A slow truck driven by a cautious driver carried containers of toxic waste as it approached the checkpoint to an industrial complex. Large hangars filled with shipping containers stacked in neat rows lined both sides of the road. Sudden movements were not allowed since military riflemen and tanks guarded its entrance. The approaching truck stopped for its mandatory inspection. Unauthorized visitors were forbidden. Other soldiers, armed with far more intimidating paperwork on electronic tablets, used their stylus pens to record the truck’s license plate, the driver’s ID, and the contents of the cargo, making sure that the hazardous shipment was expected and pre-approved to enter. They also ordered the driver out of the vehicle and searched it for any contraband or stowaways. Finding nothing suspicious, it was with a swipe of the pen and not the wave of a gun that allowed the truck to pass through.

The truck drove under a heavy and imposing ten-story arch and it rolled inside a chamber of white light. A large overhead crane plucked the cargo of toxic waste off the truck and placed it on a circular platform completely clean of any other debris under the heavy arch. Over the platform and suspended by the arch was a massive, hollowed-out cylinder with the same diameter as the platform. Like an enormous electromagnet, thick coils of cables and supercooling tubes wrapped around the cylinder as it lowered itself over the cargo. As the cylinder hovered directly above the containers of toxic waste, the Transportal prepared to energize.

A small, nuclear generator buzzed and hummed as an electrical current, with enough juice to power a small town, snapped with an occasional electric arc. An alien sound came from all directions. A warning sign in front of the Transportal chamber displayed a message in tall, red letters:

Danger! Teleportation in Progress

On the platform, the containers of toxic waste glowed with a halo of soft, golden light, flickering and fading in and out of sight. Tiny particles streaked and bombarded the containers, causing them to become wavy and blurry. In a final burst of glittery white light, the containers of toxic waste disappeared.

At a touch-screen control panel, a uniformed Transportal operator looked at his dials on the screen. Below a bar graph with tall bars reaching 100% were the words:

Transmission to Destination Complete

Upon seeing this status, the operator pulled a slider control downward and the soft, golden light faded to darkness while the alien humming dimmed to a barely audible hiss. The warning sign in front of the teleportation chamber changed to green letters and read:

Transportal Status: Non-Operational

Safe in the knowledge that the containers of toxic waste had been teleported to their destination, the line of queued up trucks began to move again as the fearsome military personnel and equally fearsome paper-pushers continued with their checking, searching and verifying of the cargo entering and leaving the Transportal.

As for the problem of toxic waste, it was teleported away. The Ruling Party of the UEN took care of these nasty things. For a nation that took pride in its clean, modern image, the health and wellbeing of the UEN’s citizens was important, and pesky details like environmental pollutants were sent to some far away, inconsequential corner of the globe. The average citizen never had to think about it; out-of-sight and out-of-mind was all they knew or cared about.

About half a mile away, Kylian, the postdoctoral research assistant, watched the workings of the Transportal from an observation deck. The deck was a place where the citizens of the UEN were permitted to safely watch the process of teleportation, the transmitting of matter from one place to another without physical movement. Objects disappeared from Point A and re-appeared again at Point B. It was a technological marvel. The UEN showcased its technology to all of its citizens, impressing on them that advanced science was what made the UEN the only superpower in the world.

A guide passing Kylian led a group of tourists and recited his usual spiel.

“As many of you know, Dr. Leandre Renard, our era’s genius of particle and quantum physics, invented the technology to teleport matter across a distance by transmitting the information of the matter using entangled particles with the help of quantum supercomputers.

“After his technologies were commercialized, the local university of the UEN’s Capital City was renamed to ‘Renard University’ in honor of Dr. Renard. The UEN government established the National Laboratory adjacent to the university which continues to research and develop teleportation technology for the benefit of the UEN and its citizens.”

Many of the citizen tourists swelled with pride to be living in such a modern, futuristic society where the stuff of magic, like teleportation, happened all the time.

Kylian watched the process of teleportation with wide eyes, unaware of the tour group crowding around him to see the process for themselves.

Impressive! he thought. The sheer scale of this Transportal is massive! It sure beats the computer simulations of teleportation we used back at my old university. I can’t believe my application was selected by the National Laboratory to continue my post-doc research here.

“And who knows? Maybe I’ll finally meet a girl who can understand me too!” he reflexively said out loud, thinking of the beautiful girl he ran into earlier that week.

“Excuse me?!” said the woman standing next to Kylain, flabbergasted by his sudden proclamation of hope and desire.

Kylian cringed, his hair standing on end with embarrassment, realizing that he had, once again, spoken to himself out loud.

“No! Not you! I’m not attracted to you at all! I mean. . . there’s nothing wrong with you, of course,” Kylian said as he searched for words to neutralize the woman’s disgust.

“How rude!” The woman turned away and walked off in a huff.

Kylian peeked from behind his arms to make sure the woman he insulted had walked far away from him. After he was sure she had left, Kylian let out a sigh of relief, as his thoughts returned to the dream girl he had met in the underground train station.

So far, it’s looking pretty good, he thought, making sure not to say that out loud.