# Sunlight Through Water



## froman (Aug 7, 2010)

_The first part of this story was in the Writers Workshop for a little bit, but I want to post the whole thing if I can (a little bit at a time)_. _So this is where it starts._


8-[


“It’s not supposed to do that," said Serge.

  “Yeah, I know it’s not supposed to do that," said Hank.  "If it was supposed to do that do you think I would have called you over here?”

              “Well you must have done something wrong then," said Serge.

              “Done something wrong?  When the light comes on I push the button.  I push a _god-damned_ button all day long Serge!  What the hell could possibly go wrong?” said Hank.

              “Hey, I’m not the one that broke the stupid thing," said Serge.  "Why did you call me over here if you were just going to bite my head off?”

              “You know what?" said Hank. "I don’t even care!  All the time I’ve spent staring at this ridiculous piece of junk, and for what? What’s the damn point?  Who knows, but does that stop me?  No!  I just keep right on doing it!”

  Emile could vaguely hear the rattling of the button in the background, but he was caught up in his numbers.  He had gotten pretty good at blocking out the sound of Serge’s thick Spanish accent and Hanks whining, although the whining had taken him awhile.  Emile was so high up in his count that he was hardly aware of much else.  Had he ever made it this far before?  It was tough to tell.  The feeling was vaguely familiar, but time barely seemed to exist down here.  It could have been twenty years ago or last week, not that weeks or years meant anything.

  “Hey Emile, I think Hank really broke it.  Why don’t you come and check it out?” said Serge.

  “It’s a button Serge.  I think you two can manage,” said Emile, putting his finger on the monitor so he wouldn’t lose his place.  As long as he had been counting down here, you’d think he could have held a conversation without losing his place, but he never seemed to get any better at multi-tasking.  Anyway, he wasn’t good with numbers.

  “Oh for Christ’s sake Emile, your precious numbers aren’t going anywhere,” said Hank.

  Emile sighed and started his ritual for memorizing his place in the count. 4 8 1 4 3 0 8 9 6 2 3 2 0.  He repeated the sequence ten times in his mind, visualizing the numbers as best he could before he got up.  When he walked over to help, Serge was tapping at the light on the console and Hank was bent double, angrily pressing the button.  It was funny to see the two of them fiddling with such a simple machine, and Emile tried not to roll his eyes.  All it consisted of was a button and a light on a plain metal console.  There was no possible way to fix it if something had gone wrong but Emile figured that he would humor them for a minute.

  “So what happened right before it stopped?” said Emile.

  “What do you think happened?  The light went on and I pushed the button.”

  Emile wasn’t about to start taking Hanks abuse, so he stood their quietly waiting for Hank to give him a serious answer.  After all, it wasn’t Emile’s fault that Hank had the most mind numbing and pointless job of the three of them.  Emile sometimes wondered if Hank acted the way he did because of the button, or if he was assigned the button job precisely because of the way he acted.  It probably didn’t matter either way and after a few minutes of silent button pressing Hank spoke up.

  “There was a quick succession of four flashes from the light right before it broke.  I’ve never seen it do that before,” said Hank.  “You guys know how it works.  One flash at a time.  The timing changes but the number of flashes never does.”

  “How many times did you hit the button after that sequence?” said Emile.

  “What?”

  “Did you hit the button four times after it flashed four times?”
  Hank stopped pressing the button and looked at the floor, his face flushing with embarrassment.

  “One flash at a time…It never changes,” he muttered.  

  Emile could hear Hanks voice start to break with emotion, and felt ashamed of himself.  Could it really matter this much to Hank that he had messed up?  Emile tried to remember the last highest count he had done.  He couldn’t remember the number but he remembered how it felt when he lost his place.  He tried to act like it wasn’t a big deal but he really did feel horrible.  He tried to imagine what he would feel like if his monitor went dead, and quickly shook the thought from his mind.  Emile’s pulse quickened and he clenched his fists in anger.  It made him furious suddenly realizing how dependent they were to these pointless machines.  How something as simple as a light not blinking could nearly bring a man like Hank to tears.

  Emile looked at Serge and could tell he was feeling just as awkward about the situation.  He had been intensely studying that stupid light for the last five minutes, and Emile could see the relief on his face when the phone on his console rang.  Serge half jogged back to his seat and picked up the phone.  He carefully wrote down the message from the anonymous caller and slipped the piece of paper into the corresponding feeder slot.  He’s just as helpless as Hank and I, thought Emile as he watched Serge’s routine.

  Emile was watching Serge finish up when he was suddenly blinded by an intense light from Hank’s console.  He yelped in surprise and covered his face to protect his eyes.  When the bright spots cleared from his vision, Emile looked around.  Almost half the room was bathed in a new and beautiful glow.  It was so brilliant that even his plain white, collared shirt seemed to have been dyed by its radiance.

  “Jesus Christ,” was all he managed to say.

  He heard Hank lift his head and gasp.

  “What the hell is it doing?” said Hank.  He slowly got to his feet and stood next to Emile, squinting at the light.

  “My god…. is that blue?” said Serge as he headed back to Hank’s machine.  

  Emile had a strange sense of déjà vu when he saw the light first come on.  The new color seemed so familiar but he just couldn’t put a name to it.  When Serge said blue, though, Emile knew that’s what it was called.  He didn’t know how he knew it, but he was certain that blue was its name.

  “What’s blue?” said Hank.

              “I don’t quite know, but I’m pretty sure you’re looking at it,” said Serge.

              “You don’t know what you’re talking about,” said Hank.  His condescending tone was almost eclipsed by the awe in his voice.

              “No, I’m pretty sure he’s right,” said Emile.

              “Well, should I push the button?” said Hank.  

  Emile was about to tell him to hold on, but Hank had already pressed it by the time he finished asking.  As soon as Hank released the button the light went out, and all three of them staggered backwards from the shock of losing the brilliant blue glow.  But before their eyes could even begin to adjust to the drab white light of the room, a rapid burst of vivid colors flashed from the light.  Emile didn’t even have time to shield his eyes.  He wouldn’t have tried even if he did have time.  Every new color felt like it was touching a forgotten memory in his mind.  But not even a memory.  The feeling was too fragile to be called a memory.  More like the vague reflection of a memory.  

  The flashes only lasted a few seconds, but to Emile it felt like time had stood still.  When the light did stop they stood silent and motionless, their backs pressed against the far wall.  The flashes were so bright that when they reflected off of the plain white surfaces of everything in the room it seemed to paint them with color.  Now that everything was back to its drab, colorless self, the room seemed paper thin, as if a stiff breeze could blow it all away.

   “Okay…. something is obviously very wrong here,” said Serge, breaking the silence.  He carefully pushed himself from the wall and walked over to the notepad next to the door.  “I think we better fill out an incident report and get someone up here to fix this.”

   “NO!”  

  Emile and Hank both shouted at Serge then turned to each other, as shocked at each others response as Serge had been at theirs.

   “What do you mean ‘No’?  This is definitely not supposed to be happening.  Management gave us the forms precisely for this type of incident.”

  “Management?  Don’t feed us that crap Serge.  Don’t pretend like you know the first thing about what Management wants.”  Hank swept his arm around the room.  “What’s the plan here Serge?”

   “I don’t know what the plan is Hank, but I’m sure it has nothing to do with that,” said Serge, pointing at the light on Hank’s console.

   “Maybe it does and maybe it doesn’t,” said Hank.  “We don’t know what these machines do or what they’re for.  This could absolutely be part of their plan, but I hope to god that it’s not.  In all the time we’ve been down here, what have we ever gotten from their plan?  And now that something interesting is actually happening you want to throw it away?”

   “You don’t actually plan to go along with this do you Emile?” said Serge.

  Emile hadn’t left the wall opposite Hank’s console.  He was trying to pay attention to them but found himself occasionally sneaking glances at the light.  The colors were still fresh in his mind.

   “Look Serge, it was probably just a glitch.  There’s a good chance it’ll work itself out if we just leave it.  I don’t think there’s any need to get Management involved.  Besides, Hanks right.  I really can’t remember the last time anything different happened down here.”

  Serge looked like he was going to protest, but instead he threw up his arms in exasperation and shook his head.

   “Fine.  You guys can play your little mind game with Management.  But if heads roll over this I’m letting them know that I had nothing to do with it, and I’m expecting you to back me up on that.”

  Hank grunted, waved him off dismissively, and walked back to his console.  Seeing Hank eager about anything was almost as strange and out of place as the lights had been.  Serge’s phone had been ringing for a few minutes and he finally picked it up, still muttering under his breath about how ridiculous the whole situation was.  When Emile went back to his numbers he tried to concentrate as hard as he could, but he couldn’t stop his mind from wandering.  It was all he could do not to lose his place, and all the while the colors danced around in his head.

*  *  *  *
​    The shifts seemed to be taking longer lately.  Was management increasing their hours?  Emile tried to convince himself that was the reason, but deep down he knew it wasn’t.  Before the colors showed up, Emile seemed to skim effortlessly across time.  His shifts seemed to pass by almost unnoticed.  In fact he never really thought of them as shifts until now.  A shift was something to be endured, something to struggle through.  He never thought counting his numbers was a struggle, and sometimes he almost enjoyed it.  But any shred of enjoyment or pleasure that had once existed was gone now, and the flow of time was becoming painfully obvious. 

  Hank wasn’t making things any easier.  Day after day he would sit silently at his console, completely obsessed with whatever game the light was playing with him.  For so long Hanks whining complaints had created the ambient background noise for the room that Emile had learned to tune them out.  Now that they were gone, Hanks silence was louder than his whining had ever been.

  And what really frustrated Emile was that Serge hardly seemed to notice any change at all.  Sure, the light on Hank’s console was back to its normal intensity, and was no longer illuminating half the room, but the strange colors were still there.  Didn’t that or Hanks newfound silence bother Serge at all?  If it did he didn’t show it.  He just went on answering his phone and slipping pointless notes like nothing had happened.

  Then Emile lost his place.  Things were going fine, so to speak.  He was struggling to concentrate on the count and block out all of the new distractions when his mind made an unintentional connection.  Sky is blue.  He had probably said the word sky a million times down here, and he thought he knew what it meant.  Nonetheless, a couple neurons must have crossed in his brain and the new color seemed to fit perfectly with the word.  He remembered looking up at the ceiling of their room when the whole place was glowing blue.  Then he imagined a massive expanse of brilliant blue, zillions of times larger and higher than the ceiling had been.  The idea seemed too ridiculous to even contemplate, but it also felt like it had some fundamental truth behind it.  By the time the daydream finished and Emile looked back at the blinking insertion point on his monitor, his mind went blank.  He couldn’t even remember the amount of digits there had been in the count.

  Emile jumped up from his seat, knocking his chair over, and screamed obscenities at the monitor.  He punched the side of his console as hard as he could, denting it slightly, and the pain of it shot up his arm.  He turned around panting and saw that Serge had gotten up from his chair and had backed away slightly.  Even Hank had pulled his eyes from his light to stare at Emile like he was some kind of madman.

   “What’s wrong with you, Emile?” said Serge.

  Emile looked at him, but didn’t reply.  His mouth was full of bitter disgust and if he had said something he would have only regretted it later.  Instead he stormed out of the room and into his bunk down the hall.

  After that, Emile could hardly focus on the count at all.  Anytime he would start, he would notice the dent in the side of the console and be reminded of how pointless it really was.   He found himself wandering over to Hank’s console more and more frequently.  Earlier he thought that Hank was obsessed with the light, but watching him now, Emile realized it was deeper than that.  Hank was utterly absorbed by it.  He would sit motionless for hours studying the flashes of color intensely, only moving to tap the button, or leave with them to go to the cafeteria.  It almost seemed like Hank was having a conversation with it.  At first Emile tried to talk to Hank about it, but after getting only grunts and murmurs in return he gave up.  Sometimes Emile felt himself getting mesmerized by the lights.  He was sure it was nothing like what Hank felt, but it made Emile feel strangely excited to think about the hints of memories that the colors conjured for him.

  At one point Hank threw up his arms and laughed hysterically, scaring Emile half to death, who was standing right behind him.  It was so shockingly out of place that even Serge stopped what he was doing and came over to see what the commotion was.

   “I knew you would slip up sooner or later you son of a bitch!” said Hank, pointing at the light triumphantly.

  Emile and Serge both threw each other bewildered glances.  Hank looked up at them, grinning wildly, as if they knew exactly what he had discovered.  When he realized that they had no clue, he waved at them dismissively and returned to his usual motionless position and deadpan expression.

   “Well, aren’t you going to tell us what that little performance was about?” said Serge.  He waited but Hank showed no sign of acknowledgment. 

   “Hank…?”  Nothing.

   “What the hell happened Emile, or are you going to give me the silent treatment as well?”

   “I have no idea.  He was just sitting there, like he is now.  I was watching the lights and I didn’t notice anything out of the ordinary, just the same random flashes of color.”

   “Well I guess we can safely assume that Hank has lost it.  Case closed.”  Serge walked back to his console shaking his head and muttering under his breath.



:afro: _more coming folks_


----------



## josh23 (Aug 11, 2010)

I thought u did a great job with this piece, I loved how you explained everything just enough to know what was going on. But keep it all a sort of mystery as well to keep it interesting.
For me the most interesting thing was the machines, i really wanted to find out what they were for and i was searching for it up until the end lol, i also liked how you gave the characters so much depth and showed how the colors effected them without just telling us like so many others do.
I thought you did a great job grammatically as well as with spelling. I didn't notice any of your sentences ran on but i might just have missed them.

I think you could probably add a bit more description when they talk, it might have been how i was reading it but i had a hard time telling who was who at first and near the end of the story. 
And i think that you could add a bit more description about the room, or is it plain white with just the machines in it? As well what how long do their shifts last? Do they have replacements come in to cover for them while they sleep? And what exactly does the actual complex they live and work in look like?
But thats the only thing i thought you could really improve on, other than that the story was immensely interesting, you didn't just repeat words over and over you used and i thought you got their emotions across so well.

I'm looking forward to reading another chapter or two and hope my review helped


----------



## Purple Rain (Aug 12, 2010)

A very interesting subject. . . . it sounds very realistic despite some of its unrealistic elements. You did a nice job with characterization and imagery, and you left me wanting more.



> “Hey, I’m not the one that broke the stupid thing. Why did you call me over here if you were just going to bite my head off?” said Serge.



Just a minor suggestion--because you take a while to introduce your speakers, I would introduce Serge earlier in this piece of dialogue, like so:



> “Hey, I’m not the one that broke the stupid thing," *said Serge*. "Why did you call me over here if you were just going to bite my head off?”



Likewise,



> “Hey Emile, I think Hank really broke it," *said Serge*. "Why don’t you come and check it out?”



You might consider adding a few similar tags to your dialogue at the beginning. That segment was a tad confusing to me. Because you had not yet introduced your characters, I had no clue who the speaker was.



> Emile could hear Hanks voice start to break with emotion, and felt ashamed of himself. Could it really matter this much to Hank that he had messed up? Emile tried to remember the last highest count he had done. He couldn’t remember the number but he remembered how it felt when he lost his place. He tried to act like it wasn’t a big deal but he really did feel horrible. He tried to imagine what he would feel like if his monitor went dead, and quickly shook the thought from his mind. Emile’s pulse quickened and he clenched his fists in anger. It made him furious suddenly realizing how dependent they were to these pointless machines. How something as simple as a light not blinking could nearly bring a man like Hank to tears.



This paragraph brought Emile to life for the first time. I found myself skimming some of the earlier paragraphs because they were too technical, and because the "count" had no meaning to me. Perhaps this paragraph should come before you detail all the technical stuff.



> The flashes only lasted a few seconds, but to Emile it felt like time had stood still. When the light did stop they stood silent and motionless, their backs pressed against the far wall. The flashes were so bright that when they reflected off of the plain white surfaces of everything in the room it seemed to paint them with color. Now that everything was back to its drab, colorless self, the room seemed paper thin, as if a stiff breeze could blow it all away.



Great imagery; I really got a sense of the room from this paragraph.



> Then Emile lost his place. Things were going fine, so to speak. He was struggling to concentrate on the count and block out all of the new distractions when his mind made an unintentional connection. Sky is blue. He had probably said the word sky a million times down here, and he thought he knew what it meant. Nonetheless, a couple neurons must have crossed in his brain and the new color seemed to fit perfectly with the word. He remembered looking up at the ceiling of their room when the whole place was glowing blue. Then he imagined a massive expanse of brilliant blue, zillions of times larger and higher than the ceiling had been. The idea seemed too ridiculous to even contemplate, but it also felt like it had some fundamental truth behind it. By the time the daydream finished and Emile looked back at the blinking insertion point on his monitor, his mind went blank. He couldn’t even remember the amount of digits there had been in the count.



This paragraph generates a lot of interest in Emile's world. I want to read further to discover why he struggles to understand the blue sky, and whether he will soon see it again.

A few grammatical pointers regarding your use of semicolons:



> He repeated the sequence ten times in his mind; visualizing the numbers as best he could before he got up
> 
> *should be *
> 
> He repeated the sequence ten times in his mind, visualizing the numbers as best he could before he got up.





> A shift was something to be endured; something to struggle through.
> 
> *should be *
> 
> A shift was something to be endured, something to struggle through.





> I was watching the lights and I didn’t notice anything out of the ordinary; just the same random flashes of color.
> 
> *should be *
> 
> I was watching the lights and I didn’t notice anything out of the ordinary, just the same random flashes of color.



You also omit commas in a few places that I think require them; for example, "When he realized that they had no clue he waved at them dismissively . . ." should probably be "When he realized that they had no clue, he waved at them dismissively . . ."

But this was a very interesting piece, and not a difficult read at all. I look forward to reading the next segment!


----------



## froman (Aug 14, 2010)

Hi Guys,

Thanks for the reading and for the critiques. I'm going to fix the minor stuff now and save the deeper fixes for a full revision later. I really appreciate the feedback. I'm going to post another chapter or so after I finish formatting it for the web.

Later


----------



## froman (Aug 14, 2010)

*continued*

_And the story goes on... Not really in chapters, but more like sections for now. Enjoy and let me know what you think!_

8-[

Emile pushed through the throngs of people in the cafeteria and picked up his sandwich and bottled water from the conveyor on the far wall.  Leaving the crowded lunch line he began his well worn path between the mazes of tables to where he, Serge and Hank ate.  The cafeteria’s size and capacity was only surpassed by its absolute mediocrity.  It was a virtual sea of humanity, all clothed in identical white collard shirts and black slacks.  The air was filled with the dull murmurs of people who insisted on talking despite having nothing to say.

  Emile’s table, however, had not been adding much to the subdued cacophony lately.  Normally it was Hank that would do most of the talking when they ate.  Serge would occasionally dispute him on some point or another, but Hank could usually go the whole meal bouncing his thoughts off of an uninterested audience.  Emile never had much to say.  He suspected that he was part of the rare group of people who chose not to speak unless they had something worth saying.  Down here that didn’t happen much.

  Now, ever since his console changed, Hank had hardly said a word in the cafeteria or in their room.  Serge had tried to take up some of the conversational slack but after failing miserably he gave up, and Emile certainly didn’t feel like taking his place.  All that Hank did now was sit quietly and methodically munch on his sandwich, staring off into space with the same vapid expression he wore at his console.

  This was exactly what he was doing when Emile finally reached their table and sat down next to him, so naturally it surprised Emile when Hank carefully put his sandwich down and did speak.

  “You know, ever since that console changed on me I haven’t really felt like my self,” said Hank.

   “Well look who’s finally decided to rejoin the world of the living.” said Serge.

   “It’s funny you should say that, because ever since that light changed I feel like I _have_ rejoined the living.”

   “….And we’ve lost him again,” said Serge, chuckling as he bit into his sandwich.

   “I’m trying to be serious with you Serge,” said Hank calmly.

   “What are you getting at?” said Emile, flashing Serge an irritated glance.  He may not care but Emile needed answers.

   “I didn’t want to bring it up until I was positive I was right.  I’m still not sure I should bring it up, but we all agreed to keep up this experiment--” Serge was about to interject but Hank held out his hand.  “-- Even though some of us weren’t as enthusiastic about it as others, I still wouldn’t feel right about keeping them in the dark.  I think we all need to hear this.”

  Hank looked them both in the eyes.  Serge leaned back in his chair with an amused smirk.  Emile nodded solemnly.

   “When the light first started flashing the new colors I thought they were random and meaningless, not that I cared much.  Hell, anything was better than what I was doing before, but after awhile I started noticing some… regularity.”

   “Regularity?” said Emile.

   “Yeah.  Some parts of the color sequences started looking familiar after awhile.  I thought this was just a coincidence, but the more I studied it the more parts of the sequences I recognized.  

  “Something else was happening as well.  Every time I pushed the button the light reacted, but not like it used to before the colors appeared.  That was just simply matching the flash with a button press.  Now when I press it the entire order of the flash sequences is changed.  I thought that was random as well, but just a few days ago I realized it wasn’t.”

              “Was that when you had your little fit of laughter?” said Serge.

              “I’m not sure,” said Hank.  “I haven’t really been noticing time lately.”

              This struck Emile as amusing, seeing how he was experiencing the exact opposite perception of time as Hank.  But the amusement quickly fled as another thought came to Emile.  If Hank was only now skimming across time as Emile had done for as long as he could remember, did that mean that before the light changed Hank had been suffering through endless mind-numbing shifts like Emile was doing now?  

              “So how did you know that the sequence orders weren’t random?” said Emile, forcing the previous thought from his head.

   “I noticed that there were a few common sequences that would flash right after I pressed the button in certain ways.  When I finally realized the button pattern that brought them up, it all clicked.  All of the sequences are divided into sets.  Those few common sequences are identifiers letting me know that I’d entered a new set.”

  Hank was speaking quickly, and was barely able to contain his excitement.  His eyes darted around as if to make sure no one else was listening in.

   “So what do you think it means?” said Emile.

