Authors Note: To the judges - I used all ten items in the challenge list. Word count approx. 5,750

I stood with Gregory, watching the horizon. We each were blowing out of the corner of our mouths so that our condensing breath wouldn't block our view.

"There," we both said at the same time. The flash of light seemed far away, but it was still quite brilliant. It pulsed really quickly, it wasn't a sustained light like an explosion. It happened exactly ninety-three minutes after the previous pulse of light. It was more like someone flashed a beacon on and off, once every ninety-three minutes, to the second.

New McMurdo - Managers Office

"But I'm supposed to be off this weekend," I tried. The argument about minding the hydroponics farm hadn't worked.

"Sorry, Dave,you're going," said Gregory with finality. "You can take Fletch and Morris."

At least I was taking experience with me, not some noobs.

"Fine, whatever, can we at least get air dropped?"

He shook his head, "Sorry, we haven't had aviation fuel delivered in decades, you know that. That plane only moves if ..." he sighed. "No, no plane. The crash boat will be waiting at Notch Bay on Graham Island. They'll drop you at Telefon Bay, you'll have to go Shanks' Mare from there."

"C'mon, Gregory, that's like, ten days in a SnoCat. Three men and bucket to toilet in? You'd do that to me?"

"Sorry, Dave, it is what it is. It needs to be done."

"And we don't have someone there, someone on Graham Island, someone that can look at the flashy-lighty-thingy?" I was getting querulous.

"You three are experienced explorers; they don't have any explorers. They're crash-boat drivers; we don't have any crash-boat drivers. This time of year those islands are going to be an ice and snow paradise, requiring the skills of ice climbers and the tenacity of explorers. Any more questions?" He held back on the "dumbass" invective, but it was implied.

I lamented the Tsunami that had erased Artigas Town the year before; they would have been all over this. I gave him the finger and stomped out of his office.

Back in my room, it took only a few minutes to fill my pack for a five day expedition, though I hoped it would be much less. I rang Fletch, then Morris, telling them we were going sightseeing on the South Shetland Islands. I looked around to make sure all was in order before I left. I watered my dwarf lemon tree. It was of the" Improved Meyer" variety, it performed best in winter climates, indoors. Gregory, New McMurdo's manager, my brother, had already promised to stop by and keep it watered while I was away. He loved his 'Shine and 'Berg-water as much as I did, so I knew he'd take good care of it. With everything ready to go, I took one last look around the room to see if I had forgotten anything. I looked at the DVD package on my dresser, the one I had gotten from the museum, that I hadn't watched yet. I'd won this month's lottery for a month of free loaners from their modest catalogue of old-time TV shows. The cover of this one was so faded and worn, all I could read was "Season 1" and "Almighty Johnson's". If I had any kind of luck, other than bad luck, it would turn out to be a porno. However, I wouldn't know until I got back from this ridiculous wild-goose chase.

Notch Bay, Graham Island

Ten days later, the SnoCat slowed and then stopped on the crest of the ridge looking down over the ancient settlement. The first structure built on Notch Bay was in 2150, after the Proto-Gen war. Many people fled from North of the lower 60th and their boats all wound up in Antarctica, the only place south of the lower 60th for them to go. Most of the vessels arriving in Antarctic waters were lifeless hulks that had capsized or half flooded after being holed by an iceberg. Sailors across the ages knew that Cape Horn was a seductive but unforgiving mistress. However, for the ones that got through intact: there was nowhere for them to land, no one to direct them, no one to keep track of them, no one to tell them how they were going to die in the desolate ice-world. The sea currents, with their Southern Coriolis spin around Cape Horn, simply sent these boats within sight of Graham Island. Heading for the shelter of the Island, Notch Bay was a logical first landing point. After the first ship arrived, along with their calls for help, a second boat had landed by the time the rescue team from Old McMurdo had arrived. It seemed as good a place as any to put a welcome-wagon since they could see two more ships on the horizon, heading their way.

