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funny–except perhaps for the air purification units that made cute humming and puffing noises as they trailed behind the suited scientists on tiny red wagons.
    Steve reached forward and–after a moment’s thought–lightly tapped his bodyguard on the shoulder. “Chief, I’m seeing people in bio-suits. Shouldn’t we take some sort of precautions?”
    “I don’t think so. Their primary responsibility is to drag the rest of us out if something turns out to be toxic. They’re still here, so we’re probably good to go.”
    Steve silently mouthed the word “Probably?”
    A tall woman in full Army dress uniform was being briefed by a circle of men and one woman who all wore identical short- sleeved shirts with pocket protectors. The woman’s shirt was pink and matched her glasses as well as her pocket protector. Steve figured they were either dorky scientists or actors hired and costumed to play dorky scientists. After witnessing the fake building, he felt he shouldn’t be taking anything for granted.
    Ace pointed at the woman in the center and said quietly, “Anyway, the colonel isn’t wearing protective gear. Of course, I suspect that even an Ebola virus would probably be afraid to disturb Trinidad Tataka. And rightly so.” The colonel was tall and thin with what appeared to be a mix of African and Asian–possibly Indian–features. As soon as Steve and Ace walked up, she dismissed the scientists and turned to Steve. After a long, searching inspection that terminated with a rather dismissive sigh, she extended a hand. “Mr. Rowan. I’m Lieutenant Colonel Tataka. What can you tell me about the Portal?”
    As a journalist, Steve had been dealing with this sort of attitude from most members of the military for most of his career. The game she was playing was meant to knock the other person off-balance in the very beginning of a relationship and establish a long-lasting position of power.
    “I don’t know a damn thing, Trinidad.” He could see her stiffen at the use of her first name. “But I’m sure with all these smart guys you’ve got running around, you should know enough to brief me on it by now.” Actually, he was sure the military had no idea what was happening, but she’d pushed him hard and now he was pushing back.
    The colonel’s face hardened and Steve could actually feel the power of the stare she was giving him. He smiled, cocked his head, and raised a single eyebrow to indicate that he could wait just as long as she could.
    Then he deliberately turned away and began to study the center of the enclosed space. Four long tables had been hastily pushed together into a square and held a motley assemblage of scientific equipment. In addition, he suspected, the tables were there to keep people from accidentally walking into whatever was in the center. The only problem with that concept was that there didn’t appear to be anything in the center.
    To his surprise, Colonel Tataka did not explode in a standard- issue military snit fit. Instead, she gave a long sigh that turned into a tuneless whistle. “You’ve got it pegged. We don’t know shit.” Steve turned back around, interested by this unexpected honesty.
    Tataka gave him a rueful smile and said, “So, why don’t we stop trying to prove whose metaphorical dick is longer and share what we do know? I am not quite sure why you’re here, but I was given orders to render you my complete support.”
    She looked thoughtful. “I’m also unclear where those orders originated, but they came down through my chain of command so fast, you would have thought they’d been issued by God’s grandmother.”
    Steve smiled–he was starting to like this woman. “Colonel, I’ve had one hell of a strange morning–frankly, I don’t really understand why I’m here, either–so why don’t you start, and we’ll see if we can help each other out?”
    Tataka clasped her hands behind her back and looked around– over on the other side, the crew was