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Description
body div#devskin0 hr { }

Neve stepped off of her bus, rubbing a bit of gunk from the corner of her eye. She swung her bag, a small triangular pouch that settled against the small of her back, around in front of her and returned her wallet and bus card to its place. Fumbling around inside, she retrieved her call sheet for the day, tightly folded to fit within the pouch.

This was the address. Before her was the entrance to a large complex. A sleepy guard watched her from the gantry, and beyond it, the building was blocky and unspectacular. She looked at the call sheet again. For a place named the “Materials Science and Engineering Center”, the place was quite unremarkable. And she was early. Too early.

It didn’t matter. She approached the guard, pulling her wallet back out to retrieve some identification. He was a short fellow, his uniform hung loosely off of his skinny frame and he wore his dropping eyes and oily face as trophies of his graveyard shift. A crest on his chest read “Pilgrim Composites Corporation”.

“Uh, morning.”

The guard extended a hand toward her. Neve extended her own and grabbed the lifeless limb, shaking it awkwardly.

“…no, your ID and purpose of visit.”

“…oh.”

Neve casted her eyes downward, her cheeks burning. She handed him her driver’s license and callsheet.

“What’s this?”

He held up the call sheet.

“I’m here for the shoot today.”

Neve took the sheet and placed it on the counter. She ran her finger past the Directors, Crew and Cast until it reached the bottom.

Intern (Craft Services) – Yang Wei You Neve

“That’s me.”

The guard was silent.

Neve looked around, not really to see anything but to avoid staring awkwardly at the guard as he checked her documents.

With a sigh, the guard stood and exited the booth. Neve followed around the outside.

“Bag.”

The guard stood behind a foldable table. He was probably an inch shorter than she was. Quickly, she unslung the pouch and placed it down. Unzipping it, she watched the guard rummage within with a small stick.

He prodded within,

“No photo.”

Neve looked in and pulled out the suspect – a Minolta X-700.

“There’s no film inside.”

She opened the back of the camera and displayed its empty guts. The guard stared blankly for a moment, before handing her a small card with a clip.

“Just make sure people can see it.”

He left her, reentering the booth. Neve quickly repacked her gear. Slinging her bag, she made her way across the parking lot and toward the building.

---

The block had no lobby. She entered the building directly into a stark, white corridor that spanned forward, and to her left and right. She stood for a moment, confused.

There were no signs, no indication of what awaited in which direction. She pulled out her call sheet once more but other than telling her she had to get to floor B3, it was of no help. Shrugging, she trudged forward, deeper into the facility, deigning to ask the first person she saw.

Out of sight from the guard, she swung her bag forward again and unzipped it. She popped open the back of the camera and retrieved a small cylinder from her pocket.

Fuji Superia 1600. She was not going to let her first feature film crewing go undocumented.

She loaded the film into the camera as she walked and pulled the loose end into the spool. Aligning the sprockets, she reeled the film in and closed the door, returning her bag to her back.

Her bob’s fringe tickled her eyes, blasted by the cold air conditioning in the complex. The familiar chime of an elevator caught her attention, and she turned a corner to find one in the middle of nowhere.

There was no lobby, just a metal door embedded into a nondescript wall. The metal door slid open and another Asian girl, about her age, stepped out.

“Um, excuse me. I’m with the film crew, I need to-”

“Oh hi, I’m Maddie. I think you’ll be in my department today.”

“Oh, uh, hi. I’m Neve.”

“You’re really early. You can take this elevator down to B3. Turn right, and it’s the big door at the end.”

“Right, big door at the end. Thanks!”

“Help yourself to the pantry. I don’t think anyone’ll be here for a few hours.”

“Isn’t call in like twenty minutes?”

“Not according to the last email they sent out.”

Maddie fumbled with her phone a bit before showing it to the girl. The shoot was set back four hours.

“Oh.”

Nobody tells me anything.

“I guess no one told you. There’s a little broom closet in the back of the room with a safari bed set up. You look like you could use it.”

Neve chuckled.

“Thanks. If I can find it.”

“You’ll find it.”

Maddie sauntered off with a smile, leaving Neve to sigh on her own. It was probably better to be early than late anyway. She considered getting breakfast elsewhere, but her camera was loaded and she’d no interest in going through security again.

The elevator chimed for B3.

