Dual and Duality Prologue - Unfractured Reality
by Clarry Goldstein

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A staccato of three sharp siren bursts indicated the end of yet another productive work day at the Phenocorp Military Laboratories. As the flow of signing out scientists, technicians and lab assistants grows steadily less, a lone figure slips past them in the opposite direction towards the research buildings. Before coming into noticeable view of the two guards stationed outside the entrance to the facility, the figure breaks off from the dwindling flow of outgoing staff to circle round to one side of the building and out of view. Due to the lack of lighting in the area, he's able to stay in the shadows with ease as he swiftly heads towards a small side door located near the rear. Pausing at the door, he turns his head from one side to the other to make sure that he hasn't been followed, before pulling out a small card-like object and running it deftly through the slot. An audible click is heard as the lock suddenly disengages, swinging inwards. The figure swiftly steps inside, shutting the door firmly behind him, there being no trace of his presence left.

The figure, now inside the research complex, slowly and carefully makes his way down the darkened corridor within. Approaching an intersection in the corridor and hearing footsteps coming, the figure halts till the person walks past in the dimly lit adjoining hallway. Once the path is clear, he makes his way down the corridor in the direction the other person came from. Halfway down before the end, the figure pauses in front of a thin door in the wall. The same card, the same decisive swipe, the same successful result - another unlocked door. Leaning inside, he reaches up and out fumbling round for something...

---

Elsewhere, a private security guard was resignedly making her rounds at the art gallery she had been assigned to work at. Barely a week into the job, and the sable ferret had already forgotten to bring something to read to while away the lonesome hours between her hourly patrols around the premises. Sighing, her mind wanders back to how she had her heart once set on being a police officer. 'Too short' they said back then, crushing her dreams. Thankfully this job had come up several months later - the security firm she was now with was more than willing to hire her, and certainly not made up of the types to fuss needlessly over a couple of inches difference. It was a godsend really - she was able to re-attain at least a part of her dreams, and her shiny new badge reading 'Melissa Roberts - Night Patrol' was more than enough to satisfy her ego. On the other hand, even though there was little she had to actually do on the job, it was still boring as hell. She briefly contemplated secretly slipping away from her post to attempt to grab a book from back home, but that only lasted as long as entertaining the idea of being out of a job. So in the meantime, Melissa continues to wander tediously around the building, swishing her tail idly and wishing that against all the odds *something*, however unlikely would happen to relieve the boredom.

"Speak of the devil..." Melissa muttered to herself as her ears prick up at the faint sound of breaking glass somewhere in the distance. Trying not to think of the odds of something happening like this, she rushes off to the security room to check the cameras for the source of the noise. Once inside, a quick glance at the monitor bank along one wall reveals an intruder having managed to pry open a side window, right next to the entrance for the post-modern section of the art gallery. The next screen along showed the intruder working quickly to cut the canvas of a picture from out of the frame, several more artworks stacked next to him to follow the same treatment. Decisively hitting the manual button for the silent alarm, Melissa then takes off knowing that the police and/or the security firm would be at least ten minutes or more away before they'd arrive. Taking a deep breath, she knew it was up to her to attempt to stop the guy before he took off, at the very least to minimise the amount of butchered art...

---

The groping hand finally manages to grasp a piece of string that's dangling from the ceiling in the middle of the tiny room, and with one small yank, light quickly floods the closet-like space. The figure glances about the cleaners closet, finding everything has been restocked for him. Pocketing his security card, he slips into the coveralls on the back of the door, and attaches an id tag to it over his left breast, reading 'Daniel Geoffries - Phenocorp Janitor - Security Clearance Level 3a'. Pulling out his cleaning cart from the closet, Daniel tosses in half a dozen or so assorted bottles, a couple brushes and rags, then swings the door shut behind him. Heading off on his rounds whistling, he's thankful that Dr Farquis hadn't notice him earlier near the split in the corridor, lest he be cornered for half an hour whilst the doctor would babble on about some quantum theory or another that was completely over his head. He was hired as someone who knew how to clean and would know as little as possible about anything to do with what they were researching - presumably that he wouldn't, or more like couldn't talk about what went on in the labs around them. Of course, his generous pay check was the clincher that would keep him quiet enough.

