About two hours south of San Dygri city there was a forest just off of the Rütway 86 highway eastbound partition. It was on the North side of the highway, cut off from the wildlife reserve to the west by Di-Rütway 81 and more or less cut off from everything. There were no roads in, and the triad of highways surrounding it were too fast for anybody sensible to bother stopping there. A small, unnoticed and barely traveled footpath traced from the south-western intersection between Rütway 86 and Di-Rütway 79.
Although the footpath was not known to anybody, it was known to one person, who sometimes took extreme measures to remain nobody. Although he didn't travel the path frequently, Allan did spend a lot of time within the forest. He would spend several days at a time in the forest, and while the forest itself was nothing spectacular, at the end of the path, at the north-northeastern edge of a small clearing was a large rock. It was a very standard rock that had been cut smoothly in half, although that was not apparent at first glance. Under the rock was a steel-panelled hole and a ladder leading downward about fifty feet. Opposite the ladder, at the bottom, sat a door. A plain door that pushed inward, as the tube down was fairly slim.
Allan sequentially flicked the four plastic light switches. Most of the lights, of varying types, came to life with a flicker or two, but the long fluorescent hanging lights in the far right corner almost always failed to ignite. Allan looked up through the hole to make sure he had pulled down the rock and, satisfied, re-entered and closed the steel door behind him. He hung up his jacket and walked to the end of the short, blank room. There used to be heaps of small mechanical parts lying around the room, and several tables with portions of working mechanics. However, the last piece had left the work bench one week prior. Allan put his hands on his hips and looked over his handiwork.
Four years of work had created a large inverted conical machine imbedded in the wall. Around the outside of the contraption ran a blackened steel track attached to the wall. Attached the steel track at opposite ends to one another, were two long protrusions, each coming out of a small geared box and bending in a slow curve to point inwards to the center of the cone. Both of the arms were steel, and were shaped due to numerous angular welds connecting two dozen incrementally smaller boxes into the arc form. At the tip of each arm were cylindrical brass housings, and from the tips of the brass housings were miniscule pins. On the outside of the curve of the arms were a jumble of wires and cables connecting the brass cylinders to the carts that carried the arms around the track. To the left of the large device was a large black box. On the face of the box pointing towards the door were four green lights, and four unlit red lights, as well as a scissor-switch below the lights.
Fourteen meters away was a wide, tilted control panel jutting from the floor. On the surface of the control panel were a multiplicity of buttons and dials. In the center of the console was a large covered button. The button contained a key hole, and the key had already been inserted.
From the base of the black box flooded hundreds of cables. The swarm of wiring split into two paths, one path spreading to numerous mechanical pieces of the machine. Wires covered the walls, crawling into narrow crevasses and panels. The other path of wires narrowed down, bunched together and disappeared into the base of the control panel.
Allan approached the control panel. It was the moment of truth. He popped open the glass case for the central button and turned the key. Above the larger button was a numerical pad. Keeping the key turned, he punched in a numerical code. There was a buzz, and as Allan looked up, the two arms began rotating clockwise, gradually picking up speed. Allan pressed down and held the button. The arms jerked slightly, and suddenly were spinning very fast. On the left portion of the stout control panel was a slide toggle. Allan slowly slid up the bar.
The center of the cylindrical form was a circular half-centimeter thick wall of pure gold. It had been one of the most difficult pieces to get a hold of. At the very center of the gold plate was a suspended particle of Francium. The only reason it hadn't decomposed was the unusually charged plate of gold.
There was a low hum, and Allan looked on impatiently. All monitoring systems had been engaged when the machine had been activated. All that was left was to watch. Based on previous experiments, he knew there would be no harm to him. Even at this scale, the size of the resulting reaction would only reach hundredths of nanometers in diameter.
The hum grew louder. Allan strained his vision to see the center of the plate. The arms spinning had two purposes. They both sparked the reaction as well as formed a kind of invisible shield between the experiment and the onlooker. Allan sighed in disappointment, and approached the console...
Suddenly there was a crack, and one of the arms slowed for a split second. The other arm slammed into the first, and both flew into the wall beside the black box, tearing off a large section of the track with them. The piece of track slammed into the black box, and a tongue of plasma erupted from it. The bolt flew from the black box into the gold plate, where the reaction was still taking place. Sparks began spewing violently from the gold plate, flashes of blue-white ignited the room. The lights exploded above Allan, sending snowflakes of glass to the ground in fast streaks. Allan looked around in horror, but his eyes were drawn to the center of the gold plate--
The gold plate slowly rippled outwards as like water when a stone is dropped into it. It rippled outward, and the center dipped in. The center of the plate kept dipping in, forming first a crater, and then a pit, and finally a seemingly infinite hole. The hole stretched wider and wider, and glass on the ground began slowly slipping towards it. Allan couldn't move, he was horrified, but fascinated. The growth of the hole quickened, until the gold plate was no more. In its place, a hole. There was a flash of light from within the hole, and suddenly Allan felt an incredibly strong pull towards the center. Allan slipped on the glass, and latched onto the control panel. The hole pulled harder, and there was a creak as even the control panel began to give. He felt like a fish being pulled in by a skilled fisherman. He tried to climb away frantically, but suddenly a corner of the control panel gave way, the whole unit bowing graciously to its conqueror, the mighty hole. Allan's finger slipped, and time seemed to slow. The black box sparked again as the last of the energy partition was drained and the killswitch engaged. The hole began to slowly close-- but it was already too late for him. As Allan was engulfed by the gold void engulfed him, he looked out in horror as his world slipped away.
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