   “The whole thing is connected!  It’s has a recognizable pattern and it’s suggesting a larger organized structure.”

   “So what?” said Serge bluntly.  “So this new console program has a recognizable pattern to it?  Management probably gave it to you because they need you to do different work.”

  “I thought about that as well, but that explanation leaves something out,” said Hank.

  “I don’t see what it could possibly be missing, but by all means, enlighten us,” said Serge.

              Hank suddenly seemed reluctant to continue.  He slumped back into his chair and began fiddling with his half eaten sandwich.  Emile wasn’t going to let him stop now though.

              “What did it leave out Hank?” said Emile.  It came out a little more forcefully than he had intended.  Hank stared back at Emile for a moment, contemplating his sincerity perhaps, and then spoke.

              “Alright, but your going to think I’m some kind of nutcase.”

              “We already think you’re a nutcase Hank, so you might as well keep going,” said Serge.

              Hank leaned in close and spoke in a hushed tone, making sure no one else could hear.

              “The entire time I’ve been working with the lights and deciphering the patterns I’ve been having this constant intense feeling of déjà vu.  I shouldn’t even call it déjà vu though, because it’s so much stronger than that.  I’m certain that I’ve done this type of work before.”

              “You mean working with colored light sequences?” said Emile.

              “No, not that specifically,” said Hank.  “Patterns and codes, that type of stuff.  Like when I’m trying to figure out how a specific pattern of flashes corresponds to another, there are all these little tricks I think of to make it easier.  They just pop into my head out of nowhere.  I couldn’t have learned those down here.  But it’s not just little things like those tricks.  I have this overpowering feeling that I did this type of thing for a long time, somewhere else.”

              “Like a different room or on another console?” said Serge.

              “No,” said Hank.  “Not down here.  Somewhere far away from this place.”

              Hank sat back in his seat and looked at Serge who was gazing back at him skeptically.  Emile knew that Serge wasn’t buying any of it, but he honestly couldn’t care less what Serge was willing to believe.  All Emile could think about were the colors.

              “When the light changed colors that first time I had a similar feeling of déjà vu.  It was like the new colors were helping me remember things,” said Emile.

              “Really!” said Hank, once again leaning forward in his chair.  

              “It wasn’t a strong feeling, and I couldn’t remember anything specific, but I’ve never felt anything like it before.  I couldn’t clearly see the memories but I knew that they were there, like they were just around the corner and I couldn’t get to them.”

              “I knew it!” said Hank.  “I knew this was too big to be some kind of coincidence.”

              “Now hold on a minute,” said Serge.  “Emile, you’re not actually going along with this are you?  You both are just getting caught up in some ridiculous delusion.  You’re creating this whole thing yourselves.”

              “It’s not a delusion Serge.  And despite what you may think I’m not insane.  This is the most sane I’ve ever felt in my life,” said Hank.

              “It’s just déjà vu Hank.  You said it yourself.  There’s no evidence to back it up.”

              “Then how did you know it was blue?” said Emile.

              “How did I know _what_ was blue?” said Serge.

              “The first time the light changed and lit up the whole room, you called the color blue.  I didn’t know what to call it until you said that, but when you did I knew you were right.”

              Serge stared back at Emile coldly.  Emile could almost hear his mind struggling to find a suitable answer.  

              “How could you possibly have known to call it blue, Serge?  Can you ever remember seeing blue down here before the light changed?  Or maybe _that_ was one of your so called delusions,” said Emile.

              “That’s enough Emile!  You and Hank can do what you wish.  I can’t stop you, but I sure as hell won’t let you suck me into this game of yours.  I should have never agreed to it in the first place, and from now on you can count me out.”  

  Serge’s voice had risen and the people sitting around them were starting to notice.  Neither Hank nor Emile had ever seen Serge that angry before, and when he stormed out of the cafeteria they both sat in silence for awhile.  

   “You don’t think he’ll fill out an incident report do you?” said Hank finally.

   “He won’t,” said Emile.  “He may be angry now but he said he wouldn’t and I believe him.  Serge is a man of his word.  Spanish honor I guess.”

  Hank chuckled half-heartedly at that, and they ate the rest of their sandwiches in silence.

* * * *​ 
  When they got back to their room Serge didn’t even bother looking up from his console.  Hank looked like he was going to say something but Emile touched his shoulder and shook his head.  Nothing he could say would make Serge change his mind if he didn’t want to.  Serge may have had honor, but he also had plenty of pride to go along with it.  Emile knew that it was best to leave Serge alone for now and let him come around eventually, assuming he ever could.

              When Emile reached his console he slumped into his chair and stared blankly at the monitor.  The insertion point blinked on and off, patiently waiting for him to start the count.  Emile rested his hands on the keypad and began pressing the buttons.  One thousand, six hundred and twenty seven.   One thousand, six hundred and twenty eight.  Even though Emile had lost almost all his passion for counting he still found himself coming out of his daydreams a few thousand numbers deep.  It was almost involuntary, like breathing.  Emile glanced over his shoulder at Serge who was diligently taking messages and writing down notes.  Was that how it was supposed to be?  Would Emile’s mind suffocate if he stopped the count entirely, and was this new found excitement he was experiencing just a symptom of that suffocation?  Like the euphoria felt before drowning, was this the final warning before his decent into insanity?

              Emile found his hand reaching out and caressing the dent in the side of the console.  He had been doing it more and more frequently lately.  He knew that his own anger had created it, but it almost seemed to be telling him something.  Just like Hanks light, it was an imperfection in a cold and sterile environment.  Its mere existence seemed to scream to him that change was possible.  This wasn’t insanity, the count was insanity.  Serge’s messages were insanity.  Ever since the light had changed something about that change had felt right to Emile.  Knowing what that felt like, and knowing that he had never experienced it before, the count was now meaningless.  He did it anyway, but it was just a withdrawal symptom.  It was methadone.  

              It did pass the time though, and it gave him something to do when he was thinking.  All this time he thought he couldn’t multi-task, and now he did it almost unconsciously.  It wasn’t dangerous anymore because the addiction was broken.  He couldn’t go back even if he wanted to, so if his hands insisted on counting he would let them.

              “Hijo?  Hijo, es que usted?!”  

  The anguished cry pierced the silence, and Emile nearly fell out of his chair from the shock of it.  He wheeled around and saw Serge hunched over, clutching the phone with both hands and screaming into the receiver.

              “Háblame Hijo, por favor hábleme!”

              Hank jumped out of his seat and ran over to Serge.  Seeing Hank in action finally jolted Emile out of his state of shock, and he also got up.  Serge was crying hysterically and screaming into the phone.  Emile knew the first part had been in Spanish but it was almost incoherent now.  Was he being electrocuted?  Emile tried to grab the phone but Serge pushed him so hard that he fell over and slid halfway across the room.

              “Serge, Can you hear me!?” yelled Hank, shaking him violently.  

              “Come back to me Son!  Vuelto a mí por favor!”  Serge punched his consol over and over and the blood from his knuckles splattered across its white surface.

              “Emile, help me grab him!” screamed Hank.  

  Emile quickly got off of the floor and jumped onto Serge’s back.  Serge wasn’t any bigger than Emile, but he and Hank had to struggle to pull him from his chair and wrestle the phone from his grasp.  When they finally got him to the ground Serge was sobbing uncontrollably.

              “It’s okay Serge, it’s over now,” said Hank, attempting to sound reassuring over the shakiness of his own voice.  After a moment Serge shrugged off their hands, got up, and stumbled out of the room.  They heard the door to his bunk click shut.  Emile and Hank sat on the floor speechless, watching the phone swing back and forth from its cord where it hung from the console.

              “What the hell was that Emile?” said Hank.

              Emile pointed silently at the dangling phone.  They looked at each other for a moment, unsure of what to do, then Emile slowly got off the floor, picked up the phone, and sat in Serge’s chair.  When he brought it to his ear all he heard was a low frequency hissing noise, like static.  It rose and fell in tone rhythmically, and Emile could also hear faint clicking sounds in the background.

              “What is it?” said Hank.  Emile handed him the phone.  After a moment Hank handed it back and Emile hung the receiver back into its cradle.

              “All you heard was static right?” said Emile.

              “Yeah,” said Hank.  “What do you think this means?”

              “Well the easy answer is that Serge is insane, but considering recent events I’m a little reluctant to jump to that conclusion.”

              “You have to appreciate the irony of it though,” said Hank.  He started to chuckle but quickly stopped and coughed awkwardly.  Emile saw that he was blushing slightly, and knew he was ashamed for saying it.

              “Maybe we should go check on him,” said Emile.  Hank nodded and they walked into the hallway to Serge’s bunk.  The door was locked and after knocking several times with no response Emile turned to Hank.

              “I think he just needs some time alone.  He wasn’t ready like we were.  I don’t think he wanted things to change.”

              “So you believe him?” said Hank.

              “I’m not sure what I believe right now, but Serge is the last person that would make this up.  I’m willing to give him the benefit of the doubt.”

              They walked back into their room and Hank headed over to his own console.  The light must be calling to him, thought Emile.  Nothing was calling to Emile, least of all his numbers, so he lingered at Serge’s console.  He picked the phone up from its cradle and put it to his ear, but hearing only silence, he put it back.  He looked at the dried blood crusting on the surface of the console; just another imperfection in their cold and sterile environment.


:afro: more coming


----------



## froman (Jan 2, 2011)

Over the next couple of days Serge’s phone rang continuously.  Emile had picked it up the first time but after hearing nothing but the same low frequency hissing he didn’t answer it again.  The truth was he didn’t want to go near it, and he suspected Hank felt the same.  The noise coming from the receiver gave him the creeps.  The low rhythmic static seemed to mesmerize him, almost like Hank’s light had, but whereas the light gave Emile a sense of sweet nostalgia, the static left a sickly, terrible feeling in his gut.  So they let the phone sit unanswered, and its incessant ringing served as a continuous reminder of Serge’s absence.

His door had remained locked, and Emile hadn’t seen him emerge once.  Before he went to bed Emile would press his ear to the door and listen, but he heard only silence.  Hank had been leaving sandwiches outside the door for Serge after they got back from the cafeteria, but when they left for their next meal, the sandwich would still be sitting outside the door, untouched.  Hank would quietly throw it away and replace it with a fresh one every time.  Emile was about to tell him to stop, but when he saw how somber and serious Hank was, he changed his mind.  Emile had a feeling that Hank felt responsible for what happened to Serge.  After all it was Hank that had upset him, by revealing the truth about the light.

By the third day Emile was starting to get worried.  They hadn’t heard a peep from Serge and he still hadn’t eaten anything.

When they got back from breakfast they spent at least five minutes pounding on Serge’s door and begging him to come out, but they finally gave up after hearing no response.  Emile followed Hank back to his console and leaned against it as Hank slumped into his chair, rubbing his forehead in frustration.

“He’s going to starve to death if he doesn’t come out of their soon,” said Emile.

“What if something’s really wrong,” said Hank.  “We haven’t heard a damn thing out of him for days.  Maybe we should try and get some help.”  Emile followed Hank’s gaze toward the incident reports hanging next to the door.

“Management will want to know what happened,” said Emile.

“We could tell them we had an argument.  They might not even check out the consoles,” said Hank.

“They would have to be pretty careless not to notice Serge’s.  Even if we manage to get the blood off of it, there are still all those dents,” Emile didn’t mention the dent on his own console.  “And what about the light?  Do you have any way of turning it off?”  

Hank looked at the light which was steadily blinking blue and shook his head.

“We’ve got to get into that room somehow.  Maybe if we take him out to the main corridor we could say he just collapsed or something.  If they think it happened outside our room they might not check it out.  It’s a long shot but it’s the only way to keep them from finding out about the consoles,” said Emile.

“And if they find out about the consoles now they’re going to want to know why we didn’t tell them about it earlier,” said Hank.  Emile nodded gravely.

“I didn’t tell you about this before Emile, but that organized structure that I thought the lights were hinting at… I think it may be Managements computer system.”

“What!?” said Emile.

“What else could it be?  We agreed that they couldn’t have assigned it to us.  That wouldn’t explain the déjà vu.  Besides, the structure is too complex for that.  If they didn’t knowingly give me access than it must be part of their system,” said Hank.

“I’m sure they would be _real_ happy about that,” said Emile.

“They _can’t_ find out that I’ve been in their system Emile,” said Hank.  He looked genuinely afraid.

“Well we can’t just leave Serge in that room.  We have to get in there somehow and find out if something is really wrong with him.  If that’s the case, _then_ we can start worrying about Management,” said Emile.

Hank was about to say something but stopped suddenly.  Emile also noticed that something had happened, but he couldn’t put his finger on it.  It seemed like something was missing; like a hush had settled over the room.

“The phone!” said Hank.

  They both nearly fell over each other getting around Hank’s console, and when they did they saw Serge standing with the phone to his ear.  He looked tired.  His cloths were rumpled and his eyes were dull, almost lifeless.  It looked like he was mumbling to himself, but then he would stop for a minute and start up again.  What was he doing?  He couldn’t be talking to someone could he?  Emile couldn’t ever remember Serge talking to anyone on that phone.  He just listened to the messages, wrote them down, and put them into the feeder slot.  That’s how it worked.

Serge nodded and whispered one last time before carefully hanging up the phone.  He stood for a long time staring at it without moving.  Emile wasn’t sure what to say so he decided to start in the thick of it.

“Was that your son?” he said.  He wasn’t sure it was a wise choice, especially the way Hank glared at him, but Serge didn’t even flinch.  He calmly turned away from the phone and leveled his gaze at Emile.

“Yes,” said Serge.


Now Hank turned to Serge, mouth agape, but Serge took no notice of Hank’s astonishment.


“What did he say?” said Emile.

“He said he wanted to forgive me for what I had done to him,” said Serge.  Tears were welling in his eyes but he quickly wiped them away.

“What did you do?” said Hank.


“I don’t know, but I know it was bad.  He said I would remember soon enough.  I told him I was sorry and he said he was sorry too.  He was sorry for what I was going to have to face,” said Serge.  “That doesn’t matter now though because he said I have to work at my console again.  He changed it for me.  It’s important now,” His expression had changed from sorrow to grim determination.

“Well, what’s so important about it now?” said Emile.

“If I knew _that_ I wouldn’t have to work on anything, would I Emile,” Serge laughed and the tension immediately vanished from the room.

“You know you scared the hell out of us, pulling that little disappearing act,” said Hank.  “You do that again and I really will give you something to sulk about.”  Hank pushed Serge playfully.

“I’m sorry I did that, but there was a lot for me to come to terms with.  I realized that you were right Hank.  Whatever’s happening involves all of us and we have to stick together or we’ll never figure it out.”


Emile was happy that Serge was alright and he laughed and joked with him and Hank, but something Serge said stuck in Emile’s mind.  It was bothering him more and more by the minute and he had to pursue it.

“You said your son told you he was sorry for what you were going to have to face.  What do you think he meant by that?” said Emile.  The way they both quieted down told him he wasn’t the only one thinking of it.


“I thought a lot about that when I was in my room,” said Serge.  “We’re heading towards something big you guys.  I think you both already knew it, and I was trying to hide from it but I’m done with that now.  I feel like I just woke up for the first time in my life.  Something is coming and I’m not sure if we’re walking towards it or if it’s pulling us in.  All I know is that what I had before wasn’t a life.  If figuring out what’s going on gets me closer to what life really is, then I’m willing to take my chances.” 

“And what if what were doing is taking us farther away from that life?” said Emile.
   “I don’t think you believe that,” said Serge, smiling slightly.  “But even if you’re right and we are just digging ourselves deeper, I’d rather destroy myself trying than go back to what I had before.”


Emile thought about going back to how it was before, and found that he could barely recall what it had been like.  The memory of his entire life before the light appeared was blurring together, and why shouldn’t it?  Life, he realized now, was made up of events, high points and low points, and all of them were significant.  There had been nothing significant about his life before, so there was nothing to remember.  His memory had atrophied in a life that had no need for it, and now that it _was_ needed, any memories he had of life before the light were dwarfed by events in this new life.


Maybe I should start splitting my life into BL and AL; before-light and after-light.  It was a funny thought, thinking about his life as spanning two separate eras.  Before-light was like prehistory, back when there was nothing for his memory to retain.  His only record from that era was the emptiness that he felt when he tried to think about it.  He knew that he didn’t feel that emptiness at the time, but looking back he could see how relative it all was.  After all, you had to wake up to know that you had been dreaming.


Serge was right, and even though Emile couldn’t remember much about his previous life, the feeling of emptiness was enough for him to know that he didn’t want to go back.  That realization wasn’t enough to quench the gnawing anxiety in the pit of his stomach though.  They were either walking proudly and courageously towards the shining light of their destiny, or they were being drawn blindly into its gaping jaws.  Whichever it happened to be, that was the only road available, and as fearful as he may have been, they were taking it.


:afro:


----------



## froman (Jan 8, 2011)

After Serge accepted and embraced his new role, he threw himself into his work with an obsession that rivaled Hanks.  Emile had to practically drag them away from their consoles at mealtime.  They may have wanted to stay but Emile knew that it was important for them continue with their normal routines.  What they were doing was dangerous.  The last thing they needed was to be discovered by Management because of something as stupid as missing dinner.  Aside from that Emile didn’t have much else to do.  He felt envious when Serge’s console first changed, but now he had resigned himself to the fact that he would just be tagging along on their adventure.  The most he could do was try to keep them out of trouble while Serge and Hank fulfilled their great tasks.

Hank was discovering more and more about the structure of the computer system.  His skill at decoding it seemed almost superhuman, and Emile would watch him and try to understand as best he could without bothering Hank to much.  Actually Emile learned the most when Hank was stuck.  He would start muttering curses under his breath and Emile would head over to see what was up.  That’s when Hank would explain the problem in depth to Emile, complaining the whole time about how stupid the whole system was.  Emile would ask questions when he could but mostly he would just let Hank bounce ideas off of him, and a lot of the time it would work.  Emile suspected that Hank just needed to get his ideas out of his head once in awhile and hear them out loud before he could fully understand them.  Sometimes it was even Emile’s questions that led Hank to a solution.  At least he was occasionally good for something.

From all of the trouble shooting sessions Emile learned that Hank was narrowing down the system into smaller and smaller groups of organized sequences, almost like he was learning a foreign language backwards.  Emile imagined that it was like studying Spanish by reading _Don Quixote _and distilling it down to learn the meanings of words and sentences.  In other words, damn near impossible for any normal person, but Hank was managing to do it somehow.  It did seem like a kind of language to Emile though, and he often wondered if that was how Hank saw it, but he never bothered to ask.

There was a bigger problem that Hank hinted at once or twice.  The more he learned about the structure and syntax of the system, the more he realized how little control he had over it.  Now that he almost fully understood the pattern-codes in which to press his button, Hank could move anywhere in the system without obstruction.  He had complete access.  But although he could see everything, he could change nothing.  He seemed to be doomed to eternal observation without interaction.  When Emile would try to ask him about this, Hank would dismiss it and focus on understanding the rest of the structure.  Emile had a feeling that Hank knew just how important this was, and was only putting it off because he couldn’t think of any way to solve it, but Emile didn’t want to bug him about it.  At least Hank was working on something, unlike Emile.

Serge’s console was _much_ more bizarre.  Emile would watch him occasionally but Serge would hardly even move, much less talk while he was working and Emile didn’t want to break his intense concentration.  It was tough too, because there were so many questions he wanted to ask.  

The feeder slot in Serge’s consol seemed to be disabled now but Serge continued to write his notes, only they were different from before.  All Serge did before was listen to the artificial voice on the phone tell him a number, write it down, and slip it into its corresponding feeder slot.  Now he kept the phone to his ear constantly and filled card after card with intricate script, letting them pile up all over his console.  In fact the pile had gotten so large that they were beginning to fall onto the floor.  At one point Emile picked up a fallen card to examine it closer.  Not only were both sides of the card completely crammed with Serge’s handwriting, but it was written entirely in Spanish.  Emile placed the card back on the heap and walked to his console more confused than ever.

Eventually Emile’s curiosity got the better of him and he waited until he saw Serge put down the phone to stretch before walking quickly over to his console.

 “So I take it your still hearing voices in that thing?” said Emile.  Serge was about to pick up the phone again before Emile spoke, and he seemed a little irritated at being interrupted.

 “Yes, as a matter of fact, I am.  Is that so unbelievable Emile?”

 “Don’t get me wrong, I don’t doubt you.  I’m just curious about the change,” said Emile.

 “What do you want to know?” said Serge.

 “Well… Is it still your son?”

Serge sighed, and got a distant look in his eyes.

 “Not anymore,” he said.  “I’m not sure who it is now.  It’s just a bunch of random voices speaking nonsense.  I’m just trying to write down all I hear and hoping that I’ll eventually figure out what it means, but it doesn’t look promising.”

 “Why are you writing it in Spanish?” said Emile, holding up one of the many note cards.

 “Because that’s how they talk.  They’re speaking to quickly for me to translate it before I write it.”

Emile must have looked confused because Serge held the phone out to him.

 “Do you want to listen?”

Emile hesitated, remembering the hollow eeriness of the static when he had listened before.  He didn’t really want to explain all that to Serge though, so he took the phone and put it to his ear.  He immediately felt a cold chill run down his spine.  The monotonous static and faint clicking began to mesmerize him and cloud his thoughts.  It felt like he was peering into a vacuum; like the phone was sucking his soul into a void.  His face must have given away what he was feeling because Serge noticed something was amiss. 

 “What’s the matter Emile?” said Serge.

 “Serge, I don’t hear any voices in that phone.  It’s just static.”

  “What?  That’s impossible, they never stop!”  Serge practically snatched the phone from Emile and held it up to his ear.  He seemed relieved at first when he heard the voices but as Emile watched him, Serge’s face darkened.

 “I’m not crazy Emile,” he said finally, hanging up the phone.

 “I know you aren’t,” said Emile.

“I’m _not_ crazy,” he said again.

