Project Skyportal
I placed my manicured finger firmly on the biometric scanner, and the door slowly screeched open as I walked inside my hotel room. The beds were freshly made, the floor was vacuumed, and the room smelled of fresh lavender; just the way I like it.
“Welcome Ms. Somasundaram” replied the room’s A1, the voice of a female that was interrupted by the door that shut behind me. The A1’s were robotic devices that were installed in every room to welcome its guests. For all the intelligence the A1 had, she had an odd habit of making my last name sound very bizarre; ‘Somasyndrome’ is how it was pronounced. But the sad truth was that most real people couldn’t say it correctly either.
“Laptop on” I said assertively. The hollow frame on the wooden desk quickly blinked to life; I sat down on the cushioned chair. In the past few years, I had made a habit of creating these occasional video logs. I didn’t know who would actually sit through and watch my rambling, but I felt the need to do it anyway.
“Activate video log” I added, and the screen in front of me filled with the image of a woman of Indian descent wearing traditional attire, she appeared to be in her late forties. Her brown skin was slightly wrinkled, her long, dark black hair was graying and her round spectacles gleamed from the lamp that was next to her. I looked somewhat tired. As I reached for the bottle of water on my desk, the woman on the screen did the same. I grabbed both ends of my laptop frame and expanded it to increase the size of my screen, now it also showed the same birthmark I have on my neck. I was ready to begin my video log for the day.

New York City-North America Union
19:45 EDT June 2060
Video Log 658
The meeting at the Empire State Building lasted for an agonizing four hours. The final assessment has been completed; a simulation run has been conducted and the initial test run is going to happen in just a half an hour. Needless to say, I will be watching it from my hotel balcony. I have a clear view of the sky, it will be a small circular light that will float across the sky for less than a minute. ‘Project Skyportal’ is an ambitious multinational effort that had taken the majority of humankind’s intellectual and economic resources for the past twenty five years. I have spent a large bulk of my career working on it. Initially, it was only the public policy work that I handled. Now that everything was in full gear, I mostly handled last minute intelligence related work. The media was growing increasingly restless, a project on this scale was perhaps the most difficult task ever to be managed by the intelligence community. We had various spectators around the world that have tried to damage our intentions of successfully concluding this project such as a man named Mr. Alexander Petrov. He had a routine of constantly intruding into our project. We’ve taken extra precautions to watch out for his cruel endeavors. Something about his nature is against everything that I hope to accomplish. 
One might ask, what is there to hide? Any amateur astronomer could see the thing being built while it was in orbit; it was massive, almost .5 kilometers on diameter. Shuttles arrived daily to add additional parts as everything couldn’t be added on at once. The logistical demand was enormous as well; even the newly constructed space elevators were overwhelmed. My team was building a generator, dubbed the ‘Alcubierre Drive’ after the Italian scientist, Brandon Salazar, had proposed the idea in 1996. The ring shaped generator would direct energy to a highly dense core and stretch out the energy milliseconds after in order to be able to create a gap between both space and time. The gap would be a few meters across, just enough to allow small space probes to enter through. In theory, it would have travelled several light years upon its entry to a set coordinate. We still have a long way to go before we start sending spaceships to stars, probably another thirty years or so, but this is definitely a good start. It’s crazy to think that a project like this would have been equivalent to trillions of dollars years ago. It had taken some incredible scientists to prove this device was possible, otherwise, I doubt politicians would have accepted it.
Crash! The screen went blank, followed by a loud buzzing noise, and I was no longer able to see myself. It began shuttering rapidly, and a familiar face appeared, a face that wasn’t my own. It was a man that seemed to be in his late thirties with a cleanly shaved face and bright blue eyes that looked suspicious. It took me a second to realize that this man was my competitor, Mr. Alexander Petrov. It’s been a couple years since I’ve seen him. Our last encounter was back in 2058 when he had made an attempt to steal our idea of this probe. We were lucky that he wasn’t so successful in doing so.
“We meet again, Ms. Somasundaram. I see that your project has finally come to a conclusion. Well, I’m here to change that.” I tried to take in what he just said, acknowledging the fact that it was impossible for him to create any delays for Project Skyportal. There was no way; the configurations were set, the time of release was ready, everything was established.
“What is it with you and always interfering with my goals? I’ve gotten this far, all my hard work was paid off. What could you possibly do to ruin it now?” I pleaded, hoping for a slight bit of sympathy from him. I felt somewhat pathetic, and hopeless.
“You’ll see for yourself.”
