched the back of his head as he decided to change the subject. "Anyway, it's going to be a few more hours until dinner. You wanna hang out and watch TV until then?"
"Sure, I'd love to," Captain nodded.
"Great! Space Highway is coming on in a few minutes," Shute said as he walked over to the door. "I think it's the one where they find a gold mine infested with microbots."
"Is that the same cartoon that features a talking dog that is mildly obsessed with acquiring large amounts of money in a short amount of time?" Captain asked.
"No, you're thinking of The Enchanted Cave," the boy explained as he opened the door and stepped outside. "That one only airs on weekends."
The boy and his robot friend left the workshop, and headed down the long wooden walkway to the house. The strange mirror sat innocuously in its corner. Moments later, a faint gleam radiated from its center.
A week had passed since the flea market excursion. Shute had just finished his dinner and had gone up to his room to finish his math homework. The lesson was long division, and all work had to be shown on an electronic worksheet. Answers had to be whole numbers with a remainder, no decimals or fractions allowed. The worksheet disabled copying and pasting in order to discourage cheating. He cradled his cheek in his palm as he slowly plodded his way through twenty problems.
"...Remainder three," he muttered to himself as he typed in an answer. "Just ten more to go..."
The problem was one hundred and twenty-nine divided by sixty-four.
"Couldn't be a hundred and twenty-eight huh?" Shute grumbled as he balanced a pencil between his upper lip and nose.
He reached over to type in his answer. Just as he pressed one of the number keys, a sudden blasting electric guitar riff caused him to jump and nearly fall out of his chair. The pencil on his lip went flying and bounced off the wall.
Shute sat still for a moment, rubbing his ringing ears and trying to regain his senses. He then glared behind him, in the general direction of his father's recording studio. "Aw Dad, didja hafta start practicing now?!" he groaned.
Never mind, he could do this. After erasing the long string of ones that he accidentally typed, he entered one hundred and twenty-eight underneath the dividend. Just as he placed a one in the remainder box, however, a different noise startled him again.
"Now if you're feelin' kinda low 'bout the dues you've been payin'," his father's voice blared from down the hallway. "Future's coming much too slo-o-ow!"
Oh, no. Dad's loud guitars he could tolerate, but not his singing. Shute closed his laptop, left his room, and marched down the hall. The studio was at the end, and its door was closed - not that keeping that door closed did any good. But before the boy could knock and tell his father to keep it down, something caught his eye. There was a bright gleam coming from the guest bedroom next to him.
Curious, Shute forgot about the wailing electric guitar for a second and entered the darkened bedroom. The glare was actually coming through the window from a point by the trees in the distance. Upon closer inspection, he found out that the light was coming from the workshop. Did he leave the light on accidentally? No...this light was purple.
He dashed out of the room, down the hall and through the kitchen. He stopped short when he reached the living room, as his mother and infant sister were in between him and the door. Keiko was sitting on the couch in the middle of the room, watching the news. Nana was bouncing around in her playpen; apparently, she actually appreciated Dad's music.
Shute slipped into the room as quietly as he could manage, trying to stay out of his mother's line of sight. He managed to sneak behind her all the way to the door. Nana looked at him a few times, but she was too busy "dancing" to make a noise at him.
But just as he grabbed his shoes from their spot beside the door...
"Shute, where are you going at this time of night?!"
The boy let out a gasp and nearly dropped his shoes. He turned to see Keiko staring at him sternly.
"I'm, uh...I'm just going to the workshop, Mom!" he stammered.
"What?!" Keiko shouted, bending her ear forward. "I can't hear over your father's music!"
"I said I'm just going to the workshop, Mom!" Shute shouted over the din as he slipped his shoes on. "I forgot something in there!"
"Did you finish your homework already?!" Keiko called back.
"Uh...yeah Mom! All done!" He felt rotten for lying to his mother's face like that, but this was urgent.
"Okay, but make sure you're back before bedtime!" she shouted. He then thought he heard her say something about going to tell Dad to turn it down.
Before she could ask any more questions, he slipped out the door. He ran across the front deck to find bright purple light flooding out of the workshop's windows. He hurried down the walkway, threw open the shop's door, and found the place bathed in a neon lavender glow. The mirror was sitting in its corner, its glass the source of this strange light.