Over the next five years, that first Harbour Master's shack grew into a proper cove settlement. Residential shacks, a few commerce structures, massive greenhouse and hydroponic structures all made up the bulk of Old Town. Everything that was needed to build these places was brought on the ships, or built from the ships themselves. Two hundred years later, the kiln, the forge, the quarry and the cement plants changed the nature of the buildings to a safer, more permanent presence. However, the pristine austerity of Notch Bay's Old Town was always preserved.

South America had become over crowded, dirty, and filled from coast to coast with crime-ridden barrios. The populations of Canada and most of the United States tried to move into Southern Baja, the south end of Texas, and most of Florida. Needless to say, it didn't work. That was how so many people wound up in Mexico and South America. Unfortunately, after so many years of persecution by the U.S., Mexico didn't want the cold-backs, the Americans. They railroaded them, literally, out of Mexico and into South America. The Mexicans loved the Canadians though, most of the Canadians stayed in America's revisionist land of milk and honey.

Guatemala, Honduras, Nicaragua, Costa Rica, and Panama became a human highway for a hundred years. For one hundred years the populations of the north made their way south as the world above the upper 30th slowly died from the Proto-Gen molecule. Needless to say, that still wasn't enough room. South America filled up with newcomers and the results of unabated numbers of people recklessly breeding. It's not like they had much else to do.

So why did they go to Antarctica and not Africa or Australia? Antarctica was closer. It was easier to get to. Besides, the African nations had their hands full with the Europeans.

The price of admission to Antarctica became either a vital skill, or infrastructure. Large boats would show up with five people and hydroponics to produce enough food for a hundred people. They all got in. Sometimes a small boat would show up with two people and something for the hospital, like an Ultrasound machine. They got in. Other times a boat would show up with a doctor, a farmer, a mechanic and a banker (metaphorically speaking). The banker would be sent on his way, or shot. The rest got in.

Within a hundred years, Antarctica maxed out at what it could support and the borders were closed. Notch Bay was, by that point, the largest city on the ice fields of the bottom of the world. It remained an active sea port for fisherman as well as scientific, cultural and trade visits from the other nations of the Pacific. On the other side of the continent, Lützow-Holm Bay handled the African continent's emigrants. For the interceding 700 years, the entire world's population lived below 30 degrees north of the equator. In the last 700 years, no one had been farther north in the America's, than Jacksonville, New Orleans, Houston or Chihuahua, Mexico.

Fletch, my giant Samoan friend and co-explorer, drove the SnoCat though the dark streets of Notch Bay. It wasn't dark because of lack of being busy, it was mid-afternoon and the place was bustling. It was just that at this time of year, the sun had already set, having made an appearance only 110 minutes long.

"You know where we're going, right?" I asked the Tattooed behemoth at the wheel.

"Umm-hmm," was his informative reply.

"Gregory said we'd find them at Regina's Steakhouse and Emporium of Delights."

"Umm-hmm."

"Dave, he knows where he's going. He grew up here."

"Oh, really? I thought ..."

"Parents came here with I was eight. No more questions. I'm driving."

We soon passed out of Notch Bay proper and into Old Town. I tried to look at everything at once, I hadn't been here since I was a kid, with my dad. The place hadn't improved any. In fact, it was even more depressing through an adult's eyes than it was through a child's eyes. The difference between Notch Bay Proper and Old Town was dramatic. This historic settlement was made up of old rusted steel buildings, prefabricated buildings with stone buttresses, and pre-fab structures wrapped in iron bands to keep the winds from blowing them apart. Everything was rusting; everything looked like it should have fallen down, blown down or been torn down centuries ago. The ancient greenhouses and hydroponics farms were massive, buried in the regolith. Only the top two or three feet of them showed. The thick glass roofs were lined with chicken wire that was lashed over metal pipe frameworks, to protect the glass ceilings from blowing debris.

