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.A gale force of alarm blasted through her, scouring away everything else.There was an entire squad of oni warriors with Riki to escort her and Ponyback to the workshop.Ironwood timbers sat stacked just inside the side door,which was padlocked shut again.A crew of humans sat waiting.They were AsiansPage 187 ABC Amber Palm Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abcpalm.htmlin blue jeans, T-shirts, and work boots.Tinker checked in confusion."Who are they?""They're the carpenters to make the frame out of the ironwood," Rikiexplained."I thought since you designed the framework yesterday, that you'dwant to get started on building it.We've got a tight deadline.""Wait, isn't this like your ultra-secret hideout? What the fuck are they doinghere? Did you kidnap them all? Are you going to kill them when they're done?"Riki blinked and glanced again at the carpenters."Oh, no, they're not humans.They're oni permanently disguised as humans, sort of like how the yap dogswere those big monster things.We had to immigrate them into Pittsburgh under Chinese visas."Tinker thought of the sprawling Chinatown on the Northside."Oh shit, don'ttell me all theChinese are oni.""Okay." Riki walked away.* * *She was growing sure that Riki had told her one truth a gate had only recentlyopened fromEarth to Onihida.Too many little things were pointing at it: the throwawaycomments aboutEarth-born oni, the carpenter's obvious awkwardness with the most basic ofpower tools, the famine-obsessed cook, the brown rice which turned out to be aluxury item not served to the carpenters, to their dismay.The list grew theentire morning.When she believed she was onOnihida, she hadn't paid attention that she was no longer on Elfhome had beenproof enough for her.Now she couldn't stop wondering about it.She had delegated building the framework to Riki so she could concentrate onlimiting the veil effect and making it the primary function of the new gate.Her biggest fear was she'd only swap the dimensional side effect with the jumpcapabilities of the gate and accidentally sendPittsburgh to Alpha Centauri.An hour of running models reassured her that ifshe did, it would be a very small chunk, most likely only the oni compounditself.Small loss there.Her mind, however, kept trotting back to the oni's door to Onihida.Riki hadsaid it was in an inconvenient spot; obviously it was located outside of theU.S., or the Chinese visas wouldn't be needed.Certainly, if the two doorswere on opposite sides of the planet, it could be called inconvenient.She jerked to a halt.Luckily only Pony noticed."What is it?""I think I know where their stupid door is," she murmured, wheeling her chairaway from the drafting table to her desktop screen and calling up a world map."I just can't believe no one's noticed before now."Like all the information on the gate, she had the location where the gate wasin geosynchronous orbit over the Earth's equator.She found the point andzoomed in."It's so simple.Pittsburgh is on Elfhome because the gate projectsthe veil effect down through the Earth, where the magnetic core bends it, kindof like a prism bends light, thus hitting Pittsburgh on the other side of theplanet."Only partially under the gate was a tiny island surrounded by ocean.Shelaughed."Of all the dumb luck, a few more feet and their gate would have beentotally in open water."Pony peered at the island for several minutes before saying, "I don'tunderstand.How can this open to Onihida, and this," he pointed to the otherside of the world, "open to Elfhome?""That's the simple part.The Earth core is acting as a lens.""Pardon?"She closed the incriminating map and opened a scratch file."Look, here'sEarth with the core in the center.This side is the China Sea, and the otherPage 188 ABC Amber Palm Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abcpalm.htmlside, up here, is Pittsburgh.The gate orbits over the sea.The veil effectcomes down a cylindrical shape, but the core acts like a lens.That means theveil is 'flipped.' " Seeing Pony's blank look, "You see things because lightcomes down and reflects off it.So if you have a tree, the light comes fromthe sun, hits the trees, and reflects to your eye."He nodded."Yes, I know this.""But if you hold a glass lens up between you and the tree, the light is bentby the lens.The top of the tree is bent to the bottom, and the bottom is bentto the top, so the image is flipped."Pony pointed to the tree."Onihida." And tapped the upside-down image."Elfhome.""Yes.That simple.For twenty years, every Shutdown and Startup, that tropicalisland has been going to Onihida and back, and no one has noticed.""Or noticed and the oni killed them.""Yes, that too."Pony pointed then to the gate in orbit
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