The two young men did as requested, then came back. "Looks more or less intact," Leet commented, studying his invention. He was holding his tricorder, which he used to scan the thing. "Actually it's almost completely intact. As far as I can see, the main problem is that the gamma emission seriously damaged some of the structural parts around the singularity guide frame, which has warped. It relies on a very tight tolerance, even a few microns out of alignment would make it stop working." He looked slightly dubious. "I think."
"Singularity?" Armsmaster echoed, looking appalled.
"Of course. That's how you make a wormhole, you need a hollow singularity rotating at a very high speed. This thing makes one as a toroid and spins it up. It's a generated gravity field, not a real black hole, the mass is mostly virtual."
"Virtual mass." The Protectorate Tinker looked like he was in physical pain at the concept.
"Virtual negative mass, actually," Leet mumbled, on his hands and knees staring into the innards of the complex device. Dragon met her friend's eyes, both of them shaking their heads.
"How are you not running the world if you can do this sort of thing, Leet?" she asked wryly. He looked up at her, frowning a little.
"Mostly because they tend to fail pretty fast, and for some reason I can never make them work right again. Usually because they blow up if I try."
"Perhaps you shouldn't try in this case," Legend, who was watching with interest from near the door, suggested. "I can't help but think the words 'singularity' and 'blow up' shouldn't really be used together."