“What do you mean, the universe?” Joseph sounded very skeptical of Hoover’s warning but knew better than to completely write off the digital asshole.

  “Okay.” The A.I. had been embellishing a tad bit, but the seriousness of what was in this structure could not be overstated enough. “Maybe not the whole universe, but at least everything within a couple hundred million kilometers.

  “Where have you been?” Foster’s pitch elevated until he sounded like a jealous boyfriend reuniting with an old flame. “Why have you been offline for the last hour?”

  “Sorry about that.” Hoover didn’t have much in the way of feelings when it came to organics. But to him, Foster wasn’t just an organic. He was his best friend. And he did feel sorry about abandoning his best friend. “But as soon as I entered this laboratory, I felt compelled to try and interface with its database. It took so long because the data contained within this place is substantial.”

  The crude wireframe hologram became distorted then transformed into a set of highly detailed blueprints in under a second. “The gigantic box Joseph’s been beating on like a child is the power source/mainframe for a quantum space bridge.”

  “No shit?” Foster stepped back a couple of feet and truly took in the massive edifice that stood before them. Not from the perspective of grandeur or even engineering, but from the perspective of basic power consumption. “That thing is an order of magnitude larger than the Popper Drive, Hoover.”

  “That’s right,” The AI was grateful for Foster’s ability to grasp the concepts so quickly. “And it’s been used recently, so the thing’s still a bit temperamental.”

  “No,” Joseph pressed his ear up against the wall of Trenenite once again. Only this time, he was very gentle when he did it. Immediately, the sound of water rushing through pipes took on a wholly new and honestly terrifying meaning. “There’s no way something this big is a power source.”

  “Actually, deputy. You’re right.” Hoover said reluctantly. “Only about half the structure is for power production. The other half is data management and storage.”

  “Still... that shouldn’t be possible.”

  “Define ‘possible’ in a place like this.”

  “Hold on, Hoover. Quantum Space Bridge?” Having said the words out loud, her legs felt unusually wobbly. Justine plopped down on one of the workstation benches to steady herself. “What exactly does that term mean? You mean like a Stargate?”

  “Why do you have to relate everything we run into with a movie?”

  Justine blew off his faux pas. “Stargate was a TV series, not a movie.”

  “It was both, Agent Rushing.”

  “Well,” she remembered the horror that was the summer of 1994 and shuddered. “I only remember the good one.”

  “History doesn’t work that way, Agent Rushing.”

  “True, but I don’t relate everything to a movie.” She bristled at his accusation, and the anger welling up inside practically jerked her to her feet. “Maybe I should accuse you of trying to take over the world one day?” Again, she found herself almost spewing out another movie reference but didn’t. “Fine. Then without the movie references, what is a quantum space bridge?”

  “Short version? This whole section of the station was built for the express purpose of trying to figure out how to locate Earth and send things safely to it. Well, that’s not exactly true either.”

  “What do you mean, that’s not exactly true?” Joseph also found an empty seat to crash on.

  “I didn’t mean to imply that these aliens were looking for your Earth. What I meant to say was that they were looking for an Earth type planet. Particularly one that was located on the ass end of the universe.”

  “That doesn’t make any sense. Why? And how would you even go about doing something like that?” The deputy sounded lost as he tried to process everything being said.

  “Why?” Hoover sighed. “I don’t know. It’s not like there’s a power point saved in the system describing this place’s mission statement. As to how. Well, whoever constructed this machine understood a means of interacting with the universe on a level some might call bullshit science fiction magic.”

  “Specifics, Hoover. You know I need specifics.” Foster said.

  “I know.” Hoover simulated a cough as a way of resetting his explanation. “Well, from what I can glean from their database, it seems that every part of the universe is connected to every other part by tiny subatomic links. This box contains the means to map those links.”

  “Map those links?” Foster’s brain began to hit another gear. “How could anyone possibly know how to map the entire universe?”

  “Again, it’s not like there’s a journal for me to read about how exactly ET built a space station on the edge of a black hole. All I can tell you is there is a map. And once you have an accurate enough map, someone could use those links to transport things from here to any point they wish.”

  The tale has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.

  “Are we talking about string theory?” Foster asked more to himself than Hoover. “And why Earth? What’s so special about our planet that a group of aliens would want to dump their prisoners there?”

  “Yes, to the idea of string theory, but in a much crazier direction. The level of preciseness in that box could only come from a primordial understanding of the universe. If I had to guess, I would say someone’s been collecting data since the very beginning.”

  “The beginning.” Justine’s thoughts infinitely multiplied on top of one another. “Which beginning are you talking about?”

  “The obvious answer would be the ‘big bang’. But even that would just be a guess. It could be a multiple universe scenario or an offshoot of Loop Quantum Gravity theory. Hell, maybe even one your human gods, in all his wisdom created this place. But without facts, anything I tell you would just be wild speculation. As to the ‘why Earth’ question. Besides the fact that it’s on the edge of their galactic map, I couldn’t answer that in the slightest.”

  “What do you mean you couldn’t answer?” Joseph’s voice grew louder as indignation crept into it. “You said half that monstrosity is for data storage. All that space and no real answers?”

  “Hey, don’t blame me. Like most of the systems on this turd of a space station, this alien database is only half useful. Only the initial testing protocols and how many times it’s been used remains recorded. Everything else has...”

