Ben was about to start the second season of Dexter when the dinosaur walked past his house.

It had a huge teeth-filled head and looked like a T-Rex. It had to be a T-Rex. Ben was in his home office on the second floor of his house when he saw the giant head bob past his window like that of a bird. He was supposed to be working, but Dexter is just so bloody good!

Ben believes the dinosaur will keep on moving in a straight line, and not turn like the herd of Zebra did two days ago. Those fuckers destroyed his picket fence and the flower beds behind it before they returned to their time. He forgot to park his Suburban in the shed, and he believes the sight of it caused the Zebras to change course. He knows this is true for other motorists when he races up on them in that lovely black American made behemoth.

He walks to the window and sees the prehistoric giant return to where it came from. Its giant head disappears first, almost like it was passing behind a large mirror, and Ben watched it until it was gone.

These visitors never stay long. All the things that have passed by Ben’s house in the last month always seem to be running and leave as quickly as they arrive. Their worlds seem to intersect with this one in a half circle with a radius of roughly forty feet. It must be different worlds, or different times. As far as he knows dinosaurs and Zebras never existed in the same timeline.

He tries to memorize the spot where the T-Rex disappeared. It should be easy to find, the animal’s claws left deep scrapes in the concrete driveway. He needs to measure the distance to see if the size of the intersection of worlds remains a constant. He is a scientist after all.

***

Ben is a retired theoretical physicist. Retirement is a moot point. He still works sixty hours a week. Being a scientist, you never really retire. You still think, work and experiment like always, just without salary and benefits.

He caused this rip in space time with one of his improvised experiments. On that day his equipment was in the way of a herd of stampeding Mammoths, and everything was destroyed. Ben had stepped away to refill his drink when this happened. He was on his porch when the group of hairy elephants appeared out of thin air and smashed everything in their way.

This runaway success, pun intended, of the last experiment was accidental. Ben was doing more drinking than thinking at the time, and he cannot remember what he did differently from the countless previous attempts to simulate a singularity. To be totally honest he never expected to ever create anything. Like any good scientist he sets certain parameters on a repeatable process, observes the results and then attempts to describe the process using math. That’s it, that’s science.

Maybe the whiskey was the missing parameter. Tullamore is good stuff. Drink enough of it and you will tell people more than they need to know! It probably affected him enough that he transposed some set of numbers, causing the singularity to come into being. Too late now, he does not remember, and everything is trampled anyways.

***

Ben grabs his rangefinder wheel from the shed and considers the space where the singularity must be. It is invisible. There is no smoke or shimmer or shadow that gives it away. Ben placed cameras after the appearance of the Mammoths, and he was able to pinpoint exactly where the singularity must be. He marked its position with a yellow line across the driveway.

It appears that nothing from this side can pass through the singularity. Ben used a garden hose, and the spray of water showed no disruption. He used a camera and took photos with a variety of filters. The photos revealed nothing. This accidental portal appears to allow one way traffic only. There was no radiation to detect, no temperature fluctuations and no sound emanating from it. Absolutely nothing. The same was true at the other end, there was nothing observable at all.

Studying the footage Ben watched things materialize out of thin air, usually in mid stride, its original intent momentarily replaced by surprise when it realizes it is in a different place, just to run right out of this new environment before it can make any sense out of the situation. He wonders what will happen when one of these things stops and lingers. The Zebras turned ninety degrees and still disappeared within the radius, so Ben thinks escape into his world is not possible. He does not know for sure; more observation is needed.

After the group of Mammoths Ben has seen a Pterodactyl, a swarm of large and mean looking wasps, a mostly normal looking horse with a single horn growing out of its forehead, a troop of apes carrying tools, the destructive Zebras and now this T-Rex.

From these observations he knows that the portal opens at random times, or it might always be open, and things just happen to pass through at random times. Either way, he does not like to be inside that half circle, so he wastes no time with his measurements.

Ben can already tell that the radius is not the same. The measuring wheel clicks of forty-eight feet. Since the apes passed through it grew eight feet! It has remained constant all this time. Why it is expanding is a worrying mystery, and more observation is needed. His house is still well outside the half circle, and he will not know if the radius grows until more things pass through. Ben paints a new finish line using yellow spray paint and adds the date and time. Next time he will have more data.

***

Two days later a deep thrumming sound wakes Ben. He looks at his watch and notes that it is three am. Thirty-three hours have passed since the T-Rex passed through. The sound was coming from the singularity, and it filled Ben’s head with a strange resonance behind his nose and eyes.

He rushes to the window and is momentarily stunned by the alien looking craft hovering in the half circle. It appears impossibly large and parts of it extend outside the radius at both ends. Several hatches were open, with ramps extending to the ground. Various vaguely bipedal forms were moving about, carrying things from his shed back to the craft.

