Gordon Savage: Our guest today is Dr. Melissa Kim, inventor of the first working teleportal on this earth. She just returned home after several weeks as the guest of the federal government somewhere in western Colorado. Dr. Kim, welcome.
Kim: Thank you, Mr. Savage. It’s a pleasure to be here.
Gordon: Call me Gordon, please. And it’s my pleasure to have you with us today. Could you tell us something about your stay as a government guest?
Kim: [Snicker] That’s one way of looking at it …. Actually, it wasn’t that unpleasant. We had good food and glorious scenery and we could continue working on making the teleportal safe for the general public, at least for a while. We just were totally isolated. Sort of like with the corona virus pandemic not so long ago.
Gordon: At least for a while? Are you referring to the contact with the Alternates?
Kim: Well that did provide a diversion, but no. I’m referring to Duncan Reid and that tragic explosion. Director Wells … Oh my, is it alright to talk about him?
Gordon: It seems you already have. As far as I know as long as you don’t lie about him, you should be alright.
Kim: He shut us down completely except for communicating with the Alternates, and the NSA had already gotten into that. Their agents were constantly looking over our shoulders. I was certainly glad when he saw the light. We have Samantha to thank for that.
Gordon: You mean Samantha Pederson, right? So where is your project right now?
Kim: Right. As for the project, I should probably go back a bit. Troy never stopped working on ways to secure individual portals even if he couldn’t touch ours except for communication with the Alternates, and that was limited. He used his spare time to improve our means of communication with the Alternates. That’s where he came up with the microportals.
Gordon: I’ve heard of those, a replacement for cell phones. When are they going to be available to the general public?
Kim: It turned out they need more power than you can pack in a standard smart phone, so the major carriers are building relays. We have several phone makers already making the phones.
Gordon: So we’re not getting away from cell phones after all.
Kim: Well, the plugin units for PCs have world-wide range, but yes, hand-helds will require a boost. But we’re getting off the subject.
We’ve incorporated the mass detector technology the Alternates were working on in the portals; so the government has okayed production. We’ve contracted out the airlocks and setup a production line for portals in the plant in Phoenix.
Gordon: Airlocks?
Kim: Yes, just think about it. Say you’re going from DC to Denver. There’s a substantial air pressure difference ….
Gordon: Tornado force winds. That would be one way of cleaning house … on the low altitude end.
So, when can we expect the units to be available?
Kim: We’re testing units now to make sure we haven’t overlooked anything. We’ve set a target date to finish testing and start deliveries on June first.
Gordon: Well, Dr. Kim, thanks for sharing your time with us, and good luck with teleportal production.
Kim: It’s been my pleasure. Thank you, Gordon.