"Beginning of a Beautiful Friendship"

If his calculations were correct.

If his calculations were correct this call would change everything.

Years of calculations. He had been doing this for so long - had he been a young man once? The development of the model of Noo-Mo-Omniism. The study of Plureality. The development of Omega Magic. Version Theory.

If his calculations were correct he would be making contact with the Prime Variable, the repeating cluster of data that recurred throughout all levels of the holoarchy, in all iterations of the fractal. The 'Cube', as he called it, a nickname referencing the act of raising a quantity to the third power, the transformation of something two-dimensional into something three-dimensional. That which transcends the plane it is drawn upon, like the way in chess that a Knight can move over/through other pieces who can only travel on the surface of the board... It made sense to him, anyway.

Years researching plexwave radiation, designing and building the Plexotron. And everything, and everyone, he gave up along the way. Carrying this desperate vision, this certainty that things could be other than what they are, this burden like Frodo carrying the One Ring to Mt. Doom.

If his calculations were correct this call had probably taken place dozens, maybe hundreds of times before, in different versions. It was a cause, an effect, a strange attractor. For him though, now, here, this call would mean the beginning of creating Continuity in a Fragmented system. The genesis of understanding. It would mean that the Cube would no longer be alone. And neither would he.

He took a deep breath and picked up the cell phone. Dialled the number calculated by the Plexotron.

Ring. Click. "Hello?" The voice sounded far away.

"Um... May I ask who I am speaking to?" he said.

Pause. "My name is Max."

"Max, this is the Professor."

Later in the Metaplex...