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clifford_a-_pickover_surfing_through_hyperspacebookfi-org

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SATAN AND PERPENDICULAR WORLDS 67<br />

Exotic matter has special properties that will enlarge and hold open a<br />

wormhole. Maybe some advanced extraterrestrial civilization has such a<br />

device, but we don't know."<br />

You motion to all the police cars with flashing lights. "Let's find out<br />

what's happening here." You get out of the car and walk over the manicured<br />

grounds toward the White House entrance.<br />

A large man wearing a Secret Service—style radio earpiece and dressed<br />

in a black suit with a hundred-dollar haircut is standing dead center in<br />

front of the entrance with his finger pointing at you. The man is at least<br />

six feet five, 250 pounds, with a neck twice the thickness of yours, and a<br />

nose that has been broken more times than you care to imagine. He<br />

seems one part football player and one part weight lifter. "No one enters<br />

the White House," he says.<br />

You flash your FBI badge.<br />

The man shakes his head. "No one enters the White House."<br />

You sigh. This conversation wasn't going to be productive. "Whose<br />

house is this?" you ask.<br />

The man looks confused by that one.<br />

You point to yourself. "My good man, the answer to that question is<br />

simple—the house is mine. I'm a taxpayer. I'm also from the FBI. Moreover,<br />

I'm here to protect the president from the Omegamorphs." You feign<br />

left, cut right, and step into the White House with Sally close behind.<br />

The man puts his huge ham hand on your shoulder. This is not a wise<br />

choice—even for someone so much larger than you. You have the odd<br />

but compelling idea that your FBI badge entitles you to investigate<br />

crimes.<br />

You countergrab the man's hand. The palm of your right hand lifts the<br />

man's arm at his elbow joint, causing the arm to hyperextend, and then<br />

you form a chicken-beak shape with your right hand as you swipe the<br />

man's arm away.<br />

Suddenly there is a scream from within the White House. You race<br />

<strong>through</strong> the East Room and then <strong>through</strong> the Red Room. You dash past<br />

paintings of Abraham Lincoln, Zachary Taylor, and John F. Kennedy.<br />

Finally, arriving at the State Dining Room, you find the president. He is<br />

surrounded by blobs, obviously one or more creatures from the fourth<br />

dimension.<br />

The president's Secret Service surround him, pointing their weapons<br />

at the fleshy blobs, but it's hard to get a clean shot at shapes constantly<br />

changing size and disappearing and reappearing.

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