Thirty more minutes of driving at a crawl and Fletch stepped on the brakes, and then shut down the engine. He flipped the batteries from the self-charger to the mini Vortex bladeless charger.

"There it is," he pointed to the only freshly painted structure in Old Town. It was a white building with blue and yellow paint plastered slap-dash all over it. A big pink neon sign over the main double door said, "Madam Regina's Steakhouse & Epicurean Delights". To the right of it was a single door, with a centuries old, barely working, small pink neon sign. All it said was, "Titties n' Beer • In Here"

Morris pressed his nose against the window, "Schweet, I'm going for a steak, you guys?"

Fletch got out without a word. He marched straight over to the small door advertising beer and stuff.

I sighed heavily, "Fine, he'll be hours. Let's go get a beer."

We got out of the SnoCat and walked towards the double doors. As I reached for the door handle, Morris said, "Grab me a seat 'bye, I gotta go get the tenner Fletch owes me." Then quick as a wink, he was gone in the small door. I shook my head and went into the steakhouse.

A stunning young woman in a floor length gown, and perfectly coiffed hair, greeted me with a smile full of rotting, yellow teeth. Stim teeth ... disgusting.

'Stim' was a chemical compound that you applied to your teeth with a small brush. It soaked into the meal of your teeth and slowly entered your brain through your cranial nerves. It was safer than sticking a needle in your arm but within five years, you wouldn't have a tooth left in your head. She looked like a she had about a year left. Then she would go insane from the unstoppable agony of the cranial nerve rotting, right up to her brain, after the teeth were gone. Her family would have no choice at that point but to euthanize her.

"Just one?" the gorgeous corpse-to-be asked.

"No, I'm meeting someone here, a Mr. Kalvahortensen? Do you know if he's here yet?"

"Oh, yes! That's my father. Come with me."

As we entered the restaurant proper, I was surprised at how big it was on the inside. The kitsch that sold this place was that the restaurant had cars, instead of tables. With most of them, the roof was removed and small tables or ledges were installed in front of, or between the seats. It really reminded me of that restaurant in the ancient classic, "Pulp Fiction". It was kind of trippy, seeing that over eight hundred years later, someone had recreated that scene. No one was in costume though, pity. I'd seen the movie as a kid and it had always fascinated me that people were play-acting about people who were play-acting about being other people who were play-actors.

The lovely vision of impending death stopped in front of a white 1963 VW Beetle with racing stripes, "This is 'Herbie The Love Bug'. If you have a seat, Daddy will be with you shortly, he's just next door. Can I get you a drink?"

"Umm, any chance you might have some coffee?"

"We sure do handsome! Would you like a quarter cup, half cup or full cup?"

I took out my wallet and had a look, $5000 Amundsen Script and another $3000 in McMurdo Script. "Do you take McMurdo script?" I had to ask, not everyone did.

"Sure Sweetie, we can take that. Full cup's $250 McMurdo."

What the hell, gotta live once in a while, "Sure, full cup please. Do you have cream?"

She hustled away and then hustled back. Other than the look of her teeth and the smell of her breath, she was quite fetching and pleasant to consider. I slowly sipped the hot coffee and almost moaned with the delight of the rare pleasure. I'd only had coffee once, on my 19th birthday, twenty years ago. Most of the coffee fields in South America had been overrun by squatters and food crops, so now the only time you could get coffee beans was if they were home grown. In Notch Bay, that meant grown on windowsills. It took a lot of windowsills to grind up enough for a full cup of coffee.

It was quiet in the restaurant, only one other couple I could see. I picked my cup and sauntered over to the big box with flashing lights. I dropped in a $10 coin and selected A8. The old Wurlitzer juke box whizzed and buzzed. To my amazement I watched the actuator arm pluck out a real, honest to goodness, vinyl record. It wasn't one of the newfangled knock offs that used USB sticks. I went back to my seat and relaxed to the sounds of Kid Farrugia and the All Star Latin Polka Band. I enjoyed the rest of my coffee as I plunked more coins in, making more selections. I sat for a long time and relaxed to the strains of "Tundra Polka", "The Laughing Seagull Polka", and the popular "Did You Smoke My Spliff Polka".