His work! These bastards were stealing his life’s work. Anger replaces awe and Ben rushes downstairs to confront these multidimensional thieves. He runs through the front door and leaps over his porch, ready to fight to save his intellectual property. He saw none of the beings and rushed into the shed. Four of them were surrounding the Suburban, clicking animatedly at each other while a fifth was inside the vehicle in the driver’s seat, yanking the steering wheel left and right.

Ben grabs a shovel and advances on to the nearest one. It turns towards him, and Ben is suddenly lifted off the ground and held in place by some unseen force. He is unable to move his arms or legs, but can still turn his head, see and hear and most importantly breathe.

The creatures are humanoid with arms and legs that are just too long for their square and stocky torsos. Elongated heads seem to grow directly out of the torso with no visible neck. The being that caught Ben in this force field turned its whole body, and its legs twisted like spaghetti to allow for the movement. It drifted towards Ben and its legs untwined and trailed behind it.

Always the observer Ben noted that the beings had forward facing eyes and wide mouths. No noses were visible, but the squat torsos had gill like openings under the arms. Their arms and legs moved like tendrils, and each ended in four fingered hands. One of them removed something from a pack on its back and Ben could see the dexterity of those hands. It reached for Ben’s head and he noticed the object in its hand was a fearsome looking bug of some kind.

‘Keep away from me you fucks!’ Ben shouted, struggling against the unseen force holding him in place. His head became restrained by the same force and the alien deposited the bug on Ben’s shoulder. The bug extends tendrils of its own towards Ben’s head and pulls itself to his ear, and then burrows into his ear. There was no pain, just high frequency tones interrupted by the excited clicking from the aliens.

The clicking stopped and Ben heard a soft female voice speaking directly into his head. ‘Do not be afraid, we come in pieces.’ it said soothingly. ‘Huh?’ Ben says confusedly. The aliens huddle for a second, and Ben knows they are clicking at each other, but he cannot hear anything. The alien that delivered the bug to Ben’s head turns back to him in that disturbing twisted limb way, and again the voice spoke up. ‘Apologies! Do not be afraid, we come in peace!’. The alien shows Ben the peace sign, a V formed by its middle two fingers. Its palm is facing itself, basically telling Ben to fuck off. Ben lets it slide.

***

Once the aliens are certain Ben will not use the shovel as he intended, he is lowered to the ground and released from the force field. ‘Why are you taking my things?’ Ben asks after putting the shovel down. The answer arrives directly in his head, ‘This research is dangerous to all worlds. The path you opened will continue to connect your world with others, randomly. It is a question of time before something visits you that cannot be controlled by the limits we have placed on dimensional merging. Already your singularity is extending its penetration into your world, and it will continue to do so until it engulfs your reality completely, with disastrous consequences for all.’

It is amazing that a couple of clicks contains so much information. Ben was very curious what all the excitement about the Suburban translates to. ‘We adore your transport wagon! We love the simplicity of it, its purposefulness and its simple beauty!’ the sultry voice says softly inside Ben’s head. ‘They can read my mind!’ Ben thought. The answer comes immediately, ‘Yes! We are inside your head now Ben of earth.’

The alien shows Ben the peace sign again, this time with the palm facing outwards, changing the meaning from a curse to a wish for peace. It grins widely, showing off lots and lots of sharp teeth, and when Ben is alarmed by the sight the grin widens and the voice speaks again, soothingly, ‘ We no longer eat people Ben, we are vegan!’. When Ben reacts to this with shock, they all look at each other and burst out laughing. The voice in his head did not have to translate this, Ben knew he was being teased.

***

In a few hours the picket fence and flower beds were miraculously restored, the painted lines and T-Rex claw marks were removed from the driveway. One of the aliens approached Ben, floating towards him with arms and legs trailing. The voice in his head spoke up; ‘Ben, it is time for us to go. We truly enjoyed your mind and your amazing insight into your current science. Just like your transport wagon it is a thing of beauty. But we must do something terrible now. When we leave your head, you will become very tired and go to sleep. We will also take from you all memories of this encounter, and we will remove your lust for knowledge about singularities from your head. These things are just to unstable too work with. Please understand that this is for the best.’

Ben felt the voice bug leave his head, and on the way out it whispers, ‘We will give you another goal to pursue Ben’. Before Ben could respond he was overcome with the desire to sleep, so he did, and very well.

***

Ben wakes up feeling refreshed and alive. He had the strangest dream but cannot remember any detail. All he is left with is an unshakable feeling that all is well with creation, and that we are in good hands. He is overcome with a desire to develop technology that will harvest the sun’s energy and store it in a new kind of battery that is smaller and lighter and safer than anything that exists today. Ideas flood into his mind and he can almost see the diagrams and formulas that will make this possible. A new kind of electric motor also seems very possible.

Ben jumps out of bed and heads to his shed, still in his pajamas. He did not even brush his teeth or make coffee. He absentmindedly puts his index finger in his right ear and rubs it furiously, for some reason it itches and tingles.

The first thing that he will convert to use his new batteries, motors and solar cells will be his classic 1966 Suburban.

Time to get to work. Having a goal and a plan is most magnificent!