“What do you think, Harold?”
The subject was covered in a white sheet on a stainless steel table. Above this table hung spider-like armatures ending in sterile spikes and drills. Small gadgets with flickering lights beeped and ticked simultaneously. A scientist was hovering over the subject on the steel operating table. He wore a white coat and thick rimmed black glasses rested on his nose.. A light flooded the table in a white glare that was almost as blinding as the black void that engulfed most of the room. Harold, a man in a business suit, stood across from him, hovering in a similar manner.
“Harold?”
Harold’s brow furrowed and his lips smacked as he tried to utter a response.
“I don’ know Pete. Looks lame to me.” He responded quietly, with a tone of repetitive disappointment. He pulled the sheet completely over the subject. “I just don’ know ‘bout this one.”
The prospect of Harold pulling out of the project at this point terrified Peter. “Harold! It’ll work! Just trust me! This is our last chance. I promise it won’t fail.” Peter was practically begging Harold to continue with the project. “You’ve invested so much into this. Why back out now?”
Harold glanced at the white sheet. “Alright, just don’ fuck up. An if ye’ DO fuck up, the project is history.”
A frightened smile drew across Peter’s face. “Yes, of course Harold. Thank you.”
Harold looked into Peter’s eyes. “I don’t need to remind ye’ that we need this, boy. I can’t afford another failure, understand?”
Peter nodded.
“I’ll leave ye’ to it.” Harold turned around and walked into the darkness. Peter looked up just as the doors to the white hallway opened, and saw Harold turn around and smile, drawing his thumb across his neck, cutting an invisible line across his throat. The door slammed and again the room was filled with darkness save the table. The clock read 8:34 P.M. Peter looked down at the cloaked subject.
Even with an opaque sheet over it, Peter could recognize what every small white nook and cranny shrouded underneath. Every curve, every muscle, every wire, every piston, every circuit, and every sinew was engraved and scratched into his memory. He had worked on this project for all his professional life, for the betterment of Tepo and its citizens. It was a project that would change how people perceived reality, if not reality itself.
And it never worked. Not once had it ever worked. All the equations were correct, down to the last millionth of a whole. Yet, somehow, something would always fail without fail. The closer Peter would get to the solution, the more catastrophic the results would be. At one point, Peter had the project cycling all eighteen micropistons. The pistons cycled for twelve seconds before the northern wall of the lab collapsed, killing four technicians and injuring twelve civilians on the sidewalk below.
Incidents like these could be read about in the tabloids. The most compromising of which was a picture of the tower, with what looked like three silhouettes of giant crab legs reaching for something that wasn’t there through the clouds. The caption read: “Tepo’s Secrets Revealed! What really dwells on the 300th floor!” The government quickly fixed the mess and dismissed the photo as “professionally doctored”. This was the only incident that truly compromised the project’s security; all the other wild tabloid stories were dismissed as sensationalist media. For this mess, they killed Peter’s brother.
Peter opened a book-sized flap on the sheet and looked into what seemed like an endless void of cogs and circuitry. It brought back memories of his life at the university where the principles and laws that constructed that void took most of his time and energy. He was a loner during his academic career, always at work in the lab, day and night, obsessing over electricity, signals, resonance, physics. He pushed aside all social interaction for the sake of science. He was a genius.
He looked to the tray of scalpels and soldering irons. As he moved toward them, they twinkled like dewdrops in moonlight. Peter stood over the tools and pondered. Was he a terrible person for not wanting to cry for his brother’s death? No. They wanted him to cry. They killed Roger, but science was what Peter lived for. He had decided long ago that finishing his life’s work was to important for the advancement of man. To him, this was mankind’s project as much as his own.
The monitor beeped loudly, screaming like an infant for Peter’s attention. A wavy green line compressed. He ran over to it.“Not now! Shit!”
He began pressing numbers on the keypad to the right of the monitor. The line compressed even more, the screen now squealing.
“Fuck!”
