"Alright, fine," Zach said, "We'll let him in." He walked up to the door, still questioning if this was the right choice. Something could easily go wrong. But, then again, if they kept trying to hide the city from Alan, there was a good possibility that he wouldn't leave them alone for at least another hour, and he might even try to sneak in the room and mess with stuff, which could result in him accidentally destroying it.

So, Zach opened the door and sighed, "Okay, Alan. You can come in. But when we show you this, you have to promise to be really, really, really careful, okay?"

"Yes, yes! I already said I won't break it! Let me in!" Alan said excitedly as he tried to rush into the room, but Zach was still blocking him as he continued, "No, really. This thing might break very easily. Even moving too fast without even touching it is too risky. So, go up to it slowly. And when you actually see it, stay calm. I don't care if you think it's the most amazing thing ever, don't start doing.... what you usually do when you get excited."

"Yeah, yeah, I got it!" Alan said. Zach still doubted that he listened, so he asked, "What did I just say, then?"

"Something about being careful and not moving and stuff, even if it's really cool, because then it'll break, right?" Alan said as he looked up at his brother, desperately waiting for him to just let him in.

"Wow, you actually listened," Zach commented as he moved out of the way, allowing Alan to enter the room. Finally, he could see this "absolutely fascinating thing" Zach and his friends were looking at.

"Alan, buddy!" Nate said happily, though still quietly enough to not break the city. "We're so happy you could join us. Today, a great discovery has been made. A true moment in history. And now, you have the honor of looking into the...the.... uh...glass and seeing a piece of a world outside of ours. A land full of wonder beyond anything you could imagine! Something that only.... lived in..... our minds for so long has finally come to us. Are you ready to see it?" He decided to deliberately talk like...that in order to make the city seem even more mysterious (he also just thought it was funny). But all that did was confuse Alan.

"Huh? Why are you talking weird? Can you tell me what it is already?" Alan complained.

"If we told you, I'm, like, 95% sure you wouldn't believe us. I know I wouldn't have believed Zach if he never actually showed it to me. What about you, Dan?" Nate asked.

"Yeah, I wouldn't either,” Dan responded.

“I’d believe it. I know I would!” Alan stated in response to both of the older boys.

"So, if I told you that we had a magic crystal that was bringing everything in here to life and spitting out a bunch of copies of your favorite thing ever, you would believe me?” Nate asked with amusement.

"Um, well, I... no. Maybe? If...if you could really show it to me, then I guess. Wait, are you saying you have magic now?” Alan asked, his eyes once again widening in excitement, though he remembered his brother’s instructions to restrain himself.

“Eh, I wouldn’t call it ‘magic,’ but it’s still not…um…normal. It’s very weird, but in a good way,” Dan explained.

“Ooooh, that sounds fun! Where is it?” Alan asked as his eyes continued to dart around the room.

“Look through that,” Daniel said as he pointed to the microscope, so Alan started to approach it.

“Alan, wait,” Zach said as he remembered one more important thing he had to tell his brother.

“What now?” Alan groaned in annoyance, wondering what Zach was going to tell him not to do this time.

“Try not to touch the blue card. If you really have to touch it for whatever reason, then only touch the edges very lightly,” Zach said, and Alan agreed to follow those instructions. Then, he reached the microscope and started to look through it.

“Yes, child! Gaze upon the brilliance of the-” Nate started to say enthusiastically.

“Seriously, why are you talking like that?” Dan asked before Nate could even finish.

“It’s fun. Is there a problem?” Nate asked, smirking playfully at his friend.

“I…whatever,” Dan replied.

As Alan stared through the lens of the device, he was immediately surprised to see what looked like a miniature city in the center of the vast landscape of the index card.

“Wooow, there’s, like, a…a bunch of little buildings. And…. oh, I see something moving!” Alan said. He turned to look at the others and asked, “Did you guys make this? How did you do it? It looks awesome! But isn’t it too small to play with?” He thought it was some kind of toy city that Zach somehow made that tiny. He assumed the things that were moving were also toys that were powered by batteries.