"Whoa...," Shute breathed, shielding his eyes from the light. "What's it doing? Is it some kinda fluorescent mineral?"
He waved his hand in front of it. He didn't feel any heat or coldness, but he figured that it still might be unsafe to touch. He spotted one of the pipes he bought at the flea market in the opposite corner of the room. He grabbed one, brought it over to the mirror, and gingerly poked the glass.
The pipe went right through its surface.
Shute let out a yelp and nearly fell down. The pipe slipped out of his hand and tumbled to the floor. He leaned against a wall to regain his balance and took a few deep breaths before picking the pipe back up. He carefully shoved it about halfway into the mirror. It didn't seem touch anything, not even where the wall should be. He waved it around. After nothing happened, he pulled it back out. The inserted end looked no different than before; no scorch marks, no ice, no strange fluids nor dust.
His mind raced as he put the pipe down. What was this mirror made of, really? Why could objects go right through its surface? Was it some sort of portal? What kind of material could create portals? Had it been doing this all week, and he didn't notice until now? But most importantly, if that was a portal, where did it lead to?
Shute had watched enough episodes of Space Highway and other sci-fi shows to know walking right into it was a bad idea. Instead, he grabbed his aerial drone and its remote control from off a shelf. He turned it on, but the drone did not respond. Its propellers didn't spin, nor did any of its lights come on. He looked at the display to check its battery levels. Empty.
Aww, man! he thought. I KNEW I should've plugged this thing in!
He grabbed the drone's charge cord off the same shelf and plugged it into the nearest outlet. It would take about ten minutes for the drone to be charged enough to reliably fly. Shute looked at the shining mirror and wondered how long the "portal" would stay open. All night? A few hours? A few minutes?
The temptation to go look for himself was getting stronger.
Don't you do it, Shute! he thought. Sure, it might lead to a relatively safe location like somewhere else on Earth. However, there was an equally likely chance that it led to an airless void or some surreal dimension with completely different laws of physics. According to some of his comic books, it could even lead to a universe that would "reject" him, causing him to die instantly.
If he was smart, he'd stop what he was doing and call Captain immediately.
...But I'm not, he thought as he walked up to the mirror and stuck his left hand through the portal.
The other side was slightly warmer than his side. He could feel a slight cool breeze through his fingers. He pulled his arm back out and looked it over. He still had all of his fingers, and his arm wasn't rotting off - that was a good sign.
Still unsure if this other place had a breathable atmosphere or wasn't full of deadly alien microbes, Shute took a deep breath and held it. Then he held on to the mirror frame for support as he stuck his head through the portal.
The first thing he saw was trees against a blue sky, illuminated by sunlight from the east. He recognized the trees as the ones around the workshop - one of the maple trees even had the same broken branch. He looked beneath him, but could not see any part of his shed on this side. The only thing down there was tall grasses waving in that cool breeze from earlier. However, he did see a few broken pieces of lumber scattered among that grass.
He looked over in the direction of his house to see if it existed in this dimension. He let out a muffled cry through his held breath when he found it. It did exist in this universe, or rather had existed. Blackened support beams left an outline of where it once stood. Rubble made from seared, pulverized bricks and burned wood lay strewn about everywhere. He spotted colorful shards of the stained glass windows twinkling in the sunlight. It was surrounded by fallen trees and burnt grass.
What had happened here? Shute barely had any time to contemplate this mystery when he heard a voice.
"Who is there?"
He spat out his held breath as he nearly jumped out of his skin. He pulled his head out of the mirror, fell backwards, and landed on his rear. He coughed and sputtered as he crawled backwards away from the mirror. Somehow, he found the strength to get to his feet and scramble out the door. He ran down the walkway and stopped at the first flight of stairs, trying to catch his breath. His heart was pounding in his ears.
When no alien lifeforms emerged from the workshop, Shute walked back to the doorway and peered inside. The mirror continued to glow, but no strange creatures were wandering around the room.
With that, Shute slammed the door shut and ran back up the stairs to his house. He needed to call Captain and have him take that thing away!