He pressed the same numbers again. The line expanded and the monitor began to beep rhythmically again. With a sigh of relief, Peter slumped against the monitor and sat down on the floor. He felt beads of sweat rolling down his nose, wiped it off and opened his eyes. As he adjusted his black glasses and lifted his head he saw a pool of blood on the tiled floor leading into the darkness. A sound came from the darkness, a shuffle. Peter thought he saw something run past through the void, but something was grabbing him, holding him back from chasing it. He began to sweat profusely, the beads rolling down his face. His head began throb with pain. Now the drips were pouring from his eyes, falling into the blood. Black bile pushed upward and out of his mouth. Peter woke up.
With a pathetic gasp, Peter awoke and realized that he had fallen asleep after fixing that damned line. He hadn’t let himself rest in days. He looked around and focused on the subject in the middle of the room, the flap still open. He laid his eyes upon the tiles fearfully and could find no trace of the crimson pool that was collecting just a minute ago. Peter wiped his eyes dry, picked himself up and looked at the clock. 8:40 P.M.
“Thank God.” He was relieved that he hadn’t lost any time on the project. He was determined to finish it this time. If Harold came back and Peter showed an incomplete subject, the lab would be closed. All of his work would be in vain, and the Tepotian government would erase it from history.
He walked quickly over to the tools, picked up the small soldering iron and scalpel, peered into the flap, and began to work. He started moving cogs, replacing batteries, re-routing circuitry, and performing heavy calculations. What would always swallow his attention was the aesthetic of the cogs he had researched for so long. To him, the Velic symbols engraved onto the cogs had a certain mathematical beauty to them. They reminded him of his home, Beltoma. Peter began to meditate on his youth again, remembering those beautiful lapses of time that when dwelled upon would always calm him and bring a certain level of happiness to an otherwise depressing life.
He began to think about the Anthropology class that set him on the course for this project. He needed a class to fulfill his required credits, and being a man of arithmetic, he wasn’t particularly enthralled with the course. And being a loner, he absolutely loathed the group projects that were assigned during the semester. He began to think about the girl he met at one of these projects, Samantha. She was the typical woman a guy like Peter, or any man, for that matter, would fall for. She had long flowing brunette hair, a beautiful face, an athletic shape, and the voice of an angel. He remembered looking at her for the first time in this group, and thinking to himself that you only see these types of girls in movies, and that someone so beautiful couldn’t be real. As he looked down at these stone and metal cogs, connecting them to each other, connecting complex subsystems and circuitry, he wondered how could she be so intelligent, yet posses such high spirits all the time. Did she realize something he didn’t about the world?
“Cl-lck.” One of the cogs he was replacing fell into the deep compartment.
“Shit.”
Peter reached over and grabbed his magnifying glass and tweezers. In a frantically careful way, he searched for the missing cog, peering over every inch of the compartment.
“There we are.”
He pinched the cog between his tweezers triumphantly. He lifted it carefully out of the compartment, and was scrutinizing every mark on it when the instruments began to flicker and squeal faintly.
“Peter.” A whisper came out from the darkness. “Peter, where are you?”
“Who’s there? Harold?” Peter looked down at the tile and saw blood trailing towards the voice. “No, not again. Leave me alone, I need to finish this!”
“Peter.”
He clutched his hair and leaned over the subject. “STOP IT!” He was sweating again. He looked down at the floor, and the blood was gone. The door opened and a broad figure appeared in the light. It was Harold.
‘Somethin’ wrong boy?” Harold was clearly annoyed with Peter’s behavior. “You better had need a coffee or somethin’ Pete, cause that’s all you’re gonna git at this point.”
“Harold, I need to rest. I’m exhausted.”
“God dammit. I told you. Finish the thing and you can do whatever you like!” Harold’s eyes narrowed.
“Please. I haven’t slept in three days. I need to rest. I can’t complete-”
The cocking of a gun interrupted Peter’s plea. “You wanna sleep, boy?” Peter looked up into the barrel of a pistol. “I can help ye’.” Peter was frozen with fear, looking into Harold’s eyes hiding behind the hollow barrel of his pistol. The monitor beeped and pulled his gaze away from Harold. A smile drew across Harold’s face, and he swung the gun to point at the subject.
