The steel door shut with a resounding ka-chunk. Nik found himself in the middle of a long, curving room. Row after row of STMs dominated its dark interior. Nik questioned whether they served any practical purpose.

  "This way," Edy beckoned. He disappeared between a column of STMs. Nik trailed closely behind, all the while trying to take in the strange room.

  On one end of the room, he spotted something that looked like a much larger version of an STM power reservoir. It must have powered all of the STMs. Edy turned and led Nik to the other end of the room. Nik's eyes were drawn to every corner of the room until Valentine gently prevented him from colliding with Edy.

  "Here we are," Edy announced. Nik looked down at a shabby fold-up table filled with old computer equipment. Why the security? Half of the stuff needed to be updated.

  Edy must have sensed Nik’s disappointment. "Don't let it fool you," he declared, an eyebrow raised in intrigue. "Check this out." He grabbed a screwdriver on the cluttered table and unfastened the coverings of one of the old computers. Nik's jaw dropped when he pulled the cover away. Inside the innocuous computer casing was a highly sophisticated quantum data processor.

  Nik couldn't hide his disbelief. Computers like this were capable of handling multiple STMs at once, but they were also destroyed or stolen after the Trinity Attack. Nik spent most of his time trying to find even one.

  "Where the hell did you get something like this?" Nik asked.

  "Made 'em," Edy said, radiating satisfaction. Looking around the tables, Nik realized that all the old computers must have had these kinds of processors hidden inside.

  "You made these?" Nik looked at Edy with a new sense of respect. This kid was on a whole different level.

  "Yeah, you see the STMs around you?" He gestured. "I used these to do it." Nik looked around, perplexed. How could an STM help build these without an original processor?

  "Let me explain," Edy said, typing a command on the nearest monitor. An exploded digital blueprint emanated from a 3D light emitter. "This is the quantum processor. It's complicated and has lots of complicated parts, which are complicated to make." Nik nodded quietly.

  "To uncomplicate it. I took the schematic piece by piece and wrote save-state code for each component. Nik's jaw, having barely recovered from the revelation of the processor, seemed to detach from his face in shock as though it could bounce across the floor.

  "You wrote save-state code?" Nik couldn't even fathom writing the very coding of a save-state itself from scratch.

  "Yup, it was the single biggest pain in the ass I've ever had to deal with." Edy's smile grew. "Actually, I only finished writing it about a month ago. Once done, I pieced it together and began pumping these bad boys out like hotcakes."

  "But why so many?" Nik asked.

  "Because I needed something that was a higher order of power than a quantum computer," Edy replied cryptically.

  "Higher order?" Nik was trying to understand.

  "Look around you!" Edy gestured grandly to the rest of the hidden processors. You are in the presence of the first super-quantum computer in history." Nik suddenly realized why the security in this room was so tight. A burning question had entered Nik's mind.

  "What exactly is Gateway?" He asked carefully.

  "Two things," Edy said, holding up two fingers. First is to have the capability to readily isolate partitions of a save-state."

  "What is that for?" Nik asked.

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  "How about a demonstration?" Edy asked enigmatically. He looked toward Valentine.

  Don't look at me," Valentine deflected, pointing towards Heidi. "She's the pledge-making director."

  "GO!" she cried happily as she thrust out a thumbs-up.

  "I helped her write the pledge," Edy quietly grumbled. Heidi glared at him as he turned away. "First things first," he said, striding towards the nearest STM. "Valentine, if you will be so kind."

  "Order up," Valentine replied, pushing the STM's initiate button. Ten seconds later, Nik was looking at a pair of Edy's.

  "Ho, Captain," they said in unison. Nik stared at them, not knowing what to make of the situation.

  "Not the sharpest tool, is he?" one Edy asked.

  "We'd probably fare better explaining this to the Neanderthal exhibits in a history museum,” the other Edy replied.

  "Do you think he'll get the next part?"

  "Doubtful. It's a cold, windy day, and he's keeping up about as well as a dysfunctional pen-"

  "Erhmm!" Valentine loudly grunted while pointing up to Heidi.

