- PolyCube Dynamics -

Renee flipped through the patients on the clipboard. Doctor Cyrus looked more tired than usual. His peppy nature ebbed and flowed, but this time it seemed to be permanently stunted. The last few weeks had been buzzing with energy after some chance meetings with some colleges, but that energy was now drained and no progress had been made.

“Coffee?” She said putting down the clipboard and checking her energy drink, which was bone dry.

“Wha- yes, I will go get some more coffee, you want anything”

Renee stood up “I’ll get it, try and get a little rest, we don’t have any patients for another two hours”

Cyrus stared at her “You? Leaving to get coffee?”

“Yeah, yeah, I know I usually never leave this room besides to go home, but you know, it looks like you could use some alone time. Break room is just down the hall to the right?”

Cyrus smiled and nodded “Yes, it is.” He took off his glasses and put them to the side of the console “Thanks Renee. I know I don’t express it enough, but I am glad that you are here to help me out.”

She patted him on the shoulder and exited the room.

The Animah Institute was a huge creepy place. Bright soft lights, rounded corners, posters telling you to be happy and that you can do what ever you want. Some very strange messaging about ascending. Renee shuddered every time she walked through the halls, which she didn’t usually. So why did she work there? Pay was good, really good, the hours kept her from home, which she didn’t want to return to and her study of psychology pushed her to see how they were ‘healing’ people. Since day one, she still had no idea. The patients came into the room, they dialed in some thing, the lights went out, they were no longer there, and then they watched the monitors. An hour later, the lights went off and returned and there they were, sitting in the chair that they had been. The first couple of days, she couldn’t believe what she was seeing, but Cyrus was so disinterested and dry about it that she soon adopted it as normal life.

She turned the corner and stepped to where the break room should have been. A large barricade had been placed at the opening where it was.

“Closed for deep cleaning, please use another break room” Which below it had a list of them.

A2
B2
N8
Z9

There was no map. Just vague directions for where to go from where she was.

“Typical, let’s see” she ran her fingers down the list, A2 should be the closest, right?”

It said go straight make a right, then left, follow hallway, break room A2 will be on the right.

She made the turns and kept walking. The Animah institute was separated in two sections. The wellness center, which sat on the edge of a large hill. The public facing side. It held all the staff, some special rooms for patients, and a bunch conference and therapist rooms. Renee looked out the windows at the large trees that seemed to go on forever, soon they dropped away revealing the megapolis which was PolyCube Dynamics. The owner and entity behind the Animah Institute. It seemed that the trees acted as a barrier, a shield if you would for the whole facilities. The bridge from the smiles, the public good, and into the secret, the edge, the real intent of the company. Renee had the suspicion for a long time that they were not the most kosher of companies. Then she saw how vast their facility was.

She kept walking. A2 seemed to be much farther away than she anticipated. She past large hallway after hallway separated by huge windows that looked into the courtyards of sprawling fountains and trees. She saw the opening which looked like the break room. A large A2 sign plastered on the wall.

Finally. She turned. It looked like the others. Circular tables, kitchen shelving built into the right side and vending machines on the left wall. The only difference was the large window that outlooked past two towering walls to the forest edge in the distance. She spied a lady sitting at one of the circular tables. She had her head propped up on her wrist staring out the window. Renee moved towards the counter to make some coffee.

“What is this thing?” She stared at the large machine, it’s pipes and knobs were nothing like her press to brew machine she was used too. There was nothing else on the counter. “Great”

The women at the table snapped out of her trance “Oh, looking for coffee?” She stood up, heels clicked behind as she approached.

“Yeah, but I don’t know what the hell this thing is” Renee tapped the machine.

The lady laughed “Sorry about that, I’m a bit of a coffee snob, I had the machine in here replaced with this one. Here let me make one for you.”

The women, seems to dance and started pulling beans from the counter, measuring, grinding them and working the machine as if it was second nature.

“Latte?” She asked.

Renee moved toward the refrigerator “Yes, he would like that” the fridge had nothing to stimulate her. She drooped.

“You know, coffee or tea will do you much better than those caffeinated drinks.” She pulled out a bottle from the counter and slid it towards her “Take one of those if you are drinking coffee, or even your little energy drinks, they will curve the crash.”

Renee took the bottle. The machine whirled to life, and coffee aroma filled the whole space. If she closed her eyes she would swear that she was in a cafe somewhere. Next she frothed the milk form the side of the machine and poured a twelve ounce cup, a heart in white floating on the surface.

“It’s L-theanine, here” She handed Renee the cup. “I haven’t seen you around here before”

Renee took the cup reluctantly “Yeah, I work with Dr.Cyrus in the Animah Institute, the break room was closed, so I tried to find the next one”

The lady laughed, it was childlike. “Well you might of picked the furthest one away. Dr.Cyrus, I met him a couple of weeks ago. Here” she guided her to the table she was sitting at.

“I’m Ada Noether” she extended her hand.

“Renee” She shook it.