She stepped out into a dark corridor – a stark contrast to the daylight flooded pathway she’d taken just before. The hum of fluorescent light rattled her sleep-deprived skull as she congratulated herself on choosing a high ISO film.

To her left, the corridor ended in another T-junction. To her right, the big glass door stood a mere ten meters away from her. Of course, beyond the door lay another corridor.

MCMY LAB
Head: Maddie Chew
Project: P-138

Neve pushed against the door, but it refused to budge. Above her, a small red light indicated a maglock holding the door shut.

She rubbed her forehead. Now what?

Walking aimlessly, Neve pulled up her phone, hoping for Reddit to provide a little mobile entertainment, but there was no signal to be had.

She wandered past the elevator and down the left corridor. The T-Junction threatened to disorientate her – either pathway looked identical. She picked the right fork at random and wandered farther still.

The corridor wound right and ended at a small opaque door. It was unlabeled and slightly ajar. A warm light radiated from within. Neve stood for a moment, her curiosity battling her sensibility – but the threat of boredom proved far too great an impetus, and she pushed the door, entering the room.

She found herself inside a lab, with three rows of complicated equipment. All she recognized were microscopes and petri dishes, but the rest of the equipment was unintelligible machinery. Another door lay at the far corner of the room.

The workstations were clean and unused, except for a single space cluttered with papers and a laptop left to a login screen. Neve approached it and recognized the user’s profile picture as the girl from before. She glanced at the papers and found printed documents annotated in black and blue ink, of at least three different handwritings.

Snippets of words that made no sense to her were voiced in her brain as she looked through them.

…yet in terms of application the coating exhibits the same properties as previous iterations of P-0…

…in manipulation. The study also shows P-139 should be more pliable yet less aggressive when treated to…

…not conclusive until tests can be conducted without an insulative layer…

“I guess I’m in the right place.”

Neve looked toward the door, presumably leading further into the lab, and made her way to it. Maybe she could still find the nap room Maddie’d told her about.

She pushed it open and a blast of cold air chilled her to the bone. The adjoining room was frigid. In just a loose T-shirt and denim shorts, Neve had dressed for production, not a winter hike.

Nevertheless, she decided it was probably better to wait where she’d been sort-of told to, rather than in a place where she could potentially ruin the organization’s work. The room she was in seemed to be purpose-built to house a large machine. It looked almost like a mini-bus, except it was bent in the middle into a not-quite-90-degree L-shape.

Pipes snaked from the ceiling into the bus-machine and small plumes of mist lazily descended to the floor, collecting in a thin fog that blanketed the room. A control panel nestled against the opposite end of the room, and cables ran from it to the machine, crudely secured to the floor with gaffer tape.

Across from her was another door, next to a metal storage cabinet, speckled white with frost – its door was slightly ajar.

Wanting to get out of the frigid cold, Neve marched toward the door, but stopped briefly before the cabinet. She peeked through the crack of the door but it was too dark within to make anything out.

The cold metal almost burned her fingers as she pushed it just slightly farther open. Stray light entered the storage unit and bounced around haphazardly, illuminating its contents. Neve furrowed her brow.

Stars!

Inside, specks of light danced and shimmered in the darkness. They seemed to float in space, moving unpredictably and forming strange patterns, as if it were the sun’s glare on a clear water’s rippling surface.

A thick, musky scent wafted from within. It was like an exotic soap, mildly sweet but with a heady blend of unknown fruits and an unplaceable-yet-familiar aroma. The smell tickled Neve’s brain with a vaguely pleasurable electricity. The bite of the cold seemed to loosen a little, and she pushed the door open yet some more.

Bathed in light, the stars transformed yet again. The specs grew into large swathes, and she recognized the shape of the fluorescent tubes above take form as distorted reflections. Three hangers flexed and swayed as if weighed down by something that Neve could barely see.

She opened the door fully, and as if formed by the light, the specks revealed themselves to be transparent films, draped over the hangars. Neve could not make out their shape, but they seemed to hang from her neck to her shins. They were completely clear, and apart from the reflections from the house lights, they were almost effectively invisible.

Once again her curiosity found itself at odds with her sensibility, but actually touching the substance seemed too big a step to take.

Neve closed the cupboard. The stars sealed back within to dance in isolation.

She pushed open the door before her and found herself in yet another corridor. She took a moment to think spatially and proceeded to her right.

Her reward awaited her a few meters down as a familiar door presented itself to her right – glass and large.

