After putting the sign on the door, they went inside and Coop jammed a chair under the doorknob so no one could get in without him letting them.

“So, this is the door to Narnia?” said Coop.

Bayliss went and stood by the not terribly clean-looking microwave, the kind Coop had seen in a hundred offices on a hundred jobs. The models were always out of date and probably leaked enough radiation to make his contamination sign not so much a lie as a helpful hint.

“How did it work?” said Coop.

Bayliss mimed the movements as she talked. “All I saw was Salzman punching in a code on the keypad and then opening the microwave door the wrong way.”

Coop shook his head. “What does that mean? The wrong way?”

“Well, you know how microwave doors open from the right to the left? He opened it from the left to the right.”

“And you’re sure that makes it a portal to another dimension?”

She shrugged. “I’ve seen other portals and this one didn’t look so different. Of course, you couldn’t heat soup in the others,” Bayliss said, laughing nervously.

Coop set his bag on the break room table and unzipped it.

“How are you going to do it?” Bayliss said. “There are twenty buttons on the keypad. That’s millions of possible combinations.”

“I’m not even going to try,” said Coop. “They are.” He held up a small metal box.

Bayliss’s forehead furrowed. “Are those the binary ants we gave you for the Babylon case? You were supposed to give those back.”

He looked at her. “I’m a crook, remember? I kept some. I just hope it’s enough.”

Bayliss watched closely as he took the ants to the microwave.

“You might want to go over by the door. If I get this wrong, who knows what kind of transdimensional shit storm I’m going to start.”

“You think it might explode?” said Bayliss.

“As long as it doesn’t explode spiders, I can deal with it.” He stopped for a second and looked at her. “You know this is probably going to ruin your machine, right?”

“Good. We’ve needed a new one for years.”

“Okay,” said Coop. “Here we go.”

Here we go. Please don’t kill us.

He upended the container of ants onto the microwave’s keypad. They disappeared inside and the machine began to whir. Numbers and cook settings flashed on and off. The microwave started and shut down. Over and over. The carousel inside would move for a half turn and stop. Move a whole turn and stop. The keypad kept beeping.

“You think it’s working?” said Bayliss.

“Yes. I’m definitely ruining your machine.”