Heading into the first room on his cleaning rounds, Daniel freezes on the spot and groans inwardly as he catches sight of Dr Farquis bent over a microscope at the far end of the lab. Sighing resignedly to himself, he hopes that the doctor is too wrapped up in his work to notice him as he sets about his job. Slowly but surely, he makes his way down the bench, doing his best not to disturb any of the apparatus set up there, approaching unwantingly closer and closer to Dr Farquis. Scrubbing away at a particularly stubborn patch of some crystallised liquid however, Daniel has the misfortune of jerking an elbow just a bit too far to one side, which causes a spray bottle to go clattering to the floor, the sudden sound alerting Dr Farquis quite plainly to his presence. As the doctor whips around in surprise, the expression of Daniel's face goes from a grimace to one of horror as Dr Farquis knocks the undoubtedly extremely expensive microscope he was studying at off the bench. Time seemed to almost typically slow down as Daniel instinctively dives for the floor to intercept the equipment. Funnily enough, the only thing going through his mind at this point was how he was never good at playing football back in high school...

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Approaching the intruder in the art gallery as silently as possible, Melissa winces as something suddenly crunches underfoot, sounding agonisingly loud in the near silent building. Flicking on her torch down to the floor, she discovers a sprinkling of some sort of ground up crystals underfoot, undoubtedly set up as a warning alarm to the intruder. Cursing, Melissa disregards any thoughts of a silent approach anymore seeing as the intruder would be well warned of her presence by now. A sinking feeling forms in her stomach with the realisation that this fur she's up against knows exactly what they are doing...

Racing into the post-modern section, Melissa's worst fears were confirmed - the intruder had already left the scene of the crime.
"Only one direction he coulda gone, and that's out the window..." she muttered under her breath, sprinting out the room towards the wide-open window frame. Swiftly jumping through it and being thankful that the gallery was on the first floor, she spots the intruder making his way off across the large lawn and towards the car park. Redoubling her efforts, Melissa launches herself off after him, determined to take this guy down, lest she wanted to hand in her badge from failing to do her job and not stopping him. For the moment, things appear to be in her favour however, as the artwork laden thief had haphazardly scooped up the armful of paintings every which way in his clutches, now threatening to slip out of his grasp and forcing him to slow down. As Melissa nears close enough to attempt to tackle him, the thief stumbles for a few steps as he fumbles and nearly drops a rolled up painting, causing the security ferret to smack awkwardly into the middle of his back mid-pounce, knocking them both head over heels. Unfurling canvases go flying as the two land in a pile of twisted limbs on the damp grass, both furs struggling with each other to try and gain the upper hand...

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And as it would turn out, Daniel was indeed just as bad as he remembered himself as being as he slams chest-first into the floor, subsequently getting winded from the impact and fumbles the catch, causing the microscope to landed corner first on its base and quite painfully on the doctor's foot.
"YEEEEEOOOOOWWWW!" the doctor cried out in pain, his deep voice overpowering as it reverberated round the empty lab. Catching his breath, Daniel manages to knock the bulky microscope out of the way before the Dr Farquis trips over it again whilst hopping round in pain. Picking himself up from the floor, Daniel starts to apologies profusely, but is rudely cut off by the doctor as he leans against a door at the end of the lab, massaging his foot tenderly.
"Save your talk for someone who cares boy - I'm gonna make that come out of your pay check. And that's not even mentioning the valuable sample I was looking at on that !@#$ thing that went to waste because of yoooooooooouuuuuuuuuuuuu-" Dr Farquis trails off in surprise as the door he's leaning against slowly opens behind him, much to his horror. Off balance, he starts hopping backwards in an attempt to stay upright, but as the door swings round more it completely takes away his support. Several more increasingly unsteady hops backwards into the room later, he knocks into and sprawls out backwards onto a raised control panel that's hooked up to a large exposed bank of electronics and machinery, which in turn has several large snaking wires to a circular platform in the middle of the room. Rushing in after him, Daniel quickly but gingerly lifts the motionless doctor off the panel and drags him carefully back into the lab.
Sweating over how worse the doctor's condition might have become, he fails to notice the various buttons lighting up along with the gentle whine of machinery starting up behind him...

As he listened to the slight wheezing of the doctor as he lay there on the floor, it was obvious as anything that he was at least still breathing, which ruled out any unpleasant thoughts of Daniel having to do mouth to mouth. Hopefully Dr Farquis didn't have any broken bones or anything, but that would have to wait 'till he was awake and could tell him what pain there was... Recalling that he still has a bucket full of unused mop-water in his cleaning trolley yet, Daniel gabs the closest unused beaker, fills it up with water from the bucket, grabs several rags to prop up the doctor's head, then splashes the water into his face in an attempt to rouse him. A little coughing and a lot of spluttering, the doctor comes round to Daniel's relief. Trying to think of what to say to the poor man, Dr Farquis rubs a corner of his lab coat over his face to dry it off, then starts fumbling about beside him for something...
"Don't just stand there boy, help me find my glasses!" the doctor exclaims angrily, peering up at Daniel with a frown on his face. Stepping back over to the other side of the mumbling Dr Farquis to search for them, he spots the glint of reflected light shining off some glass in the floor of the next room they were just in. Figuring that they must have gotten knocked off during the fall onto the equipment, Daniel dashes in to pick them up - only to freeze on the spot as he notices exactly *what* was shining though the glasses lens...