 “I didn’t say you were crazy Serge.  Just because I can’t hear them doesn’t mean they aren’t there.”

Serge relaxed a little when he realized Emile was serious.

“It doesn’t make any sense.  Why would they stop when you listen?  They couldn’t possibly know that you were holding the phone and not me,” said Serge.

“Maybe they didn’t stop,” said Emile.

Serge scratched his head and looked at the phone sitting in its cradle.  He picked it again and stood next to Emile.

“Let’s find out if you’re right,” said Serge.  He held up the phone and beckoned for Emile to listen.  They both put their heads close to the receiver and listened quietly.

“Can you hear it Emile?  Veinte cinco, seis de treinta, ocho cien y dieciséis.  Coche, Parque, barco.  Seis árboles en el boulevard al atardecer,” Serge looked at Emile, but Emile could hear only static and shook his head.  Serge’s disappointment was palpable and he sunk back into his chair and hung up the phone.

“What did it mean?” said Emile.

“Twenty five, thirty six, eight hundred and sixteen.  Car, park, boat.  Six trees in the boulevard at sunset,” said Serge.

“What?  Are you sure you translated it right?” said Emile.

“That’s how it always is,” said Serge.  “I told you, they just speak nonsense.  Numbers mixed in with ridiculous phrases.  Maybe it’s not even supposed to make sense.”

They both lapsed into silence.  Serge was fiddling with his note cards absentmindedly and Emile shuffled them around as well.  He didn’t speak much Spanish but he could still make out most of the numbers and a few of the words on the cards.

“Why do you believe me?” said Serge, suddenly looking up from his notes.  Emile paused for a second.  He hadn’t really thought about why.

“If you’re insane then that means that Hank and I are also insane.  That means that everything that’s happening is just a delusion.  Remember when you said that at dinner?  That all of this was a delusion that Hank and I were creating?”

Serge nodded.

“Well now you’re a part of it.  Does it feel like a delusion to you?”

“This feels more real than what I felt when I said that,” said Serge.

“Well there you go,” said Emile.

Serge sat back in his chair and grinned.

“Well you just cleared that right up, didn’t you?” he said.

“That’s what I’m here for,” said Emile.  He smiled and leaned against Serge’s console.  He picked up one of the note cards and flipped it at Serge.  “Now you just have to clear this up.”

“Yeah I guess I do,” said Serge.  “I still don’t understand why I’m the only one who can hear the voices though.”

“Can you discover an entire computer system in one blinking colored light?” said Emile, pointing towards Hank’s console.  They both laughed at that.

“This is _your_ part,” said Emile.  “You can ask why until your face turns blue, but what’s that going to accomplish?  We can’t expect answers to fall into our laps.  We have to work for them.” 

With that, Emile turned and headed back to his console.  He wasn’t sure if he was right about finding answers.  Maybe there were no answers to find.  Maybe there was no great truth behind the veil of their ignorance.

“What’s your part in this Emile?” said Serge.  Emile stopped and turned around.  He smiled and shrugged dramatically.

“If you happen to find out, let me know, will you,” he said.

“You’ll be the first,” said Serge.

Emile knew that Serge was joking but it still stung a little.  It was embarrassing to be recognized as useless.  It was like Serge had read Emile’s mind and threw all of his feelings of worthlessness back at him.  It was hard enough for Emile to sit around and watch all of these magnificent changes and know that he wasn’t a part of them.  Now he had to worry about Serge and Hank resenting him for it.  Sure, it wasn’t like that now, but Emile wasn’t naïve.  He knew how these things could change.  They would start out pitying him, reassuring him that he was helpful, but that wouldn’t last.  With nothing to contribute Emile would start to get in the way.  They would start getting annoyed with him, and pretty soon he would stop trying to help, for fear of distracting them.  He would move to the periphery; completely excluded from everything important.  He would become a living ghost.

Emile imagined that they were on a river, barreling down the rapids in a small wooden canoe.  Hank and Serge sat in the front and back, paddling furiously with their oars, trying desperately to keep a true course.  The river was all that existed in their minds.  Emile was a leaf caught in the current behind them, carried along through the churning water, utterly powerless to alter the fate chosen for him.  Eventually he would be caught in a sweeper or driven to the bottom, and the canoe would continue on its journey, without a second thought for the battered leaf that was trying desperately to keep up.

Emile still wandered over to Hank and Serge’s consoles occasionally, but not with the frequency that he had before.  He began to feel weird when he stood watching them, like he was intruding on something sacred.  Instead he spent more and more time sitting quietly at his console, fiddling with the buttons and thinking about everything in general, and nothing in particular.  They still weren’t talking much at meal times.  It seemed paradoxical to Emile that with all the strange things happening to them, there really wasn’t much to say.  Hank and Serge were chugging through there isolated tasks, and Emile wasn’t doing much of anything.

Rather than trying to fill the void with meaningless chatter, Emile spent his time in the cafeteria staring at the people around him.  He had never really looked at them before.  They looked human enough at first glance, shuffling around purposefully and munching on their sandwiches.  They regarded each other casually and their mouths flapped up and down, every sentence reeking of banality.  But the closer Emile studied them, the more he realized that they were not as normal as they seemed on the surface.  Their eyes were always dull, and their expressions never changed.  Emile couldn’t find one smile or flash of anger no matter how hard he looked.  The tone and volume of their voices remained constant.  They seemed so one-dimensional, like cardboard cutouts of human shapes drifting across one another.  Had Emile really been one of them?

Yes, he thought, he had been one of them, and now he was peering in at them through a window of clarity and revelation.  He was living in reality and they were still stuck inside a bubble of ignorance, and although he was free from that ignorance his burden wasn’t any lighter.  They were inside of the bubble together, and he was outside of it alone. The truth didn’t make things any easier.


:afro:


----------



## greggb (Jan 8, 2011)

This is a great story!  Very interesting.  It sounds like some of the other members have given you some good advice.  Someone may have already mention this... I didn't read through all of the reviews.  The main suggestion I'd have for you is to avoid using the phrase:
said Serge,
said Emile,
said whomever,

in each bit of dialogue.  It gets really redundant.  Sometimes your characters are asserting, some times they're questioning, sometimes they're answering... they're not always "saying", so you shouldn't have them always "saying".  And when it's obvious who's speaking, you don't always have to point out that they said, answered, exclaimed, etc.

Other than that, I think it's great!


----------



## fossiliferous_g (Jan 10, 2011)

Wow! I can't wait for the next part. I agree with greggb, maybe less "saids" but you are keeping me in total suspense. I love how you allude to this dungeon, this gray meaningless existence that no one feels is meaningless.
I would watch for things that are confusing. For example, you say none of these guys know "blue" until Serge says it, but they all know he's right - but later, from Emile's perspective, you say something about Serge being blue in the face...so they do know blue, or at least the concept of it...hmmm.
You also mention that Emile feels like they are barreling down a river. Does he know what a river is? How does he know how it feels to barrel down one? Maybe you should think of a different metaphor, like hurtling through a black hole or a tunnel, something that gives us a little insight into where these guys are and what they're doing there...
just some things to keep in view...
thanks for the great read!


----------



## froman (Jan 12, 2011)

Sweet, new replies! Thanks for the input guys, I really appreciate it.



> in each bit of dialogue.  It gets really redundant



I stressed about this for awhile. I finally decided to settle on 'said' as opposed to other descriptors because it was the most spartan and I was hoping that it would eventually just blend into the background. Also I didn't want to get the dialogue confused between the characters because it interchanges so much. I'm going to leave it for now simply because I don't want to go through the whole draft and change each one individually but I will definitely look into it when revision time comes.



> so they do know blue, or at least the concept of it



The reason that I had him use blue as a descriptor here is because they had sort of established it's existence already. It's tough though, hard to work with things like that when they can't remember anything 

The river is a metaphor that repeats quite a lot and it's significance in Emile's life comes to play later in the story.

Thanks so much for reading and commenting guys! Makes me feel all fuzzy inside.


----------



## froman (Jan 12, 2011)

Hank was running out of things to do.  He had been working tirelessly and Emile was sure that he had uncovered every dark and dusty corner of the computer system.  It seemed like that should have been a good thing, but Emile knew better, and Hanks edginess confirmed it.  Hank’s self imposed distractions were over and now he had to face the real problem; the one which had been looming for weeks.  Why couldn’t he manipulate the system?

Hank had always complained about his console, but lately there had been a steady and relentless stream of curses coming from his corner of the room.  He had started borrowing note cards from Serge and filling them with calculations and diagrams.  In fact his desk top had almost overtaken Serge’s as the dirtiest in the room.  Emile had tried to help, but when Hank got upset he would vent his frustration on the nearest human target, and Emile learned quickly to take himself out of the crosshairs.  

Emile would have offered his help to Serge instead, but Serge wasn’t doing much better than Hank.  He continued to write his translations down but hadn’t discovered anything new since Emile had last listened to his phone.  In fact, the tired and bitter expression on Serge’s face was enough to keep anyone away.  He was the polar opposite of Hank.  When Hank was upset everyone in the room would hear about it, but when Serge was in a bad mood he would lock down tight, bottling up his emotions and refusing to speak.

It was frustrating for Emile as well.  He wanted to help, and he probably could have if they would just let him, but their stubbornness was blocking any progress that might have been possible.  All of this was adding to the overall sense of hopelessness that hung over them these days.  It had rolled into their little room like a storm, darkening all of their moods and extinguishing the hope and excitement they once felt.  The memories the light had first brought had almost entirely faded from Emile’s mind, and he was able to bear each day only by holding onto that last little bit.

The loud crash of a fist striking metal startled Emile from his bored stupor.  He wheeled around to see what had happened, and saw Hank raging at his console.

“You stupid god-damn machine!” yelled Hank, staring furiously at the light.  “I’m so sick of this crap!”  He crumpled up a stack of note cards and threw them to the floor.

Emile was about to shake his head and turn back to his console when he heard the phone slam down onto its cradle.

“Would you just shut up?!  Every day I have to listen to you complain about that damn computer system and I’m sick of it.  You’re not the only one who has something to concentrate on around here,” said Serge.  His face was bright red as he yelled angrily at Hank.  It was about the last thing Emile expected from the normally quiet and subdued Serge.

“Excuse me?” said Hank, getting up from his seat.  “I’m _so_ sorry I broke your precious concentration Serge.  I can see your putting it to valuable use over there.” 

“Well maybe I’d accomplish more if you could shut your mouth for five minutes,” said Serge, also getting out of his chair.  Here we go, thought Emile.  

“Oh you’d accomplish more, would you?  I accomplish more scratching my ass in the morning than you do sitting at your console all day.  In fact I’m pretty sure I’m the only one who has accomplished anything around here, so don’t snap at me for making a little noise,” said Hank.

“Okay Hank, let’s list off all of your wonderful accomplishments.  You found a pretty little pattern of blinking lights.  You have absolutely no idea what it does or what it’s for, and it’s about as useful to us as a wet fart, but aside from that it’s miraculous.  The only other accomplishment I can think of is the fact that you’ve managed to piss me off every day for weeks on end,” said Serge.

“At least I have some understanding of what I’m dealing with.  What do you have Serge?  All I see is a bunch of voices in a phone that no one else seems to hear and a desk full of useless Spanish scribbles.  How exactly is that supposed to help us?”

Emile needed to put a stop to this before they started throwing punches at each other.  Couldn’t they just admit that they were both idiots and be done with it?  He brought his knuckles down hard on his console and the sharp rapping cut through Hank and Serge’s argument like a knife.  When Emile was satisfied that he had their attention he walked over and stood between them.

“So is this how it’s going to be from now on?  Are you two going to keep destroying each others confidence until we lose our will to continue?” said Emile, looking at each of them in turn.

“I wasn’t undermining anything,” said Hank.  “I was just stating the facts.”

“I was just stating a fact as well.  The fact that your constant complaining is the one thing that’s keeping us from moving on,” said Serge.

“Both of you stop it!” said Emile, forcefully enough to silence them both.  “Have you ever looked at the people out there in the cafeteria since things started changing?  Their like zombies: completely useless sacks of meat that wander around mindlessly.  We were just like them before all of this happened.  Do you realize how close we are to returning to that?  If we lose focus at all, were one more step closer to giving up, and if that happens things will be exactly like they used to.”

“Well I don’t see you helping out much,” said Serge.  Emile turned and stared at him coldly.  It was a low blow, and Emile could tell by the way Serge blushed and looked at the floor that he regretted saying it as soon as it left his lips.

“You may think that I’m oblivious to everything that’s happening, sitting in my corner like some kind of idiot, but I’m not.  I have just as much at stake as both of you, and I’m not going to let this slip out of our hands over some stupid argument.  This isn’t a joke.  I don’t think either of you realize just how fragile this whole thing is,” said Emile.

They were silent, looking at their shoes and squirming under Emile’s gaze.

“I think you should go back to your consoles, cool down, and get back to work, unless you want to stay down here and return to your old jobs,” said Emile.

They both headed quickly back to their consoles, eager to get out from under Emile’s steely gaze.  Emile stood there for moment longer, and when he was satisfied that everything had settled down he walked silently out of the room and headed for his bunk.  When he got there he sat on his bed and ran his fingers through his hair.  He looked at his hands and was surprised to find that they were trembling.  His whole body tingled with a kind of giddy nervousness.  ‘Where did that come from?’ he thought to himself.

He could never remember himself snapping like that before, but when he thought back on what he had said, he knew he was right.  He really did feel like they were hanging onto to their new reality by a thread.  The fear, frustration, and hopelessness that he felt over the past weeks seemed to be sucking him into the same pit of ignorance and apathy he had struggled so hard to escape from.  Then it hit him.  They really were addicted to that old reality, and all the pain and sorrow that they felt now were the consequences of breaking that addiction.  They were withdrawal symptoms.  It seemed so clear now, and although it was terrible to think of his life before, when the drug of that old reality had rendered him practically comatose, there was some good in the realization.  Now he knew the cause of these feelings, at least partially, and he would not let himself relapse.

He got up from his bed and strode back into their room.  Hank was picking up the note cards that he had scattered carelessly across the floor, and the silence from the argument still hung heavy in the air.  Emile bent down and helped him pick up the last of the cards.  When they were done, Hank mumbled a thank you and sat back in his seat.

“I think you should let me know what the problem with the system is,” said Emile, casually leaning against the console.

“Why?  You’re not going to be able to solve it.  I’ve been trying for weeks and I’ve found nothing but dead ends,” said Hank.

“Just tell me Hank.  It’ll be good for you to get it out into the open.  I might even be able to help you find an answer.  It happened once before, didn’t it?” said Emile.  Hank smiled at that and nodded in consent.

“I guess you did help me out a few times,” said Hank.  He tapped the button in rapid succession, almost like he was sending morris code into his console.  Emile was once again baffled at how deftly Hank had managed to tune into the strange computer system.

Hank stopped suddenly and pointed.  At first Emile only saw a random sequence, but he had spent plenty of time looking into Hank’s light, and it wasn’t long before he noticed that the seemingly random sequence was actually one relatively short pattern repeating over and over again.

“It’s a repeating sequence,” said Emile.  “It begins with two red flashes and runs over and over.”

Hank looked up from his notes with a startled expression on his face.

“How did you know that?” he asked.

“I didn’t spend all that time at your console just to watch the pretty colors.  Although I have to admit they are nice,” said Emile.  

Hank looked at him skeptically for a moment more then shook it off and sat back in his chair, looking up at the sequence.

“I’ve exhausted almost every possibility I can think of to break into this system, but nothing has worked.  I’ve had my eye on this sequence for a couple of days now.  Those two red flashes that you noticed are the identifiers of the sub-group that it belongs to.  I picked this sequence because it’s the shortest one in its group.  I figured that because it’s so short it might be easier to find the access code for it, but once again I was wrong,” said Hank.

“How have you been trying to find the access codes?” said Emile.

“It’s little more than guess work,” said Hank.  “I’ve been starting with the tapping pattern that I use to view this set, and then modifying it with elements from the sequence itself, but none of it has worked so far.”

Emile noticed the note card Hank was holding.  It had a list of numbers and below that a list of colors written on it.

“Is that the sequence?” said Emile.  Hank nodded and handed Emile the card.

Emile studied it closely, looking first at the colors.  It started off with two reds just like he saw in the light, and then a seemingly random list of colors followed.  Emile figured that they all probably identified smaller and smaller groups, but only Hank knew that.  He turned his attention to the list of numbers above the colors, which he thought must be the tapping pattern to view the sequence.  As he studied each digit carefully he felt a faint glimmer of recognition.  Had he seen this sequence at his own console?  Emile realized that with the amount of numbers he had counted he most certainly had come across this sequence a few times in the past, but he felt he had seen it more recently, and he hadn’t been this high in his count since the light changed.

“Any breakthroughs?” said Hank, an amused smile on his lips.

“Do you mind if I keep this?” said Emile, holding out the card.

“Sure,” said Hank.  “I’ve got that damned sequence memorized from back to front.”

“Thanks,” said Emile.  He turned back to his console with his eyes still fixed on the card.

“Emile?” said Hank.  Emile turned around and Hank was leaning forward in his chair.

“Does it really bother you guys that I talk so much while I work?” he said in a hushed voice.  Emile walked back and crouched in front of Hank.  Hank obviously didn’t want Serge to hear them.

“It doesn’t really bother me that much,” said Emile.  “I kind of learned to block it out after awhile.  You seem to be doing it a lot more though.  It’s just been really tense around here lately.  I think something like this was bound to happen sooner or later.”

“I don’t mean to be annoying,” said Hank.  “To be honest, I didn’t even know I was doing it so much.” 

Hank was silent for a moment, studying the floor.

“Do you really think that we might go back to the way we used to be, if we’re not careful,” he said finally.

“I absolutely believe that,” said Emile, gazing steadily into Hank’s eyes.  “I think some part of our mind actually wants to go back, and when we bicker and fight with each other we’re giving that part the opportunity to take over.  We can’t let that happen.”

Emile got up and walked back to his console.  He gently set the note card against his monitor and let his eyes wander over the numbers, studying each digit like a painter would study a landscape.  There was a secret in there, locked inside the sequence, begging to be freed.  Emile knew that the key to that secret lay buried somewhere deep within his mind.  All he had to do now was start digging.

:afro:


----------



## froman (Jan 19, 2011)

It had taken the better part of two days before Emile finally realized how ignorant he had been.  Hour after hour he stared at that silly note card, running laps through his mind trying to find the lost memory of the sequence.  His eyes were red and puffy, and his head hurt from focusing so hard but still he sat there, gazing at the sequence expecting that the answer would just come to him if he waited long enough.  Well it hadn’t come to him, and he was on the verge of giving up when he heard a stack of note cards slide off of Serge’s console and flutter to the ground.  As he watched Serge put the cards back on his console, Emile’s fatigued mind finally grasped something.  He hadn’t seen the sequence at his console, and if the answer was in the system itself, Hank would have surely found it by now.  The only other place Emile could have possibly seen a number sequence was in Serge’s notes.  He cursed himself silently, baffled at how careless he had been.

Serge hadn’t spoken since the argument and Emile could see that he was still upset.  He couldn’t really blame him either.  Hank had said some very hurtful things, and although he probably didn’t mean them, there was no way for Serge to know that.  Emile was just glad that he’d shut Hank up before he said something that couldn’t be so easily forgiven.  Emile watched Serge, hunched over his console, gripping the phone tensely, and knew that he needed a couple more days to wind down.  But when Emile thought about the possibility of the sequence hiding somewhere in those note cards, waiting seemed out of the question.

Emile grabbed his card and walked over to Serge’s console.  Serge didn’t hear him approach, and when Emile cleared his throat it startled him slightly.

“Oh… hey Emile,” said Serge, hanging up the phone gently.

“You’ve been awfully quiet over here lately.  Is everything alright?” said Emile.

“Yeah I’m fine.  Just busy working,” said Serge.

“Look, I hope you’re not too upset by what Hank said to you.  He didn’t really mean it.  You know how he is.  He’s always talking faster than he can think.  Sometimes I think the filter between his brain and his mouth is broken.”

Serge looked up at him strangely, and shook his head.

“I’m not bothered by what Hank said, Emile.  I actually think he was right.  He works his ass off and has a lot more to show for it than I do.”

“Then what’s the matter?” said Emile.

Serge hesitated, quietly studying the lines in the palms of his hands like they were the most fascinating things he’d ever seen.

“I was wrong to talk down to you,” he said finally.  “You’ve helped me out more than you could know, and I treated you like you were useless.  I’m the worthless one.  It’s been two days and I couldn’t even get up the courage to come to you and apologize.  I had to wait for you to be the bigger man and come over here.  I just want you to know that I’m really sorry for saying what I did.”

Emile was taken aback.  He had hardly given a second thought to what Serge had said to him.  To be honest, he could barely remember what it was.  Emile was so caught up in trying to find the lost sequence that he’d thought of little else in the past two days, but this was obviously a big deal to Serge.  

“It’s all right Serge.  I wasn’t getting too hung up over it,” said Emile.  Serge looked up at him skeptically, searching for some hidden bitterness in Emile’s face.

“Seriously Serge, don’t worry about it.  I know you didn’t mean it.  We’ve all been under so much pressure lately that I’m surprised we didn’t start throwing punches around.  All in all I think it went pretty well,” said Emile.

Serge looked perplexed for just a moment, and then cracked up laughing.  

“You’re something else, you know that Emile?” he said, trying desperately to catch his breath.  Emile patted him on the back as Serge wiped a tear from his eye.

“Just remember something Serge,” said Emile, after he had settled down.  “You’re not worthless.”

“Well, maybe just a little bit,” said Serge.

“Yeah, I guess we’re all a little bit worthless once in awhile,” said Emile.  “But no matter how bad things may get, we always bring something to the table.  We’re never completely useless.”

Serge nodded and sat back in his chair.  Emile leaned against the console, expecting to bump into Serge’s bulging pile of notes, but when he looked down he noticed several neat stacks of cards laid out in an organized grid.