I saw him in an unknown room that appeared to look like a lab. He was decoding command actions into our company’s computers, and bam! The screen went blank again, Petrov was out of sight. I knew he was up to something the moment I saw that evil smirk of his.  But how did he possibly get the information to access our computers? Questions sprinted through my head, and I couldn’t believe what was happening. It was like seeing my dreams get crushed right in front of me. The worst part is, I have absolutely no control over it. If the launch of this generator isn’t released today, it wouldn’t be able to release again till another ten years due to the amount of time it takes just for preparation.
I heard a loud speaker outside.
“Abort launch! Abort launch” the speaker franticly repeated itself. They must have seen the cancellation message that Petrov sent. I sat there, wondering what to do. My heart was beating faster and faster as the clock ticked. There has to be a solution to this dreadful nightmare. Suddenly, I remembered that I went through a stage of learning how to hack computers to prevent hackers and viruses back in my freshman year of college, my small amount of knowledge for that topic may actually become useful with a little assistance. I called my co-worker, Brett Harring, who was the software engineer for the generator. Brett is a calm, reserved person and doesn’t usually talk to people. He spends much of his free time working on job related work as he believes that he can always improve the quality of what he does. He was always quite passionate about computers and was pretty knowledgeable about all the hacks and tips that your average person wouldn’t know.  He was staying at the Marriot hotel, a couple blocks away from me.
“Brett Harring,” he answered with a mellow tone.
“Brett, it’s me. Petrov is on to us, he’s hacked our computers and is attempting to cancel the launch of the generator. We have to do something before it’s too late.” I said breathing heavy with a touch of anxiety.
“I’ll be right there.”
KNOCK. KNOCK. KNOCK. Brett came crashing in as soon as I opened my door. His tall structure had to bend his knees in order to avoid hitting the chandeliers attached to the ceiling. He was carrying a handful of devices. We began the process of trial and error, and plug and play. We hooked up the wiring to the computers and waiting patiently for it to load so that we can begin hacking back into our systems computers. Brett was in charge of the coding to protect our company information from being infected by the software bugs Brett may have released. I, on the other hand, was making an attempt to see how we can hack back into our personal files to prevent Petrov from completely deleting them and stopping the launch.
“Ah-ha, Here it is! He hasn’t completely deleted everything yet, there’s still hope.” Yelled Brett. From our ten years of working together, I’ve never heard him talk in this tone of voice. I typed in numbers here and there, performed calculations and did everything I possibly could. I’ve never been so determined in my life.
“Alexander Petrov. You’re not getting in the way of this,” I whispered to myself. Everything became quite, it’s like the world had just paused. We waited, patiently, and restless. All of a sudden, I saw the red coding become green with the word “Complete” in bold letters across the screen. I’ve never felt so relieved in my life. We have successfully saved the release of Project Skyportal.
We had another twenty minutes left before the launch. I sighed, with a hint of both joy and shock that we were able to save the project. Petrov was no longer an issue. Hopefully he’s realized by now that there’s nothing he can do to damage the work of determined individuals that will do anything to accomplish their goals; there’s nothing in the word more powerful than that. Everything was exactly the way it was supposed to be. The time was perfect to get in another video log before the launch after everything that just happened.
New York City-North America Union
22:30 EDT June 2060
Video Log 659
I often question my capabilities. But for the first time in a while, I’ll admit, I am actually proud of humankind and of myself for successfully going through this journey and dealing with the adversities that came with it. I expected much different. This century hasn’t exactly been the best; it had started off in a turmoil, and had worsened by the time I was early into my career. The civil unrest on a global scale was endless indeed. There were revolutions, counter-revolutions, civil wars, militia warfare and global terrorism. Of course, the nature of the work that I participated in was more bleak and sensitive; in fact, I am still not authorized to mention some of it. When stretching space time was proven possible, it changed everything and paved the way for peace in humanity; something that I never thought possible a few years ago. Nations began contributing enormous amounts of funding on an unbelievable scale. It is true, knowledge is power. And with knowledge, one can do anything, and become anything. Today, knowledge was able to save the hard work of thousands of individuals from going to waste, who knows what it will save us from next. I cannot say that my life has been ‘fulfilling’ or even ‘happy, but I have grown to realize that these are just vague terms. I can, however, say that I am proud of human ingenuity and of myself for taking part in this endeavor. I, Ms.Somasundaram, can now say that I have been a contribution to the future innovation of mankind.
“End video log” I said with my mouth dry from talking. I inhaled the scent of the lavender air freshener, took a deep breath, and finished the bottle of water on my table. I got up from my chair with my spine cracking in protest and slowly entered the balcony greeted by the warm air on this summer night and waited patiently. Soon enough, a bright object floated across the sky, followed by a thunderous applause from the tens of thousands of people below.