Future Gadget Laboratory#
| Type | Private laboratory (self-declared) |
| Location | 2F, above the Braun Tube Workshop, Akihabara |
| Founded | By Rintaro Okabe |
| Founder's title | Mad scientist (self-conferred) |
| Members | 8 numbered (see roster) |
| Floor area | ~40 m² plus rooftop access |
| Landlord | Mr. Braun (tolerance varies) |
| Rent status | Chronically renegotiated |
| Notable equipment | PhoneWave, Divergence Meter, IBN 5100 (worldline-dependent) |
| SERN surveillance | Confirmed, historical |
| Status | Active |
The Future Gadget Laboratory is a rented second-floor walkup in Akihabara where Rintaro Okabe and a small, fiercely loyal membership build joke inventions — and where, in the summer everything changed, they accidentally built the world's second time machine. It is a clubroom, a workshop, a safehouse, and at various points a battlefield; the episode guide barely leaves it for whole stretches, because for this story the lab is the world.
The lab occupies one open room plus a kitchenette, a bathroom, and a steep stair to the roof. Furnishing is archaeological: a sagging sofa (sleep rated, two persons, diagonal), the main workbench, a CRT television that predates most members, and shelving whose lower strata have not been observed since founding. The PhoneWave holds the kitchenette counter; the Divergence Meter sits on the anomaly shelf beside the sealed specimens; the wall hooks hold FG #1 and whichever umbrella nobody has reclaimed.
Below, at street level, hums the Braun Tube Workshop, whose proprietor doubles as landlord and involuntary first-responder to everything the lab drops, floods, or detonates. The relationship is best described as weaponized patience, in both directions.
Lab member roster
- 001 — Rintaro Okabe
- 002 — Mayuri Shiina
- 003 — Itaru Hashida
- 004 — Kurisu Makise
- 005–008 — see handbook roster
Workbench, sofa, CRT, whiteboard bearing the valley diagram in its fourth redrawing and one corner of ink that doesn't erase. The floor's center is kept clear by standing order — a habit from the Helicam era that outlived the flights.
The PhoneWave's domain. House rules laminated above it: no metal in the drum, no bananas near it, photograph the meter before anything ambitious. The rice situation is governed by the Kerberos Tap's third head, currently vacant.
Laundry line, two folding chairs, and the best view of Akiba's signage anyone gets for this rent. Where lab members go to say the things that don't get said in the main room. Several of the guide's quietest scenes happen here.
Steep, loud, and the lab's true security system — nobody has ever reached the door unannounced. The seventh step's creak is load-bearing to at least two plot developments. #lore
| Era | Character | Key events |
|---|---|---|
| Founding | Clubhouse | FG line begins; #1 through #7 built |
| The summer | Laboratory | Gel Banana; D-Mail discovered; Kurisu joins |
| Surveillance | Safehouse | SERN attention; the IBN hunt; vans outside |
| The worst month | Battlefield | Shift-heavy operations; see alpha-worldline |
| After | Home | Steins Gate reached; rent still due |
The lab has been searched twice, bugged once (found: behind the CRT, where the dust betrayed it), and defended at cost that this wiki documents on the worldline pages rather than here. It has never once been voluntarily tidied.
Membership is by number, conferred by Okabe with full ceremony including the Cyalume Saber ignition. Duties are enumerated in the Lab Member Handbook; in practice the binding obligations are three: answer your phone, ==never let Okabe debrief a worldline shift alone==, and buy your share of Dk Pepper. Meetings open whenever Okabe declares them open and adjourn when Mayuri says "tuturu" in the specific descending tone that means dinner.
Rent is paid monthly, in cash, downstairs, in an envelope Mayuri decorates because "Mr. Braun pretends to hate it but keeps them." Arrears have historically been settled in kind: CRT deliveries carried, shop watched during hospital visits, one memorable fortnight of Moad Snake rental. The economics do not add up and are not meant to. #lore
The lab's inventions are cataloged under Technology; its street and city under Akihabara. For the general phenomenon of tiny rooms that bend history, see Skunk Works — the lab would claim kinship, and the claim is not entirely wrong.