“It looks like you’ve been doing some house keeping over here,” said Emile.

“Yeah I guess I have.  I was just sorting out my notes into groups of phrases.  That pile was getting way too big to handle,” said Serge.

“You mean there’s a pattern behind the calls?” said Emile, suddenly alert.

“I’m not sure if it’s a pattern.  I just noticed that a lot of the phrases and numbers were repeating.  I figured I might as well sort them out rather than junk up my desk any more than necessary.”

“Why didn’t you tell us about it?” said Emile, feeling slightly frustrated and trying to keep it out of his voice.

“You guy’s never asked about it.  I didn’t even think it was a big deal,” said Serge.

Emile watched Serge nonchalantly sort out the remaining note cards and shook his head.  Typical, he thought.  If the world were coming to an end and Serge was the one person with advance warning, he would probably just sit at home and wait.  When everyone else eventually discovered their impending doom they would ask Serge why he hadn’t told them.  ‘I figured you would find out eventually’, Serge would most likely reply.  There was no use in getting upset with him about it.  That’s just who he was.

“Is that one of mine?” asked Serge, pointing at the card in Emile’s hand.  Emile looked at it, momentarily forgetting why he had come over in the first place.

“Oh yeah, I was going to ask you about this.  It’s one of the sequences that Hank’s been having trouble with.  I know I’ve seen it before and I was hoping it might be buried in your notes somewhere.  You don’t recognize it do you?”

Emile passed the card to Serge.  He studied it for a moment and shook his head, handing it back.

“No, it doesn’t look familiar to me, but that’s not saying much.  I’m looking at thousands of numbers a day and I doubt if I would even remember the last one I saw,” said Serge.

“Do you mind if I check through your cards?” said Emile.

“You want to look through all of those to find one group of numbers?”  Serge stared at him like he was insane.

“I’ve got nothing better to do,” said Emile.

“All right,” said Serge.  “Try not to mess my stacks up too much.  I just got them the way I like them.”

They were nice too.   Emile started his search at the topmost stack and when he would finally finish one he would move onto the next.  Losing his place wasn’t even an issue, and more than once he silently thanked Serge for sorting them out.  Just the thought of going through a chaotic and unorganized heap of cards one by one drained the color from his face.  Emile couldn’t believe that Serge hadn’t mentioned something to Hank about it when he was being accused of laziness.  It had obviously taken Serge a hell of a lot of work to sort through the cards, and either he didn’t think of it at the time, or he had more restraint than Emile gave him credit for.

It was still an incredibly slow process though, and Emile worked at it tirelessly, stopping only to eat and sleep.  He wasn’t even sure how long he had been working.  The days blurred together into an undistinguishable haze, and soon his progress through the stacks became his only real measure of time.  He felt like his brain was turning to mush, and it worried him when he thought that this could be just another mindless task sucking him in, no different than the count. But when that thought came to him he quickly shook it from his head.  This was something that had to be done, and no matter how boring it was, the emptiness he felt when he counted at his monitor was not present.

Emile was about two-thirds of the way through the stacks when he picked up an unassuming note card, covered with Serge’s sloppy handwriting.  If he found a card that missed any of the numbers on Hank’s sequence he would put it back immediately, and he had long since gotten over the excitement of finding cards that matched almost all of the digits.  That’s why he didn’t pay much attention to this card, as he matched number after number with the sequence.  When he reached the last digit and matched it as well, he just sat there staring blankly at the two identical cards.  He checked them again, and then a third time, and gradually his exhausted mind cast aside its skepticism and wrapped itself around his discovery.

“I found it,” said Emile, barely above a whisper.

“What?” said Serge, putting down his phone.

“I found the sequence,” said Emile.

“You’re messing with me, right?” said Serge.

Emile held out both of the cards for Serge to examine.

“You actually found them,” said Serge, staring wide eyed at the two cards.  “I thought you were completely nuts to dig through all of those cards.  Hank!  I think you better come over here!”

“Can’t you see that I’m busy!” yelled Hank from across the room.

Serge got up from his chair, walked casually over to Hank’s console, and tossed the cards in front of him.  Emile heard Hank’s chair hit the floor when he jumped from his seat.

“Where did you find this?” said Hank, his voice breaking with excitement.

“Emile dug it out of my stack of notes,” said Serge.  “I must have heard it in the phone ages ago.”

Emile reached Hank’s console and saw him hunched over both cards examining them carefully.  Hank’s hands were trembling and sweat was beginning to bead on his brow.

“That’s the sequence all right!  Could this actually be the access code?” said Hank, pointing at the second group of numbers on the card.  “What the hell does ‘tres patos en un estanque’ mean?”

Hank was looking at the Spanish phrase between the two sets of numbers.

“Three ducks on a pond,” said Serge.  Hank looked up at him like he was some kind of lunatic.

“That’s what it means,” said Serge.  “It’s the name of that group of cards.”

“The name of the group…” said Hank, his voice an awed hush.  Now it was Serge’s turn to look confused.

“Well there’s only one way to find out,” said Hank.  He picked up the card and began rapidly tapping patterns with the button.  Emile looked at the light and recognized the two red flashes that identified the familiar sequence.  Hank drew in a deep breath and fired away with more tapping.  When he finally stopped, they all waited breathlessly for what seemed like an eternity, but nothing happened.  Hank finally sunk back in his chair and let out an exasperated sigh.

“I knew it was too good to be true,” said Hank.  “Every time you get your hopes up something--”

And then Hank was gone.  Not only Hank, but the entire room as well.  Everything had disappeared into a blinding white void, and Emile staggered backwards covering his aching eyes in a vain attempt to shield them.  He hit the wall and sank down to the floor, involuntarily curling into a fetal position.  He was about to cry out, but as quickly as it had materialized, the white void was gone, and was replaced by an impenetrable shroud of inky blackness, darker than anything Emile had ever experienced.  He opened his eyes and blinked but he could see nothing at all.

“I think I’m blind!” yelled Serge who was somewhere near him.

“Just stay put!” said Hank.  “I think the power went out.”

As Emile rubbed his eyes and continued to blink, he realized that they were both wrong.  The room was gradually coming back into focus.  Muted grays and blacks at first, but getting brighter by the second.  He looked around and saw Hank staggering clumsily across the room, flailing his outstretched arms in an attempt to find his chair.  Serge was groping his way up the wall next to Emile.

“What the hell was that?” said Serge.  “I feel like my brain just got flash fried.”

“I guess it worked,” said Emile.  He was still too disoriented to stand so he just sat there, slumped against the wall like a sack of potatoes.

“Quite the subtle observation,” said Hank, leaning against his chair to steady himself.  “Now we just have to figure out what ‘worked’ means.”

Hank sat back into his chair and looked at the light, which was now blinking steadily as if nothing had happened.  He tapped on the button several times before stopping and scratching his head.

“It’s gone,” he said.

“What’s gone?” said Serge.

“The sequence,” said Hank.  “It popped me back out into the sub-group, and now the short sequence is gone.  Every other sequence in the sub-group is where it should be except that one.”  Hank sat there for a moment looking like a lost child, and then he suddenly perked up.

“Serge, go get me another card quick,” he said.  Serge jumped up and darted to his console, coming back with a fresh card in his hand.

“Perfect!” said Hank, recognizing the pattern immediately.  He quickly tapped his button and then looked at Emile and Serge.

“I think you guys should face the wall and cover your eyes.  We don’t know what this thing is going do,” Hank studied the access code briefly and then buried his face into his arm.  Emile turned to the wall, but he was too curious to cover his face.  He wanted to see if it flashed again, and he didn’t think the reflection off the wall would blind him like before.

“Ready?” said Hank.

Emile and Serge both consented and a chorus of tapping filled the silent room.  When it stopped Emile watched the wall intently.  He saw a faint white flash reflected from the light, but he knew it could be nowhere near the intensity of the first one.

“Yep, this one’s gone as well,” said Hank.  He was back up and furiously tapping away at the button.

“What do you think is happening to them?” said Emile.

“Well, either we’re accessing the system or we’re destroying it,” said Hank.  He paused for a moment.  “I don’t even care if we are destroying it.  At least it’s something.  Maybe were even supposed to.”

Hank reclined in his chair and stroked his chin, deeply lost in thought.  He rapped his fingers on the console and tapped his shoe on the floor, creating a chaotic rhythm.  He abruptly jumped out of his chair and pointed at Serge.

“Alright Serge, you have to tell me everything you know about your notes.  If there’s an answer to this, it has to be somewhere in that phone of yours.”

Serge was about to say something but Hank was already at his console, picking his way through the stacks of notes.

“Be careful with those!  I just got them organized and I don’t want you messing them up,” said Serge.  He walked briskly toward Hank and Emile joined him.

“I can’t believe it,” said Hank, shuffling through the stacks.  “They’re all here.  Every single sequence along with its access code, and all this time they were right under my nose.”

Serge gently picked up a medium sized stack and handed it to Hank.

“The sequences that you just accessed came from this group,” said Serge.  Hank flipped through the stack slowly.

“Tres patos en un estanque,” he muttered.  “Three ducks in a pond, the name of the group. I can’t believe it.”  His voice was full of wonder.

“Here, I’ll show you the rest,” said Serge.  He went through each stack giving its Spanish name and its English translation while Hank listened intently.  When Serge finished Hank told him how the groups were arranged in the system, and they rearranged the stacks accordingly.  They were both utterly engrossed in their task and Emile watched for awhile, but when he realized that he was no longer needed he quietly headed back to his console.

From the moment he first picked the sequence card out of Serge’s stack, Emile had felt a strange disconnect from the events that followed.  It was almost like he had been floating outside of his own body, watching things transpire from a distance.  Only now was he beginning to return to reality.  

The whole time he had been searching through Serge’s stacks, he never thought for a second that the two consoles could be connected.  It seemed so obvious now, and Emile cursed himself for not realizing it sooner.  How many wasted weeks, months even, had they sat there ignorant to the fact that the solution was right in front of their faces?  How long had he stared blankly at his console waiting for an answer to magically pop into his head when all he had to do was turn around?  It was like he had traveled fifty miles to bypass a stream, only to find a bridge at the starting point.

Well, I guess it doesn’t matter anyway, thought Emile.  Either way I’m right back where I started, sitting in front of this stupid monitor with nothing to do.  Even when I do find something useful, it doesn’t last for long, and I never get any recognition for it anyway so why bother.

He pulled the sequence card out of his pocket and typed the numbers over and over into his keypad.  When he finally stopped he stared at the columns of digits on the screen and after awhile they disappeared, replaced by a single flashing insertion point.

I don’t know why I bother at all, thought Emile, looking back at Serge and Hank.  When he faced his monitor again the insertion point was blinking next to a small line of text.  He leaned close to read it.

< -) That certainly was clever of you, Emile. >

Emile pressed the delete button absentmindedly wiping the text from the monitor.  Clever got me this far, he thought, and chuckled to himself as he leaned back in his chair.



:afro:


----------



## fossiliferous_g (Jan 19, 2011)

What?!? So close to figuring things out...who's talking through the console, what do the group names mean, what are the access codes? Oh, I know I'm not supposed to know yet, but I just wanted to tell you that your suspense technique is working wonders. I feel like I know what's going on without having the slightest idea of what's going on. And your characters are very tangible. I like that you're letting us learn about them without giving us a biography of each person


----------



## froman (Jan 29, 2011)

It took several minutes for Emile to register the significance of what he had just seen.  The thought had fit so seamlessly into his own stream of consciousness that he simply mistook it for his own.  When it finally did click he slowly opened his eyes and looked at the monitor.  The insertion point was blinking next to another small line of text.  Emile sat up in his chair and moved in closer.

< -) Would you like to talk, or are you too busy feeling sorry for yourself? >

This wasn’t happening.  Emile’s heart began to pound and the blood in his temples pulsated rapidly.  He was staring into the face of his own madness.  Emile stood up and walked quietly out of the room, trying not to draw the attention of Serge and Hank.  When he reached his bunk he sat down and held his head in his hands.  There was a throbbing pressure behind his eyes that would not cease.  He had strained his mind searching for that silly sequence.  Perhaps he had broken it.  Why had he focused so hard?  Why had he searched so relentlessly?  Confusion and anxiety were beginning to flood his senses.  Was this what insanity felt like?

Hank and Serge could not find out.  Emile couldn’t possibly spring this on them so soon after their discovery.  But how could he conceal this?  Was he just supposed to sit at his console, quietly staring at a hallucination, and attempt to keep himself from a complete breakdown?  That charade could not be acted out forever, and sooner or later they would realize that something was wrong.  If he was going insane it had happened at the worst possible time, and the irony of it drew Emile’s lips into a bitter smile.

Emile heard a noise from the console room and shot up from his bunk.  How long had he been sitting there?  If he wanted to avoid suspicion he had to act normal and sitting in his bunk all day certainly wasn’t normal.  He walked quickly to the console room and sat down in his chair.  When he looked over his shoulder Hank and Serge were busy and hadn’t noticed him enter.  He turned toward his monitor and was greeted by a blank screen and the steadily blinking insertion point.  Was the delusion over?  Emile tapped the keypad, entering a random string of numbers.  He paused for a moment before pressing the enter key and the numbers disappeared.  He sat tensely on the edge of his seat but nothing happened.  He began to relax slightly.  Maybe it _was_ over, he thought, but as he continued to stare at the monitor a line of text materialized from nothing and his heart sank.

< -) I’m growing tired of this game, Emile. >

Emile gazed at the monitor, contemplating his options.  He didn’t have many.  He could ignore it and pray that it would eventually leave him be, or he could play along.  After what seemed like an eternity Emile placed his fingers on the keypad and typed.

[Who are you?]  Emile pressed the enter key and his message disappeared.  The insertion point idled for a moment then jumped into action, racing across the screen in front of a stream of text.

< -) I’m someone who has developed an interest in your recent activities. >

When Emile finished reading a sickening thought came to him.  He typed his reply and held his breath.

[Are you with Management?]

< -) No I’m not, Emile.  My goals and the goals of what you call ‘Management’ are quite different. >

This brought only temporary relief to Emile.

[Then I am insane.  If you’re not with Management then you must be a delusion.]

< -) Is that so?  I’m sorry you feel that way. >

Emile almost laughed out loud at the ironically straightforward response the specter had given him.  It seemed so calm and rational.  Is this how all hallucinations behaved, he wondered?

[Well if you’re not a delusion then what are you?]

< -) I already told you, I’m someone who has noticed what you are doing and I’ve developed an interest in it.  I’m here to help you. >

[Is that all the explanation you’re going to give me?]

< -) I’m afraid that’s all the explanation I have to give. >

[Well maybe I should call Hank and Serge over here to verify my theory.]

< -) I would have no problem with that.  Unfortunately they won’t be able to see me the way you do. >

Emile’s skepticism immediately rose as he read this last entry.  That meant that there was no way to prove that this was real.  Without proof what did he have?  Emile remembered when Serge first heard the voices in his phone.  There had been no proof then either but Serge seemed so certain that it was real.  Emile just didn’t feel that certainty.  Even when he had listened to the eerie static in Serge’s phone, he felt that there was a presence beyond what he perceived.  That was a kind of proof for Emile and it probably helped him accept the change in Serge’s console.  But if he didn’t trust his own senses how could he expect the others to trust him?  How could he trust himself?

[So what you’re asking me for is blind faith?]

< -) Blind faith is foolish, Emile.  I’m asking you to have faith in yourself.  Do you truly believe that you’re insane and that I’m no more than a hallucination? >

[I did, but I’m not so sure anymore.]

< -) I contacted you because I wanted to help you and I believe that I can help, but if you refuse to trust yourself then there’s nothing I can do for you.  If you want me to leave tell me now, and you’ll never have to speak to me again. >

The message vanished from the monitor and Emile sat back in his chair.  The insertion point blinked steadily in the upper left-hand corner, awaiting his reply, but Emile didn’t know what to say.  He was trapped.  There was no reason for him to trust this new entity, but the longer he talked to it the more he felt his skepticism subside.  He wanted to trust it, and it was making a lot of sense.  The panic he felt earlier had subsided and he was thinking more clearly now.  When Serge’s console changed they had no way of knowing whether it was a delusion or not, but they cast aside their doubt and kept pushing forward.  Hank’s console was obviously no delusion but it could have just as easily been some new game sent by management to distract them, and maybe it was, but they moved on anyway.  Was this any different?  Was there anything to lose if he did push forward?

[I don’t want you to go.  Not yet anyway.  I think you probably are real, but it still bothers me that you could just as easily be working for Management, stringing us along on another game however intricate it may be.]

There was no answer for a moment and Emile wondered if he had offended it in some way.  That was assuming that it was even capable of feeling offended.  He ignored the thought though, and soon the insertion point jumped to life again, trailing text across the screen.

< -) If you ever suspect that, just ask me to leave and I’ll go. >

[And what if you don’t go away?]

< -) Then you’ll know I lied to you and you can disregard me anyway. >

    Emile smiled at his new friend’s blunt manner.  Of course he had trapped Emile once again but the statement seemed too honest to be a lie.  There was no way to verify the story without losing this entity’s help, and he knew it.  Why would it so openly offer to disappear if it wasn’t telling the truth?  The only other answer was that Management was so confident of Emile’s compliance that they would risk their entire experiment on his whim.  This was entirely possible, and might even be a great plan, but the same question still arose in Emile’s mind:  Was there anything to lose if he did comply?

[Okay, I’ve decided to trust you.  I figure it’s about time for my leap of faith.]

< -) I’m glad to hear that. >

[So how were you planning on helping me?]

< -) We can discuss that later.  First I would like to hear about your discovery today. > 

[I think you mean Hank and Serge’s discovery.  You’d probably be better off talking to them about it.]  Emile waited for a reply but none came.  In fact, he began to feel slightly foolish for saying it.  After a few awkward moments he continued typing.

[I damn near melted my brain trying to find that sequence.  I don’t even know how long I was looking for it.  That’s why I thought you were a hallucination.  Hank tipped me off and luckily I remembered seeing it in Serge’s notes.  It turns out that the consoles are, and always have been, connected.  We were just too dense to realize it.]

< -) Why are they connected? >

[Serge’s console is providing the access codes for Hank’s console.  He could only observe the system before, and now he can manipulate it.  We’re not sure what he’s changing, but he’s certainly changing something.]

< -) No Emile, you’re telling me _how_ they are connected.  I’m asking you _why_ they are connected. >

Emile paused after he read it.  The more he thought about the question the sillier it seemed.  How could he possibly know why?  Did the sailor ask ‘why?’ when a rogue wave capsized his ship in rough seas?  If he did he was a fool, and Emile could see no difference in his situation.  For all he knew it was a force of nature that caused the consoles to be connected.  ‘Why’ was irrelevant.

< -) You must have questioned the reasons behind an event this bizarre. >

[I didn’t have much time to question it.  You showed up right after we discovered the connection.]

< -) Well now you have time.  Start questioning. >

[I don’t see the point of asking why.  We need to press forward.  If there is an answer won’t we stumble upon it eventually?]

< -) So you’re content to stumble?  That’s good because if you decide to continue on with a deliberate lack of knowledge and curiosity, you certainly will stumble.  Like a leaf on a river you will be dragged along by the current and harshly subjected to all the hazards of which you remain so willfully ignorant. >

The words read like a cold, hard slap in the face.  Emile could see himself on that river so vividly and with such familiarity that he felt he must have thought of it previously.  In any case he had certainly felt that feeling of helplessness and it was not something he wanted to feel again.

[I’m not even sure where to start.  There’s so much we don’t know.]

< -) But there’s also so much that you’ve learned.  Think carefully about what you _do_ know rather than what you _don’t_ know. >

[Well, we know a lot about Hank’s lights.  Its management’s computer system and he knows it inside and out.  Serge’s console is a little trickier.  We always knew that it was some sort of communication device, and now we know it’s spitting out access codes for the system.  Their connected but ‘why’ is still a mystery.]  Emile stopped and drifted into deep thought.  He typed absentmindedly as random musings came to him.

[You could argue that all of this is just more pointless console games from Management, but we’ve seemed to disregard that possibility.  It could still be true but it wouldn’t matter if it was, and thinking about it won’t get us anywhere so we’ve thrown it out.  If they are legitimate systems then that means they must be intrinsically connected for a purpose.]

< -) Interesting… but what could that purpose be? >

[That’s the million dollar question, but I just had another thought.  We know that the computer system belongs to Management, and we know that the phone is providing the access codes as well as the names of the groups.  If it’s providing something that critical and that complete to the system, could it actually be a part of the system?  Could it also be under the control of Management?]

< -) Go on. >

Emile was starting to get excited now.  It felt like all the pieces were dropping into place.

[We felt so helpless before we had the codes.  Hank was stuck observing the system and was impotent when it came to manipulating it.  When we discovered the connection between the consoles it was like looking back stage.  It was like we had found the missing half of a puzzle.  I think we may have finally discovered the whole system!]

< -) It appears you know more about Management than you previously thought. >

[Yeah I guess so.  I still have no idea what the point of the system is though.]

< -) Don’t worry Emile.  You’ve done well.  However, there is an aspect of Management that you have known about all along. >

[What’s that?]

< -) Tell me what you hear when you listen to the phone. >

Emile shuddered.

[It’s a kind of static with some clicking in the background, but that doesn’t do it justice.  When I hear it I feel like there’s something on the other end.  Something big.  It’s like the air is being sucked from my lungs, and the static is moving out of the phone and into my head.  I guess that sounds kind of crazy.]

< -) What you heard was the voice of Management.  Not the pure voice, but a variation.  It can be quite unpleasant. >

Emile was too stunned to reply.  It didn’t make any sense to him.  As eerie as the static was, it was just a signal.  It couldn’t actually be the voice of the Management.  His new friend must have been confused.

[That’s impossible.  Even if it were the voice of Management, Serge is the only one that can really hear it.]

