Prologue
Barely piercing the darkness, the absolute gloom was spoiled by the small, pale green incandescent light bulb mounted atop the ancient-designed—and recently modified—ondograph sitting atop the desk. Steadily glowing, its luminescence was both gentle yet insistent…and entirely unnecessary, the rolling drum-and-needle of the recording graph both more accurate and permanent. However, what that pale luridness lacked in accuracy was more than compensated by its…comforting familiarity.
Without warning—and quite startling had anyone been there to see—a pair of glittering green lines appeared, hovering in thin air. Lines that gradually evolved into round disks as their owner fully opened their eyes at last, those cold orbs utterly focused on that pale bulb.
Eyes fully adapted to the dark—and not because they had been closed for so long—Professor Harmony leaned back in his chair, lacing fingers across his chest as he momentarily paused his meditative musings.
Until fairly recently, that diminutive bulb had been the only means available to him for displaying the intensity of the energy levels that self-designed and built-by-hand device measured; his many fortes, alas, sadly lacking the mundane, plebian "skill" of equipment design construction…
…A lack that was exasperating and infuriating, all the more so as there were no "off-the-shelf" instruments capable of detecting the particular energies he pursued.
Eyes slowly wandered about the small room, glittering orbs possessively appraising the other apparatus stored on the shelves lining three of the walls, fingers of his right hand idly playing with a small object on his desk: a cube the size of a sugar lump, and with a color and texture to match.
Those devices were, for now, unpowered. However—and far more importantly—they were fully functional—and utterly unique.
His curled lip instantly changed into a terrifying snarl as he revised that thought, for they were not entirely unique, after all.
His student, after all, possessed identical ones.