Before New Game, Part 1

1921 AD

Chicago, Illinois

The smell of overwork was pungent in his office. Leaving out to the front of the building, one young man, the regretful founder of this failed site, took a seat on its cracked grey steps. Out on the blue horizon, polluted by buildings and civilization though it were- not a single Ferris wheel nor roller coaster lay in sight.

He peered down at his hands- hands that had seen many things- from the tail end of the first world war, to the thousands of paper sheets he animate upon- with the power both to do any job forced upon him as well as mold others towards the fulfillment of his own dreams. At the time, he was proud of the former, but anticipated the latter as their true purpose.

“Walt?”

When Ib came to follow him, it wasn’t unexpected. His partner hurried down the steps of the studio, checking the distraught face of Walter Roscoe Kidney before promptly leaving them to pace around the pavement.

“You can’t be doing this, Walter, not anymore. You’re in charge now. They’re all- we’re all expecting you to be there in the workplace.” Ib stammered, avoiding eye contact with his visionary.

“I wish there was anything more to this world than commercials and cartoons.”

Ib dropped a deep sigh on the pavement. After so much time, the man still hadn’t lost his penitent for tossing things up in the air when they bored him.

His partner was a neurotic one. After meeting in college, Walter had led him through a gauntlet of business ventures so wild he naturally felt as if he might be unseated from his current place in life at any moment. Ib Waschbär, as intelligent of a man as he was, was correct in assuming this- though it didn’t occur to him then that where he stood in the man’s dream was just as volatile a position.

“Go get married if you will then.” He argued to Walt. “Commercials and cartoons are what we’ve staked our lives on, you made a company for it.”

“I’m pulling the plug on this one, Ib.”

“Why?” The againster stood in disbelief. “You’ll just make another studio, won’t you?”

“No, no… not just a studio. This time.”

“Are you running for damn senator?”

“I want… something to leave behind. I’ll be damned if my legacy is nothing but the fiction I create. I swear to you, by the time I die, those fantasies we’ve been inking will be nothing compared to the reality I create.”

Ib pushed his palms to his sweaty forehead. The morning had been stressful, but this was unbelievable.

“Pete’s sake, you’ve lost it now…”

“We’ll make it together. You and I.”

As if not even hearing his disputes, Kidney just kept on dreaming. There was no point in waking him up.

“What do you propose…?”

“We quit this studio… start another one. “Kidney Studios.” That’s the name. And above it- something more. An organization, a foundation. We gather up everyone who can make our dream come true… and then, one day, it will.”

“What’s “our” dream?

“Let’s find out.”

Losing his despair, Walter then looked up at Ib with that same bright, radiating smile as always. Sure enough, whenever Kidney had a new idea, this was the trademark stamp of it. The young visionary extended his hand.

“What do you say, Ib? Wanna come along?”

Waschbär groaned.

He took his hand and shook it good.

“How I wish I wasn’t such a pushover.”