^{source
Part 1
Part 2
Part 3
Part 4
Part 5}

“When you’re done staring, I’ll show you to his office.” I abruptly diverted my eyes, fooling nobody. Had I really been so obvious about it? “It’s just….I feel like we’ve….” She waited expectantly, but I couldn’t bear to say the rest. “Nevermind. Lead the way.” She raised her eyebrow, but then took my hand and directed me to an elevator.

It was the sort you’d expect to see in a very old hotel, but in better repair. No proper door, but a highly polished brass gate which closes in the manner of a scissor jack. Oddly there were no buttons for selecting the floor you’d like, only an unusual mechanism that included a pair of film spools.

To ascend, you turned a crank which advanced the film. To descend, the inverse. Like an old fashioned movie camera or a projector, but without any obvious means of projecting anything. “One more thing” Violet said as the gate closed. “Don’t use your remote too much. The flow of time is less strictly enforced in the Manifold, but it’s still possible to provoke them.”

No need to ask who she meant. It’d been percolating in the back of my mind since the incident with Julia. The Manifold seemed a vast, dark jungle to me, filled with things I did not yet know enough to be frightened of. The elevator arrived on the top floor with a hollow, metallic sounding ding and I disembarked into a room which only proved more beautiful and strange than the last.

A grand bay window took up the far wall. Shaped somewhat like a lemon, or eye, in three parts: A left pointing triangular window, a square shaped window in the center, then a right pointing triangular window. Each with elaborate inset designs, though like the windows from the floor below, none of it was dyed. Light poured in through them, given the appearance of solidity by swirling dust passing through.

Before the window stood a sturdy, strangely familiar looking desk. On it, a quaint little machine beneath a glass dome that I recognized as the device stockholders used to receive stock market information from, via continuously printed paper tape. “Don’t touch that” a voice boomed from behind me. I stiffened as I turned to look. “You’ve no idea what it does.”

The man I guessed to be Doctor Bizen only stood up to my chin. Aging, portly and wearing a green sweater vest, after he’d been built up so much by professor Travigan I envisioned somebody more imposing. “You’re here about the girl, aren’t you.” Already having failed to get the drop on him, I considered lying only briefly. May as well be direct at this point.

“Why are you holding her here? It’s killing her.” He ambled over to the windows behind his desk and peered wistfully out at the landscape below. “Ah, Violet. My little pet. She’s an interesting case, isn’t she? Yes, very interesting indeed.” I huffed. It was as if I’d said nothing at all! So I grew more insistent. “You’re going to release Violet.” He reacted so slowly that, at first, I thought he didn’t hear me.

“...I’m going to do what, you say? You’re quite imaginative you know. Release her? Whatever for? She is my golden goose. With her, I can turn it all around. All of it. They’ll see they were wrong about my research. Wrong to send me to this dreadful place. To sweep me under the rug! I don’t know how much Violet told you but I’d wager I know which parts she left out. What makes her different. If you knew, you would not be so easily cowed by a pretty face. Not if you knew.”

No need. For I knew what I felt when I saw her, the only part of all this that felt unquestionably real. And that despite his doddering, easygoing demeanor, there was a strong menacing undercurrent to Dr. Bizen’s voice. No need to pound his chest or make any other show of strength. It could only mean that he had me at some invisible disadvantage.

I nervously searched the room for any sign of weaponry or traps, but nothing stood out. Only bookcases to either side, the ticker tape machine on his desk, and a decorative globe. I leaned in to search for the names of countries I knew, fiddling with the remote until the labels were in English. All of them read “Backstoppers”. I grimaced, and looked away.

However you try to ignore them, they’re always there. Quietly. Part of the background, going unnoticed until you know what to look for. After that, they’re everywhere. The genie that will not go back into the bottle. So, I hatched a plan. As he mumbled to himself, I pointed my remote at the ticker tape machine and cycled through languages until I hit English.

“This can’t last”, I said. “You know they’re coming for you. I’ve seen what they can do.” He didn’t appear to react. “Are you listening? The men in the uniforms. They’re masters of this place. Do you really think you can defy them?” He only stood there, continuing to rub his chin. Then I heard him chuckle...from behind me. “I’m no slouch myself, you know.”

I did a double take. There he stood, holding a remote of his own. That’s when it dawned on me. I now had some notion, at least, of what the REC button was for. “You might ask yourself why they sent you. Alone, no less. What can you do that they cannot? The defenses I designed all key into their cardiac arresters. Only an amatuer without one implanted could walk past all of it undetected.

Someone lucid enough to follow directions but with no real idea of the dangers involved, or you’d never have been suckered into it. That’s the other half: you’re disposable to them. What sort of masters do you work for? Think hard about whether you can trust what they’ve told you about me.” He fiddled with his own remote and the doppleganger standing at the window vanished.

The remote in his hands looked cobbled together. Neither obsolete like mine, nor the sleek black wonder gadgets wielded by the uniformed men from the entry hall. I recognized parts of it from the mechanism in the elevator.

The spools were internal, but like an opened up camera, there was a strip of exposed film running down one side of it. Sliding it in either direction presumably advanced or reversed time, while all other functions were performed by standard buttons.

“You’re out of your depth. This is an old man’s game. They’ve sunk to a new low, dragging amateurs into the middle of it.” I glared as he talked down to me. As though I couldn’t possibly pose a credible threat. “You mean like Violet?” I quipped. Must’ve been a sore spot, as he whipped around and snarled at me.

“Don’t speak about topics you have no knowledge of! She’s cold inside, you foolish boy. Her life is in no danger and never was! She was dead before we met. It’s what makes her such a scientifically invaluable curiosity.” More senile babble. Seemed to be a pattern with this guy, but he stopped short when I withdrew the glass orb from my pocket.

“....My goodness. Be careful with that! Do you realize what you have there? Best give it to me before you hurt someone.” I backed away and raised the orb above my head, visibly startling him. “Easy now, easy. You don’t want to break one of those. A whole universe comes out. One within another, within another. And Heaven help you, should you carry one orb through another. I told you, you’re out of your depth. Now just set it down carefully, and-”

As he spoke, forms emerged from the orb which swiftly resolved into striking figures clad in black velvet uniforms with shiny black boots and gloves. What followed was absolute pandemonium which exceeds any possibility of satisfactory description. Somehow the mind crippling possibilities of multiple people using weaponized remotes against one another hadn’t yet occurred to me.

Black blurs sped around the room as the Institute men, on fast forward, evaded Dr. Bizen’s futile attempts to pause them. He then clicked fast forward himself and for several seconds I had absolutely no idea who was who, what was happening and whether or not I should flee. Then one of the black figures halted in place. Paused by Dr. Bizen, who then carefully aimed his remote and pressed power. The uniformed man vanished.

---

^{Stay Tuned for Part 7!}