< -) It’s not only possible Emile, it’s the truth, and believe it or not your perception of the voice is much more accurate than Serge’s. >

[I don’t understand.  He’s the only one who actually hears a voice.  All I hear is distortion.]

< -) Your right.  Serge fluently understands the messages that Management is sending but that’s precisely why he can never hear its true voice.  He hears the messages in his native language.  It’s the same with Hank.  He can see the computer system fluently but he will never have the same appreciation for the colors that you have.   He doesn’t see them in that way.  This even applies to you Emile.  The others will never be able to see me like you do, and you will never be able to see me like they do.  Only they can see my true form. >

[If only they can see your true form, why did you choose me to talk to?]

< -) Only you and Hank can hear the true voice of Management through Serge’s phone.  Would either of you like to take over his job? >

Emile saw at once how futile that would be.

< -) My true form is of little use to you. >

[So was it your idea or Managements idea to make it this way?]

< -) Neither of us chose this. >

[Well then why is it like this?]

< -) Why do your feet stay on the floor when you get out of bed in the morning?  Why does air fill your lungs when you inhale?  These are the rules, Emile.  Neither I nor Management can break them. >

[Can I break them?]

< -) I don’t know. >

The conversation was turning excessively cryptic.  All of the oddities, riddles, and half answers were beginning to wear on Emile.  It was too much to take in at once, and he could feel his tired mind smothering any attempt at understanding.  

[I think your losing me.]

< -) I’m sorry.  I probably shouldn’t have sprung that on you just yet.  Oh well, at least you’ll have a lot to think about. >

[You’ve given me a lifetime supply of thinking material, but I’ll try my best.]

< -) You did extremely well today Emile.  Not just with me, but with everything.  Don’t make the mistake of underestimating your value.  Now get some rest. >

Emile beamed with pride when he read the last entry.  It was the first time he could remember feeling good about himself.  He was about to switch off the monitor when he remembered something important.  He keyed in a message quickly and hoped that his friend hadn’t left.

[What is your name?]  It took a moment for his friend to reply.

< -) That’s a good question.  I hadn’t really thought about it, but now that you mention it there is a name you’ve already given me that I find quite appropriate for a number of reasons. >

Emile had no clue.

< -) Call me Monitor. >

The screen went blank and Emile reached over and turned off the power.  The sudden awareness of his surroundings was quite shocking, and he blinked his eyes against the bright, sterile light of the console room.  He heard soft murmurs from across the room and when he turned he saw that Hank and Serge were still immersed in the stacks of cards.  Emile had no clue how long he had been conversing with his console for, and part of him suspected that there was no definite answer.  Maybe the insignificance of time in this place was one of the rules that Monitor had referred to.

He watched them silently for a moment before he turned and headed to his bunk.  As he walked out of the room and down the short hallway, he trailed his fingers along the smooth white walls.  His brain was already shutting down.  When he reached his room he shut the door behind him and turned out the light.  He was asleep before his head touched the pillow.



:afro:


----------



## froman (Jan 29, 2011)

Thanks for reading Fossil!


----------



## froman (Feb 5, 2011)

Emile understood happiness, or at least he thought he did.  When he discovered the missing sequence in Serge’s card stack he felt a sort of giddy lightheadedness, and when Monitor first mentioned happiness this was the feeling that Emile remembered.  But Monitor was not satisfied with this explanation, and Emile wasn’t surprised.  One thing he had learned from their conversations was that first answers were never correct.  Monitor would simply tell him to think harder.  Naturally this drove Emile crazy, mainly because Monitor was absolutely right and this case was no different.  When Emile thought harder about happiness he remembered the first time he had seen the colors from the light on Hank’s console.  That was more of a warm familiar feeling but it certainly was pleasant and Emile had thought of it often.  He tried to remember all of the times he had been happy, and he told Monitor about each of them. Sadly, it didn’t take long.

< -) Do you see it now?  Just as there are many different types of sadness and frustration there are also many types of happiness.  Feelings don’t just come in black or white.  There are innumerable variations concerning emotion. >

[Are we going to go through this with every single human emotion?]

< -) You’re feeling things now that you’ve never felt down here before.  You’ve been living in an emotional vacuum and you need some time to readjust.  You may find this boring but I assure you it’s necessary to understand these feelings if you ever wish to control them. >

  Emile didn’t really think it was boring.  The truth was that he found the subject fascinating.  He could have talked with Monitor all day about emotional theories and been perfectly content, but there were so many larger problems facing them that it seemed like a waste of time and effort.  He was having a hard time concentrating, and he felt torn between his love of conversing with Monitor and his need to help Serge and Hank with the computer system. 

They had been working tirelessly trying to decipher it with little success.  The problem started almost immediately after they cracked the first sequence.  Thinking back, Emile realized that it was foolish to expect that they could turn off every sequence by simply entering its code into Hanks console.  That would have been much too simple, and he was quickly realizing that nothing in their new life was going to be simple.  A few of the codes did work at first, but those initial triumphs were a distant memory, and their success had ground to a complete halt.  Hank thought that it was a problem with Serge’s translations, but after a very loud and heated argument he decided against that theory.  Their little room became almost completely silent, save for the sounds of Hanks pacing footsteps and the occasional click of Serge’s phone as he placed it into its cradle.

Emile desperately wanted to help them, but when he tried to talk with Monitor about the computer system he received little in return.  Either Monitor didn’t know the answers to Emile’s questions or it wasn’t willing to divulge them.  He hoped that it was the former.  

And his questions about the computer system weren’t the only ones that Monitor couldn’t or wouldn’t discuss with Emile.  It seemed like every specific question that Emile had about their situation in the console room proved unanswerable for Monitor, but when Emile brought up general theories and broad topics not related to these specific problems Monitor provided him with a wealth of information and meaningful discussion.  Emile would have been angry about this if he didn’t enjoy discussing these things so much, and eventually he stopped asking specific questions entirely.  He stopped asking, but those questions still weighed heavily on his mind.

Even though Emile loved his discussions with Monitor and even though he was of little use to Hank and Serge he still spent time with each of them at their consoles.  Part of the reason he reluctantly pried himself from his own console was that he was genuinely concerned with their plight.  After all it was his plight as well.  He wanted to stay up to speed with their progress, and if he could help in some way he wanted to be available to help.  That was the rationalization Emile preferred, but there was a deeper one that he didn’t like to think about.  He wanted Hank and Serge to notice him helping them, that way they wouldn’t notice how long he spent absorbed in his conversations with Monitor.

He hadn’t told them yet.  He knew it was stupid to try to hide this from them and that they would eventually find out one way or another, but he also knew that they wouldn’t see Monitor like he did.  Judging by what Monitor had told Emile, they would see him in a rather pointless and indecipherable form.  Maybe he hadn’t gotten over his earlier paranoia but he wanted to be ready when he broke the news to Hank and Serge and he didn’t feel quite ready yet.  

“You look busy,” said Serge.  Emile hadn’t heard him approach and he practically jumped out of his skin when he heard Serge’s voice.

“What are you working on?” said Serge.

“Oh… I’m just messing around… thinking about stuff,” said Emile.  He snuck a glance at the screen of his console and was relieved to find it blank.  “What are you up to?” Emile held his breath and stared intently at his shoes.  It seemed like an eternity before Serge answered.

“Not much.  Hank’s over there rambling about missing patterns and I had to get away for a minute,” said Serge.  “I have to take a break once in awhile or I start to feel my brain overheating.  I honestly don’t know how he does this all day long.”

“Are you guy’s getting any closer to figuring it out?” said Emile.

“I don’t think so.  I understand what Hank’s saying about the patterns.  These sequences obviously can’t be erased randomly, but finding the pattern out of the blue could take us a million years.”

Emile leaned back in his chair and stared blankly up at the ceiling, lost in the hopelessness of their situation once again.  Why couldn’t Monitor help them with this?

“Sorry to lay all this on you right now,” said Serge.

“No, it’s all right.  I was actually planning on catching up a little bit today.  It seems like I’ve been out of the loop for awhile,” said Emile.

“Come on then.  It’ll be good to get a fresh head over there,” Serge offered Emile his hand and pulled him up out of his chair.  They both headed to Hank’s console, where Hank sat with his face buried dramatically in his hands.  Aside from that sorry site they had set up quite an impressive command center.  Serge had moved almost all of the stacks from his console next to Hank’s and placed them on a bedside table that he’d moved from his bunk.  He’d also snagged an extra chair from the cafeteria so he didn’t have to keep moving one back and forth between the two consoles.

“Don’t kill yourself just yet Hank.  The miracle man has graced us with a visit,” said Serge, shaking Hank’s chair playfully.

“Miracle man?” said Emile, raising an eyebrow.  Hank rubbed his eyes vigorously and turned to Emile.

“My god Serge, you weren’t lying,” said Hank.  “The master has arrived.  We could certainly use one of your trademark flashes of insight right now, Emile.”

Emile laughed when he realized what they were talking about.

“I hope you guy’s aren’t expecting that to be a regular thing.  I don’t want to disappoint you any more than I have to,” he said.  “Besides, you can’t be doing that bad.  I’m sure you’ve figured out something new since last time.”

“Well could you please tell me what that is, because I’m completely stumped over here,” said Hank.

“Hank’s right,” said Serge.  “We’ve tried tons of combinations, but we just can’t figure out the order in which to enter the codes.  It’s hopeless.  There are too many possibilities.  There’s no way we can find the correct order without some type of hint.”

 “There’s nothing in the system to tip you off?  Do you have any leads at all?  What about starting with the short sequences, or the long sequences?” said Emile.

“Nope, it’s completely dry.  I’ve tried both of those along with everything that Serge and I could think of, with absolutely no luck,” said Hank, shaking his head wearily.

“Maybe this is the end,” said Serge.  “Maybe this is as far as the ride goes.”

“No, I don’t believe that,” said Emile. He had begun pacing back and forth.  “That’s what’s so annoying about this.  I know that the answer is here, somewhere in this room or somewhere in our minds.  It’s probably right in front of our faces and we just can’t see it yet.”

“I hope you’re right, Emile, but that still doesn’t make it any easier,” said Serge.

Serge was right.  It didn’t make it any easier at all.  In fact, it made it harder knowing that the answer was just out of reach, but Emile knew someone who _could_ make it easier for them.  He hung around a little longer while the three of them exchanged small talk, but his thoughts were elsewhere.  When he left for his own console he waited for a moment until he was sure that Hank and Serge were once again absorbed in their work, and then turned it on.  The time for theoretical discussions had passed.  If Monitor knew something about this Emile was going to find out.  He could not sit by and let Hank and Serge suffer while their one hope remained silent.

[We have to talk.]  After Emile typed his message he waited impatiently for Monitor’s response.  He was getting sick and tired of waiting.  Luckily the insertion point jumped to life without much delay.

< -) Then talk. >

[Why won’t you help me solve any of the problems we’re having?]  There was no reply at first and Emile waited, staring angrily at the blank screen.  His frustration grew with every passing second.

< -) I thought that I was helping you. >

[You’re not helping me, you’re stringing me along.  All we ever talk about is theory and speculation and every time I ask you about something important you refuse to answer me.  I want to know why.]

< -) It’s not my responsibility to hold your hand and lead you through this Emile.  I wish it could be that easy but that’s not how it works.  The system is your problem.  I’m helping you the only way I know how, but the three of you are going to have to solve this on your own. >

[I guess I should have known that.  There’s one thing that I can’t seem to figure out though.  If you can’t help me with the only problem that matters in my life then how exactly are you helping me?]

< -) Just because I can’t give you the answer doesn’t mean that I can’t help you.  I’m trying to get you to think about the problem in a new way.  I’m trying to change your perspective so that you might be able to find a solution in a place you didn’t think to look. >

[Hold on a minute.  Is it that you _can’t_ give me the answer, or that you _won’t_ give me the answer?]

< -) I _can’t_ give it to you. >

[Well then what _can_ you give me?]

< -) Maybe you should stop worrying about what I can or can’t give you and start worrying about what you can give yourself. >

[What is _that_ supposed to mean?]  Emile felt hot anger rising to his face.

< -) It means that you need to stop blaming me for all of your problems and start taking some responsibility.  Not just for yourself but for Hank and Serge as well.  Your problems are their problems yet you barely talk to each other.  How do you expect to solve this thing when the three of you keep isolating yourselves?  The system is a single entity, so you need to start acting like a single group. >

[Then I won’t have any time for these wonderfully enlightening conversations of ours.]  Emile didn’t think sarcasm could be conveyed very well through a screen, but he decided to give it a shot anyway.

< -) Well, apparently you don’t find my advice very enlightening anymore. >

Emile let out an exasperated sigh and ran his fingers through his hair.  He was about to clear his screen when he stopped short.  He leaned in close and studied Monitor’s last entry carefully, growing more and more mystified each time he read it. A sense of recognition flashed through his consciousness, almost like the déjà vu of the blue light but much fainter. He frowned and put his fingers back onto the keyboard.

[If I didn’t know any better I’d say that I just hurt your feelings.]

< -) It wouldn’t be the first time. >

[What?]  

Emile waited for a reply but none came.  He was about to question Monitor further when he felt a hand grip his shoulder.  When he turned his head and saw Serge standing right behind him he jumped so high that he nearly knocked his chair over.

“Christ Serge, would you quit sneaking up on me like that!  You’re going to give a damn heart attack,” said Emile after he’d caught his breath and slowed his heart rate a little.

“Sorry Emile, but it’s time for lunch.  Didn’t you hear the alarm?  It went off five minutes ago,” said Serge.

“No, I must have missed it,” said Emile.

“What are you doing over hear anyway?” said Serge.

“I already told you, I’m just thinking about stuff,” said Emile, trying to keep the irritation out of his voice.

“You looked pretty captivated with your console.  You’re not counting again, are you?” 

“What?  No I’m not counting again!  Do you think I’m crazy?” said Emile.  “I just fiddle with the buttons when I’m thinking.”  Emile’s heart rate picked up a notch as he watched Serge eye him suspiciously.

“Look Serge, almost every moment I can remember in my life has been spent in front of this console pressing these buttons so you’re going to have to excuse me if I start messing with them occasionally.  Old habits die hard you know,” said Emile.

Serge seemed to be less than satisfied with his explanation and as Emile turned off the power to his console and straightened his chair he could feel the weight of Serge’s steady gaze pressing down on his shoulders.

“Would you two hurry up?  I’m starving,” said Hank, calling to them from the hallway.  Emile couldn’t remember being so relieved to hear his voice, and he rushed ahead of Serge out of the console room and toward the cafeteria.

As Emile wound his way through the crowd to the conveyer on the far side of the cafeteria he checked over his shoulder to make sure Serge wasn’t eyeing him.  When he saw that Hank had Serge thoroughly distracted he relaxed a little.  While Emile waited patiently in the shuffling sandwich line he looked past Hank and Serge to the hundreds of identically clad people filling the room.  Simply referring to them as people was overly generous though, and Emile felt almost no connection with them any longer.  He wasn’t even bothered by their ‘animated corpse’ characteristics like he used to be.  Moving among them on his way back to his table felt more like strolling through a forest of tightly grouped trees, but even trees are more alive than they are, he thought.  At least trees contribute something to their world.

When Emile reached their table Hank and Serge were bickering about something and barely even noticed him sit down.  Just like old times, he thought, and he quietly ate his sandwich, tuning them out and escaping into the labyrinth of his own thoughts.  As usual Monitor’s ideas and arguments filtered up to the forefront of his consciousness.  

The accusation that they weren’t working together seemed completely ridiculous to Emile.  Ever since the consoles changed they had done nothing but work together.  But as Emile tried to convince himself of this, a nagging feeling in the back of his head started gaining momentum, threatening to topple his carefully constructed defense.  Using his time before the consoles changed as a measuring stick for his productivity was absurd and the more he thought about his time spent _now_, the more he remembered the large blocks of silence between his conversations with Hank and Serge.  That was perfectly normal though, he thought.  People need time alone to sort through problems and come up with solutions.  But almost as soon as the thought came to him, the nagging in the back of his head returned.  When he thought harder, he realized that most of their time alone had been spent either immersed in self-pity or wasting time looking for answers in the wrong places.  Emile smiled.  It seemed he couldn’t escape Monitor’s logic even when he was separated from his console.  Maybe that was a good thing?

As Emile chewed his sandwich rhythmically and stared into space, he vaguely noticed someone waving a hand in front of his face.  Pulling himself from the last of his lingering thoughts he became aware of Hank and Serge, who were gazing at him expectantly.

“Did I miss something?” said Emile.

“Oh, not much,” said Hank.  “I was just wondering why you’ve been staring at your sandwich like a zombie for the past fifteen minutes.  Is there something wrong with you?”

“No, I’m just thinking.”

“Let me guess.  You were thinking about ‘stuff’ right?” said Serge.  Emile scowled at him.

“Actually I was thinking about how to get out of the rut we’re in.”

“Any ideas?” said Hank.

“I think that we should completely change how we approach the problem, because what we’re doing right now obviously isn’t working.  You guy’s said that there has to be some sort of pattern or hint that tells us how to use the access codes right?”

“I don’t know if there _has_ to be.  We certainly _want_ there to be,” said Serge.

“If you didn’t have faith in the system Serge; faith in the fact that there is a solution out there somewhere, then you wouldn’t be working so hard to find one, would you?” said Emile.  Serge rolled his eyes.

“I think we can safely say that we’re not going to find the pattern anywhere in Hank’s console.  I mean if you can’t find it Hank, then no one can.  The missing pattern has to be somewhere else.  We need to work together to find this thing,” said Emile.

“Maybe it’s how we sit and eat lunch, or how we line up to get our sandwiches,” said Hank, chucking halfheartedly.

“Yeah,” said Serge.  “Maybe it’s how many times we chew before we swallow.”

“I know you guy’s are joking, but at least your thinking outside of the box,” said Emile.  “It could be anywhere, but we’re never going to find it if we keep doing what we’ve been doing.”

Emile got up and headed back to the console room, and Hank and Serge followed closely behind.  They seemed curious, and that was enough for Emile.  They weren’t even calling him a nutcase.  They must be just as desperate as I am, he thought.

When they got back to their room, Hank and Serge waited impatiently for Emile to tell them something, but Emile was at a loss.  He hadn’t really thought this far ahead.  If they weren’t watching him so intently he would have jumped on his console and asked Monitor for help, but that was out of the question right now.  Monitor probably wouldn’t have given him anything anyway.

“Well we might as well start close to home.  You’ve been looking through the light sequences and the access codes for patterns, right?” Hank and Serge both nodded.  “Okay, I think we should start looking at the actual names of the sequences for any patterns.  Serge you can translate for us.”

“But that could take ages!  And what if it doesn’t pan out?  We’ll just be wasting more of our time,” said Hank.  He was absolutely right too.  Emile knew what a ridiculous long shot this was, but it was all he had.  He couldn’t argue with Hank so he remained silent, and realized that his silence was the loudest confession he could give.

“Hey, if Emile can sift through all of my cards on a hunch, then we can do this, so quit complaining,” said Serge, winking at Emile.  Hank grumbled and reluctantly headed for the stacks.  ‘Now why didn’t I think of that’ thought Emile.



:afro:


----------



## fossiliferous_g (Feb 9, 2011)

Hi froman!
I'm sorry I haven't been on in a couple weeks and as of right now I haven't read the last entry from the 5th. I'm dying to! I love how your technique has kept me in antici......



....pation!

Haha!

I'm wondering at this point why it took so long for Emile to be privy to this conversation between him and "Monitor." And why is his conversation so sensible while Serge and Hank are still so lost? Is there something special about Emile? Will the three of them have to work together to figure out the system or will Emile be the hero who figures it all out on his own?

These aren't really comments, I just thought you'd like to know where your reader's head is at this point in the draft. It's so good! Can't wait to read this next entry!


----------



## froman (Feb 12, 2011)

Hey Fossil,

Glad to hear you're still enjoying my little story! I'm gonna post up another section so you'll have a bit more to read.

Thanks a bunch!


----------



## froman (Feb 12, 2011)

It wasn’t exactly the most exciting work in the world, but it wasn’t all that bad either.  They poured through stack after stack of the cards; receiving impromptu Spanish lessons from Serge as they deciphered and studied the strange names that Management had given the light sequences.  And they certainly were strange.  ‘Six apples, six bananas, dancing in the forest’, ‘I’m going to the store, twelve, six hundred, tonight after dinner’, ‘Run, run, run, five, forty six, down the street’.  That was just a sampling of the random nonsense they had to shuffle through hoping to find some sort of pattern.  But for reasons that Emile couldn’t understand, they didn’t pay any attention to the hopelessness of their situation during those long hours huddled together over Serge’s bedside table.  In fact, they made a sort of game out of it: a treasure hunt for the most ridiculous phrases in the stacks.  They spent more time laughing than they did bickering and Emile didn’t want to jinx them by admitting it, but the search for the missing pattern was starting to feel a lot like _fun_.

Using that word to describe anything in Emile’s life seemed incredibly out of place but that’s what popped into his head when he searched for some way to explain the feeling.  At first Emile thought he might have been making some sort of mistake.  Pain and loneliness had been so closely knit with any progress he experienced that he felt like work couldn’t be done without feeling bad.  He’d begun to worry that they couldn’t possibly be accomplishing anything precisely because they were having fun.  

When Emile told Monitor about his problem he was simply instructed to follow his instincts.  Emile’s trust in his instincts wasn’t very high but something about their work felt right to him.  That feeling was deeper than the worry and concern so that was the instinct he chose to follow.  After all, he was actually waking up eager to work with Hank and Serge (a miracle in itself) and that was something that couldn’t be ignored.

“I’d like to meet the stooge that name’s these things,” said Hank after discovering a particularly hilarious phrase.  When they finally managed to get their laughter under control Emile leaned back in his chair and sighed.

“It’s probably the poor sap in the next room.  I’ll bet he sits at his console all day and mindlessly puts these things together without even realizing what he’s doing.”  Emile had meant it as a lighthearted comment but all three of them quickly fell silent as they realized how plausible that actually was.