---

The wail of approaching police sirens are heard as Melissa extracts one of her arms free from the pile of the two bodies, doing her best to keep the majority of her body pinning her opponent whilst reaching for the pair of handcuffs on her belt, but only to find them missing.
"Looking for these, missy?" a taunting gruff male voice exclaims from somewhere beneath her, dangling the set just out of reach in front of her face. Flicking one side open, he lunges with the intent to snare one of her still-trapped wrists, only for Melissa to shove her body to one side, moving her assailants' ankle into line to get firmly caught with the cuffs instead. Pressing down on the cuffed leg, she manages to jerk the offender's paw that was holding the cuffs, then using her natural flexibility as a ferret manages to twist her body round and yank the second half of the cuffs up from his leg and round his wrist, effectively immobilising him.

Though the chase seems all but over, the semi-trussed male beneath her still struggles as strongly as ever, seemingly intent on somehow buying some time by not letting Melissa go - and by the looks of it, rightly so as a headlight from a car gets shone directly at them and subsequently into their eyes...
"About time you to buffoons showed up!" the thief beneath her growled out in the direction of the light, apparently having attempted to pull the art heist off with a little intended help in his getaway.
"It's time to meet my two pals now missy, Mikey and Corker. I'm sure they'll be rather keen on 'meeting' you..." the voice continues, sneering at Melissa and undoubtedly with a leer on his unseen face.
"Quiet, you." Melissa grunts as she rams an elbow down somewhere in the vicinity of the fur's head beneath her, the body quickly going limp as a result.
"One limp body down, two bozos to go..." she muttered to herself as she extracts her limbs from the pile without any more resistance. Standing up, Melissa attempts to shield her eyes against the light when it she hits her that she never heard a car engine. The next thing to hit her is an explosion of light right in front of her face as she's completely blinded, both sight and mind suddenly going pure white...

---

A light show starts up as bolts of electricity arc between the six poles sticking up round the platform in the centre of the room. As a low pitched whine starts up in the background, Daniel watches entranced as the arcs start to jump from pole to pole across the platform more and more often, rather than to the ones directly adjacent to them. Not having any practical knowledge of seeing or taking part in any sort of lab experiments in the least, he barely realises the potential danger he's in. The background whine becomes quite loud now as it significantly rises in pitch, forcing Daniel to cover his ears. Feeling the glasses he's clutching press into the side of his head, he's suddenly reminded of Dr Farquis back in the other room. Turning round with ears still firmly covered, he looks out to see the doctor madly scrambling to the other end of the lab, away from the light spilling out and around Daniel's shadow in the doorway as fast as possible. As the high pitched whine reaches a crescendo, he realises all of a sudden exactly *where* he is... Whirling back around to face the platform, Daniel is just in time  to see a series of miniature explosions around the base as some capacitors blew, six arcs of electricity converge from the top of the six poles into a spot mid-air above the platform, and then-

The sudden silence somehow seems deafening... Daniel couldn't discern any sound at all - no whine, no sparking, and strangely enough, he couldn't notice any pounding heartbeat or rhythmic breathing from himself either - as though every single noise in the room had been completely nullified. The arcs of electricity had disappeared, and it looked as though the equipment had gone completely dead. But in the middle of the platform, a speck of *something* formed in mid-air where the electricity bolts met. Focusing on the spot, Daniel can barely believe his eyes as this ball of just pure blackness seems to grow in mid-air. Entranced once more, this time by the latest spectacle, he doesn't notice the slight tugging at his body towards the platform that increases with the size of the growing ball until it's too late. Wide eyed, he cannot do much except get pulled sliding upright across the floor towards the platform, and the impending blackness therein. All too soon, his feet hit the edge of the platform, the pull now causing him to tip head first into the shadowy sphere which rapidly envelops him.

---

Light and darkness - if there's one, there's the other, two opposites, both complementing each other.
Fleeting images. A receded furless face, singed into the retinas. A protruding, short hair covered face, almost visible in a vivid dream.
Shades of grey as one merges with the other, blending, mixing, as the interim shifts between the two extremities, as both get reversed, get mixed and muddled, both displaced, both misplaced, both replaced.
But now the line is blurred, almost off balance, off tilt, off tint, off key.
Retuning is needed, the line must be redrawn, the limits redefined - but who or how?

We wait and see.