Dyact

A campy attempt at an episode of The Twilight Zone.

A mans greatest strength is his unflinching faith. The faith that every question has an answer, that every problem has a solution, that everything one’s based their existence on is the irrefutable, absolute truth. But what happens when that faith is proven warped? Will the man accept the truth and allow his faith to be changed and inevitably strengthened, or will he choose to live his life in shrouded darkness? It is in this situation that we find a man of faith.

“Good morning Harry,” said the plump, little man over a steaming cup of coffee.

Harry, quite irritated with the unwelcome noise that broke his concentration, peeled his eyes from the chalkboard to peer over his glasses at Dr. Bigman, who smiled back at him with that fat faced, rosy cheeked grin, then turned his attention, without a stop in the motion, back to the board.

“It’s Dr. Fillmore if you would, please, Dr. Bigman."  Harry said, rolling a piece of chalk between the fingers of his right hand. "This is a work place, not a dinner table.”

The smile faded from Dr. Bigman’s face. “I was only trying to be cordial Harry. I’m your colleague remember, not your pupil. And why don’t you stop looking at that chalkboard for a minute and engage me in a real conversation. For Pete’s sake Harry, you've been pouring over that equation since… Good god man! That was last night! You’ve been up all night working on that formula. Enough is enough Harry. Why don’t you take a break for a minute; get some sleep… Fine! Just stand there and ignore me. You really are insufferable Harry.” With that, Dr. Bigman slammed the door to the office and waddled in an angrily fashion down the hall, muttering something unintelligible to himself.

Mumbling gasbag, Harry thought to himself. He calls himself a scientist, a mathematician even, when all he does is talk. I’m the only one around here that does any work.

“Blast-it-all!” he shouted as he threw the chalk at the board. “There’s got to be a solution. Why can’t I see it?”

“Maybe you’re just not looking hard enough.”

“Who said that,” Harry yelled as he spun around to find himself face to face with a tall man, one that looked to Harry like he’d jump right out of the silver screen. “Who are you? I didn’t see you come in?”

“The name’s Slaymaker,” the strange man said as he tipped his hat. “I see you have a problem.”

“And what do you know about mathematical equations?”

“Actually, I’m some what of a math-whiz myself, and I have the answer,” Slaymaker said, proudly gripping his suit’s lapels.

“What?” Harry asked incredulously. “Show me.”

Slaymaker dipped into his left jacket pocket and pulled out a piece of paper. Dr. Fillmore greedily reached for it only to have it pull back, it out of reach. “If you take this piece of paper," said Slaymaker, "there’s no going back. The laws of physics will change hence forth.”

“Just give me that,” Harry said, then ripped it out of the man’s hand and opened it. “What’s this? All it is, is a symbol and a word: ‘plode’.”

“What it is,” Slaymaker replied. “Is the key to your equation; the missing number.”

“What are you talking about?”

“Listen carefully. Between every two there is plode. One, plode, two, three, and so on. The missing number.”

Harry stared at the man as he would a lunatic. “What you’re saying is crazy. If there’s one constant in the universe, its mathematics, first there is nothing/zero, then there is one and on indefinitely. There is no adding of a new number, it’s physically, it’s universally impossible!”

“And yet,” Slaymaker held up a finger. “It is. Between every two there is plode.”

“Look,” said Harry. “I have five fingers, one, two, three, four, and five. No plode, unless you count one, plode, two, three, four. Then I have four fingers.”

“But you have five fingers,” Slaymaker said with a grin. “And a pleth finger, two arms and a pleth arm, two legs and a pleth leg, but no third arm or leg, and on and on. Don’t you see? You have two half’s of a brain and a whole pleth half you’re not using. Your simple mind just cannot comprehend the number plode. But if you were forced to use your pleth eye then the pleth side of your brain would kick in and you could understand. And that’s where your equation fits in. You need a dyagon to create a dyact.”

Harry blinked a couple times. “A dya-what?”

“A dyact, it’s a plode dimensional dyhedron. Like a tesseract but with only two sides. You can use it to travel to the pleth dimension.”

“What? That’s impossible! You cannot have a two sided polyhedron!”

“You can if the two sides were connected by a pleth side,” Slaymaker said cutting him off.

“So," Harry started, trying to wrap it around his brain. "We use the…dyact to go to the pleth dimension. That would mean solid ground…” Slaymaker gazed at Dr. Fillmore until he came to the realization. “A pleth planet in this very solar system! This is incredible, it’s unbelievable. It will take a long time for me to create this.”

“Yes, but unfortunately for you, we don’t have that kind of time, so we’ll use my dyact.”

Slaymaker turned to his left and with no movement from his two hands he slid the dyact around, so that, as if from nowhere, a side of the dyact became visible. Slaymaker pushed a button with his right hand and a door slid open. “After you.” He said to Dr. Fillmore.

Harry walked up to the portal. He inhaled deeply, then let it out in a slow, controlled breath. He still could not wrap his mind around this incredible turn of events. Truly, everything he knew about mathematics, physics, about life in general had just been turned upside down, slapped around a bit, then turned upside down again, but he was ready step forward. Again, he took in a deep breath, this time he held it. And he stepped forward, first with his right foot, then his left, then his pleth.

Dr. Harry Fillmore, scientist, philosopher, and self made taciturn.

Alone in his office, he found himself staring at an equation that, unbeknownst to him, had no answer and yet only one solution. He’s given a chance that would change his faith, the course of history and even the very laws of physics as we know them. Can he grasp the solution that he so fervently took hold of, or will he forever be faced with the living nightmare that haunts every scientist: The Unanswerable.

Step into the other side, Dr. Fillmore, for the solution lies only in… The Twilight Zone.

Reviews

[TheFemininePad]

This was an amazing read. I really enjoyed reading this submission for my unique writing contest. I drew me in with your humor at the beginning of the story, and you continued to keep my attention. I really think you did a great job with this story. I don't see how you could improve upon this already terrific writing.

[Randall Andrews]

I thought this story was really a cool twist for the twilight zone. You did really well in constructing the ideas and it was an impressive read.