After that they still laughed and joked but there was a newfound urgency in the way they worked that hadn’t been there before.  Once or twice Emile saw Hank and Serge stealing glimpses at the bare wall behind him.  He had even caught himself occasionally glancing over his shoulder, imagining a room full of people obliviously tapping buttons exactly as they had once done.  The thought sent chills down his spine.  It made him realize how alone they really were and it also made him more and more grateful that he wasn’t going through this by himself.

A knew perspective is what Monitor had told Emile he needed if he ever hoped to solve any of their problems.  He felt that he had found a new perspective but the solution to the problem was still nowhere in site.  However, in the spirit of his newfound perspective Emile didn’t let that bother him much.  He knew that the only way to find the pattern was to keep doing exactly what they had been doing.  They needed to keep grinding away, searching for it with open minds, and gradually narrowing down the places that it could be hiding.

But the pattern wasn’t the only thing that was hiding in their little room.  Emile had been managing to sneak away from the watchful eyes of Hank and _especially_ Serge to talk with Monitor each night.  He couldn’t very well go to his console while they were working on the stacks because as far as the other’s knew there was no reason for him to be interested in his own console anymore.  Emile was perfectly content letting them continue to think that, but it was certainly making things more difficult for him.  He had to leave the console room every night with Hank and Serge and lie awake in his bunk waiting for them to fall asleep, trying desperately not to fall asleep himself, before he could sneak back out.  The first night he snuck out he was afraid that Monitor wouldn’t be there, but sure enough the insertion point jumped to life after only a few moments, much to Emile’s relief.  

He would try to get back to his room at a reasonable hour but time had a way of slipping by incredibly quickly when talking with Monitor.  It was usually Monitor who had to tell Emile to go back to bed at which point he would reluctantly switch off his console and stumble groggily back to his bunk.  It was a good thing that Hank and Serge were so focused on finding the pattern or they might have noticed how exhausted Emile was in the mornings.  He didn’t mind that though.  It was a small price to pay for the time he spent with his friend.

After a particularly late night talking with Monitor Emile was sure that the others would notice something was wrong with him.  He could barely keep his eyes open at breakfast and on the way back to the console room he managed to trip over a chair, nearly breaking his neck.  If Hank hadn’t been there to catch him he probably would have.

“You look like hell,” Hank had remarked, to which Emile grunted something incoherent about bad food. He had managed to leave the cafeteria without stumbling again and when he reached the console room Hank and Serge headed straight for their work.  Shuffling across the room Emile finally plopped into his chair and looked wearily at the stacks.  They seemed to grow before his very eyes.  The groups of cards looked like miniature paper skyscrapers and as he gazed at them he imagined the bedside table was the foundation of a tiny city bustling with activity.  Emile realized that in his current state he wasn’t going to be much help to the others.

“Are you sure you’re alright Emile?” said Hank, again noticing how dazed he was.
  “Yeah, I just didn’t sleep very well last night,” said Emile.  “I’m not sure how much use I’ll be this morning.”

“Well you could grab the cards I left at my console yesterday,” said Serge.  Emile nodded and headed for Serge’s console.  Serge had been at his phone for awhile the day before and sure enough there was a fresh stack next to the receiver which Emile picked up carefully.  When he headed back to their table he placed the stack in front of Serge, but looking at his own chair made his eyes droop and he decided it was best if he stood.  While Emile watched Serge sort the cards from his most recent stack to the grid of organized stacks already on the table it almost looked like he was dealing a game of poker.  The pattern of it was strangely mesmerizing.  Serge was good at it too.  I wonder where he learned to do that, thought Emile; a misspent youth most likely.

As Emile looked on, a strange feeling made the hair on the nape of his neck stand on end.  They had set up the grid of stacks to perfectly correspond with how the groups were organized in the computer system. Just like a poker game Serge was dealing back to the beginning again, cycling through the grid the same way he had done before.  The sequential order that he placed the cards on the stacks seemed totally random.  He would reach across the table for one, place two on stacks near himself, then reach toward Hank placing a card on a stack at that end of the table and so on, but when he finished putting a card on every stack in this seemingly random order he would start over and repeat it.

“Hank come look at this,” said Emile, trying to keep the excitement from his voice.  He didn’t want to raise any false hopes in case this turned out to be another dead end.  Serge stopped dealing the cards and turned his head.

“No, no, Serge keep sorting those out like you were,” said Emile as Hank took his place next to him.  Serge flashed Emile a slightly bewildered glance before nodding and once again passing the cards to their stacks.

“Just watch him for a minute,” said Emile.

Hank didn’t see it at first and Emile was starting to get worried that he had made a big deal out of nothing, but after the third repetition Hank let out a gasp and drew closer to the stacks.

“It’s repeating!” said Hank.

“Would someone please tell me what the hell is going on,” said Serge, finally putting down his stack and turning to Hank and Emile.

“It was right under our noses the entire time…” said Hank, ignoring Serge and trailing off in disbelief.

“We knew it would be,” said Emile.  “And don’t get your hopes up just yet.  We don’t even know if this is _the_ pattern.”  Emile’s previous exhaustion was a distant memory by this point.  The excitement of the discovery had woken him up as suddenly and effectively as if a cold bucket of water had been tossed in his face.  He didn’t want them focusing on the wrong things, like how obvious the discovery seemed now that they had found it; _if_ they had even found it.  He had thought about that earlier and realized that when they did find the pattern it would most likely appear to be obvious.  There were only so many places that it could have been hiding and all of those places would be easily accessible to them, somewhere in their room.  Becoming obsessed with how obvious the pattern must be wasn’t helping Emile find it, so he had quickly purged that obsession from his thoughts.  It wasn’t helping _then_ and it wouldn’t help _now_ so he wasn’t going to let it hound them.

Serge cleared his throat loud enough to let the others know how irritated he was, and although this did little to pull Hank back to reality, Emile got the hint.

“It’s in the way you passed those cards to their stacks on the table,” he said to Serge.  “I’m guessing those cards that I handed you were in the exact order that you pulled them from your console, right?”

“Of course they were,” said Serge.

“Then it’s your console that’s giving us the pattern.  The way it’s spitting out the sequence names and codes has an order to it.  When you were dealing the cards onto their groups you started back at the beginning after you finished cycling through all the stacks, then repeated the exact same cycle,” said Emile.  He watched as Serge’s face flushed with the realization of the discovery and he slumped back into his seat gazing blankly at the stacks in front of him.

“Just like last time,” said Hank, finally pulling himself from his reverie.  “It’s Serge’s console that’s communicating with my console.  Their working together as if their part of the same system.”  Hank turned to Emile, his face pale and his eyes wide with revelation.  “Do you think it could be Management sending those codes through Serge’s phone?  We must be intercepting them somehow.  I mean, what else could it be?”

That was it.  Hank had finally arrived at the conclusion that Monitor had helped Emile discover when the two had first met.  Why hadn’t he told them?  Was it because he just forgot or was it some deeper reason that kept him silent about almost everything Monitor had said to him?  Emile shuddered as he thought about how much sooner they might have uncovered the pattern if he had only been honest with Serge and Hank.  He had been hording Monitor all to himself when Hank and Serge had openly shared their consoles, baring their souls selflessly.  Emile almost staggered under the weight of the guilt that was crashing down upon him.

“I think you may be right,” he said to Hank, barely above a whisper.

“I can’t believe how stupid I am!” said Serge suddenly.  His eyes were dark and as Emile watched him he was reminded of when Serge had heard his son’s voice on the phone.  

“How could I not see this?  I’ve been sitting here for days dealing out these cards like a blind man when the pattern was practically screaming to be noticed!”

“Don’t do that,” said Emile.

“Don’t do what?” said Serge.  He sounded tired; even more exhausted than Emile felt earlier that morning.

“Don’t crucify yourself for not seeing this.  Things always appear simpler when you look back on them but what the hell does that mean?  There’s no way you could have known that this is where the pattern was hiding,” said Emile.  The only way you might have known is if I had been honest with you from the beginning, he thought silently.

“But you _did_ know,” said Serge.

“I was just lucky Serge.  Tired and lucky,” said Emile.  He slumped down in his chair and looked towards his own console.  After a few moments of silence Hank spoke up cheerfully.

“You both look like you just got back from a funeral.  Come on!  We just found a pattern and your sitting around moping like it’s already failed.  Now let’s sort out these stacks!”

This seemed to brighten Serge’s spirits, and Emile got up as well, smiling wanly, but his heart wasn’t in it.  As they sorted the stacks on the table to match Serge’s dealing pattern all he could think of was the fact that he had selfishly kept Monitor to himself at the cost of his friends.

When they finished sorting they had lined up the groups of cards on the floor in the exact order that they were dealt out by Serge.  The line was made up of every major group of sequences in Managements system and was roughly fifty stacks long from one end to the other, stretching nearly halfway across the console room.

“And you actually feel bad about not being able to find a pattern in all these groups?” said Hank to Serge.  “If I was dealing out fifty cards at a time there’s no way I could have seen it.”  Serge chuckled at that, but Emile just felt worse about holding out.

There was a moment of great tension as Hank sat down at his console and Serge huddled over the phone at his own console, preparing to read out Managements codes for Hank to enter as he received them.  Although Emile could see their anticipation he felt disconnected from it, as if it didn’t belong to him, and perhaps because of this he stood apart from them, leaning against the wall behind Hank.  To be honest, Emile wasn’t that concerned about whether the pattern would work or not.  As he watched Hank and Serge line up the stacks along the floor he felt the certainty of his discovery becoming tangible.  That certainty was only compounded when Serge picked up his phone and confirmed that voice of Management was still spitting out the same pattern.  Now as he watched them prepare to test his discovery his thoughts couldn’t have been farther away from where they should have been.  He thought of Hank at the dinner table, telling them of the impossibly complex system he had discovered in a simple blinking light.  He thought of Serge sitting in his room for days without any food, trying to understand why he had heard his son’s voice in the phone.

They both knew that they could have been going insane.  They knew of the possibility that it could all be a lie but they shared it with their friends anyway.  They shared it with _me_ because the alternative hadn’t even occurred to them, thought Emile.  The alternative hadn’t occurred to them because they knew that the alternative was wrong.  Telling the truth was their only option, yet I chose the alternative.  I lied.  I purposefully deceived my friends because I wanted Monitor all to myself.

A flash of white light caught Emile’s attention and he realized that Hank had already started entering the codes.  Serge called them out from across the room, keeping the phone pressed to his ear and Hank would deftly navigate through the system to the specific sequence group, enter in the code, and watch as the light flashed white signifying that the sequence had disappeared from the system.  After each vanished sequence Hank would call out “closed” and with every sequence he did close, his voice became more excited.  They had been entering the codes for what seemed like hours when Hank and Serge both stood up from their consoles suddenly.

“Were back to the first group!” said Hank.

“I knew it!” said Serge.  “The voice in my phone just went haywire.  It started beeping like crazy and then it just went dead!”

Serge carefully hung-up his phone and he and Hank stared at each other silently from across the room, their eyes bulging slightly and their faces flushed with disbelief.

“We did it,” said Hank, finally speaking and the two of them raced across the room, embracing each other and whooping with joy.  As Hank and Serge jumped up and down laughing, caught up in the sheer elation of the moment Emile felt like he was sinking back into the wall, disappearing out of existence.  He deserved no part in their celebration.  His countenance must have betrayed his mood because when Hank caught sight of him pressed against the far wall he stopped laughing and Serge soon followed.

“What the hell’s the matter with you Emile?” said Hank.  “Do you even care what we just did?  What _you_ just did?  You found the pattern!”

“Yeah Emile, lighten up.  Now we can break the system!  We can finally find out where all of this leads,” said Serge.  Emile said nothing and they both came near him, their smiles slowly fading.

“What’s wrong?” said Hank, looking quite concerned.  Emile sighed.  It was time to be honest with them, to except their reactions and hope for forgiveness.

“There’s something I have to tell you,” said Emile.  “Something I should have told you both a long time ago.”

“What is it?” said Serge.

‘Here we go’ thought Emile.

“My console changed,” he said.  It took a minute for them to comprehend the meaning of what he had said, and Emile watched their faces change as the realization slowly dawned on them.

“Are you kidding me?  When did this happen?” said Hank.

“When I found the card in Serge’s stacks, right after we cracked the first sequence,” said Emile.

“What?  That was ages ago!  Why the hell didn’t you tell us about this earlier?” said Hank, his voice rising with anger.

“I don’t know why,” said Emile.  “I’ve been asking myself the same question all morning and I can’t think of an answer.”

“Well you’d better think harder Emile!” said Hank.  “God, I can’t believe you would keep this from us.  I thought we were a team.  How are we supposed to work together when you keep something like this to yourself?  Is it because you don’t trust us?”

“No Hank.  I may not know why but I _know_ that’s not the reason.  At first I think it was because I didn’t trust myself.  I didn’t even know if it was real, but after that passed I don’t know why I didn’t say anything.  It was stupid and it was selfish and I’m sorry.”

“Damn right it was!” said Hank.  He was pacing back and forth and was about to tear into Emile again when Serge cut him off.  Serge hadn’t said a word since Emile confessed and hearing his voice so suddenly and forcefully shocked them both into silence.

“Show us!” he said.

After a minute Emile nodded and walked over to his console followed closely by Hank and Serge.  When he sat down in his seat they stood on either side of him and Emile switched on the power.  The insertion point began to blink and Emile rested his fingers on the keypad but before he typed anything he turned to them.

“Its name is Monitor,” he said.  Hank and Serge stared back at him, dumbfounded.

“It’s been helping me out with stuff,” continued Emile.  “It’s been helping me understand certain things better so that I can approach our problems differently.  When we were stuck looking for the pattern, Monitor told me that we needed to work together and that I had to start looking at our problems with a different perspective if I ever wanted to solve them.  That’s why I said we needed to start looking at the names of the sequences.  And you were right about the system this morning Hank.  Your console and Serge’s console are both a part of that system.  What Serge is hearing over the phone is actually the voice of Management as it communicates with its computer system.  Well actually, Serge is hearing a translation of Managements voice.  Hank, that static that you and I hear is the _real_ voice of Management.  That’s what I regret the most.  I should have told you that so long ago and I have no clue why I didn’t.  Maybe it was because I was so distracted by everything that was happening that I just forgot, but I don’t want to make excuses.  There is no excuse for not telling you.”

“Management’s voice?” whispered Serge, obviously shaken.  “But how is that possible?  Isn’t Management just a group of people?  How could they have one voice?  And how could their real voice be nothing but static?”

“I don’t know,” said Emile.  Every time he thought about Management the same feeling that he got when he listened to Serge’s phone crept into the back of his head, and as a result he hadn’t spent much time dwelling on it.

“Wait a minute here,” said Hank.  “So this ‘Monitor’ is an actual person?  You’ve been talking with a person this entire time?”

“I don’t know if it’s a person or not,” said Emile.  The realization of how little he knew was making him feel slightly ridiculous.

“Well then what is it?” said Hank.

“I’m not sure.  I never really thought to ask,” said Emile.  He felt almost as bewildered as Hank and Serge looked.  Why had he never asked that?  The more Emile thought about it the more he realized that it didn’t matter to him what Monitor was.  He felt so comfortable talking with Monitor that questioning whether or not it was a person seemed irrelevant.  Compared to the other topics that they spent their time discussing, it _was_ irrelevant.

“Well maybe we can ask this ‘Monitor’ to clear a few things up for us,” said Hank.  Emile nodded and turned back to his console but he doubted that Hank would be satisfied with what he found.  Those were exactly the kinds of questions Emile had learned not to ask, because Monitor never seemed to answer anything that specific to a current problem.  ‘Oh well’ thought Emile.  ‘Maybe when they start talking with Monitor they’ll be satisfied with what it decides to give them’.  Emile laid his hand back on the keypad and began typing.

[Are you there?]  Usually he had to wait a minute before Monitor replied but the insertion point jumped to life almost as soon as he pressed the enter key.

< -) You’ve been busy. >

[You heard all of that?]

< -) Yes. >

[So you know that I told Hank and Serge about you.]

< -) I know. >

[Well, what do you think?]

< -) I think that you’re going to be disappointed with their reaction. >

[Great, now you’re against me as well?]

< -) You know I’m not against you Emile. >

[What is it then?  Don’t you think they’ll like you?  You should say something to them, they’re right here next to me.]  There was a bit of a pause before Monitor replied and as Emile waited he was struck by a thought that he hadn’t even considered earlier.  Being exposed like this was probably a huge deal for Monitor as well, assuming of course that Monitor was affected by such things.  But Emile had talked with Monitor long enough to know that even if it wasn’t human, it still had recognizable human-like feelings and emotions.  They might not be as apparent as his own but Emile could detect them, hiding under the surface of their conversations.  He began to regret not discussing this with Monitor before he confessed to Hank and Serge, and he hoped Monitor understood that they had a right to know.

< -) Tell them that I’m proud of them; that I’m proud of all of you. > 

Emile sat back in his chair and glanced up at Hank and Serge but he couldn’t make out what they were feeling.  In fact they looked rather strange as they stared at his screen.  Surely they had read everything that he and Monitor had written.

“So what do you think?” said Emile.

“What do we think about _what_?” said Hank.

“Monitor said that it’s proud of us.  Weren’t you reading my screen?”

“Is this your idea of a sick joke?” said Hank.  Emile was baffled as he watched Hank and Serge stare at him like he was a madman.

“A joke… I don’t understand?  You saw me talking with Monitor.  What is there to joke about?”

Hank was beginning to turn red in the face again and Serge couldn’t have looked more concerned if Emile had told them he was dying of cancer.

“Well this is great Emile.  Either you’re messing with us or you’ve finally cracked,” said Hank.  Emile was completely lost.  He turned to Serge hoping for some kind of explanation.

“You saw it didn’t you?” he said.

“There were no words on that screen,” said Serge quietly.  “You just typed a bunch of numbers that were replaced by other numbers.  What did you think we would see?”

“There aren’t even any letters on your keypad!” said Hank, who was becoming increasingly exasperated.  “There’s only numbers Emile, zero through nine.  Have you completely lost your mind?”

Emile felt like he was falling backwards with his eyes closed.  Completely disoriented, he instinctively reached out for his keypad, knowing that Monitor was the only one who could put a stop to this nightmare.

[What’s going on?]

< -) You knew this was coming Emile.  I already told you this was going to happen. >

[What are you saying?]

“Stop doing that!” screamed Hank, pulling Emile’s hand from the keypad.  Emile’s mind reeled as he plunged back into confusion.  This couldn’t be happening.  There had to be some explanation for this.  His thoughts raced as he tried to find something, anything that made some sense.  He suddenly remembered when Monitor had first appeared to him.  The helpless panic from that moment seemed to be rushing back in on him like a river bursting through its banks.  He was drowning in it all over again.  But Monitor told him this would happen.  When did Monitor say that?

“That’s it!” said Emile, springing from his seat.  “I know why you can’t see Monitor!  Each of our consoles works for us alone.  Serge, you’re the only one who can understand the true voice of Management, and Hank, you’re the only one who can see the full extent of Managements system.  Only _you_ can fully comprehend it!  I’m the only one who can see Monitor because that’s my part, mine and no one else’s.”  Emile looked frantically between Hank and Serge, fully expecting them to be convinced by his argument, but they certainly didn’t look convinced.  Serge was staring awkwardly at the floor and Hank was pacing back and forth shaking his head in disbelief.

“You have to believe me!” said Emile, trying desperately to keep his voice from breaking.

“What is this really about, Emile?” said Hank.  “I’m trying to understand why you would do this to us right now and I can’t come up with a damn thing.”  Hank stopped pacing and leaned against the wall with his back to Emile.  “Actually that’s not true.  I can think of _one_ reason why you would do this; one reason that makes perfect sense.”  There was a long pause after Hank finished speaking.  An oppressive silence filled the room that was only broken by the sound of heavy breathing.  Emile didn’t know what to say or do so he just sat there, quietly staring at his screen.  His mind was almost completely numb and the meaning of what Hank had said didn’t hit him right away.  As he sat rigidly in his chair it sank into him slowly, like water percolating through a thick bed of sand.  When the accusation had fully formed in his mind Emile saw only one path that he could take.  There were certainly others that existed but he knew where they led and he wouldn’t go there.  He knew who he was and he wouldn’t let go of that for anything in the world, so he rejected it.

“I’m not crazy,” said Emile.

“Okay then,” said Hank, turning around.  “Then why don’t you give us an explanation that makes sense?  Why don’t you help us out here?”

“I’m _not_ crazy,” repeated Emile.

“I believe you”

Both Hank and Emile turned to Serge.  The soft and unassuming way in which he had spoken stood in stark contrast to what he’d said, and Emile was as shocked by it as Hank was.

“Why?” said Emile.

“Do you remember when you first listened to the voice in the phone with me?” said Serge.  Emile nodded.  “You didn’t have to believe me then, but you did anyway.  I didn’t even expect you to believe me.  And when Hank first told us about the system in his light… you didn’t have to believe him either.  I certainly didn’t, but _you_ did.”  Serge looked at Hank pointedly and Hank lowered his head and cleared his throat.  “You’ve never lost faith in us Emile, and I’m not about to lose faith in you.  As far as I’m concerned, if you say Monitor’s real, then Monitor’s real.”

Emile sat silently and gazed at an arbitrary point on the opposite wall. The feverish pounding in his head was dissipating ever so slowly, but it was still hard for him to focus. The old and familiar terror of insanity was releasing its iron grip from his spinal column.

“But you were both honest with me from the start,” said Emile. “I lied to you both for so long. That was my conscious decision. It never even occurred to either of you to lie about your discoveries even though you knew that you might not have been believed. And that was the _best_ case scenario. You could have been turned over to Management. You were brave and I was a coward. It’s as simple as that.”

“Actually it’s not,” said Serge.

“What do you mean?” said Emile, looking up at Serge. He was quiet for a moment, and then he cleared his throat awkwardly.

