I am finally here.
As I walked along the bright white corridors, that's all I could think about. It's always been like this. Just like a kid, if I can't grasp something, I can't leave it alone. I need to know every last detail.
And the object that kept me restless for weeks is just around the corner. A few more steps and I will be able to see it with my own eyes.
One of the three cubes. Large, dark and seemingly indestructible. All attempts to get a piece for analysis failed, and it was so heavy that it was impossible to move it, forcing them to build a research facility around it instead.
What are they? What are they made of? How did it originate? Is it even natural?
As I was wondering, I bumped into someone, making them drop the files in their hands.
"Sorry, I wasn't paying attention," I said.
"It's fine, just help me pick these up."
"I don't think I've seen you here before," he asked, after we finished reuniting the papers, "Are you new here?"
"Yes, indeed. I am Evelyn Veritas," I answered. I hope he doesn't know me.
His brow furrowed, "Evelyn Veritas… I feel like I heard that name before…"
Crap. Better to leave now before he remembers.
I excused myself and took quick steps to leave the scene.
Let's just go to the cube.
Turning the corner, there it was.
Rows filled with equipment and computers, people in white coats walking around purposefully from one side to the other.
In the middle of it all, a perfectly cubical black object, roughly seven meters tall.
As I was soaking it all in, a familiar red-haired woman came close. A person who worked with me before. Worse, she was my boss at the time.
"Ms. Veritas," she began, "I deeply regret having you here, but it was inevitable."
"Good to see you again as well," I replied.
"Before you start, I must remind you that it is of utmost importance and an obligation for you to finish the request. That was one of the terms you signed to set foot in here."
"Okay, okay, I understand. No leaving unfinished stuff after I'm fed up with it, though I find it unlikely for that to happen in this case," I said, rolling my eyes.
"In that case, you may proceed."
As I left the woman, I heard her mumbling, "God, why is it that someone like her is the best researcher out there? Why someone with not a single finished project to their name?"
Reaching the nearest terminal, the people around stopped talking. They only shot daggers at me with their eyes. I could already guess what they are thinking. It is nothing new, really.
They just don't get it.
I put my credentials in and saw hundreds– no, thousands of entries.
But let's start with the basic information.
Melting point: undefined, over 4000 °C
Boiling point: undefined
Hardness: undefined
- Inconclusive results
Toughness: undefined
- Inconclusive results
…
I kept on reading down to the last line.
So, basically, we know nothing. As expected, most of the information is marked as undefined…
Then I decided to skim the raw data. It is bullshit for that to be the page with all the conclusions from three years studying it. Even if the test result is deemed "inconclusive", there is simply no way we learned absolutely nothing.
The outliers. Over the three years, there were "nonsensical" readings here and there. Of course, that is to be expected. Machines can fail, and humans can even more so. But some of those already push past that point.
Not just that, but the frequency, especially considering everything here is the best it could be, not just equipment, but also personnel, this doesn't make sense.
However, if we consider some of those readings to be correct, what the hell even caused them? Why at those specific moments? Why did it revert back? Is it due to external factors? No, it's a controlled environment, unless it's something out of our control. Maybe something internal?
Logically, I should just say that this conclusion is baseless, but I have a gut feeling– no, I know that this is not the case. There has to be some pattern.
It was then that I noticed: instead of having those outliers reduce in frequency over time, they were somehow not just keeping at a stable number but also increasing slowly over time. Really slowly, but true.
I kept quickly switching tabs, going over documents in seconds. More people began to gather around me.
"The hell is she doing?"
"Is she even reading? Bet she is just showing off, pretending to do something to us here."
"Why did they even bring her here? We've been here for years doing this; there is just no way she will find anything we haven't. Not the 'incompetent researcher'."
"Just watch, she will just leave. She's done it before; she'd do it now."
I couldn't care less. Though I ask myself if they really had it so easy here to be able to waste time like this. Would explain how they didn't notice something this obvious.
There are no 'incorrect readings' in the tests regarding hardness and the like. The tests failed, so it's reasonable. But the same is also true for all tests made during this period.
And, of course, ever since it became informally 'indestructible', there are no more readings. The reason being that running the equipment for it was too expensive for consistent inconclusive results.
But just having this facility is already too expensive for what was achieved.
Let's not think too much about it.
I opened the data being recorded in real time. I had to be prepared once an anomaly occurred. At this point, I'm sure. I just need to try to destroy it during that time frame. My intuition is telling me so.
Everything was steady. But that's not what I wanted, so I kept waiting.
"Told ya. She didn't find anything we didn't"
"Of course. She didn't even read all the documents like we did. She doesn't know half the information about that thing."
"She really lives up to her title."
After some hours, most of the crowd had already dispersed, probably gossiping about my "failure". But it was then that it happened. An anomaly.
In that instant, I ran to begin another hardness test, knocking down my chair in the process. A lot of people started staring, looking at me as if I had just gone crazy.
"YOU DO NOT HAVE THE PERMISSION TO BEGIN A TEST!" I heard someone shouting.
"Fuck the permission!", I replied, "I'm doing what I was brought here to."
Some researchers began to run to stop me.
But they were too late. I had already started the test.
A deafening sound echoed throughout the place, making everyone freeze in place.
"What the hell is happening?!" I heard someone shout.
Then I saw it.
A single, small fracture, the size of a single strand of hair.
One that feels minuscule, completely dwarfed by the scale of the cube.
But that single crack began spreading throughout the whole cube.
Not so indestructible, I thought. I'll get one piece to study later.
The cube crumbled, breaking down into millions of fragments.
And I gasped.
What?!
At the center of the fragments, there was… a person?
Black hair, black eyes. About 1.7 meters tall? It is clad in a ragged black robe, pants and shirt, that I could call nothing but old, and it wielded a sword in its waist.
Who is that? How did it get there? It was unexplainable.
And that was exciting. Enough to make me shiver.