“Give me a minute Renee” Ada moved back to the machine and started the whole process again. In no time she slid next to her with a cup of her own.

Renee stared at her.”I hear a lot of about you, I was expecting you to be a bitch”

Ada took a sip of her coffee “I can be sometimes” She smiled and laughed “I like your forwardness.”

Renee stared down at the heart. “Thank you for the coffee” she took a sip and her eyes lit up “It’s a lot sweeter then I thought it would be”

“My own special sweetener. Keeps the healthy properties of honey, but can be added to hot things. Hope it’s not too sweet. I thought thats how you would like it.”

Renee hadn’t noticed before, but Ada was extremely beautiful. Her hair, makeup and clothes seems like she had just walked out of a clothing ad. She held herself with just ease and confidence she found her self drinking her in with her eyes.

Their eyes met.

“Fuck” Renee looked away immediately.

“Dr.Cyrus, how is he doing? Any progress on his project? I have some additional resources coming to him, please express my apologies for the delay. Red tape and all that.” Her eyes grew sharp and Renee could see a billion tasks, convocations and decisions flash upon her face before it returned to its serene calm nature.

“He’s frustrated. I actually don’t know what he is trying to do, but it doesn’t seem to be going anywhere right now. I can only handle some of the admin work for him. I will let him know.”

Ada leaned back, crossed her legs and turned her head to the ceiling. Her eyes searched as she hummed. “Yes, I wonder what he could do. What could we do.”

Renee turned the bottle Ada had given her to see the label.

“Take one of those with you next sip” she said with out looking away form the ceiling.

Renee followed as if commanded.

“You won’t feel it now, but later. Take the whole bottle for you and Dr.Cyrus” She let out a sigh and returned to her own cup. “To many things right now, so little time.” She perked up and grabbed her mug “But that’s always how it is, isn’t it. What will you do now Renee?”

“I-“ the questions was deeper. It wasn’t about her going back to Dr.Cyrus. It was about her, her personal endevours, what her life was going to be. The way Ada asked, it twisted something in her. “I will do what I can” Renee answered, a swell of emotion filling her.

Ada nodded, stood up and moved back to the espresso machine. Her hands worked again, the machine roared and hissed and soon she set down a coffee in a to go cup. Dr.Cyrus written on the side of it with a heart after the name. “Good girl, please tell Dr.Cyrus I wish him the best of luck. And you, Renee, I hope you keep progressing. I’m sure we will meet again. Until then” Ada took both of their mugs, washed them and strode out giving Renee a wave.

“What in the world was that” Renee grabbed the bottle and coffee. When she got to the hallway Ada was no where to be seen. As if she was ghost, only her heels clicking somewhere in the facilities could be heard.

Renee strode back through the facility, not seeing a soul. She looked out at the forest that rose high and stood dark out in the distance. What did this place look like from the outside? She shuddered at the thought. The Animah Institute where she entered already gave her the creeps from the outside. She couldn’t imagine stumbling upon this monstrously from the outside.

When she entered the office Dr.Cyrus awoke from his slumber with a stretch and groan.

“How long was I out for? My gosh” he rubbed his eyes.

Renee set the cup of coffee next to him and sat down in her regular seat. “A little bit longer then I thought I would be, I ran into someone.” She handed him the bottle “Take one of those before you have your coffee.”

Dr.Cyrus looked at the name on the cup and at the bottle. “Hmm interesting, who was it?” His eyes ran to the back of the label.

“Ada Noether. She said that she was sorry for the delay, but extra resources were coming”

With her name, his eyes shot up to her “Mrs.Noether? You ran into Ada Noether? How far did you go?”

“A2, I kinda got lost”

He laughed “You went pretty far, what did you think of the place, pretty big huh?”

Renee didn’t laugh though, she had never asked, afraid of what he would say. “What is PolyCube Dynamic? What are they doing back there, it’s” she searched “insane. A whole city”

Dr.Cyrus popped one of the pills in his mouth and took a sip of the coffee. He looked at the cup in surprise “Wow” then he nodded to himself and leaned back in his chair. His looked turned serious as he studied her. A calculation was running in his head.

“How would you like to get a pay raise Renee, I think you would be valuable here. But you will need to learn a bit more about science, quantum, and dimensional space mirroring. How would you like to change the world?”

The world keeps getting deeper, PolyCube Dynamics seems to a lot larger then one might seem. The Animah Institute, the head of the beast that is PolyCube Dynamics. Ada continues to meet a spin her web, while Dr.Cyrus might get a new partner.

When I was scripting my game, I had Renee as a like an uninterested intern. She was the complete contrast to Dr.Cyrus’s bubbly, excited attitude when working. She will still be sort of moody, but maybe she will find a new found goal.

What will she do now?

We will see in the future. Cheers~

“Hey! Watch me, watch me, are you watching?” Tyler swung around on the monkey bars and hanging upside down flailing his arms in all directions.

His parents smiled and gave a clap then returned to talking to his grandmother on the bench just outside of the playground.