“Well… I actually did consider lying to you and Hank. I thought about it long and hard while I was in my bunk. I thought about telling you that there was a glitch in the console, or that I made the whole thing up because I was angry with you. To be honest, it scared the hell out of me to even consider delving deeper into this.”

“It still scares the hell out of me,” muttered Hank.

“Yeah but what’s scarier? This, or joining back up with the lemming brigade out there,” said Serge, pointing in the direction of the cafeteria and the mass of shell-like humanity that mingled there. Hank grunted in agreement.

“Look Emile,” said Hank. He was leaning with his back against the wall and was rubbing the tension from his neck. “I’m sorry that I jumped at you like that, because the truth is that Serge’s right. It literally took me days to get up the courage to tell you two about the computer system after I found out about it. Even when I was sitting at the dinner table telling you about it for the first time, I was seriously tempted to bail halfway through and just tell you to forget I brought it up.”

That point on the opposite wall was still holding Emile’s gaze in a vice grip, but Hank and Serge’s confessions were slowly draining into his mind. The complete exhaustion with which he started the day had returned tenfold after the emotional rollercoaster he had been on finally came to a halt.

“Hey, why don’t we just forget about everything right now and go get some food. After all, we really should be celebrating right now. We found the pattern! I think we’ve earned a little break,” said Serge.

“Of course,” said Hank. “Off to the Lemming Brigade!” He hoisted Emile from his chair, practically tossing him to the corridor and they all piled out of the console room before Emile had even digested what was happening.

After dinner both Hank and Serge realized that they were just as exhausted as Emile and they all went straight to their bunks, but Emile could not sleep without talking to Monitor. He waited to hear the familiar clicks of bunk doors closing before he snuck out to his console. When he arrived the blinking insertion point was waiting for him as loyally as ever. Emile yawned and rested his leaden fingers on the keypad.

[I need to talk to you.] A moment later the screen sprung to life.

< -) I know you do. >

[I had to tell them about you. I’m sorry I didn’t ask first. I didn’t want to hurt you.]

< -) I know. >

[… Because you’re important to me.]

< -) I know, Emile… Get some sleep okay? >

Emile switched off the power and stumbled down the corridor.




:afro:


----------



## froman (Feb 16, 2011)

It was getting close to mid-shift. Emile had spent so long in the console room that he had developed a preternatural ability to sense when the meal-time buzzer was about to go off. The hair on his arms would stand on end and his chest would tighten ever so slightly. While he reclined in his chair, gazing up at the textured white ceiling tiles, he mulled something over in his head that he had been discussing with Monitor earlier.

The system was basically cracked. All that they had to do now was take the time to close out all of the sequences one by one. Granted, it would take quite a lot of time to do that, but there didn’t seem to be any real puzzles standing in the way, at least none that Emile could see. Instead of knuckling down and plowing through another mind numbing task, Emile thought that it would help if they broke up their day. After all, they really had no idea what they were getting themselves into by cracking the system. The system _needed_ to be cracked, that was a given, but if they had some way to learn more about their circumstances, about the world that they lived in, they might be better able to deal with the shock of whatever was waiting for them on the other side. Emile knew that they already had a perfectly good teacher in the room with them, and he realized that it was finally time to share. When he brought his idea up with Monitor its reaction was predictable.

< -) So you’ve finally decided to take my advice about working together? >

[Yeah, well better late than never, right?]

Emile felt a slap on his shoulder and saw Hank gliding down the corridor to the monosyllabic strains of the buzzer. Serge stopped next to Emile and offered his hand.

“Come on, let’s go join up with the Lemming Brigade,” he said. Apparently the phrase had stuck. Emile nodded and they both trailed behind Hank into the oversized, sterile warehouse of a cafeteria.

Emile waited in line at the sandwich conveyer and stared blankly at the man in front of him. Closely cropped dark hair, perfectly starched white collared shirt, black slacks, black shoes. He could have been looking at the back of himself. Emile leaned to the side and gazed up the line. It was perfectly straight, perfectly spaced, and full of carbon copies of pale, dead eyed men and women. He felt his stomach begin to churn and turned away before he lost his appetite. The conveyer wasn’t much more comforting. An endless line of uniformly spaced, perfectly identical dull white sandwiches marched toward him in a tedious formation. They were picked up at regular intervals, and by the time the conveyer reached him the black rubber mat was empty, and it re-circulated back into a dark hole in the wall.

Emile watched the mat disappear into the hole and something began to well up inside of him. He _had_ to know what was on the other side. He could not take another step, another breath, until he had learned what was behind the wall. This urge was so powerful, so unlike anything that he had ever felt that it nearly knocked him off his feet. He was right next to the hole, and it looked just large enough for his head to fit. Emile glanced over his shoulder then leaned across the conveyer belt and ducked his head inside. 

It was dark, and it took his eyes a moment to adjust. When they finally did he was greeted by a strange orange twilight. It was another room, tight like a hallway, but incredibly long and packed with huge machines. The stainless steel behemoths were chugging along and pumping steam into the air. Emile was fascinated and tried to take in as much as possible in the short time that he had. A brighter light caught his eye directly across the room. When he looked he saw another empty conveyer belt, and above it was a small square hole in the wall, just big enough for a head to fit through. Whatever was on the other side of that hole was casting a column of white light into the orange gloom of the machine room. Emile leaned in farther and squinted so that he could see. There was something moving on the other side of the hole. He strained his eyes as hard as he could and was just barely able to make it out. It was a shirt. A white collared shirt perfectly starched.

Emile felt a sudden sharp tapping on his shoulder which caused him to jump and bang his head on the top of the hole. He spun around quickly, engulfed in a mixture of fear and anger, but the pale blank face that gazed back at him showed no sign of emotion. The man simply pointed ahead of Emile to the large gap that had formed while he held up the line.

“Yeah,” said Emile, shaking his head. He quickly grabbed his sandwich and headed for the tables before he drew any more attention to himself.

“Did either of you know that there was another cafeteria on the other side of that wall?” said Emile as he took his seat next to Serge. Both Serge and Hank stopped eating and shook their heads.

“No,” said Hank. “How do you know?”

“I looked through the hole where the conveyer belt feeds back into the wall,” said Emile.

“Really?” said Hank, chuckling. Serge smiled and shook his head.

“Yeah, you guys should check it out. It’s pretty amazing back there!”

“Amazing… through the hole in the wall…” said Hank, grinning at Serge. They were both clearly trying to hold back laughter.

“Whatever, it’s your loss, but I’m telling you guys its nuts back there,” said Emile. He took an oversized bite of his sandwich and spent the next minute struggling to chew it.

“How big do you think this whole place is?” said Serge. “I mean if there’s another full cafeteria next to us, what’s to say that there isn’t another one next to them, and another one next to that one?” They were all silent for a moment as they tried to wrap their brains around Serge’s question.

“Just thinking about it makes my head hurt,” said Hank.

“Hey, I’m just trying to expand your mind,” said Serge.

“Speaking of expanding our minds, I had an idea earlier,” said Emile

“What was that?” said Hank. “Should I kick a hole through our wall so that you can go exploring?”

“That’s not bad Hank. We’ll put that in the ‘maybe’ pile,” said Emile. Hank snorted.

“What I’mthinking is that we should spend some time each day trying to learn as much as we can from Monitor. It’s kind of difficult getting specific details out of it, but I figure that it’s here to help us, and anything we can learn from it now might make our lives easier in the future.”

“I don’t know,” said Serge. “Shouldn’t we be focusing everything we have on cracking the system? I mean, there’s nothing in our way now. It’s a straight shot to the finish line.”

“Your right, the end of the system is in sight, but who knows what could be waiting for us after it’s cracked? We have no idea what’s around the bend, and that’s where I think Monitor can help us the most,” said Emile.

“If there even is anything around the bend,” said Hank. “Beside our own tails of course.”

“Ever the optimist,” said Serge, rolling his eyes.

“Either way, I think that it’s a good idea. After a few solid days of closing out sequences were going to be begging for an excuse to get away for awhile,” said Hank.

The crowd in the cafeteria was thinning and the three of them eventually got up and wandered back to the console room. Emile could hear a symphony of closing doors as he walked toward their own corridor, and the thought of the potential size of this place finally struck him. It made his head spin and left him feeling slightly uneasy. Trying to imagine all of those people forced his mind to zoom out leaving him feeling like a speck of dust in a desert wasteland. What possible significance did the three of them have? What possible chance did they have of changing things? He shook the thought from his mind before it could fester.



:afro:


----------



## froman (Feb 16, 2011)

< -) Try as hard as you can. What is the earliest memory you can think of that doesn’t involve your consoles? >

Emile read the words out loud as soon as they appeared then sat back in his chair and rubbed his temples. They had been sitting there trying to come up with an answer to this seemingly simple question for over ten minutes. Serge was pacing back and forth and Hank stood facing the wall with his eyes closed, pressing his forehead against the white metal. It looked like Monitor was throwing them all in the deep end.

“And I was naïve enough to think that this would be a nice relaxing break from the system,” said Hank.

They had been closing out sequences all morning and just after lunch they agreed to begin their first lesson. Needless to say, it wasn’t going quite as smoothly as Emile would have hoped, but he stuck with it, faithfully translating everything that Monitor said.

“I just don’t think that it’s a valid question,” said Serge.

< -) Think about it. You didn’t just materialize out of nowhere one day sitting in front of your console. Somehow, at some point in your existence you arrived here, which means you came from somewhere else. >

“Well what about the memory hints,” said Hank. “The feeling I get when I work on the system; when I’m working with a pattern. I know that I’ve done it before. That experience must have come from somewhere, right?”

“And the feeling I get from looking at the colors,” said Emile.

“And talking with my son,” said Serge, quietly.

< -) Exactly. Your lives before the consoles changed were a constant. Those experiences are outliers. All of you need to keep identifying the outlying experiences that you face and consciously think about them as much as you can. Delve into them deeply. Ask questions. It’s an exercise for your mind that will help tune you into those experiences and eventually make them easier to see. >

“What about when Serge knew about blue?” said Hank. Serge nodded.

“Yeah, and when the blue light was casting against the ceiling, I had a vision of the sky,” said Emile. “I guess that would be my earliest memory.”

“Sky?” said Serge.

“Picture a massive blue ceiling that sits thousands of feet above your head and stretches on forever,” said Emile. Serge looked back at him with blank, uncomprehending eyes.

“Never mind, just trust me,” said Emile.

Hank walked across the room and hopped up onto the bedside table that still sat next to his console.

“So if you’re saying that we weren’t always in this place, that we came from somewhere else, then where is _here_? If Emile hadn’t looked through the hole in the wall yesterday we would never have known that the other cafeteria was there. Essentially it didn’t exist for us until we learned of it. The size of our world has doubled in a day. It makes me wonder how big this place truly is,” he said.

Emile’s ears perked up at this. Hank had uncovered some of the anxiety that he had felt the day before and Emile wanted answers.

< -) It’s bigger than you can possibly imagine. >

“What if this place is infinitely large?” said Emile. “What if it’s the whole world? There would be no escaping if that was the case.”

< -) There is always a way out. >

“But how do you know that?”

< -) That’s one of the rules that Management has to play by. It’s part of the physics of this place. >

“So what’s out there?” said Hank. Monitor didn’t respond right away, and they all glanced at each other nervously.

< -) I hope that you three will be finding out for yourselves soon. >

“Is that really all you’re going to give us,” said Hank, sounding slightly incensed.

< -) It’s all that I _can_ give you. I’m sorry but I can’t tell you any more for the same reason that Management has to provide an exit. It’s just physics. >

“So that’s where our path is heading? To the exit?” said Serge.

< -) Would you want it any other way? >

Serge contemplated the question for a moment.

“No… I guess not,” he said.

“Of course not!” said Emile, looking hard at Serge. “Why the hell would we want to keep up this charade knowing what we know now?”

Serge stared silently at the floor.

< -) It’s okay to be afraid. >

“I’m not afraid!” said Serge, his words snapped like the crack of a whip.

“All right, all right,” said Hank. “Let’s all just calm down. The fact is that by my estimate we have about fourteen shifts left before we can fully close the sequences down. I’m not sure what’s going to happen after we finish, but I’m guessing that go-time won’t be much later.”

“How long until we leave, Monitor?” said Serge.

< -) If all goes well, you will leave the night after your close out the last sequence. >

Hank attempted to cover his surprised gasp with a cough, and Serge’s eye’s doubled in size, betraying his shock at the rapidly approaching deadline. Emile on the other hand, felt the relief wash over him in waves.

“That’s great!” said Emile, practically jumping out of his chair. “I can’t believe it. We’re getting out of here in two weeks!” Hank and Serge tried to match their halfhearted smiles with Emile’s ear-to-ear grin. Two weeks, he thought. They were getting out in two weeks. Emile could almost taste the sweetness of the words on his tongue. Two more weeks and this cold, bland world would be behind him forever. He wouldn’t even look back.



:afro:


----------



## fossiliferous_g (Feb 23, 2011)

I have yet to lose interest - your little twists and turns are keeping me reading! I'm happy for Emile and I identify with his positive attitude, paired with Serge's grumpiness and Hank's valiant dedication. They are excellent characters and you're giving them breadth and life as we delve more and more into what's going on. It's excellent character development to follow them from being the white generic reflections of the life they are living, to seeing their emotions and excitement as they work out the system around them. It's like they're coloring alongside of their world. 
So far I haven't been commenting on the small stuff, I just want the story - grammar, word usage, style - they can all be handled on the other side, once the story and the plot are understood. But there was one section in this last post that I wanted to note...


> “What about when Serge knew about blue?” said Hank. Serge nodded.
> 
> “Yeah, and when the blue light was casting against the ceiling, I had a vision of the sky,” said Emile. “I guess that would be my earliest memory.”
> 
> ...


  Well, you know I’m already interested in Emile’s memories, he’s the most rebellious of the bunch, and it seemed like this discussion warranted more elaboration. He realizes his earliest memory, which is something very vague and obscure – the sky – and that’s what Monitor wanted them to think about – their memories, so it just seems blunt leaving it with “Never mind, just trust me.”
  Okay, can’t wait for the next post!! Keep it up!


----------



## froman (Feb 23, 2011)

Hi Fossil,

Thanks so much for continuing to read and commenting, it means a lot to me!



> Well, you know I’m already interested in Emile’s memories, he’s the most  rebellious of the bunch, and it seemed like this discussion warranted  more elaboration. He realizes his earliest memory, which is something  very vague and obscure – the sky – and that’s what Monitor wanted them  to think about – their memories, so it just seems blunt leaving it with  “Never mind, just trust me.”
> Okay, can’t wait for the next post!! Keep it up!



I think that I will elaborate on this a bit more. That last section is pretty short, probably only a couple hundred words, and I think that I need to expand on the memory thing so that it doesn't seem so out of the blue (no pun intended). I was kind of hitting a wall at that point and was probably rushing through the chapter a little.

I need to do some writing today so that I get out ahead a bit but I'm juggling two projects right now which probably isn't the best idea. This one was from a few years back but posting it has given me the push to start working on it again, unfortunately at the expense of the other project. Oh well. Anyway, no excuse not to write today. I'm just sitting in a hotel room being bored. Plus I drank a five hour energy which is like crack for my writing muscle.


----------



## fossiliferous_g (Feb 25, 2011)

I can definitely understand juggling! I work full time in marketing so I write copy all day (which does not satisfy my creative soul, it just gives me a way to make money doing something I at least like better than the Wendy's drive-thru - my last job) and I have a four-year-old and one on the way, so it seems like I never get to work on the projects that I really want to get too. I have a lot of work I'd like to post and get feedback on but I let the days slip away...
Why are you in a hotel room, bored? Seems like there's a story there??
Well, good luck and I'll be waiting for the next installment!


----------



## froman (Mar 4, 2011)

Yeah you need to throw some more stuff up so I can check it out! I understand how hard it can be when you have children to find time to do anything though. I don't have any kids yet but I can only imagine... Actually the more I think about it I probably should hold off awhile longer. Anyway I'm out of the hotel, and you're right, there is a story behind it but it's the first chapter and I have no idea where it is going to end up. I just left a job to pursue a particularly more insane but lucrative line of work. I moved halfway across the country to the middle of nowhere and I'm just waiting a few more days until I begin my classroom training. I hope I can hack it, but I really have nothing to lose anyway. Either way it's going to be interesting. One of those times in life where you have no idea where you'll be in a year, and it seems like I've been having more and more of those ever since I left college. That's life though!

Thanks for reading. Here's some more.


----------



## froman (Mar 4, 2011)

It began as a subtle glimmer, deep in the inky darkness of sleep. For as long as Emile could remember nothing had ever interrupted that darkness. Sleep had always been a timeless, black pause between lying down at night and getting up the next morning, but not that night.

The glimmer flashed briefly, and then exploded, expanding into an entire world that completely engulfed Emile. He was standing in the sky, the same endless sky that he had remembered so vividly and yet so briefly when he’d gazed into Hank’s light. He stood in that sky, but it felt solid, like he was standing on earth. Emile looked down below his feet and the blue continued on infinitely, darkening until it was almost black and punctuated occasionally by streaks of high altitude clouds.

Emile raised his head and looked straight up. An entire landscape hung upside down above him, creating an endless ceiling a few hundred feet above his head. He gazed off into the distance where the hazy mountains hung down like stalactites. Directly above his head, a river carved its way through a lush green valley.

Emile jumped up and hung motionless. The air felt thick and it held him there. He moved his arms above his head and swept them down to his sides, sending his body gliding up toward the river. Emile kept swimming up through the thick atmosphere, sweeping with his arms and kicking with his legs, moving ever closer to the surface of the river. The water practically leapt through the intense rapids, charging over boulders and swirling in massive, volatile eddies. On either side of the rocky shore, just fifty feet above Emile now, sat a set of bleachers packed with people. They stared up at him cheering, clapping, and whistling. Their applause echoed off of the valley walls. They were waving him in. Emile swam harder than ever, three feet from the river, then two. The ice cold spray kicked up and splashed his cheek. One final thrust and the water rose up and sucked him under the surface.

The intense cold kicked the breath from Emile’s lungs and froze his joints stiff. He tumbled through the water, battered against rocks and sucked through hydraulic spin-cycles. When his lungs felt like they were going to explode, like they would be ripped apart by the airless vacuum, Emile’s vision began to darken from the periphery inwards. Total blackness soon followed, and then peace.

When he opened his eyes he was at the bottom of a deep underwater pool. Strings of bubbles drifted up from the sandy bottom, and thick stands of reeds swayed and danced in the subtle currents. In the middle of a small clearing in the reeds sat a hospital bed. Next to the bed stood an IV stand, a small bedside table, and a single chair. The whole scene seemed so gracefully out of place. Emile walked slowly toward the bed, kicking up plumes of sand with each step. When he reached the bedside he found a woman gazing up at him from under the covers. The white sheets rose up and swirled around her like tentacles. Her face was so thin and pale, so ghostly in the shimmering blue sunlight that filtered through the depths of the water. It almost looked skeletal. But the softness and warmth in her eyes drew Emile in, and completely erased the sickly frailty of her. She was incredibly beautiful.

Emile pulled the chair through the sand and sat down next to the bed. He placed his hand gently on her forehead. The pain that she felt, the sensation of life slowly draining from her withered body, Emile felt every nuance of it like their minds were welded together. She began to shudder and reached for his hand, grasping it tightly. She stared him straight in the eyes, her steely gaze trying desperately to convey some kind of message to him, but there was no time. The light behind her eyes extinguished, and her being vacated the body leaving behind a hollow husk.

The pain that hit him felt like a river of molten lead flowing between the hemispheres of his brain. Emile tried to scream but his lungs were filled with water, and no sound could emerge. He cracked his head against the bed frame over and over, trying desperately to split his skull open and relieve the blinding pressure. The pain ate deeper and deeper, marching toward his brainstem. Emile fell over backwards, clutching his head. Before he hit the sandy bottom, he heard a loud pop in the base of his skull.

* * * *​ 
Emile rocketed out of bed still clutching his head in his hands. His feet were tangled in his sheets and he fell to the floor of his room with a dull thud. It was still dark. Emile frantically looked around but saw only his familiar bunk and the door to the console room. A faint echo of the pain still danced around in his skull. Silent tears were streaming down his cheeks, and his body was completely soaked in cold, clammy sweat.

Emile sat motionless on the floor for several minutes, wrapped in his sheets and staring at the closed door of his room. His mind kept trying to pull back into the fresh memory of the dream, and staring at that door felt like the only thing anchoring him to reality. He finally stood up and headed into the dark console room, tossing the wet sheets into the corner of his room.

He went straight for his console and hit the power switch. The screen flashed brightly and then went dark again, save for the flashing insertion point in the upper left corner. Emile rested his fingers on the keypad, but paused before he started typing. Should he even mention it? Was it really important enough to make a big deal out of it? As he waited the building pressure in his head answered for him, and he began to type.

[Are you there? I need to talk.] As usual, it took Monitor only a moment to reply.

< -) What’s wrong. >

[I had a dream. My first dream, I think.]

As the seconds ticked by without Monitor replying, Emile’s anxiety grew exponentially.

[Is that a bad thing?] He couldn’t wait any longer. Finally the screen jumped to life.

< -) No, not necessarily, it just happened sooner than I thought it would. >

[So you knew this would happen?] Strangely, this actually comforted Emile a little.

< -) You’re waking up. Not from sleep but from a state of psychological numbness that you’ve been living in for a _very_, _very_ long time. Just like you’ve begun to experience new emotions, your mind is going to begin dreaming, probably every night eventually. >

[I have to deal with this every night?!]

< -) Was it very intense? >

[Yeah, you could say that.]

< -) Why don’t you describe it to me? That will make it easier to deal with, I promise. >

So Emile described the dream with a vengeance, fleshing out every detail and emotional nuance that he had felt, all the way up until he fell out of bed. Instead of typing it in one solid block of text, he split his description up into sections so that Monitor didn’t have to wait for him to type the whole thing. He figured it would make it easier to digest, if that was a problem for whatever Monitor was. Also, hopefully he wouldn’t have to wait as long for a response.

