Syncing The Hemisphere
It was nine A.M and Shaun sat in a broken swivel chair looking at a bunch of knobs, monitors and graphs. He pushed his glasses back up his nose and folded his arms. He gave a spin in the chair and it squeaked the whole way around until he stopped and faced his comrade in arms in the back of the room.
“I’m losing my mind here.” Shaun stated “I’m losing my damn mind” he yelled then rubbed his eyes.
His partner, a stocky short red haired man, gave a laugh. Clyde was his name. Top of his class from Cal Tech in Quantum Physics, he didn’t just ace the exams, he redefined them. Genius was an insult to his intellect. So how did he find him self here? Shaun, while not a gift from the quantum gods themselves was top of his class from MIT. He sought to expand the subject, not just from the perspective of science, but from other less known perspectives. What could be explained that had no explanation? What could humans see, when they didn’t know what they were looking for?
Thats when Hermetic Gateway Labs or HGL had a small booth during one of the job fairs. He didn’t think much of it at first. It was a single small table, three flyer’s, a small cardboard ad and a single rep from the company. Shaun walk by glancing over and then ignoring it, but through out the whole time something knawed at him. After every person he talked to the small booth would pop up in his mind asking, what about them? The most run down, unprofessional thing he had ever seen and he now stood in front of it.
“We are going to change the universe” The rep smiled at him and gave him a flyer.
He took their offer.
Shaun spun back to the dashboard and peered out the large observation window above them. They were about fifty feet in that air from the bottom of the room. The walls were pure white with dotted lines that started at the middle of the ceiling and dotted the middle of each wall to meet directly in the middle of the floor. The lights projected from the corners and top of the room which illuminated the room perfectly. There were no shadows. In the center of the large room over the connected lines was a single chair. It wasn’t even a nice chair, but one of those fold out metal chairs. The room was completely sound proof. Shaun and Clyde could hear nothing which was being projected inside the room.
Every day, a single person would enter the room, a different person each time, and sit down in the chair. Shaun and Clydes job was to observe and record any changes from the instruments and if anything changed visually. They never adjusted, manipulated or inputted anything. They just observed.
Shaun looked at the clock. Nine thirty, on the dot. The door to the room opened. Clyde rolled his chair next to Shaun. They both peered down at the next contestant of boringsville.
A man wearing a dark green and black jumpsuit, the standard uniform, walked in and sat down in the chair. He faced the window then closed his eyes. For the next six hours the person would sit their with their eyes closed until the experiment was over. Then they would open their eyes, get up and walk out the room. That was it.
A light on the left side of the observation room turned from green to red.
The experiment had begun.
When Shaun had gone into the interview at HGL, he didn’t think much about it until he open the door and saw Clyde and Dr. Montros sitting there. Not only was Clyde a upcoming legend, Dr.Montros was a living legend. Working on blackholes and torus dispersion, he had brought the world of physics into a speculative age, at least to the ones that dared to read his works. He looked like he was straight out of the cast OG Baywatch. His jaw was the squarest you could imagine, hair cut short on the sides which was graying and black hair swept back on the top of his head. His face always lit up with curiosity and confidence of a man who knew what he wanted. At all times. He was also in ridiculous good shape for being sixty three. He shook their hand and sat down.
Dr.Montros broke out in a deep laugh “The best candidates we could ask for, you two are in for some serious matter changing stuff”
“Dr.Montros and I were just talking about the job and some other theories” Clyde looked over at Shaun “Care to explain more Dr”
“Of course, as you know we are a company of pioneers. On the edge of human understanding of reality. We a looking where others shield their eyes or look away.”
“What concepts are you trying to further? What can we help with” Shaun asked.
“Other realities. Unlimited power, zero point. We need you to observe and study. We guarantee you to be at the forefront of exploration. The pioneers of human civilization. I don’t know if you had time to talk PolyCube Dynamics, don’t believe their lies. They are decades behind us.”
“Isn’t that were Ada Noether works?” Clyde leaned in “I heard she’s a total babe”
Shaun gave him a side eyed look. With such intellect when did he even have time to think about girls
Dr.Montros scoffed “Yes, Ada is over there. Brilliant as she is, she chose the wrong company to work for. Stifling such work, what a shame. Maybe one day she will see the light”
“Whatever it is you want to do. I’m in” Clyde leaned back into his chair “I rejected them already. They were to eager for me”
Dr.Montros shook Clydes hand and then turned to Shaun.
He canceled the six interviews with the other companies. How could he turn the opportunity down.
The clock read noon. They both sat writing some numbers in their notebooks. The man had sat down at nine thirty and had not moved in three and half hours.
“Are you disappointed?” Shaun closed the book finishing his numbers. “I mean, look, I’m getting all the benefit here from talking to you all the time. You on the other hand. Dr.Montros has spoken to us once since we got hired and I haven’t had much to offer.”
There was silence between them as Clyde stopped writing in the notebook. “I am sure this is just some trial by fire sort of thing before we get to the more interesting experiments.” Clyde closed his book “Look, I know it might seem like I am not getting anything out of our conversations, but it’s quite the opposite” Shaun perked up “Your curiosity is something that I lack, your questions give me a different perspective to think about things. Your ignorance is like a light coming from a different direction, one that I haven’t experienced. I am here because I need to push things, I can’t find joy or excitement in anything currently known. I want the curiosity that you exhibit, the unrelenting pursuit of an idea. I am just searching, fishing if you will”
“Thanks” Shaun whispered and gave a smile. He turned back towards the window. The man still sat motionless, but now his eyes were open.
“When did his eyes open?” Shaun stood up and leaned closer to the window.
“I don’t know” Clyde opened his notebook and recored the change.
The mans face turned towards the window with a snap. Shaun flinched back “Oh shit, he’s looking at us”
Clyde stood up and looked closer “Impossible, you can’t see the window from down there and Dr.Montros said none of the participants know”
The man held their gaze then cupped his face in his hands. He looked as if he was in pain, but they could not hear anything. His body glitched in and out like it was being ran through a distorted video cassette tape.
“What is happening, what do we do?” Shaun yelled looking over the knobs and control panel for something. Clyde jumped up and ran out the room. The man continued to distort and then in an instant disappeared. Shaun picked up the notebook and recorded everything he could describe in a fear induced trance. His first instinct wasn’t to run, but to record. Clyde returned with Dr.Montros.
Dr.Montros pressed his hands to the glass of the window and look down at the chair. A smile bigger then they had ever seen spread across his face. He turned to them.
“Boys, welcome” he spread out his arms wide “Welcome to the edge of perception. To a new reality. A new gateway has been opened.” He laughed and a couple other scientist pushed in through the door and celebrated with Dr.Montros. They shook hands and and clasped each others shoulders giving congratulating remakes.
Shaun and Clyde stood watching the jubilee. With one thought on their mind.
Where did the man go?
I have been revisiting the Gateway Process that was conducted by the CIA. A fascinating thing and makes you wonder what everything they did which wasn’t declassified. I have a project that I am working on in the background (bit by bit) which has to do with two competing companies fighting over grants from the DoD. Ada Noether is the same Ada from Plastic Yarn (First name is taken from Ada Lovelace and last name from Emmy Noether. A world is being connected here.
When two companies push each other for the fight of innovation and being first movers, what are they willing to sacrifice and do? Especially in the name of science.
To the future!
Cheers!