As the last one was winding down, the short man I had come to see hustled up to the table, hopped on the bench beside me and stuck out his hand. "Havery Kalvahortensen, at yer service, sir!" said the three foot, four inch tall sailor. I smiled and shook his hand, leaning back slightly. I could see that his daughter's dental hygiene was far better than his own. I wondered if he'd make it through to the end of our trip.

I started to tell him what I was there for but he waved me off, "I know my son, I know. You're here to go out to the Shitlands and see what's causing that flashy-mcbursty-lighty thingamabob, right?"

"Yes, you're right. You mean the Shetlands though."

He smiled broadly, far broader than someone with such a dental disaster ever should, "Ever been there my son?"

"No," I shook my head, "I usually work on the other side." He knew I meant the other side of the continent.

"Well, when you get there you'll be calling that place far, far worse than the Shitlands. 'Nuff about that though 'bye, let's get some grub into us!" He looked passed the menu, at the restaurant door leading into the other smaller establishment, then confided with a wink, "Worked me up a good appetite, sure 'nuff. Besides, it's a slow cold trip in these thickening waters and y'all aren't going to get a proper cooked meal for a while." He peered around the room, "You're not going alone 'ayre ya?"

"No, Captain, I'm not. I might be crazy but I'm not stupid. My two mates are ..." I looked over at the same door, "... working up an appetite as well."

Havery and I had our steaks and baked potatoes, then I treated him to a cup of coffee and myself to a refill. Gregory was going to be footing the bill for this so, why the hell not. After three hours, Fletch and Morris still hadn't appeared. With a bit of cajoling, Havery got me out of Herbie the Love Bug, and we went next door to the Titties & Beer bar.

The Titties & Beer Bar

We had to walk down a small hallway, then through double swinging doors. The hallway was the noise buffer I guess. Entering the T&B was like stepping back a thousand years, into a wild western saloon. There were women in ruffle skirts and boa's, a guy playing lively ditties in a poorly tuned piano, men wearing shirts buttoned to their neck, more arm-garters and suspenders than you could shake a stick it. The floor was covered in peanut shells and the air smelled of beer and piss.

There were five tables that were surrounded by men. Fletch and Morris sat at the farthest table. Morris saw me and waved me over. As I sauntered in his direction a man at his table clapped his hands and threw some cards down on the table, yelling, "WOO HOO! There you go suck-ahhhs! I got a Tittie-high flush! Read 'em and weep!"

All the men at the table groaned except for the big Samoan. Fletch leaned forward, slowly placing his cards on the table with a big smile, "Tittie-high straight flush, my friend."

I looked down at the cards that Fletch had put on the table: Queen, Knave, Ten, Nine, and Seven of diamonds. I turned to Havery and asked quietly, "How's it a straight?"

Havery whispered back, not wanting to disturb those at the table who were mid-ante for the next hand, "We only have six decks of cards, scavenged from all the playing cards that have been found over the years. We never had enough Aces, Kings, eights or three's. So, we play with what we go. Everyone knows that a straight will leap the missing cards.

"Ahhh, okay, I get it." My own deck of cards back in my very, very small apartment at McMurdo had no sixes in it.

Morris stood up and said, "Well, that's me boys. I gotta bow out or else I ain't gonna have enough to eat, for a month!" He looked up at me standing there, "Hey, Dave, you wanna sit in?"

I waved my hands in front of me, "No man, sorry. My religion doesn't allow it." Truth is, I couldn't play cards worth shit, but that would have been like lighting up a beacon on my forehead that would announce to the world that I was a sucker of extraordinary fleece-ability.

