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Prologue - The discovery of Optical City
It was a cool, overcast spring afternoon at Chegy Heavy Industries. Inside, sleek black metal stretching on forever upwards, reflecting the thousands of tech-funk generators pumping out aural produce into the atmosphere. Outside, the vibes bounced off the eardrums of passers-by, injecting a spring into their step.
Distracted by this cascade of low-frequency aberrations, a young man on a dark grey motorcycle honed in. Jack Switch. He pulled into the neon-lit underground parking zone and carried a shiny silver briefcase up the stairs to the reception area.
"I’d like to speak with the CEO, please."
"Certainly, Mr Switch."
He was escorted into the steel elevator. A Korean woman in a pink blouse pressed the highest button, marked "1000," on the wall. As it lit up, the elevator shot up to the top floor of Chegy Heavy Industries. The woman led Jack into the windowless penthouse office. The walls pulsed with an array of neon LEDs, giving assurance that bass levels were still safely high downstairs. An irresistible house groove permeated the room with chopped samples and analogue pads, the cream of the day’s produce. The CEO spun around in his chair and offered a warm greeting.
Jack grinned. "I’d like to apply for a position." Before the CEO could answer, he watched the silver briefcase as Jack lay it down carefully on the desk. He invited his host to slide open the latches and inspect the contents. The lid opened, revealing a warm glowing ooze of thick, filthy acid. Immediately the CEO’s face lit up. He watched in awe as the acid then burned through the bottom of the briefcase, engorging the titanium desk beneath it, dissolving it into pure funkwaves. He smiled. "You’ve got the job."
He slammed a neon button on one of the walls. Instantly, the wall retracted upwards, smoothly and soundlessly into the ceiling above it. He motioned for Jack to come over and gaze out through the window behind. Jack complied.
In front of him was the most beautiful construction he had ever seen. Endless fields of glass buildings, chrome bubbles refracting the light into dazzling metal colours. Solid state lasers crafting a massive black monolith to the west, amplifiers adorning its four walls. Enormous vats of acid sitting underneath powered the entire construct, leaving renegade squelches and bleeps to evaporate up into the stratosphere. The music was indescribable.
The CEO saw Jack’s face and smiled. "Welcome to Optical City."
Chapter 1 - Lightbox
It was carefully aligned array of filter cubes and waveguides - in a static orbit around the source. The interference box in the center, above the source, had a transparent cover, which the CEO removed. "Well go on," he said. "Place something there and see what happens." Jack fumbled through his jacket pocket for something expendable, yet likely to give an interesting result. He set a certain silver key on the clear stage of the interference box. The CEO centered it slightly and replaced the cover. Then he killed the lights.
The city was enough to look at as it was, but before Jack could take that in, the CEO had activated some large system remotely - he could tell because of the brief attenuation of the music emanating from the amplifiers. Something in the building was drawing a lot of current.
Inside that something, thousands of flashtubes sizzled around the waveguides, pumping the garnet laser. Suddenly, the CEO hit another key and the beam coupler flicked open, instantaneously releasing a coherent beam which Jack thought he could almost /hear/. But forget the sound; the CEO grinned as the beam dispersed into its characteristic spectra through the thousand filter cubes and radiated through the city’s atmosphere until it was drowned in a circular dichroism. If there was music, Jack’s perception had tuned out all senses except for what he saw. And then... motion. Every harmonic mode of the light combined, split, recombined, and split into a different set of waves. Every second? Millisecond?
Jack was silent but his mouth was open as he looked inquisitively at the CEO, the CEO knowing his question, and the answer: "A projection of your key in the ninth dimension."
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