Description
body div#devskin0 hr { }

Neve stepped off of her bus, rubbing a bit of gunk from the corner of her eye. She swung her bag, a small triangular pouch that settled against the small of her back, around in front of her and returned her wallet and bus card to its place. Fumbling around inside, she retrieved her call sheet for the day, tightly folded to fit within the pouch.

This was the address. Before her was the entrance to a large complex. A sleepy guard watched her from the gantry, and beyond it, the building was blocky and unspectacular. She looked at the call sheet again. For a place named the “Materials Science and Engineering Center”, the place was quite unremarkable. And she was early. Too early.

It didn’t matter. She approached the guard, pulling her wallet back out to retrieve some identification. He was a short fellow, his uniform hung loosely off of his skinny frame and he wore his dropping eyes and oily face as trophies of his graveyard shift. A crest on his chest read “Pilgrim Composites Corporation”.

“Uh, morning.”

The guard extended a hand toward her. Neve extended her own and grabbed the lifeless limb, shaking it awkwardly.

“…no, your ID and purpose of visit.”

“…oh.”

Neve casted her eyes downward, her cheeks burning. She handed him her driver’s license and callsheet.

“What’s this?”

He held up the call sheet.

“I’m here for the shoot today.”

Neve took the sheet and placed it on the counter. She ran her finger past the Directors, Crew and Cast until it reached the bottom.

Intern (Craft Services) – Yang Wei You Neve

“That’s me.”

The guard was silent.

Neve looked around, not really to see anything but to avoid staring awkwardly at the guard as he checked her documents.

With a sigh, the guard stood and exited the booth. Neve followed around the outside.

“Bag.”

The guard stood behind a foldable table. He was probably an inch shorter than she was. Quickly, she unslung the pouch and placed it down. Unzipping it, she watched the guard rummage within with a small stick.

He prodded within,

“No photo.”

Neve looked in and pulled out the suspect – a Minolta X-700.

“There’s no film inside.”

She opened the back of the camera and displayed its empty guts. The guard stared blankly for a moment, before handing her a small card with a clip.

“Just make sure people can see it.”

He left her, reentering the booth. Neve quickly repacked her gear. Slinging her bag, she made her way across the parking lot and toward the building.

---

The block had no lobby. She entered the building directly into a stark, white corridor that spanned forward, and to her left and right. She stood for a moment, confused.

There were no signs, no indication of what awaited in which direction. She pulled out her call sheet once more but other than telling her she had to get to floor B3, it was of no help. Shrugging, she trudged forward, deeper into the facility, deigning to ask the first person she saw.

Out of sight from the guard, she swung her bag forward again and unzipped it. She popped open the back of the camera and retrieved a small cylinder from her pocket.

Fuji Superia 1600. She was not going to let her first feature film crewing go undocumented.

She loaded the film into the camera as she walked and pulled the loose end into the spool. Aligning the sprockets, she reeled the film in and closed the door, returning her bag to her back.

Her bob’s fringe tickled her eyes, blasted by the cold air conditioning in the complex. The familiar chime of an elevator caught her attention, and she turned a corner to find one in the middle of nowhere.

There was no lobby, just a metal door embedded into a nondescript wall. The metal door slid open and another Asian girl, about her age, stepped out.

“Um, excuse me. I’m with the film crew, I need to-”

“Oh hi, I’m Maddie. I think you’ll be in my department today.”

“Oh, uh, hi. I’m Neve.”

“You’re really early. You can take this elevator down to B3. Turn right, and it’s the big door at the end.”

“Right, big door at the end. Thanks!”

“Help yourself to the pantry. I don’t think anyone’ll be here for a few hours.”

“Isn’t call in like twenty minutes?”

“Not according to the last email they sent out.”

Maddie fumbled with her phone a bit before showing it to the girl. The shoot was set back four hours.

“Oh.”

Nobody tells me anything.

“I guess no one told you. There’s a little broom closet in the back of the room with a safari bed set up. You look like you could use it.”

Neve chuckled.

“Thanks. If I can find it.”

“You’ll find it.”

Maddie sauntered off with a smile, leaving Neve to sigh on her own. It was probably better to be early than late anyway. She considered getting breakfast elsewhere, but her camera was loaded and she’d no interest in going through security again.

The elevator chimed for B3.

