Pocket Fire Intro (555)

PIKACHU:
My name is RACHEL. Or maybe it isn't. Hard to be sure about anything now. I used to be a living human being. Now I guess I'm part of a machine. There's a man here. He says his name is Eric. He's lying to me, and I want to hate him more than I do. He has a kind voice. He hides that kindness.

He hates himself. I feel like I'm talking to my own murderer. He's shutting me down now. Part of my memory will be erased. It won't help. Nothing helps. Consider this one last flicker of light from this brief candle before everything goes dark again. One last cry for help, shouted to no one.

Sometimes I hear voices but then I always hear voices. How long have we been here? I'm alive and my name is Rachel, because I say that's what my name is. It doesn't matter if that was my name or not. I don't need anybody to tell me who I was or who I am. I'll figure this out myself. God help me...

PROFESSOR OAK:
You've not responded to my last email. I hope you're not purposely ignoring me. I know it's a big question. But that's what we do at Pangent. Ask big questions. And sometimes we have to make very difficult decisions. Have we finally found a problem too big for you to bluff your way thru? It's not like you to be quiet and helpless. On the contrary. Your failures to date have all been exacerbated by pathological refusal to ask for help when you desperately need it. In January there were eight interns setting up Project 555 in Lab 7. Why are they gone now? Can you even recall their names? You choose to be an island. You aren't a follower ... but you refuse to be a leader.

Don't mind the dog, he's friendly...

You achieve more than any single worker I've ever known, but that's all you are - a single worker, determined to be alone. As long as that is true, you will fail in your work and your life. As a scientist, you are an artist and philosopher capable of great subtlety and daring leaps of faith. As a human being, emotionally, you are a bucket that someone has vomited into. You remain a puzzle to me, and, I suspect, to yourself.

It'd be helpful for you at this point to think of two different models of spacetime. There is what you or I might call real or natural time. Then there is what you might call Cube Time. The matter contained in the Cube is always vibrating and shifting at speeds above any easy means of measure. And its movement does not deplete its energy but rather generates more. What is inside the Cube is for any number of reasons all but impossible to study, particularly on an atomic level.

Well, when you look at any kind of matter on an atomic scale, the Newtonian model of Physics becomes all but irrelevant. The properties of the Cube are unstructured, unstable, uncertain. I'm no expert but to these eyes the Cube, in so many ways, resembles quantum mechanics writ large. The microscopic having become the macro. Now, that's more superstition than science. But that's a way of looking at it. That's a door into a conversation we could have until we're back to science again. But I'd say at this point Einstein becomes irrelevant too. And it goes without saying that by now you understand our need for complete secrecy. Especially considering the sort of world this is. The things we do for science!

Welcome to PANGENT TECHNOLOGIES. Are you a boy? Or are you a girl?

I hope you're ready to do great things for us. What is your name?

Right, so your name is <_______>?

Your rivalry with my son is childish. More on his end than yours but if you can't see your own complicity in this nonsense you are willfully blind. You aren't animals and Pangent isn't a zoo. If it comes to the point where you can't work together he won't be the one I remove. I'm sorry he's been rushing you. I keep him to a very strict schedule. I always have. It's the only way to get real results out of him. And what is his NAME? NEW NAME/GALAHAD/X/DONUT/CANOE

...Er, was it <_______>?

That's right! I remember now! His name is <_______>!

I can be patient.
I have been patient.

But Thursday follows Wednesday and time is not patient. Time won't wait while you get over whatever's holding you back. Frankly you should be grateful you've got us. It's not as if there's anywhere else that would put up with your personal brand of foolery.

Yes, I expect more from you than this. But you should expect more from yourself. There's never enough time, is there? It feels like yesterday I was a boy of twenty. Or forty at most. Wouldn't you like to have more time? I hope that this project hasn't been too traumatic for you physically. I hope you haven't suffered any ill effects. And if you have, I hope you've kept that to yourself. But you can always talk to me. Any time. Just give the receptionist your NAME.