Plastic tubes ran from the ground and snaked around to square compartments that held bubble outcoves. The playground had many semi tall structures that held tubes that went to each one, like a fast food playscape, but outside and mixed with open air natural ideas. The floor of the whole area was smoothed with a bouncy non lethal rubber that was soft to the touch and even if an adult fell they would only feel the gentle pressure of gravity being dissipated as they impacted the surface. At the front of the playground was a large arch that made it look like a building that had its insides carved out. Facades of windows and balconies were adorned on the outside to give it a city feel. On the outskirts and strewn within were benches and some picnic tables for the adults to keep an eye on their kid and talk amongst themselves of the world’s problems.

Tyler rounded a tube and stumbled into one of the square buildings. It wasn’t full enclosed, the corners of the walls had small slits in them to connect them to the outside and the roof was elevated a few feet to let the sun and wind gently enter. He looked out the bubble window at his parents and knocked on it. They waved. And he went back to exploring.

Tylers parents, Daniel and Samantha sat close. They had just lost Daniels father and his mother sat on the bench with them.

“I keep telling you Mom, come out here for a bit more time. Tyler would love to have you around and well, I could tolerate you” Daniel gave his Mom a smile and his wife playfully hit him on the chest.

“Really, it would be no problem for us at all. We have plenty of guest rooms, food and I could use all the help I can get with that one” Samantha sent a glance over at the playground. She couldn’t see Tyler, but she could hear him banging around in those large tubes.

His Mom looked out for a moment away from them. There was nothing back in Virginia for her. Just an empty house filled with memories of happiness and pain. A lingering ghost that she wished she could touch, talk to or see again.

Her thoughts were interrupted by large banging coming from the playground.

“Okay Tyler, calm down buddy we are here”

The banging continued, but became more aggressive, rapid, louder. Daniel stood.

“Tyler stop messing around, come on out, now” he yelled.

Rubber against polymer squeezed and the banging stopped.

Silence.

Samantha and his Mom stood up “Tyler? Sweetie, please come out here”

Cold panic set in. Daniel bolted into the playground, sliding into the small spaces and moving through tight polymer tubes towards where the sound came from.

He reached the square room and looked down the red tube where the sound came from. He peered out the bubble window.

“What do you see?” Samantha asked.

Daniel stuck his head into the tunnel and looked, but he didn’t see anything. The tunnel turned and went deeper into the playground.

“I don’t see anything, I have to keep going.”

That was the last thing they heard from him.

He moved into the tunnel and sloped around the corner.

“Tyler!” His words bounced around and kept bouncing deeper.

Daniel kept sliding down the tube, it kept going in a circle. He was sure that the tunnels should have ended from what he saw on the outside. The steepness took a sharp degree and he could no longer hold him self and started to slide down. He flopped out the slides entrance and onto a smooth rubber surface.

He sat up and stared into the sky, or what would have been a sky. A jumbled mess of colored playscape tubes roped around in all directions, snaked around each other and covered the entirety above him. Around him was a small courtyard that was fashioned as a small square. A fountain sprayed water in the center and thick benches sat around it. The floor was a mixture of the rubber material and a fake turf that gave it an artificial natural feeling. Lamps lined the outside of the a rubber path that went to the fountain and continued to an entrance to a building. The walls looked like a New York high society alleyway. Cobble stone with cute balconies and windows lining all the way to the top.

It was impossible. Daniel moved past the fountain and found a shoe at the other entrance. White reeboks with a dinosaur on them.

He stared at the large entrance, more polymer and large children facades lay inside.

He clutched the shoe “Tyler!”

The man sat down in the large leather chair and leaned back.

“How many incidents?”

“Fifteen that we know of”

The man rubbed his eyebrows with his thumb and forefinger. “Jesus, how many involved?”

“Twenty. Fifteen children and five adults.”

A knock came at the door.

“What is it ?” The man yelled still rubbing his eyebrows.

A lady stuck her head through the door “Ada is here to talk about the next steps, shall I have her wait?”

The man looked past his secretary at Ada. Her eyes were like vipers, staring right into his soul. She could never wait. What ever that women had on her mind, they were all hanging from her strings.

“Bring her in, Miss Shaw, thank you for the report, please keep me updated.”

Miss Shaw stood up taking her binder. As she exited she stopped Ada.

“We will find them Mrs.Noether, I promise you”

Ada smiled. It was a smile that could destroy the world. Full of unbridle confidence, a godlike consciousness dressed in sex and power.

“Thank you Miss Shaw” She leaned in “ I will find them. Please continue on containing the other incidents. Once our plans are finished we will get them all back”

Miss Shaw bowed and moved past her.

“Now, let’s get down to business” Ada said and closed the door behind her.

I was out for a walk the other day later in the day and there is a playground that I always pass by. When I passed the parents were sitting on the bench and talking and there was a loud banging coming from the playground, but I couldn’t see the child. I thought of my plastic yarn story and what if the loud noise was no so innocent. I wonder what company actually made the materials for the playgrounds?

No where is safe when dimensions can be crossed.

Till next time ~

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 looked 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!