  “Has what?”

  “Everything else appears to have been erased.”

  “Amazing,” Justine was at a loss for the appropriate words to summarize their current situation. “That’s just amazing.”

  “And that’s not even the strangest part.”

  “Hoover,” Foster placed his tablet down on the nearest desk then sat down on a bench next to Justine. They were both wondering the same thing, and they both feared what Hoover’s answer might be. “What exactly is the strangest part?”

  The holographic diagram faded away into a rotating, satellite image of the Earth’s surface. Everything looked completely normal except for a pulsating light positioned ominously over the upper east coast of the United States.

  “This is Earth, two days ago when two subjects were delivered to a rural area in upstate New York.”

  “That’s not strange.” Joseph leaned back against the machine’s wall. He could still hear and feel the slight disturbance vibrating through his shoulder blades. “I was there when they arrived.”

  “Exactly, you were there.” The image spun slightly to the southeast before settling on another point. “Ten years ago, three subjects were sent to an abandoned warehouse district on Long Island. This was probably around the time the previous Arbiter was killed. Ten years before that,” the image shifted again, “was Joseph’s fateful voyage.”

  “Book one,” Joseph mumbled as he remembered the worst day of his new life with perfect clarity. “I still can’t believe that was over twenty years ago.”

  “Thirty years ago,” Hoover continued. “Four subjects were delivered to an area of the southwest desert. Fifty-two years ago, the south of Spain...” Hoover's recitation of drop off points continued for another ten minutes as various spots around the holographic world pulsated with blue light. And with each new place came more dates, more prisoners and more questions.

  Eventually, Hoover talked for so long that Justine and Joseph had become numb to his mechanical like retelling of visits’ past. Even Foster had slightly tuned out his friend to let his mind wander through the dark fields of his imagination. It wasn’t until the AI’s voice ceased speaking that anyone bothered to refocus on his presentation.

  When they did, the image of Earth had now settled on the continent of Africa. Almost half the country of Tunisia was pulsating blue.

  “Why is the indicator so large there?” Justine asked given that all the other drop-off areas seemed to be precisely accurate. “Are the records unclear?”

  “No…” Hoover said grimly. “200,000 years ago… fifty-one thousand, one hundred and thirty-four subjects were delivered to the north edge of the Saharan desert.

  “Excuse me?” Justine blurted before everyone shut up and waited for him to clarify or admit that this statement was merely the joke of a smart-ass artificial intelligence. After all, Hoover played these types of pranks all the time.

  But after a minute of eerie silence, it was clear that neither was forthcoming.

  “Fifty-one thousand, one hundred and thirty-four,” Foster stood up and stared unblinkingly at the image. “You mean all at once… why?”

  “Not all at once.” The large pulsating light separated into eight slightly smaller points on the map. “Actually, there was about thirty trips over a 24-hour period spread across these eight regions. As to the why, that information is also no longer within this database.”

  “No longer within this database?” Confronted with such staggering information, Foster spun around on Joseph with wild eyes. “Did you know anything about this?”

  “Anything about what?” Joseph tried his best to stay calm, but he too was feeling a little overwhelmed by all the new information flooding his already waterlogged brain. “My people live for two of your years, Foster. So, we spend very little time keeping precise records of our personal lives.”

  Joseph stopped for a moment to catch his breath and collect his thoughts. “Now, if you ask about the ships my people have built, our records are extensive. But as for the Arbiters and their secret plans, I’m afraid I don’t know anything about...” he spread his arms out to encapsulate their entire surroundings, “this.”

  Then, like a flash of lightning in the dark, a memory he had never bothered writing down in his journals surfaced. Suddenly, everything grew a little clearer. “But the arbiters have been known by my people for a very long time.”

  “Can you define ‘a very long time’?” Foster’s mood shifted slightly but his temperament remained constant. “That’s a little too imprecise for my liking.”

  “I could.” The deputy was honestly trying to answer his question. “But what’s a long time for my people might be a rather short period of time for your people in comparison.”

  “So, that would be a ‘no’?”

  Joseph didn’t respond further, he just slunk back against the wall and closed his eyes. At the same time, a young FBI agent/sci-fi geek asked her own questions concerning Hoover’s big reveal. “Two hundred thousand years ago? What the hell?"

  Justine placed a gentle hand on Foster’s shoulder. His initial reaction was to glower malevolently, but the sight of her sympathetic eyes immediately drained all the fight from him. “Not to mention the fact that over fifty thousand prisoners in one day seems like a bit of overkill.”

  “Tell me about it,” Joseph added. “I’ve never heard of the Arbiters rounding that many prisoners up at one time.”

  “Hoover…” His eyes softened to her gesture of kindness before moving on with the task at hand. “Is there anything other than the transportation data available to you right now? I don’t like to guess.”

  “Yes,” Hoover admitted freely, “A lot more. But first, I have the current location of Agent Rushing’s reason for us being here.”

  “The prisoners?” Her tone was hopeful. “You found them?”

  “Yes, Agent Rushing. They’re in the level above this one, in a place the database refers to as the Prisoner Containment Facility.”

  “Appropriately named,” Foster smirked. “Still, prisoners aside, do you think we can find some more answers there?”

  “No, dumbass.” Hoover’s mood turned playfully annoying. “Hopefully we can find all the answers there.”