  "Right," one of the Edys said, moving to Nik. He pulled out a pen and notebook. "Take this and write something." He pushed them into Nik's hands. "When you're done, I will read it."

  "And I won't," the other Edy added. Nik looked between the twin clowns.

  "Okay." Nik thought about it for a moment before writing something down. He had a sneaky feeling about where things were headed. When he was done, he handed it to the first Edy, who silently read it.

  "Ha! Funny," he chuckled. "Now, pay close attention." The two Edys stepped back into their respective STMs.

  "Ready," they said in unison. Valentine nodded and pressed the initiate button again. Ten seconds later, the version of Edy that knew Nik's secret statement had vanished into thin air. The remaining Edy then stepped out.

  "Edy, your fly is down," he said triumphantly. A moment later, his eyes grew wide in horror. He looked down to check himself.

  "Still the master, I see," Valentine said to Nik as he choked on his own laughter. Heidi hid behind his ponytail, giggling.

  "So you knew the secret statement," Nik concluded. After Edy was done with his self-examination, he looked back up.

  "Yeah, well, you understand it now, don't you?" he asked, somewhat irritably.

  "So you can store secrets and pass them to other people?" Nik asked.

  "Not exactly," Edy replied. "The computer isolates and analyzes the architecture of a person's nervous system. That data can be cross-referenced with a slightly altered copy of the same nervous system. Finally, it detects the minor change and applies a patch update, effectively passing the secret."

  "In other words, secrets can only be passed from yourself to yourself," Valentine added.

  "Yeah, we tried to do it with nervous systems from two different people, but it didn't end so well," Edy said nervously. Nik imagined it didn't go over so well. He didn't want to know what the result looked like.

  "This is mind-boggling," he remarked.

  "This," Edy began, grinning as he pulled out a save-state drive. It looked similar to the one Nik carried, only much smaller. "Is a mind-state." He paused dramatically.

  "Basically, you plug it into any STM, and it only saves the necessary information. Also, it can only be properly read by an STM powerful enough to process into an existing save-state." Edy tossed the tiny drive to Nik. He fumbled with it for a moment before examining it more closely. It was only about the size of his thumbnail.

  "And I'm so glad it worked because this was the first time we tried this outside of a simulation. I seriously was like two seconds away from wetting my pants."

  "I know the feeling." Nik thought back to his first-ever STM jump.

  "Anyway, like I said, that's the first part of Gateway," Edy said more seriously.

  "What's the second part?" Nik asked. If the first part was as impressive as the creation of a mind-state, he could only imagine what else this crazy kid had in mind.

  "Simple," Edy shrugged. "It's the holy grail of STM technology."

  "Holy grail of STMs?" Nik felt lost again.

  "Think about it," Edy said, giving Nik time.

  It took a minute of silence for Nik to realize what Edy was talking about. “You don't mean?" he said with sudden excitement. Edy nodded, looking like a wild-eyed, mad scientist.

  "Save-state data encryption?" Nik said in amazement. "You can do that?"

  "Well, not yet," Edy said, returning to normal. "But! Soon, I'll have the ability to. I just need to develop its architecture."

  "How long will that take?" Nik asked, barely containing his excitement.

  "If I were to ballpark it, I would say somewhere between five and ten-"

  "Months?" Nik interrupted.

  "Years," Edy finished. A sudden weight seemed to settle on Nik as his wounds made their presence known. He found himself needing to sit down on his rollator.

  "Five to ten years," he said distantly. It was the same timeline he had given General Parker all those years ago. It was simply too long.

  "Hey, hey, don't be down," Valentine piped up. "After all, there's still plenty of good work for us, especially since we have mind-states now.

  "Like what?" Nik asked. He felt exhausted.

  "Well," Valentine shrugged. "Aren't there some people who could use fresh air at your old job?" Nik perked up.

  "You mean?" his eyes grew wide.

  "Yup." Valentine said, "We're gonna crack that nut wide open and free everybody inside."