"What about you Hav?" he asked.

Havery slapped his hands together, rubbing them greedily, "You bet! Just get my books for me!"

Everyone seemed to know a lot about everyone in the place. I had a sneaking suspicion that Fletch and Morris had spent a lot of their time here over the years. Morris walked over to the counter and picked up four books: the Oxford-Sao Paolo Dictionary (2560 Edition); Encyclopaedia Etrusca (Aa-Bc); Why Do Bad Things Happen To Good People (Rabbi Kushner, 1981); and Moving Pictures (T. Pratchett, 1990). Morris brought the books back to the table and set them on Hav's chair. Then he grabbed Havery under the armpits and lifted him up so he could sit on them. Morris went to the bar and came back a minute later with a cold beer and handed it to me. We stood there for half an hour watching them play a few more hands of Titties.

Eventually the bartender rang a bell, announcing last call. A little while later he rang the bell again and announced that everyone didn't have to go home, but they had to get the frak out, now. To emphasize his point, he reached under the bar and pulled out a handgun older than Methuselah. I looked at it and couldn't help laughing.

The bartender pointed the gun at me, cocked the hammer, and said, "Boy, this is a Colt Navy revolver made in 1851. They made things simple back then, things that keep working no matter what, just like this gun. It don't take shells, it takes powder, primer and a lead ball. I got plenty of powder and primer but no lead balls, so this here one is loaded with packed rock-salt. It won't kill ya, but it never misfires, and it will make you think real seriously about laughing again. You get my drift, stranger?"

I smiled weakly and nodded my head, "Sir, yes, sir. I understand, sir."

"Good, now get the frak out ... and take the fraking stim-toad with you."

"Hey! What'd you call me pussbag?" Havery jumped up on the table, making a fist at the bartender. He then proceeded to recite a string of epithets questioning the man's gender, parentage, political affiliation and views on mating with Emperor Penguins. The bartender's face held a shade of red that was deepening with each cuss; it soon bordered on aubergine. Looking from one to the other, and remember how much we needed wee Captain Kalvahortensen, I picked him up, threw him over my shoulder, and then beat a hasty retreat from the T&B Bar; Fletch and Morris were close on my heels.

Telefon Bay, Deception Island, South Shetland Island Chain, Antarctica

After a restless sleep in the back of the SnoCat, for like, the eleventh night in a row, we were ready to go see the anomaly du jour. The crash-boat had easy seas for the journey, no ice needed breaking. Though it was winter, the average temperature had been unseasonably warm this year. That means it was still colder than frak outside, but at least the islands bays weren't jammied solid with ice. Five hours out from Notch Bay, we entered the straights leading to Port Foster. Twenty minutes later we coasted easily into Telefon Bay. All the ice that had been there on the Captain's last trip had sublimated or drifted away, so he was able to land us on the rock shore.

For the duration of the sea voyage, the flashing light in the distance, still flashing every ninety-three minutes, had started to grow more ominous in my mind. Until we departed the wharf at Notch Bay, it was merely an objective. As soon as the ship was under way, the abstract concept of something weird out there, became a clock counting down to an encounter with the unknown.

No sooner were we on land when, whoosh, the flash came again. This time though, there was a distinct scent of burnt ozone, and a brief wash of warm air quickly following it. We hefted our packs on to our backs, then headed off Shanks' Mare across the unnamed moraines of some long sublimated glacier. The flash of light was close, in relation to where it had been a few hours ago. However, with the rough terrain and the full packs we were wearing, it took two more of the bright-flashy-thingy's for us to get over the varying scree mounts of Telefon Ridge. Had we known it was that close, we probably could have done with only one pack amongst the three of us.

We finally saw what was causing the bright flashes of light. What we were looking at just made no sense at all. There was nothing, and I mean absolutely nothing, in the experience of three seasoned explorer-researchers, that would account for this.

