The colossal contraption, spanning over a mile wide, lit up with sudden brightness, bathing Alpha Site in its strange purple glow. The ensemble of scientists, military advisors, reporters, and helicopters flying overhead froze with baited breath, watching. Waiting.

This project had taken decades, incredible amounts of funding, cooperation from all the major powers of the world, and a truly obscene amount of power; the amount of energy required to put together and power the circular portal strained the resources the denizens of Earth had to offer.

A significant portion of the nearby land-based military surrounded the megastructure, prepared for any enemy that might decide to exploit the rift the portal had shorn between worlds. Commanders standing stock still, tense and ready.

Far above the ground, a steel bridge led directly into the center of the portal, constructed beforehand. All eyes were on the figures about to enter the world’s first attempt at trans-universal travel. This test could even pave the way for true teleportation.

An unnamed scientist stood upon the bridge, along with a couple technicians.

“The prototype drone seems to be responding well. This is it, I guess. I hope all those hours we spent machine-training this damn thing was worth it.”

“Relax. The bot’ll do just fine. People’ve developed fusion reactors already, and spatial tech. I’m sure the machine-learning processes will hold up; the amount of data storage they fit in this thing is unreal.”

One of the reporters in his helicopter continued to narrate to his captivated audience about the momentous occasion he had taken such lengths to reserve a spot at.

“This supermassive portal in front of us is the result of 30 years of hard work on the part of the United States the Americas, the European Commonwealth, and the Republic of Asia, with support from the African Collective and…”

The reporter twitched in disgust here.

“...Australia. Unfortunately, we are not allowed to disclose the exact location of the portal at this time, but we will get to witness the first ever portal test in history!”

The bot approached the portal, stopping a few meters away. The purple light glimmered on its smart metal skin, bouncing off the scattered alloy plating scattered upon its surface. The finest artisans the world had to offer had come together to craft the greatest reconnaissance battle bot the world had ever seen. Boasting spatial compression of over 10x resulted in an unreasonable amount of functionally being shoved into one creation.

The technicians left the bridge shortly after, commenting on how uncomfortably human the robot was: with perfect proportions and a featureless face, it stood stock-still, fearless. The scientist gave one last glance before departure.

“Reporting to the project director, all systems are a go. Parameters are within acceptable range. Test may begin.”

The director stepped onto the bridge, alone. He had spent half his life working for this very moment; this was his moment. He smiled a nervous smile. The bot turned its face to observe the director, eyeing him with miniscule pinhole cameras.

“Exploratory, you are cleared to enter the device.”

Exploratory turned around and closed the remaining distance. The portal warbled dangerously, spinning into itself over and over and over again. It reached out, a single finger coming closer, closer, closer…

Contact.

For a moment, there was absolute silence.

Then, the deafening crash of the portal collapsing in upon itself, flowing towards its center where Exploratory breached the field. Gasps, then screams of terror as the onsite staff fled at all speed, running, escaping a terrible fate. Exploratory watched the whole ensemble implode at high speed, towards its person. Its final thought as the pieces of the portal crushed it within itself at high speed was:

“Disappointment.”