I was pretty sure no one else knew about the wormhole—other than me, Lakshmi, Trochee, and Spond. But here were two women who I didn't know at all, right next to an open wormhole. One of them was sprawled on the ground—she had long, unkempt red hair and fair skin, and was dressed in all black. The other was crouched over her, a shorter woman in a jacket, with darker tan skin, glasses, and black hair in twists. She looked absolutely terrified.

"The wormhole got bigger, and she came out," she whispered, gesturing at the woman on the ground.

I ran up to the two of them. "Is she okay?"

"She has a pulse."

"Well, that's a good start."

"You know about the wormhole?" was her response.

I nodded distractedly. "Yeah. Yeah. One of my friends, he discovered it a while ago. I've actually never seen this one before." And, more importantly, no one but us had ever come out of a wormhole before.

Lakshmi would want to hear about this. But as I reached in my pocket for my phone, I realized that, in my haste, I'd forgotten it. I cursed under my breath.

"Hey, uh, can I use your phone?" I asked the woman beside me.

She eyed me warily. "Why?"

"I need to contact my friend who works with me."

"Coworker?"

"Yeah."

She wordlessly handed me her phone. I took it, typing in Lakshmi's comm number. But when I hit enter, a mechanical voice informed me, "Lakshmi Patil does not accept comms from people who are not in her contacts."

I sighed loudly, handing the woman's phone to her. "Well. I guess I'll talk to her when I get back." For now, I supposed I should investigate the situation a bit more. "So, how do you know about the wormhole?"

"I've been studying it," was her somewhat surprising answer.

"Studying it! What do you mean?"

"Well, I, I know when it opens, and how long it's open for, and all that." Her eyes darted between the unconscious woman, the wormhole, and my shoes, never once making eye contact. "General things like that. I don't know where it leads, though."

I took a deep breath. "Okay. I trust you haven't told anyone about it?"

"Of course not," she replied.

"Right. Good." I crouched down beside her. "Hey, let's back up a little. I'm Caerwyn. What about you?"

"Are you Welsh?" was her unexpected query.

"Um—yes, but I don't think that's relevant—"

"It's just that I recognized your accent. And your name sounds Welsh. Um. Anyway, I'm Melissa."

"And this is...?" I pointed to the other woman.

"Paloma. She came out of the wormhole."

"Ah, yeah, you mentioned. How come she's... y'know...." I gesticulated aimlessly, trying to remember the word. "Asleep? No, that's the wrong—"

"She's not asleep. She fainted."

"I know! What's the other word—"

"Unconscious?"

"Yes!" I clapped my hands in triumph. "Sorry, English is not my first language."

"Me neither."

"Really! You don't have an accent. What's your first language, then?"

"Spanish. I was raised bilingual, actually. And I assume yours is Welsh?"

"Correct. But. Anyway. Unconscious. She's unconscious. Why?"

"I don't know," was Melissa's somewhat disappointing response. "I think it has something to do with whatever's on the other side of the wormhole. Do you know where it leads?"

"Somewhat," I replied. "Never been through it, though—"

"Where?"

"Antarctica, apparently." Yet Paloma showed no signs of having been in the freezing cold.

"Apparently?"

"My friend Trochee said that."

"Could your friend Trochee be mistaken?"

"I mean—I guess he could—"

"I don't think she was just in Antarctica."

"Right. But Trochee entered all the data into the official map thing—you're only supposed to enter values that you've at least double checked."

A pause. Melissa furrowed her brow. "Could he be lying?"

"I'm not sure why he would lie." My gaze travelled from Melissa's face to the wormhole, and a different thought popped into my head. "Hang on a sec—isn't this one the wormhole that opens for like a minute and then closes?"

"34 seconds."

"Yeah. That. The question is, why is it still open?"

There was a pause. Then Melissa said quietly, "Maybe someone on the other side is holding it open."