There was a circular band of purple light, a circular band of yellow light, and a circular band of lime green light. Each coloured circle was about forty feet across. The band of light itself was about a foot wide. The three circles were on three different axis of a sphere. They were rotating as well, crossing over each other, each within their own plane, never touching each other. They were moving faster and faster. We watched in fascination, having found them only about three minutes before the next brighty-flashy-blast of light, burnt ozone and warm air wave was due to occur. We set our packs on the ground and we all took a seat. We figured if there was a pressure wave blowing the warm air then...

F-L-A-S-H ~ crackle ~ woosh

We all squinted, held up our hands protectively in front of our faces, and then cautiously looked at the circles. They had almost completely stopped moving, but not completely. There was also a large rectangular piece of glass in the middle of them. It was about thirty-five feet tall and twenty-feet wide. We were looking through it at a Paris streetscape, according to what I remembered from historical picture books in the museum. We looked from one to the other, completely stymied.

"So," Morris started, "Quantum window then? That work?"

We all nodded. At least we had something to call it.

I hurriedly opened my backpack and pulled out my digital camera. By the time I was lined up for a picture, I was looking at a lush meadow, filled with spring flowers. Two people were walking hand in hand, they seemed oblivious to the sudden voyeurs. I took the picture. Then I was looking at a manufacturing plant of some kind. Lots of smoke stacks in the background, and strange factory thingamajigs. The rings were moving noticeably faster now. Each time the vignette changed, the rings would speed-up. As the rings got faster, we finally noticed that the quantum window was getting smaller. Finally, after the final scene that came and went so fast we couldn't figure out what it was, the quantum window winked out of existence. As it did, we saw something fall to the ground underneath the spinning circles. It was then that we noticed there was a big pile of things on the ground. We'd been too distracted by the newness of what we were witnessing to take note of them previously. Morris jumped up and jogged towards the pile of stuff. The rotating rings were at least ten feet above the ground, so Morris had sufficient room not to get bonked on the noggin' by one of the rings. He grabbed a big armful of stuff and ran back to us.

Tossing the mysterious treasures on the ground, he plopped down to his knees and we all started pawing carefully through the pile: books, bathroom implements, a hairbrush, half-eaten food, pens, notepads, underwear, half of a fishbowl (broken), a lamp (broken), a plastic Google Play card that was still attached to its display cardboard, a few novels, a roll of ... toilet paper! It was all just everyday stuff, everyday stuff from a different world. Whatever location-time was the last vignette of the shrinking mirror seemed to be the location-time that the fascinating, though mostly useless, merchandise came from. Well, maybe not totally useless. The underwear looked like it would fit Fletch. Toilet paper hadn't been around for over 500 years. Morris' head of unruly red hair could sure as hell use a pass or fifty of the hairbrush. The novels were all titles I had never seen and I loved to read. If it hadn't been claimed, I could use the Google Play card (it was a $100 denomination) to top up my gamer account. Google, you see, was one of the few pre Proto-Gen War companies to survive the war and the shift of the planet's population. In fact, they were now the sole vendor of every computer and technological necessity of the last eight-hundred or so years.

"Hey," I nudged Fletch, "We should try and take a picture of the flash, when it happens."

"Sounds good."

"You got a stop watch, by any chance?"

"Here," said Morris. He grasped at something in the pile of loot and tossed it to me. It was a stopwatch. More amazingly, it worked.

"Okay," I held it up, it was almost time, "As soon as the next flash goes, I'll start the stopwatch, then we'll see if we can snap a picture at the exact second of the flash after, cool?"

"Cool," they both said.

