The Box

               The box was the next best thing in arcade history. Full immersion into any game as if the person is actually there. I’d worked on it for years, building it in the bowels of Mecha where I planned to open it up to the public. Most virtual games used masks to create realistic effects, but mine used projection-based light and carefully timed piston reactions built into the floor, painstakingly lined with sensors. The air compression techniques I used would make it feel as if you were really interacting with objects. Finishing the game had been an obsession of mine for over a year. It was all I had left after I’d messed things up with her.

               My heart ached and I pushed the thought of her away even as she entered my mind. There was no point thinking about her. I’d tried to tell her, tried to warn her, but she hadn’t wanted to hear it. In the end she’d blamed me for what happened. No matter how I tried to push the memory away, her words echoed through my mind like a death sentence.

               “I never want to see you again! Stay away from me!”

               She’d sent me back to a mother who hated me. I was a rape baby, and while she was too kind and loving a person to abort me. She also couldn’t stand the sight of me. So, I packed my bags and left. Back to the only other place I’d ever thought of as home. Back to my project. Back to my game. Where Aurora was working on the box. She’d picked up where I’d left off.

               Part of me wondered if she had a crush on me. She’d been far too friendly and always made that extra effort to be kind to me. She was a brilliant mechanic when she wasn’t drinking. Unfortunately, she’d begun drinking earlier each day. Usually I ignored her, but as I was working with the pistons under the box she stumbled into the room, bumping into the stationary lever that was holding it up. A hiss of white steam escaped the piston, and the box began slowly lowering over me. A room sized object easily over a thousand pounds in weight. I’d been working to tighten a wrench and the scissor of the machine caught on my cuff, trapping my hand there and threatening to crush it as the machine lowered.  

               “Aurora! Stop! I’m down here! Put it back!”

               Shouts of desperation echoed out of me. Hearing it she stumbled back to the machine. Pinching metal stung through my wrist as the machine caught my skin and the full weight of the room cut into my palm.

               “Aurora!”

               Pushing the lever back the other way fury burned in my chest as a giggle escaped her and a bubbly apology flitted from her lips. As the room rose I pulled off the sleeve of my arm, pressing the fabric to the cut as blood began pooling there. Crawling out from under the machine, I caught the offensive stench of alcohol soaked through her.

               “What is wrong with you?!”

               Her jewel-like green eyes grew round as she looked between me and the injury. For a moment a question filled her expression. Then her mouth flattened, and she looked between me and the box. Smiling in a way that told me she’d lost touch with reality.

               “It was an accident.”

               My anger shifted into numbness at the words. It was as if she thought she’d spilled a glass of milk rather than almost cutting off my hand. I couldn’t understand her, and part of me was starting to hate her. Though I didn’t have time to argue, I had to find a healer. She could probably use one too.

               “Walk me to the clinic.” I said, letting go of the anger I’d felt.

               Sitting on a medical table, I gripped the injury as the cloth soaked through with blood. Arora moved around the room in drunken waving steps. Examining things and giggling as she played with a stethoscope. Glancing at me as she went. I couldn’t continue on like that, not with the way things were. I’d have to say something to her. Though every time I brought it up she’d get defensive. But if things continued this way, I’d wind up losing a limb.

               “I don’t want you helping with the box when your drinking.”

               She froze, her gaze sliding to me as amusement filled her expression.

               “That’s not fair. Don’t you know it’s your fault I drink?” It was amazing how articulate she was when she smelled like a broken bottle of vodka. “Besides, I’m just buzzed. Not even drunk.”

               “Even so, you managed to almost take off my arm, and how is it my fault you drink? That’s on you.”

               A rolling laugh caused her whole body to sway, and she laid on the medical table next to me, cast into rolling giggles from the statement. Something about that knowing laughter turned my stomach. The question was at the edge of my lips. Though I knew if I asked it might imply something I couldn’t allow it to. If Aurora did like me, I’d have to let her down easy.

               “If you only knew.” She laughed, her head falling off the other side of the table as she looked at the world upside down.

               “Why not try telling me? There’s never a better time than now.”

               Her laughter stopped at that. She grew so still and quiet she might have been asleep. Then she spoke, and her voice came out in a steady monotone. Light in nature, but void of emotion. It sent chills down my spine and rose goosebumps on my arms.

               “Because you’d hate me.”

               She didn’t speak again until we said goodnight.

               Over the next week we worked on the box. Wallace showed up at some point and offered us help as we worked on it. With him the job got done twice as fast. He was an old friend and the only other person I knew who was as into building electronics as I was. Over that week Aurora didn’t have a single drink. Whether it was because I told her not to, or because she wanted to impress Wallace was anyone’s guess. We tested the box, playing a game of Sick Kickers together. Moving through virtual undergrounds and smashing zombies heads in with such realistic quality everyone would want to play.

               During the first month after opening, everything was perfect. Others recognized me while we were out, and lent me compliments for the invention. They’d ask to take pictures with me and post them on their accounts as if running into me had been the highlight of their week. Anytime someone tried to praise Aurora for the help she’d given, she’d always insist the machine was my work of art. Something I’d created on my own. Though the truth was it would have taken years without all the work she’d put in while I’d been gone.

               The three of us were eating lunch in the mess hall when it started. Screaming sounded from the game hall, people ran past charging both away and toward the shouts. A man rushed toward us, his eyes wide as he pressed his hands to the table, horror stricken as he stared at me.

               “The doors won’t open. They’re trapped inside! They’re mutilating each other.”