< -) I’m so sorry Emile. > The words flashed onto the screen a few minutes after Emile had posted the last section.

[Yeah, it was pretty rough.] He really did feel much better though.

< -) It will get much easier to handle when your mind gets used to it. It just takes time. >

Emile sat back in his chair and looked up at the dark ceiling. He wanted to get out of this place so badly that he hadn’t considered what could be waiting for him when he finally did leave. All he knew was that whatever it was, it had to be better than this. But what if it wasn’t better? What if it was infinitely worse? What if it was like the dream? Emile didn’t think that he could handle that kind of pain again. Maybe he shouldn’t have been so quick to jump on Serge for expressing the exact same doubts that he now felt.

The words that appeared on the screen drew Emile’s attention back.

< -) The woman in the hospital bed, do you feel that you knew her from before? >

Her face flashed into Emile’s mind as clearly as if he’d been transported back into the surreal dream world he’d so recently managed to escape. Her long, wavy black hair flowed around her pale face, but her eyes, so blue that they made Hank’s light look drab in comparison, betrayed a power that could hardly be constrained within her weak, bed-ridden body.

[It felt like she was a part of me… like a part of me died down there with her.]

Monitor was silent for a long time. Emile couldn’t tell how long because his attention was locked to the face that was staring up at him from the deep pool of his memory. The woman’s lips suddenly parted and her soft voice rang out in Emile’s mind. He knew that voice. There was absolutely no doubt that he had heard that voice before.

“You have three days left, Emile,” she said, then closed her eyes and rested her head back onto the pillow. Emile shook his head and found himself back in his chair gazing at the screen of his console.

< -) You have three days left, Emile. > 

Monitor’s words sat there on the screen, the insertion point blinking innocently next to them, and then they were gone and the screen went dark.



:afro:


----------



## fossiliferous_g (Mar 7, 2011)

What a great twist! I certainly didn't expect to find Emile drowning in a watery dream! Who is this woman? And who is Monitor? I find myself asking that question more and more - who is s/he to Emile (I used to think it was a "he", but now I'm not so sure...I can't wait to find out what memories Emile has associated with this sickly woman. Is he going to tell Serge and Hank? Are they having dreams too? Will we know?
my mind has moved into a whole new direction - the dream sequence gives your story a whole new peripheral and I can't wait to see what direction this is going to go...
Well, good luck on your newest endeavor and classes. I certainly know what it's like to try and find work right now, I've only been at this job for about 8 months and I'm busting my hump to make sure I keep it. I am going to post some stuff. I have a couple of abstract "horror" stories that I'd like to share, but my biggest project right now is a very girly, lifetime movie-ish novella about a woman in her fifties who loses her husband, and despite how much she hated him in life, she has to face going on without him. It's supposed to be a comedy, mixed with some emotional drama, but it's definitely lacking a special something that would make it good...
It's long too.
Hope all is well, I'm twiddling my fingers waiting for your next section!!!


----------



## froman (Mar 13, 2011)

*Final Section of Part 1*

_Hey Fossil, those stories sound really interesting! Go on and post 'em up if you find time. I'm looking forward to checking them out.

Anyway, here we go! The final section of Part One..._


 They didn’t speak. They didn’t even look at one another. All three of them stared silently at the table top, hands at their sides, heads hung low. They hadn’t even bothered to pick up sandwiches from the conveyer. Emile cleared his throat and folded his hands in front of him, focusing intently on his fingernail. His stomach felt like it was caught in a vice and he was so nervous that he thought he might be sick if he looked around at anyone else in the crowded cafeteria.

The day had arrived. They would be leaving that night after lights out. Hank had closed out the last sequence only moments before they had left for their lunch break, but this monumental event was greeted with zero fanfare. The light blinked off, the phone went quiet, and the steady hum of Hank and Serge’s consoles gradually disappeared as they powered down for the last time.

“That’s it,” Hank had said, flatly, without emotion. Serge and Emile both nodded without smiling, then the lunch buzzer sounded and they all walked out of the console room without another word.

Emile finally got up the nerve to raise his head and he saw that there were only a few other people left in the cafeteria, all filing toward their various rooms. Emile stood and pushed his chair back which caught the attention of his two friends. They both stood up as well and walked back down the row of tables toward their room, one last time.

The afternoon went by in a rapid blur. Without their consoles Hank and Serge had both retired to their respective bunks to await the inevitable, alone. Emile paced the console room and the hallway. His thoughts jumped around erratically, never focusing on one item for more than a fraction of a second. He tried as hard as he could to focus on all of the information and debates that the three of them had with Monitor over the last two weeks but his brain simply wasn’t having it. He was just too nervous.

It seemed to Emile that he’d only been performing this useless task for a few minutes, but suddenly the lights shut off and his heart leapt into his throat when he realized that he’d been pacing for hours and that it was already time to go. Hank and Serge’s bunk doors opened and shut and through the dim light he saw them approaching. Emile half-jogged to his console and switched it on. The insertion point flashed into the left hand corner and a lump formed in Emile’s throat as he realized it may be the last time he would ever see it.

[We’re ready.] Emile typed the words slowly, deliberately.

< -) I know. Follow the plan. You can do this. > The screen shut off and Emile listened quietly as his console powered down for the final time just as Hank and Serge’s had.

The three stole silently out of their console room, leaving their shoes by the door. They hunched low and padded quickly and quietly across the dark and empty cafeteria, their socked feet silent on the cool tile floor. When they reached the conveyer on the far wall Emile ducked his head through the hole and found himself once again gazing into the dim, orange twilight of the narrow machine riddled corridor between the two cafeterias. He leaned further in, wriggling his shoulders through the tight space. His hands were free, and he used them to pull the rest of his body through the hole and into the chamber. When he was in he helped Hank and Serge get through. Emile only let the other two take a moment to marvel at this new space before he shuffled them down the corridor, ducking in between silent steel hulks and over bundles of cable and wire.

The going was slow and frustrating. This strange passageway clearly wasn’t meant for humans to venture through and by the time they reached the end their cloths were torn and smudged with dust and grease. Emile crouched down and pulled a ventilation grate from the bottom of the wall then set it down carefully before sliding through the gap. The other side was fully illuminated, and Emile blinked rapidly to help his eyes adjust to the sterile, florescent glow. When he looked around he saw that he was standing in front of an alcove in a long, featureless hallway. In the alcove there was a huge metal vault door but there didn’t seem to be a handle or any other method of opening it. Next to the door was an incredibly complex console, much larger than Serge’s, Hank’s, or Emile’s combined. On its face was a vast array of small lights that blinked on and off in a mesmerizing display of color and speed. Below that was a row of buttons, and off to the right there was a telephone hanging on a receiver and a small screen with a ten key.

Emile realized that Hank and Serge were both standing next to him and all three of them stared up at the console in disbelief, their mouths hanging open slightly. The screen on the right side of the console lit up and Emile felt a wave of relief hit him when he saw the words that leapt across it.

< -) Emile, are you there? >

Emile jumped over to the ten key and typed furiously.

[We’re here. What the hell is this thing?]

< -) This is The Doorman. It’s Management’s nerve center for this part of the complex. If you want to get out you have to get through this. >

[How the hell are we supposed to do that? I’ve never seen anything like this before.]

< -) Listen Emile, I don’t have much time. All the changes in your consoles, the system that you broke, it was all my way of preparing you for this moment. You have to use what you’ve learned to beat the system at its own game. >

[What do you mean ‘your way’? What are you talking about? We already beat the system.]

< -) No Emile. What you accomplished was amazing, but you didn’t beat the system. It was simply a representation of the system. It was a test, a test that _I_ created to prepare you for _this_. This is Management’s system; this is what you have been training for. I’m sorry that I couldn’t tell you before but I didn’t have a choice. I had to get you out of this place and that was the only way it could be done, so that’s what I had to do. >

[None of it was real? It was all you, the whole time, all you?] Emile head was spinning. It felt like the floor had dropped out from beneath his feet.

< -) Emile, you have to listen to me! It was _all_ real. _This_, right now, is _real_. I’m so sorry that I had to deceive you to get you this far. You’ll never know how difficult this has been for me. I wanted to tell you the truth so many times but I simply couldn’t risk losing you. >

    [This is too big, Monitor. We’re not ready for this. There’s no way we can crack this thing.]

< -) Yes you can. I know that you can. Remember, there is always a way out, and right now you’re standing in front of it. Hank and Serge are depending on you to - - >

< -)Emile, I’ve been detected. There isn’t much time. No matter what happens, don’t give up. _Don’t_ give up on me again- - > 

The text vanished suddenly from the screen.

[Monitor!]

Nothing.

[Monitor!]

Hank tapped Emile on the shoulder and he turned to face his friend.

“What did it say?” said Hank.

“It doesn’t matter,” said Emile. His eyes felt red and puffy. “We know what we have to do so let’s just get it done.”

Hank moved toward the grid of colored lights and ran his fingers over them.

“This is unbelievable,” he said, with a mixture of awe and fear. “I’ve never seen anything so complex.” The lights were firing off in frenetic patterns almost quicker than the human mind could register in colors that were too numerous to count. Emile saw Serge slowly approach the phone and pick it off of the receiver. He placed it to his hear and his eyes widened.

“So many voices,” he said. “Layers and layers of them.”

Emile felt the sweat beading on his brow. He walked over to both of his friends and pushed them next to each other.

“Watch them,” said Emile. “Just watch them, Hank. Nothing else exists for you right now. Those lights are your entire world.” Emile turned to Serge.

“Close your eyes,” he said. Serge nodded and pinched his eyes shut.

“The same goes for you, Serge,” said Emile. “Nothing else exists but the voices in that phone.”

They stood there, minute after silent minute, breathing shallowly, standing motionlessly. After what seemed like ages Emile heard Serge gasp and he and Hank both jumped.

“What is it?” they both asked.

“I could have sworn that I heard my son’s voice again. It was so faint though, buried in so many other voices. I’m not sure if it was real,” said Serge.

Emile reached out and turned Hank’s head back toward the lights.

“Hank, your world is those lights. Don’t take your eyes off of them,” said Emile. “Serge, next time that you think you hear your son let us know. Hank, if you hear Serge say anything keep a sharp eye out for some sort of visual signal in the light grid.”

Both his friends nodded and went back to work. More time elapsed and Emile’s thoughts began to drift again until he heard Serge speak up suddenly.

“There! Faintly but I think I heard him again,” said Serge.

“I didn’t see anything,” said Hank. “The activity in the lights seems to be moving up and to the left of the grid but-“

“Oh! There! Much louder now. That’s definitely him, it’s my son!” yelled Serge. Hank leapt up and grabbed Serge by the shoulder.

“I saw it!” he said. “It was a red cluster in the bottom left corner of the array! Just hold on. There must be an interaction method to this piece of junk.” Hank began to fiddle with the buttons at the bottom of the light grid. As soon as he pressed one a solid column of lights would illuminate in blue above the button on the array, shooting all the way to the top of the console. When he released the button the column would disappear and the random flashes of clustered and random lights would continue unabated.

“Okay Serge,” said Hank. “Just keep up the chatter and let me know when that kid of yours speaks up.” He stood poised over the buttons staring keenly at the light array, ready to fire a column of blue at the next meaningful cluster that leapt from the chaos.

“Now!” yelled Serge. A burst of red appeared at the top right side of the array and Hank slammed his hand down on the button launching a blue column into the cluster before it dispersed. The entire light array turned blue at once and flashed three times, then transformed back into the random sea of colored chaos.

“Yes!” said Hank. “I got it.”

“You’re pulling out a sequence?” said Emile. Hank turned to him and grinned then nodded before spinning his head back toward the light grid.

“Now, faintly,” said Serge. Hank was already on it. He’d managed to spot a cluster of red only four lights wide in the sea of froth that was the light array and hit it with a well aimed column of blue. The lights went all blue and flashed once then transformed back to random.

Emile suddenly heard footsteps coming down the hallway behind him. He wheeled around and saw a blank faced man dressed exactly as he was, black slacks and a white starched shirt, the only difference was the man’s dead eyed expression. He stopped several yards from them and stood silently, staring at them without moving a muscle. The cold florescent lights in the hallway cast a sickly yellow pallor across the man’s features.

Hank and Serge had both noticed and had turned along with Emile.

“What do you want?” said Emile. The man didn’t respond, and he made no movements in reaction to Emile’s voice. He just stood there limply and watched them.

“Get back to work guys,” said Emile to Hank and Serge. “We don’t have much time. I’ll keep an eye on him.”

As time progressed the voice of Serge’s son came more rapidly and faintly and Hank had to concentrate ever harder to hit the diminishing clusters in time. They had switched through a number of different colors, and Emile couldn’t help but feel like they were chasing the sequence, like it was consciously aware of them and was on the run, desperately trying to avoid capture. But Emile had problems of his own.

It wasn’t long before he heard another pair of shoes echoing down the long hallway toward them. It was a woman this time, just as dead eyed as the man and approaching from the opposite end of the hallway she stopped and gazed at him, her face slack and devoid of emotion. Emile wanted to shout to her, to tell her that she was wasting her time, but he didn’t dare distract his friends from their task. More and more showed up, slowly at first, one at a time, then with ever increasing frequency until they were streaming down the hallway in endless lines. They were beginning to stop closer and closer to the alcove as well. Emile noticed Hank and Serge glance over their shoulders now and then but he would instantly elbow them in the ribs and tell them to get back to work. They just kept coming until the hallway was packed shoulder to shoulder with them. They had completely surrounded the alcove, blocking any possible escape. Hundreds of unblinking eyes stared directly into Emile’s. His blood was pounding loudly in his ears and his heart felt like it was pumping ice water.

“Shit, I’m locked out,” screamed Hank. Emile turned quickly and looked up at the light array. All that remained was a blue ‘X’ from one corner of the board to the other.

“All the voices went dead,” said Serge. “Just one left.”

Emile turned to the screen at the far end of the console and saw that it had lit up again. He rushed over to it and typed rapidly.

[Monitor, are you there? Monitor, can you hear me?]

There wasn’t any response, just a flashing insertion point blinking on and off, seemingly laughing at him.

“Get back you freak!” screamed Hank. When Emile turned around he saw a man’s face inches from his own and he jumped back, slamming roughly into the console. They were pressing in closer and closer, only an arm’s length from the alcove now. Hank jumped forward and pushed a man hard in the chest. The man fell limply to the ground and his place was instantly filled by another blank face, one of an endless supply. The hallway was completely choked with them as far as Emile could see in both directions.

“Talk to me Serge!” yelled Emile.

“It begins where it ends. Ends it where begins it. 638… It begins where it ends. Ends it where begins it. 638…” Serge repeated the phrase over and over again with the phone pressed tightly to his ear. His knuckles were completely white and his voice was ragged with fear as he stared at the crowd of lifeless human carcasses shuffling ever closer.

“I said get back!” screamed Hank. He kicked a man and a woman, sending them flying but two more scooted into their places and moved even closer.

“Emile, this is it,” said Hank, his back to the vault door. Serge’s repetitive chant droned on in the background. “We tried as hard as we could. I’m sorry for anything I’ve done wrong in the past, in this life or any other I may have lived.” Emile saw that there were tears streaming down his face but his voice was strong and steady.

Emile turned to Serge.

“It begins where it ends. Ends it where begins it. 638…” Serge was muttering it now and his eyes were pinched shut. Emile looked at the flashing insertion point on the screen and the ten key below it. He felt the arm of the soulless man behind him brush his shirt. It begins where it ends. Ends it where begins it. 638. He placed his fingers on the keys and pressed three of them, one after the other. 8. 3. 6.

A loud thud emanated from inside the huge vault door, followed by the whirring of gears and the shuddering snaps of pistons slamming into place. Hank jumped out of the way and Emile watched as the door creaked open slightly then stopped. The crowd closing in on them edged forward another shuffling step. Emile ran forward, grabbed Hank and Serge and pushed them toward the door. All three of them strained and grunted as they moved the massive steel contraption on its hinges, leaving just enough space for them to squeeze in. Emile pushed Serge and Hank through the gap and was about to follow them when he turned and looked over his shoulder at the screen on the console.

“Emile, get in here, there’s no time!” yelled Hank. Emile turned and charged back to the console. He placed his fingers on the ten key.

[Monitor]

< -) Go. >

The crowd had filled the gap between Emile and the door and the sheer mass of their combined bodies was pushing the vault door closed even though Hank and Serge were straining as hard as they could to keep it open. Emile rushed toward the diminishing opening, throwing bodies from his path as quickly as he could. He pressed himself flat against the wall and slid sideways through the door. Halfway inside, the mass of metal pressed against Emile’s chest and pinned him in place.

“Stuck!” screamed Emile. Hank dropped his shoulder into the door and roared as he pushed with all his might. Serge let go and grabbed Emile’s arm then yanked him as hard as he could. Emile popped through the gap and he and Serge careened into Hank and fell against the back wall. The door slammed shut with a deep thud and the three of them lay gasping for breath on the cold metal floor. 

Before they could even begin to recover a metallic groaning sound let out all around them and they shot to their feet. Emile looked around for the first time and found that they were in a small, white, metal room, roughly ten feet by ten feet. Above the vault door there was an arrow pointing up, and it illuminated suddenly along with the chime of an electric bell. Emile heard a loud motor gearing up behind the back wall. The entire room suddenly lurched upwards, knocking the three of them to the floor. It accelerated rapidly, and the force of the movement pinned Emile to the floor as strongly as if someone were sitting on his chest. As the force grew in intensity Emile felt the blood draining from his head and a black ring around the periphery of his vision grew larger and larger until only a pinprick of light remained. When that vanished Emile lost consciousness and was released into a black and formless void, left to drift out into the infinite nothingness.



:afro:

_So this is pretty much caught up to where I am. I want to keep working on it and posting it but they may be coming a bit more infrequently. Like I said earlier, I'm also working on another newer story as well so I'm splitting my time between the two and my job. Thank you so much for reading and I hope you're enjoying it!_


----------



## Simon Dowling (Mar 30, 2011)

I just sat and read all the entries you've posted end-to-end and so far and I'm massively impressed.

I think I'm echoing comments already made, but the character progression is inspiring. What we see of the three friends through each sections helps to build their personalities, you help to flesh out believable, understandable reactions, fears and general emotions.

The dialogue is tight enough and well-paced to draw me into this world of mystery and at times complete confusion. I think one of the earlier comments in the thread was about the use of tags on dialogue to distinguish character and also to emphasise tone of the speech. I don't know whether or not you have edited the beginning sections in line with this, but it seems as the story has progressed you've expanded on the use of more emphatic tags and it helps to build the world you're presenting. The discovery of life outside the grey, mediocre existence is their journey and ours so far. 

I'd be interested to know whether the development of the character's personalities was something that you already had in mind either as the target or the whole path, or possibly that they helped to expand themselves as you wrote the dialogue and their reaction to what's happening to them? Did you start to discover them the same way that we are discovering them along the way?

I'm just a little nervous about how the story will progress from here out as it seems that the weight of tension has built to their 'escape' while the unanswered questions of their past (the death of the mother/wife/sister/daughter of Emile in hospital, Serge's son and his death) are still so widely unexplained. I don't doubt you had a plan, but that's a high bar to set for the remainder of the story.

I'll be looking out for more whenever you get time to post (but more likely refreshing this thread until you do!)


----------



## froman (Apr 12, 2011)

Thanks so much for reading and commenting Simon!



> I'd be interested to know whether the development of the character's  personalities was something that you already had in mind either as the  target or the whole path, or possibly that they helped to expand  themselves as you wrote the dialogue and their reaction to what's  happening to them? Did you start to discover them the same way that we  are discovering them along the way?



It's sort of been a combination of both. There personalities and relationships are really tied up with each other. They weren't put in the room together by accident and they have history together but that won't get revealed until much later in the story. It's really kind of a twist that comes at the end when the truth of the world they are in and the reason they were put there is revealed.

The story changes a lot in the second part and gets much more complex and different. The scope of it broadens a lot. Hopefully it works. I'm working on another science fiction novel right now and I'm on a real tear with it. I've been writing on it every day and unfortunately this story, which was my first attempted novel, has taken a back seat for several years now as I've attempted and failed several other novels since, but the one I'm working on now is going really well and I'm sure I'll finish it by the end of the summer.

Here is the opening intro to the second part, a short little section before the chapter begins.


----------



## froman (Apr 12, 2011)

*opening sequence of part 2*

_            There was a shuddering in the distance, deep and heavy like a bomb exploding beyond the horizon. When he heard it he became aware that he was aware. Even so, the all consuming blackness continued to envelope him. He felt the gears in his mind turning over, humming with delayed effort and re-booting his body’s basic functions. _

_Another shuddering boom shook the foundations of his black world, and this time a flash of dull gray followed before the darkness crashed in again. His mind strained to establish connection with his body, but it wasn’t moving quickly enough. Something was trying to pull him out before he was ready. _

_The third explosive shudder was unbelievably massive, and he could no longer tell whether it was coming from outside or from within. The dull gray spread out before him in spidery filaments. From the center, hot white light began to melt through like iridescent lava. He wasn’t ready. His mind fought against it, tried to turn away but there was no direction in which to turn. He saw a blurry figure towering over him. The voice was strange. He didn’t recognize the inflection and the words were garbled into meaningless nonsense. It began to clear, but his sight didn’t. He was looking out through a hole, a blurred and unfocused window lodged in the space-time of his black universe. He felt motion._

“… 1400 hours, give me the specs and call it in! Jim, get it charged and hit him again if you have to!”

“Wait! Look at his eyes.”

“Shit, hold on... sir? Sir, can you hear me? Jim, go ahead and stick him. Sir, if you can hear me we need--…”

_The window snapped shut and his mind relaxed once again, powering down and readjusting to the blackness._


----------

