The Erotic Mind-Control Story Archive

Under the Milky Way

Author’s Note: In September, 2012, Chrystal Wynd asked us writers to write stories with particular features. This was one of two entries I made into that event, and I had a lot of fun writing it. This is a work of fiction. Adult fiction. If you found this story by doing a google search of the title of this story, I think you were probably looking for the one-hit-wonder by the Australian band The Church. The technology described in this story does not exist, at least not as of the posting of this story. I welcome comments and criticism, and I invite you to email me at , read my writing blog, Poor Mudak’s Almanak, at mudak326.tumblr.com, "follow" me on Twitter (@JoeMudak), or "like" me on Facebook (Joe Mudak). Enjoy!

Chapter 1

President Robert Fitzwater strode into the packed White House press room, followed closely behind by three men and two women, all of whom appeared to be in their late 20s or early 30s. The five people following the president didn’t seem nervous or anxious but they all did appear to be somewhat overwhelmed by the room and the fact that they were, well, here.

Before President Fitzwater took to the podium, he shook the hand of a thin, gray-haired woman wearing a lab coat. He whispered, “Dr. Steiglitz, I’m going to need your help to answer some of the questions.”

The scientist smiled and said, “Please. Call me Amanda. That’s what I’m here for.”

“Thank you.”

The president turned and walked up to the podium. The five additional guests took seats behind Dr. Steiglitz, who smiled at all five of them in acknowledgment of their presence. The low murmur of the final conversations among the reporters quickly died out.

The president cleared his throat and spoke into the microphone. “Some days in American and world history are just etched into your brain. We’ve had some bad days, such as November 22, 1963, when President Kennedy was assassinated, or September 11, 2001. And we’ve had some truly inspiring days, like July 20, 1969, when Neil Armstrong first set foot on the moon. While today is going to be neither of those kinds of days, it is my complete honor to announce that some time over the course of the next two months, we will have another day like July 20, 1969.”

He turned to face Dr. Steiglitz, who smiled and gave him a ‘thumbs up’ sign.

“As some of you may be aware, twelve years ago, scientists at CERN, working on the Large Hadron Collider made a discovery that proved something that, up until then, only existed in hypothesis: the Einstein-Rosen Bridge, or a wormhole as it is popularly known. I’m sure many of us know what a wormhole is through some popular books and movies, but to make it clear, this is a means of traveling vast distances through space and time that essentially joins two points in the universe.

“This discovery has emboldened teams of scientists, engineers, and government officials to attempt to build a vehicle that is capable of traveling through a wormhole. It is my pleasure to announce that, as a result of a joint venture between the United States, Japanese, Chinese, Russian, and German governments, we will be sending a team of five astronauts into a wormhole to the star Gliese 667C, to take assessments of this system and return with more data. This particular star was chosen because in its orbit is at least one planet that most scientists believe is a strong candidate to support life.

“At this point, I’d like to introduce to you the five people who will soon board the Starship Darkview and head out to that distant planet.” He turned to face the five people who came in behind him and nodded.

“First, I’d like to introduce to you Captain Ichiro Miyamoto, who will be in charge of the vessel as it travels to that distant world.” The captain stepped forward and bowed slightly to the applauding members of the press corps.

“First Lieutenant Olga Dmietrieva.” The Russian scientist stepped forward and waved to the crowd.

“Lieutenant Wei Chung.” The Chinese pilot followed the first two in acknowledging the applause.

“Lieutenant Kristina von Bismarck.” The German waved and nodded.

“And finally, Lieutenant Jonathan Roosevelt.” The American flashed a very toothy grin and waved.

“This is truly an international team that would not be possible without the cooperation of not only our five countries, but every country that expressed an interest in supporting the research needed to make this day possible. To provide some more details about this mission, I’d like to call up my science advisor, Dr. Amanda Steiglitz.”

The president stepped back and the scientist in the lab coat stepped forward. “I think the president pretty much nailed it. The concept of an Einstein Rosen Bridge, or wormhole as a lot of people know it, is fairly straight forward.” She reached into her lab coat and retrieved a simple sheet of white paper, holding it high above her head for the press corps to see. The paper had a black line running through its center, connecting opposite sides of the sheet, and there were large black dots on either side of the line. “Forgive my low-tech demonstration, but we felt this was the easiest way to illustrate how a wormhole works.

“As we all know, the shortest distance between two points is a straight line.” She proceeded to illustrate this by tracing a straight line with her finger between the two black dots on the sheet. “While this would clearly be the shortest path between these two points on this sheet of paper, a wormhole would occur by folding the paper…” She creased the paper along the black line. “And now the two points are much closer together and we can then make an even shorter movement, a jump, if you would, from one point to the other. That’s how a wormhole works.”

For the past decade, some of our greatest engineers have perfected not only the process for opening a wormhole but also designing a vehicle that can easily traverse this wormhole without being destroyed in the process. The result, which we call Project Chrystal Heights, is going to contain the first humans to traverse across time and space via a wormhole of our own design. In order to minimize gravitational resistance, we will send them to a point outside of earth’s gravitational pull, but also away from mars’s gravitational pull, so that they can create the wormhole with minimal impact on any other celestial bodies. It will take approximately one month to reach the point where the wormhole can be opened, and then, in a matter of a few hours, they will be transported to Gliese 667C. We will lose radio contact with the ship while they are there, but we expect that they will stay there for two days. Based upon our clocks of course. They will conduct measurements, retrieve what they can, and return to us. We will defer the decision to use the same wormhole or to create a new one, to Captain Miyamoto based upon conditions they encounter. We’ve actually got a little office pool going about which it’s going to be. My money’s on creating a new wormhole. At any rate, a month later, they will be back home on earth and we will spend a significant amount of time analyzing the information they can retrieve. Do you have any questions?”

A reporter in the front row raised his hand. “Is this faster-than-light travel? I remember seeing a movie a while back that said that time will move differently for them than it does down here on earth. Will any of us still be alive when they return?”

Dr. Steiglitz laughed. “I think you’re thinking of the movie Contact, with Jodie Foster and Matthew McConaughey. It’s interesting. That movie got a lot more right than anyone at the time might have known. In that movie, Jodie Foster travelled through a wormhole and was gone, by her own estimation, 18 hours but to everyone observing her, she never left. It is true that we can reasonably expect time to work differently for the crew of the Darkview, but even if we factor out the two months for traveling between earth and the wormhole and back, we can expect time to pass a little bit more slowly for the crew than it will for us down here. Our current calculations indicate that, while the crew will be near Gliese 667C for two days, it will seem more like four days to us here on earth that they’ll be in radio silence. So I think it’s safe to say that most of us will still be around when they come back to earth.”

A few more hands went into the air. Both Dr. Steiglitz and the entire crew remained poised and calm as they answered questions about the physics of the process, hopes and fears for the missions, and general admissions of nervousness as to what, exactly, the crew was going to find.