Chapter 47: Musa’s Dream Factory

When the last trace of twilight faded and the night fully descended, Marlon finally saw Ivna off. She had left with a heart heavy with thoughts unspoken, her graceful silhouette swallowed by the darkness as the tail-lights of her car receded into the distance.

Thankfully, Ivna had come in her own vehicle. That spared Marlon the trouble of worrying about her safety on the way back, a small relief in a night already burdened with too many concerns.

And so, at last, Marlon found himself free. Free to take that folded newspaper he had kept tucked under his arm, and head straight to Musa Mein.

He hesitated at the door. Even though Adela’s earlier description had already prepared him mentally for what to expect — an environment that was, in her words, “dirty, messy, and downright abominable” — nothing could truly brace him for the reality.

The moment the door creaked open, the truth hit him in full force. The laboratory was in chaos, a battlefield of scattered notes, overturned glassware, and an oppressive odor of long-burnt oil and stale air. And at the very center of this wreckage stood Musa Mein.

The man looked as though he had not washed his face in days. His beard had grown out into a bristling thicket nearly an inch long, uneven and ragged, clinging stubbornly to his gaunt jaw. He hunched over his workbench, so engrossed in his frenzied efforts that he seemed less like a man and more like a creature of obsession.

Marlon couldn’t help it — his expression twisted in undisguised shock.

“Musa!” he blurted out. “The experiment is important, I get that — but surely you must know that your body is the true capital for… well, for your revenge! Without health, what use are discoveries?”

He thought grimly to himself: No, this can’t go on. I really need to sit down and have a heart-to-heart with him. If he burns himself out, if he collapses, then what happens to my dream? My dream of seeing full-dome films, of living in a world with immersive holographic games — all of that could be reduced to ashes because Musa Mein chose to die of exhaustion.

But Musa Mein, clearly, had no patience for life talks.

“Ah! Marlon! You came at the perfect time!” His voice cracked with excitement. His sunken eyes, though bloodshot and ringed with shadow like a vampire starved of blood, glittered with a feverish light. “Quick, come here, look at what I’ve just completed! The problem you posed — I’ve found a solution! A complete solution!”

Before Marlon could utter another word, Musa Mein seized his hand with surprising strength and half-dragged, half-pulled him across the cluttered floor. With long strides that nearly tripped over the mess, Musa carried him to the very heart of the makeshift laboratory.

There, on a special platform, Marlon saw it — fragments of the once-shattered crystal sphere. Once broken into countless shards scattered across the ground, now some of those pieces had been painstakingly reassembled, forming a partial but recognizable half-sphere. The fragments rested delicately in a recessed groove carved into the platform, held together by nothing more than meticulous balance and fragile bonds.

Around the platform’s edges, crude blood-red runes had been carved — a makeshift network designed to convert magical energy. The craftsmanship was rough, almost desperate, but it pulsed faintly with ominous life.

“Marlon,” Musa Mein’s voice trembled with fervor, “we must thank the one who shattered this crystal ball!”

His eyes, veined with crimson threads from too many sleepless nights, shone with manic energy. He looked less like a scholar and more like a man on the edge, a mind stretched to its breaking point. For a terrifying moment, Marlon thought he was looking at an addict, intoxicated not by narcotics but by discovery itself.

“Wait—what do you mean?” Marlon gasped.

“I mean I solved it!” Musa Mein nearly shouted, his whole body quivering with unrestrained triumph. “I discovered the secret of the fragmented dimensional projections!”

He gestured wildly at the shards. “Certain fragments — when of sufficient size — can serve as containers, allowing souls to enter a projected world! And the smaller fragments, the ones carrying scattered images and sounds? They can be inserted, fused into the projection of the larger fragment! Don’t you see? By cutting the larger shards deliberately, and embedding the smaller ones according to specific patterns, we can achieve exactly what you dreamed of — editable dimensional projections!”

His arms flailed, his hands drawing invisible diagrams in the air as he raved on, his excitement infectious.

“And there’s more!” Musa’s voice climbed higher. “A sphere isn’t even the optimal shape. No, no! We should cut the crystal into rectangular blocks, then carve thinner crystal slates that can be slotted back in at will! This way we create a mother projection shard. From the mother shard, countless child shards can be copied and distributed!”

Marlon’s heart pounded in his chest. This — this was everything he wanted to hear.

“Cost,” Marlon forced himself to ask, his voice low but trembling with urgency. “What about cost, Musa? If we’re cutting these spheres into blocks, how much will it take? If the price is too high, it’ll never reach the masses. It’ll end up as a luxury toy for the wealthy.”

Musa hardly hesitated. He raised his pinky finger and pointed at the smallest joint. “This much crystal for ten minutes of recording. If my memory is correct, shards of this size — after grinding and cutting in the crystal workshops — would cost no more than fifty Lants.”

Marlon froze, stunned. A block of crystal worth less than fifty Lants, capable of storing an hour’s worth of footage?!

His mind reeled with the implications.

“What about viewership?” Marlon asked quickly, his words tumbling over one another, his voice accelerating without his realizing. “Are we still limited to four people per projection?”

“That depends,” Musa said, his manic grin widening. “For internal projections, yes — four souls at most, perhaps eight with further expansion. But external projections? If we adopt your theater model, Marlon, then with sufficient amplification crystals and a large enough screen… we could support thousands. Tens of thousands! Imagine it! A projection for an audience of ten thousand, all watching at once!”

Marlon’s breath caught. Ten thousand. An entire city gathered, watching the same film.

That was it. He couldn’t contain himself anymore. He leapt to his feet, nearly knocking over a stool.

“Fantastic! Absolutely fantastic! Musa, tomorrow we march straight to the patent office — we register this invention immediately! And then the municipal business bureau — we’ll start a film company. Yes, a true film company! What do you think of DreamWorks? No? Then maybe Disney? Fox? MGM? Paramount? Lionsgate? New Line?”

“DreamWorks! I like DreamWorks!” Musa Mein shouted without hesitation.

“Then DreamWorks it is!” Marlon declared, eyes blazing. “We’ll build a real Dream Factory — a studio worthy of the name! And now… now let me try it! Let me experience the projection with my own soul!”

He reached out, trembling with excitement, hand extending toward the fragile crystal fragments.

“Don’t touch it!” Musa shrieked, lunging forward. “They’re barely holding together! A touch could throw them out of alignment — even cause a small explosion!” He slapped Marlon’s hand away, chest heaving with panic. “Luckily, we don’t need to touch the fragments directly. Just contact the platform. That will be enough.”

“Sorry, sorry!” Marlon stammered, chastened. His pulse slowed as realization struck him — and only then did he notice Musa’s hands. They were covered in tiny cuts, lined with dried blood.

“Musa!” Marlon snapped, fury flaring. “They already exploded once, didn’t they? Damn it, you’re injured and you didn’t even say a word! Do you understand? If your hands — your miraculous hands — get infected, if you get tetanus, what then?!”

“Tetanus?” Musa tilted his head, puzzled, then chuckled weakly. “Ah, you mean suppuration? Don’t worry. Even if they fester, a priest can heal minor wounds with a single spell. Nothing to fear.”

Marlon fell silent, at a complete loss for words. Right… I keep forgetting. This world has priests. People who can literally banish death and disease with a flick of their hands. A different reality altogether.

“Fine,” Marlon muttered at last, shaking his head with a wry smile. “You win.” He straightened, eyes burning again with urgency. “Enough talk. Let’s go, Musa. Let’s dive into the shards!”

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