You pull on a pair of jeans and a sweatshirt, collect your books and head out for class. Gregory Dumont, Ph.D. is giving one of his crash courses in physics and you swore this time you'd get the stuff down cold.
As you approach the classroom the smell of popcorn wafts through the door, and you find Dumont inside, showing a Marx Brothers movie to an empty room.
"Oh! So we have a class! Welcome!" Dumont says excitedly as he ushers you in. He looks at the film for a moment, chuckles, then switches it off. "Since it's just the two of us, and it's a nice day, why don't we walk over to the Research Zone? I'm working on an experiment there," Dumont says, scratching his wild frizzy hair then reaching for his coat. "We can consider it a lab class."
The Research Zone, shrouded in mystery since the last big experiment blew the roof off the billion-dollar facility, has been off limits to students. You are honored that Dr. Dumont is allowing you, a lowly physics student, access to a privileged area.
After walking for what feels like miles down the brightly lit twisty hallways of the Research Zone, Dumont stops abruptly and opens a door. Fumbling for a light switch inside, you hear him cursing under his breath, "Ah, here it is!" and the room is washed in light.
Inside there are mounds of books, magazines, popcorn, clustered around a massive wooden desk while across the room is a curtained area. Dumont sees you eyeing the curtain. "Shall we see what's behind curtain number three?" he asks you with a sly smile.
He pulls the curtain back briskly and a chill runs up your spine. There, amidst a tangle of wires, computers and a huge wall poster of the university's underground particle smashing cyclotron, sits a gleaming, black, human-shaped shell the size of a sports car. The lid is open.
"You see, it's quite simple. Particle physics isn't particle physics without human observation--it's just particles. So, when we insert one human, voila! Particle physics!" Dumont looks at you with a gleam in his dark blue eyes. "You're not taking notes?" he asks as he walks to a computer console.
Slowly, he fingers a few buttons while lost in some unfathomable thought processes, his gaze intent on the black shell. Luckily, he seems to be busy with things other than you.
Just as you start to think it might be prudent to find your way out through the labyrinthine hallways, he pulls up a lab stool for you to sit on. There is an intensity about him that rivets your attention. You can feel his excitement as he looks inside the black shell, checking wires that run along the inside.
"The shell is linked to the A.I. computer, which is linked to the cyclotron. The computer will learn from interacting with the human mind how to view the elusive particle which has escaped our detection so far--Particle X. Sort of a creative jump start, if you will," he says. "The computer just doesn't have the intelligence needed by itself."
Dumont sheds his coat and reaches for a white lab coat draped over a chair. "Now, the A.I. machine loads metaphors into the human brain for what is going on inside the cyclotron. And the human brain, being creative, tries to find meaning within the metaphors and, ultimately, views Particle X. Once that happens, the A.I. computer adjusts, learns, and becomes a particle viewing machine. And then, voila! The human can go home and get some sleep!"
He pulls the lab coat on and excitedly jabs a few buttons on the computer. "Then, you ask, what must it be like inside the shell, linked to a metaphor of the sub-atomic world?" You weren't even thinking of asking that. You were thinking of asking if you could transfer into another physics class. Any other physics class. "Now that's the interesting part," he continues. "I did most of the programming for P.A.R.T.I. myself--Particle Accelerator and Reality Translation Integrator.'
Dr. Dumont begins to pick up speed as he talks, whisking you and your imagination along with him. He grabs the lapels of his own lab coat as if to shake himself. "There's a shortcut to genius inside of P.A.R.T.I. somewhere, but you know I'm afraid the metaphors will be too personal for just anybody to make sense of them, too much of my own personality, my likes and dislikes."
He shakes his head, "But who knows?!! They won't let me try it out! I could be the first human to experience sub-atomic life, but do they give me that honor? Nooooo!" Dumont gestures wildly as he talks. "They've decided to train a subonaut, someone who will be groomed for the mission."
He throws back his mane of wild hair and laughs. "Subonaut! Sheesh!" He paces across the room then turns to you. "The experience will take only a few moments, but it won't feel that way to the person inside the shell. Time will be suspended and drawn out, rather dramatically I suspect."
Dr. Dumont leans forward, peers at you as if to see whether you've taken it all in, then steps over to the shell. He adjusts a wire inside the shell.
"If I could just make a few adjustments, but the darn subonaut hasn't been selected yet..."
He turns his piercing blue gaze on you, "Would you mind? Getting in the shell I mean? Just for a moment? I only need the physical dimensions of a body, yours will do fine," he says happily, gesturing to the awaiting interior.
You look at the black acrylic shell, not so chilling as when you first laid eyes on it. Dumont seems so intent on adjusting those wires in the shell, you feel compelled to help him out. Maybe this will even boost your grade, you speculate, as you slide into the contours of its inner dimensions. Dumont reaches over you to bring down the biolink electrodes, attaching the small wired disks to your temples, your arms, torso, and legs.
"Now, where did I put that screwdriver?" Dumont ruminates, as he disappears out of sight for a second.
The second draws out. You get fidgety. You hear the deep thrumming of the particle accelerator, feel its vibrations through the shell. Dumont doesn't seem to be returning. As you pull yourself up for a peek, your hand hits something along the outer edge of the shell and you hear an ominous click. The black shell quickly begins to close as you get a glimpse of Dumont running across the room shouting, "Oh my Gosh! Stop! Wait!" and then the shell lid clicks securely shut.
The last thing you hear is Dumont shouting, "This isn't going to get you an A, you know!" before you black out.
Revision 4.11, Inform Version 1.1
Text, script and design by Muffy & Michael Berlyn
Inform translation by Mark J. Musante. Additional Inform code by Michael Berlyn.
Revised and updated 1998-99 by Muffy & Michael Berlyn
Hints by Gunther Schmidl
Copyright (c) 1999, Cascade Mountain Publishing, Inc. All rights reserved.
Release 1 / Serial number 990223 / Inform v6.15 Library 6/7
You're in a bedroom. Everything about this room seems normal on one level and yet oddly different on another. A quick scan around the room makes you ill-at-ease, as if you don't belong here. Or perhaps the room itself doesn't belong anywhere. A dresser complete with a mirror lies off to one side, against a white, featureless wall. A door is off to the west while to the south, through a doorway, you can see what must be a small bathroom.
You can see a pair of jeans here.
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