entranceway | e x p e r i m e n t #08 (video)

[Some time Friday morning, September 8th, a new and particularly important broadcast appears on the network.

The feed flicks on to show Ford at a desk in his lab looking both tired and very guilty. ]

Uh, yes! Hello. Uh. Good morning?

[He clears his throat. Might as well get right down to it.]

As anyone who's slept since Wednesday will know, something weird has been happening. I may have been experimenting with a ward against a certain demonic triangle when there was an explosion that caused the ward's effects to warp and, for lack of better layman's terms, gave everyone the ability to traverse the Mindscape--that is, the realm parallel to any waking dimension.

To put it simply: Once you left consciousness at any point, you likely were able to explore your own mind, and the minds of others.

Fortunately, the effects seem to be temporary and I only singed half an eyebrow in the explosion, so... Good news! Everything should be back to normal by tomorrow.

Ahh, science. Well! That's all for today. If you don't want to deal with it, I suggest visiting one of the tea rooms for a delightful pot of industrial coffee. Always works for me!

[With a winning smile from Ford, the broadcast ends.]

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

I'd be interested in reviewing the notes you've constructed regarding this form of travel. Anything that crosses a dimensional boundary could be fine-tuned to suit our larger research regarding escape.

Normally I would be happy to combine the research of all the scientists in Wonderland for an escape, but I have the sinking feeling all our failed attempts may be indicating we take another approach--one that doesn't involve building an interdimensional portal.

Or it's a sign that we're taking solid steps and just need to fine-tune some outstanding issues to keep our efforts from being discovered so easily.

I think this hypothesis is provable.

Frankly, it isn't the hypothesis that needs work. [Ford rubs at his temple.]

I'll be honest, I'm willing to let go of the fact that your project didn't reach out to myself and another scientist who are actually experienced with transuniversal travel.

What I can't ignore, however, is you propositioning me after a catastrophic failure that got a lot of people hurt. My twin died in my arms. That certainly isn't on you. And yet here we are, both of us having failed to pry open Wonderland's fundamental fabric.

The thing we actually need to do is find a safe way to cross to the Other Side, the Mirror Side, and find the Queen, or at least gain access to the Core. There's got to be more over there that can tell us how to tap into Wonderland.

If we can get through the Rabbithole, it'll be a lot better than what we've been trying so far. The trouble, as you probably know, is finding the Rabbithole's location.

You'll have to pardon my hesitance to brute force it after the death of my brother. I'm not exactly keyed up to ram ourselves into a brick wall again.

[He'll recoil visibly at that. After the incident, when he'd been soaking himself in blame and all but forcing others to shower him with reassurances, he hadn't received much in the way of a talk like this. It feels like all the guilt he's let go is swooping down to leer over him anew.]

The larger scientific community here has made its stance quite clear about its unwillingness to collaborate. Our residents take far much more joy in discrediting one another than they do in developing new shared methodology. That is to say that I've reached out in previous projects both large and smallscale. Pattern recognition brought me to the conclusion that this one would be equally rebuked. Your prior data would have been welcome had you provided it then. [~~And had I not fallen off the planet and dropped their last thread before Ford could oops.~~] As I believe that reporter thought necessary to broadcast to everyone, the catastrophe occurred due to intentional sabotage. There was no real-world testing done to match the simulations we developed. [And there won't be; he's still not clear on when Cisco started tampering with their data; it would have to be reimagined from the ground up.]

With that said, though, I am sorry about your brother. Safety ought to be our primary concern regarding matters like these. I became hasty at the first signs of encouraging data, and in that respect, things ought to have been done better.

Ehhh. [He waves a dismissive hand.] I don't blame you for what happened to Stan. You and I both know there are always unforeseen consequences when the stakes are so high. The trick is to make better bets. We're so used to working with absolutes that we go blind to everything else. If it helps you feel any better, it's taken me my whole life to learn that.

The magic of Wonderland makes everything so unpredictable I'll stay up for a week at a time trying to deconstruct how this universe works and put it into meaningful set of numbers. [He chuckles. ~~FORD THAT IS NOT HEALTHY~~] Reminds me of grad school.

As for the rest of the scientists here--I don't know about them, but I do recall being willing to lend my hands and my research.

[There is something comforting about that reassurance. He chews on his bottom lip, nodding.]

Then perhaps the real trouble is that trust has fallen into such short supply.