F-L-A-S-H ~ crackle ~ woosh • click

We raptly watched the new scenes through the quantum window: a traffic jam on a highway, the air so warm it was shimmering; a city street with hundreds of dead bodies lying in it; children playing on a swing set in a backyard; what appeared to be soldiers in pressure suits, floating single file down a space station corridor; a chemistry lab where two men were arguing; a man and woman, obviously in love, sharing dinner in a restaurant; a teenage boy and girl walking in a park, heading right for the quantum window, oblivious to it; a woman in a kitchen, holding her head in one hand, her shoulders bobbing up and down as she silently cried; a man sitting on an overstuffed chair, reading a book, absently petting the head of a small dog on his lap; a woman sitting at a computer, writing an email; a large gymnasium, stacked to the rafters with bodies in black bags; a family watching television, except they were all dead; people slowly talking and laughing as they slowly strolled along the Champs-Elysees; a Buddhist monk meditating. This went on for several minutes until the images were coming too fast again to make them out. Within a few more minutes, the quantum window had disappeared and the rings were moving faster and faster. I noticed for the first time, that the light of the three rings grew brighter and brighter, the closer it got to the flash point. However, as bright as the rings got, and even though we could see them clearly, there were no colours reflecting on anything. Not on our faces, not on the ground, not on the snow. Totally weird. I guess maybe the nature of those lights that allowed us to see them but not to actually radiate, was why the teenagers could be seen walking right towards the mysterious window, without being aware of it.

I looked at the stop watch, ten minutes to go. Morris asked to see the camera; he wanted to look at some of the snaps of those bodies. Unfortunately, he scanned too fast through what few pictures I had managed to take. He very quickly got to the pictures from the date night I had with Vera, the week before flashy-mclighty showed up. He made quite the production of our intimate photo shoot. I cringed, not because he saw my junk, but because Vera was going to murder me when she found out Morris, of all people, had seen her junk.

Thirty seconds to go.

I grabbed the camera and set it up for the next picture, I handed the stop watch to Morris.

"Give me a countdown from ten."

A few moments later he started, "Ten – nine – eight – seven – six – five – four – three – two – one"

F-L-A-S-H • SNAP • crackle ~ woosh

The quantum window appeared again, right on cue. The rings, however, stopped moving. Through the window we could see a man in a laboratory, putting some things into a box. There were dead bodies on the floor and in chairs. A few seconds after the window presented this image, the man looked up and did a double take. He squinted at us, then slowly raised a hand and waved it. The three of us looked at each other in astonishment. Fletch raised his hand and waved back. The man stood there, dumbfounded. We were probably wearing the same dumbfounded expression he was wearing.

Morris stood up, cupped his hands around his mouth and yelled, "CAN YOU HEAR ME!"

The man touched one of his ears and shook his head. He mouthed something back at us, yelling, but we couldn't hear anything. We made the same gesture back to him. The man turned behind him and picked up something off the work bench. He stepped closer to the window, right up close to it. He put his hand out but it looked like it met a solid object. He couldn't pass his hand through the quantum window from his side.

We had been on this particular vignette much longer than any we had watched before. The rings, also, had not started moving again. They just hung there, immobile. It appears that in taking the picture, perhaps the flash of the camera occurring at the same moment as the flash of the rings and appearance of the quantum window, we had stalled the whole apparatus.

He looked down at the object in his hand, hefting it thoughtfully, making some kind of decision. He looked back up at us, smiled, and tossed the object. It came through the quantum window without hitting anything solid. It fell to the ground beneath it. Morris was up like a shot, ran under the rings and picked it up. He stood there, under the quantum window, looking at the object in his hand. He looked up, at that angle just barely able to see the man on the other side. Morris sneezed. The man on the other side was looking down, just barely able to see Morris.

Morris came back to us, walking unsteadily. He was sweating, he was crying, his hands were shaking. He started coughing, flecks of pink foam landing on the ground in front of him. The object he held was an open metal framework with a glass tube in the centre. The glass tube was broken and there was some remnant blue gel dripping out of it. Fletch picked it up turned the object over, we found a stamped metal label that read:

"Proto-Molecular Genetic Research Division, BL-5, Handle with Extreme Care"