Construction began last week in White Plaza on a brand new hole to China in front of the Nitery building, made possible by a sizable anonymous donation. The University has formed a task force of Stanford engineers to plan, design and implement the hole, which will eventually be used “like a playground slide” to transport people between the United States and China.
“Currently we are working on item transport as a trial run,” said Gabriel Fabriel, the lead engineer on the project. “Once we can successfully transport items without turning them into goo, we’ll begin sending small mammals, working our way up to people. We want to avoid as much bone-gelification as possible.”
The project is not popular with students, however, who doubt the safety of the hole. Many voiced concerns over whether or not gravity will play a role in the hole’s safety.
“After dozens of experimental trials, we can guarantee the hole will have gravity. Just the right amount, too, no extra,” Fabriel responded. “Our biggest problem so far has actually been enabling two-way traffic. Right now if two travelers were to pass in the middle they would merge into one horrifying flesh-lump. We’re working on fixing that.”
Another possible hazard of the hole would be what Fabriel and his team refer to as the “pinball effect.” Because the outside of the Earth moves faster than the inside, users would violently bounce from wall to wall while traveling at speeds that, until now, no human has ever been hurled. In order to reduce the possibility of “skin dissolution, smoothie-ization or total-body-evaporation,” Fabriel’s team plans to outfit the hole with safety measures, such as “making it real squishy.”
Despite these setbacks and obvious crossings of ethical boundaries, the project is on schedule and is expected to be completed by the end of the quarter.
Editor’s Note: This article is purely satirical and fictitious. All attributions in this article are not genuine and this story should be read in the context of pure entertainment only.
Contact Lana Tleimat at ltleimat ‘at’ stanford.edu.