“No, Alan, it’s not a toy,” Zach told him, “It looks way too real. And the way people in there moved looked…um…. natural? I don’t know if I’m explaining it in a way that makes sense, but I’ve never seen toys move or act like that. And no, we didn’t make it. I just found it.”

“Wait, you’re saying it’s real?” Alan asked in shock. “Yes,” Zach replied, “That’s why I kept telling you to be careful.”

Alan looked through the microscope again, examining every detail of the city. How could something like this be real? It was so hard for him to understand, and he was amazed by it. The others watched with varying degrees of amusement as the younger kid remained utterly transfixed by this new discovery for the next few minutes. Zach himself was calmer, since Alan wasn’t doing anything that could potentially destroy the tiny civilization. In fact, like the others, he thought the way Alan was just standing almost completely still and staring at the mysterious thing with extremely wide eyes was rather funny.

Meanwhile, back in the city, your team watched the kid inspect everything. Sara thought it was kind of adorable, while Rick, as usual, was annoyed. He complained, “Even if they aren’t dangerous, they’re still bothering me! Especially this one!”

“Come on, Rick. They’re a just bunch of kids who have never seen anything like us before. Of course, they’re going to be fascinated and want to observe us for a while. At least it really looks like they’re trying to help us,” Sara told him.

“Yeah, and if you’re really so annoyed by all this, then, if everything goes well, the teleporter will be ready in a few hours. So, you won’t have to suffer forever,” you told him. You were starting to get just as annoyed by his comments as Sara was.

Tom was helping you finish the communication device. You wanted to finish it so that you could let the kids know that you were leaving. You didn’t want to just suddenly disappear. That might make them think something awful happened and they were responsible for it.

Finally, Alan turned his attention back to the others. “Zach, I love this! How did you get it?” Alan asked as he ran over to where Zach was standing.

“Oh, well, I was trying to find stuff for a project and was thinking of using this card. Some stuff happened, and then I found it,” Zach explained.

“Yeah, good thing Zach’s obsessed with getting extra credit,” Nate giggled slightly, “Otherwise, I don’t know what would happen to them. Like, imagine if they appeared in my room. I definitely wouldn’t have noticed them…. Wow, that’s kind of scary to think about.” Nate started imagining how terrifying the world must have looked to them. What did he and his friends look like to them? Could they even comprehend them at all? And then more questions filled his brain. What if everyone in his world was microscopically tiny compared to the inhabitants of another universe? And what if those inhabitants were tiny compared to the people in a different world? And what if….. No, he didn’t want to keep thinking about it for too long right now. It was hurting his brain.

What Nate just said made Zach realize just how incredibly lucky the little guys were. First, if he didn’t care about getting a few extra points, he wouldn’t have found them. But not just that. If his bag wasn’t full when he was collecting items for that extra assignment, he probably would have shoved the card into it, destroying the whole city, or at least most of it. And even if he didn’t do that, him picking up the card or even walking near the city could have potentially decimated a lot more than just some sections of it. He also could have stepped on the card if it was just a little closer, considering how close to it he already was when he first found it on the floor.

But thinking about the negative outcomes that could have happened in some alternate timeline wasn’t important right now. What was important was that he was actually able to help them in some way and he fully intended to get them to a safer place than this.

Looking back at Alan, Zach said, “So, we showed it to you. Will you leave us alone now? Please?”

“Can I look for my charger first?” Alan asked.

“Ugh, fine, fine. I’ll look for it,” Zach told him. He spent the next few minutes searching his room, but he couldn’t find anything. He walked up to his brother and said, “I don’t see it in here. Check some of the other rooms. I’ll help you later if you can’t find it there.”

“Okay! Thanks for showing me all this!” Alan said happily as he ran out of the room.

Finally, Zach thought to himself before saying, “Okay, so, Daniel, you were going to try to call someone, right?”

“Yeah, I guess,” Daniel said as he started calling his parents, hoping they knew someone who could solve everything.

Meanwhile, you were still working on the device and checking the teleporter to see if it was still charging and not malfunctioning or something. So far, everything looked alright. You could only hope that nothing went horribly wrong for just a few more hours.