               During training I’d once had someone pull a carpet out from under my feet. I’d gone off balance and begun falling. My stomach did cartwheels and my head went light. But it all stopped when I hit the floor… This time it didn’t stop. I hadn’t even slipped, but somehow that same feeling had taken hold. I was falling. Something was wrong with the machine, and people were getting hurt. But that couldn’t be right. Could it? Wallace shook my arm, his eyes anchoring on mine.

               “Lets go.”

               The doors to the box automatically locked as a safety precaution. To keep players from falling out of the room. The door, while the game was going, was completely invisible. Though a monitor above showed those waiting what was going on inside.

               Dozens of games were played in the box. Dancing games, bowling, go carts, even virtual stories where entire fields took place. But the people inside had chosen Sick Kickers. Just like we had that first time. It was the most popular zombie game out there, so it was no surprise they chose it. The surprise was the fact they were beating each other up, screaming for help as projections showed up around them. On the monitor it was easy to see what had happened.

               The projections made it appear as if the players were the zombies. One of them had hurt the other without realizing, and now they all thought the game could hurt them. Without realizing they were hurting their friends, they’d begun attacking each other. My hand pressed to the com button on the wall and I shouted into it.

               “Stop, no one move! The game is malfunctioning. You’re hurting each other!”

               My shouting did no good, the group inside wouldn’t listen… or couldn’t hear me. Popping the latch on the com box I opened it up to see the wire inside had been cut. Whatever was happening it wasn’t an accident. Someone had sabotaged the box. But why? Why would anyone want to cause something so horrific to happen? Wallace and I exchanged a look as he too caught sight of the wires. His mind recovered before mine could.

               “We need to get the door open before they kill each other.”

               Aurora was way ahead of us. She’d gone to grab several different tools. To take the hinges out, the bolts off, and to try to pry the thing off. The worst of it was we couldn’t get the room to stop moving until they’d stopped the game inside. Even as we tried to open it, the thing would move as the players moved inside, and we’d lose our grip again.

               It took three hours, and twenty minutes to get the door open. Healers had been called and were waiting to gather what was left of those trapped inside. I counted the victims as they were pulled from the room. There were five in all, one of them had claw marks raked over their face in angry red lines. One was doing her best not to bleed out as the largest of them, cradled a broken arm, and limped after them. Ashamed over the fact he’d done the most damage. Ashamed that he hadn’t realized what had gone wrong before it was too late.

               Wallace gave Aurora instructions to stay with me while he went with the injured to make sure they all survived. Staring after them as they went, my insides grew heavy, and I sat on the floor. Nauseous and numb all over. The room I had worked on for so long had been turned into a weapon. Used to hurt others in such a way that it would hurt me too. The list of those who hated me was too long to know for sure who it might be. Even my mother was at the top.

               The world turned ugly again. When people saw me, they turned their gaze away and pretended not to know me. Wallace and Aurora were the only ones to weather the storm with me. Though he’d only been visiting to help finish the box, and he’d be going back home soon. Aurora and I tried to fix the machine. Though no one would be willing to use it again, and when we found what had been done to it the way they’d intertwined it with my system was so complete there was no way to fix it. With as large as it was, everyone decided it was best to wall it off, and do away with it rather than dismantling it. As if the parts themselves were cursed, no one wanted any piece of what I’d created.

               As we sat eating dinner, hiding alone where no one would bother us. My gaze raised to look Aurora in the eyes. She had been so kind since I’d met her, I hated to think it might be her. But she’d been the only other person to put so much time into the machine, I couldn’t see how it could possibly be anyone else. I’d lost the girl I loved. I’d lost my home, and now I’d lost the only obsession I’d had to distract me from it all. She’d told me I’d hate her, and now I knew why.

               “Why did you do it?”

               She looked up from her meal, blinking a few times as she tried to piece together the meaning behind my question. Aurora was a lovely creature. She liked showing off skin while she wasn’t being a grease monkey. That golden hue that shined through her flawless complexion was tempting for most men. Though I couldn’t understand why she’d bother. If she hoped I might try to be with her so she could shut me down. Or if she dressed like that out of habit. Either way I wasn’t interested. She was a beauty, but she wasn’t my beauty.

               “Do what?”

               “You said I’d hate you if I knew… You did this to the box, didn’t you?”

               Her brow furrowed, and her lips pressed together forming a narrow line as her emerald eyes squinted at me. The question hurt. I could see that much in her expression. But more than that, she seemed to think I was justified in asking it. Her voice was low, and calm as she spoke.

               “That wasn’t what I meant. I didn’t do that to the machine Brick Head. I wouldn’t.”

               I said nothing, only continued to stare at her as I waited for a more satisfying explanation.

               “You know who my dad is right?”

               Her dad was all over our history books, I’d be an idiot not to know who he was. Her mouth pursed to one side as she thought over how best to state what she had to tell me.

               “I heard him arguing with my mother. She found out that he’s your biological father… She doesn’t know how you were conceived, but after what you told me about it, I couldn’t tell you.”

               The words settled over me with the weight of a thousand anchors on my heart. In a way, she’d been protecting me the same way I’d tried to protect the woman I loved. Though she’d hated me for it, told me to stay away from her. But Aurora had tried to shield me from the truth so I wouldn’t get hurt. My guess about her betrayal had been wrong. She spoke again, before I was able to fully absorb what she’d said.

               “I understand if you’re angry that I didn’t tell you. But you would have done the same thing. And I don’t care what everyone else says. I’m here for you. I’ve been here for you. Even with all the things they’re saying about you killing those people. I haven’t left.”

               “I didn’t kill those people.”

               Pity breached her expression. The argument in her eyes was enough to stay my tongue. When she spoke the truth of her words broke a part of me I hadn’t even realized was there.

               “It was your machine Emmett.”

               Silently she lifted her tray and left me alone in the dark.