She stepped out into a dark corridor – a stark contrast to the daylight flooded pathway she’d taken just before. The hum of fluorescent light rattled her sleep-deprived skull as she congratulated herself on choosing a high ISO film.

To her left, the corridor ended in another T-junction. To her right, the big glass door stood a mere ten meters away from her. Of course, beyond the door lay another corridor.

MCMY LAB
Head: Maddie Chew
Project: P-138

Neve pushed against the door, but it refused to budge. Above her, a small red light indicated a maglock holding the door shut.

She rubbed her forehead. Now what?

Walking aimlessly, Neve pulled up her phone, hoping for Reddit to provide a little mobile entertainment, but there was no signal to be had.

She wandered past the elevator and down the left corridor. The T-Junction threatened to disorientate her – either pathway looked identical. She picked the right fork at random and wandered farther still.

The corridor wound right and ended at a small opaque door. It was unlabeled and slightly ajar. A warm light radiated from within. Neve stood for a moment, her curiosity battling her sensibility – but the threat of boredom proved far too great an impetus, and she pushed the door, entering the room.

She found herself inside a lab, with three rows of complicated equipment. All she recognized were microscopes and petri dishes, but the rest of the equipment was unintelligible machinery. Another door lay at the far corner of the room.

The workstations were clean and unused, except for a single space cluttered with papers and a laptop left to a login screen. Neve approached it and recognized the user’s profile picture as the girl from before. She glanced at the papers and found printed documents annotated in black and blue ink, of at least three different handwritings.

Snippets of words that made no sense to her were voiced in her brain as she looked through them.

…yet in terms of application the coating exhibits the same properties as previous iterations of P-0…

…in manipulation. The study also shows P-139 should be more pliable yet less aggressive when treated to…

…not conclusive until tests can be conducted without an insulative layer…

“I guess I’m in the right place.”

Neve looked toward the door, presumably leading further into the lab, and made her way to it. Maybe she could still find the nap room Maddie’d told her about.

She pushed it open and a blast of cold air chilled her to the bone. The adjoining room was frigid. In just a loose T-shirt and denim shorts, Neve had dressed for production, not a winter hike.

Nevertheless, she decided it was probably better to wait where she’d been sort-of told to, rather than in a place where she could potentially ruin the organization’s work. The room she was in seemed to be purpose-built to house a large machine. It looked almost like a mini-bus, except it was bent in the middle into a not-quite-90-degree L-shape.

Pipes snaked from the ceiling into the bus-machine and small plumes of mist lazily descended to the floor, collecting in a thin fog that blanketed the room. A control panel nestled against the opposite end of the room, and cables ran from it to the machine, crudely secured to the floor with gaffer tape.

Across from her was another door, next to a metal storage cabinet, speckled white with frost – its door was slightly ajar.

Wanting to get out of the frigid cold, Neve marched toward the door, but stopped briefly before the cabinet. She peeked through the crack of the door but it was too dark within to make anything out.

The cold metal almost burned her fingers as she pushed it just slightly farther open. Stray light entered the storage unit and bounced around haphazardly, illuminating its contents. Neve furrowed her brow.

Stars!

Inside, specks of light danced and shimmered in the darkness. They seemed to float in space, moving unpredictably and forming strange patterns, as if it were the sun’s glare on a clear water’s rippling surface.

A thick, musky scent wafted from within. It was like an exotic soap, mildly sweet but with a heady blend of unknown fruits and an unplaceable-yet-familiar aroma. The smell tickled Neve’s brain with a vaguely pleasurable electricity. The bite of the cold seemed to loosen a little, and she pushed the door open yet some more.

Bathed in light, the stars transformed yet again. The specs grew into large swathes, and she recognized the shape of the fluorescent tubes above take form as distorted reflections. Three hangers flexed and swayed as if weighed down by something that Neve could barely see.

She opened the door fully, and as if formed by the light, the specks revealed themselves to be transparent films, draped over the hangars. Neve could not make out their shape, but they seemed to hang from her neck to her shins. They were completely clear, and apart from the reflections from the house lights, they were almost effectively invisible.

Once again her curiosity found itself at odds with her sensibility, but actually touching the substance seemed too big a step to take.

Neve closed the cupboard. The stars sealed back within to dance in isolation.

She pushed open the door before her and found herself in yet another corridor. She took a moment to think spatially and proceeded to her right.

Her reward awaited her a few meters down as a familiar door presented itself to her right – glass and large.