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settling in behind his desk. “I just know you.”
    Mike looked around the office. The ants carried out images from his last visit. A new computer monitor sat on the desk. Two more black poker chips, each with the logo of a different Las Vegas casino, had joined the three around the monitor’s base. The walls were eggshell now, instead of stark white. There were nineteen new books on the shelves and fifteen of the old ones had vanished. There was a hardcover and paperback copy of Arthur Cross’s
The History of What We Know.
The spine of the paperback was smooth and pristine.
    “Once you were down here,” continued Reggie, “and heard what the project was, I knew you’d be up for it.”
    Mike skimmed the other items on the shelves. A framed certificate. A windup robot. A pair of plaques, one brass, one silver. A photo of Reggie in casual clothes smiling with a younger Asian woman. A postcard from Disney World featuring Tomorrowland. The ants cataloged each one under a dozen different topics. “You could’ve told me before,” he said.
    “You hadn’t been cleared.”
    “You just said you knew me.”
    “Do you want an apology?”
    Mike flopped into one of the chairs on the other side of the desk.
    “I needed you on this. I couldn’t afford to have you say no, so…I may have stretched the truth and put you in a position where it’d betough for you to say no.” Reggie tapped his palms against the desk. “I’m sorry.”
    “You know what something like this will do to me. To my life.”
    “I do. But I really need you on this.”
    Mike forced a few ants back behind their walls. “You’re a jerk.”
    “Nothing I haven’t heard before. Do you want the flight home?”
    “And the thousand dollars.”
    “Yeah, of course. If you’re really not interested, if you think you’re not up for it…I get it.”
    Mike counted to five. It was a habit he’d developed early in life. Answer too quickly and everyone assumed you hadn’t thought about what you were saying.
    Reggie tapped the table again. “Is that what you want?”
    “No.”
    “And I’m supposed to be the jerk.”
    “As long as we’re clear on that.”
    “Can we stop wasting time now?”
    “Sure.”
    “I’m going to have to go back in and face the board again in less than an hour,” Reggie said. “You should be with me. What did you think of this morning?”
    The ants wiggled loose. They carried out sound bites and images, first impressions and gut reactions. “This is all serious? Cross has made an actual teleporter? A machine that moves matter from one place to another?”
    “Yes. Well, you heard them. More of a doorway.”
    “Like a Stargate or something?”
    Reggie shook his head. “Don’t say that around Arthur or Olaf. They hate the comparison.”
    “Noted. How long have they been working on it?”
    “Three years on the Albuquerque Door. Before that was two years on SETH.”
    “I thought DARPA only gave one-year grants.”
    “Usually, yes, but we’re not going to cut off something really promising just because twelve months have passed.”
    “And there’s no question it’s real? Not some magic trick or something?”
    “I’ve seen it myself,” Reggie said. “Three times. Last time they offered to let me and Kelli do it.”
    The ants flashed a quick image of Reggie’s petite assistant. Her hair was red, but there was an eighth of an inch of brown at the roots. “Did you?”
    “Yes. Both of us.”
    Mike straightened up in his chair. “So it was hers, yours, and another was three times? Or saw it twice then did it once together?”
    “You’re nitpicking the math?”
    “Hell, yes.”
    Reggie smiled. “I saw a rat the first time. And a baseball.”
    “A baseball?” The ants assembled a picture before Reggie could take in a breath to respond. “It’s an open doorway. They throw the baseball back and forth as a test.”
    “Right. Second time was a chimpanzee. Last time was nine weeks ago. Kelli and I did it one right