The Pathroom

The orange button flashed invitingly as my finger descended, and was met with the sharp crack of a wooden ruler.
   "Ow!"
      "Don't touch that one. Not yet, anyway. We don't know when we're going."
   "I thought we were going now?"
      "We are going now, but we don't know when we are going to."
My partner was a slightly too slick scientist by the name of Reinhard Yabuttie, or Yab for short (well, a lot of people called him Butty for short, but not to his face). His hair was slightly too smooth, and in a slightly too greasy ponytail. His slightly too hooked nose hung slightly too low over his slightly too droopy moustache. None of the other detectives could stand him - especially the other ladies - so by virtue of the fact that I could stomach him more than most, I was sent on this pointless assignment.
   "So you saw the suspect run into that chamber, but he didn't come out?"
      "Nothing comes out."
   "And we can't go in there because...?"
      "We can go in there, just not yet. I need to track down when he went."
   "I thought you said it was about half an hour ago?"
      "Please, Miss Simmons."
   "Detective Simmons."
      "Detective Simmons. Have you listened to a anything that I've said? That chamber is an...Aha!"
A screen suddenly flared into life, streaming characters and strings of numbers that Yab excitedly jabbed his finger at, his eyes dancing excitedly.
      "I've tracked him. Quickly, press that button now."
I did what I was told and pressed the orange button, with no answering thwack this time. Instead, the door to the chamber clicked open and Yab hopped over and slipped inside, beckoning impatiently for me to follow. Inside was a single table with a chair at either end. It looked a little like an interrogation room. Yab sat down and the door automatically clicked shut behind me.
   "So what do we..."
      "Sit, Miss Simmons!" Yab ordered, and for once I didn't correct him. There was something strange about this room, as if the edges of my vision were blurred. I sat, and Yab reached out to grab my hands.
   "Hey!" I said, instinctively withdrawing, "What do you think you're doing?"
      "Please, Mel, this is important."
Something in his tone made me believe him, and I reached out and let him take my hands across the table. As he did so, there was a beep from the machines outside and then ... I don't know how to explain it. The corners of the room neatly folded in upon themselves and suddenly we weren't sitting in that sterile chamber, we were sitting in an enamelled bathtub in the middle of a large, almost circular room with doors all the way around it. Slightly too many doors.
      "Oh, we're in the pathroom", Yab proclaimed, looking around.
   "I can see we're in a bathroom", I said, "but what the heck are we doing here?"
      "No, not the bathroom, the pathroom. The nexus. A place rich in mythomechanical energy. These doors can lead you anywhen."