“DON’T!” “Jus’ say the word boy and you can sleep all ye want!”
“No. I’m almost done. In a few more hours it will be fully functional. Please.”
“Oh, Pete, me and my friends have been waitin far too long now. When was our deadline? Three months ago? I think it’s ‘bout time we cut ye’ dry, boy.”
“Plea--”
A shot. It echoed through the darkness. Peter sat there looking at Harold. His gun pointing up at the ceiling.
Harold was laughing. “Jus’ lettin ye’ know I aint shootin blanks, boy.” Dust and debris fluttered and tumbled down from above. Harold placed a mug of coffee on the floor next to him along with a small orange pill. “You have seven hours. Finish the fuckin’ thing.”
Tears were streaming down his face in silence. He couldn’t keep his body from shaking.
“Yes, Harold.”
Harold turned and walked into the darkness. The doors opened again. Peter heard Harold’s voice. “An’ make sure ye’ drink that damn coffee. You fall asleep and we are fucked.” Peter looked down and saw red water flowing through the darkness to his feet. Blood? It couldn’t be. There was too much of it. He looked up to see Harold twist his own neck with a wide smile and collapse in the doorway.
“Harold!”
“What!?” Harold was standing there, looking at Peter. “Get to fuckin work boy!” Peter rubbed his eyes and looked at the subject.
“Sorry Harold.”
The door slid shut and Peter was alone again. Now he needed to finish the project for the sake of his own sanity. He stood up, this time with the coffee, and nursed it as he resumed his work. He took the loose cog and placed it, interlocking the two subsystems that had caused the monitor to squeal.
Peter, still shaking, began to think of his youth again. He remembered his first date. It was with her, Samantha, on a cold Thursday night. She was wearing a black wool coat, with a red silk scarf. No matter how hard he would try, he could never remember what he was wearing. What he would always remember though, was the way the snow fell that night. A thin white blanket on the ground that silenced the air around you, cones of pale-orange confetti flowing under the streetlamps, and the few lucky flakes kissing Samantha on her cheek. He remembered how soft her lips were when she pressed them against his for the first time. He remembered the first night they had spent together, and how her skin felt like silk against his.
His hands were still now, as he began to engrave the Velic markings on the tissue of the subject. He sighed, and drank more coffee, doing his best to keep himself awake. Peter engraved the symbols for hours, thinking of the first time he saw them, lying on her bed.
It was on that bed he first learned of Velic culture, and from Velic culture, Velic engineering. It was an ancient system that used minimal energy to create maximum output through a long series of cogs and gears. Peter best described it in his presentation as “a really complicated clock.” He would study it for the rest of his time at the university, frustrating himself everyday. The Velic cog was, at that point, an equation that just didn’t make sense.
He and Samantha took their first trip after graduating. They both wanted to go see the Beltoman Natural History Museum’s Velic clock. It was a giant obelisk that had been keeping time for over five millennia. It was through this artifact that Peter would learn how Velic engineering truly worked. He studied the clock for a decade. It consumed him, causing him to lose sight of his relationship with Samantha, and then Samantha herself. She told him she loved him, but wouldn’t come second to a clock. He told her she’d never understand.
She wouldn’t. No one would. Only Peter could understand that the markings were what powered that clock. And only Peter could understand how to manipulate that power through circuitry and flesh. It was then, when Samantha left him, that he knew his studies would demand a large piece of his life for even the most miniscule advancement in his research.
Five more years passed and Tepo invaded Beltoma. There were plenty of evacuations and warnings, but Peter was working at the museum, and refused to end his research.
One night, the Tepotian army stormed through the front door of the museum. In a series of flashes and bangs, men in black armor and masks swept through the museum shooting anything that moved. They breached into Peter’s lab, killing four of his colleagues in the process. Peter glanced at his fallen friends, not knowing what to do. He sat in his chair, shivering, continuing his work.
A large soldier walked into the room. He was wearing a jet black uniform shrouded in a heavy black cloak. He leaned over Peter’s shoulder. His face was covered in scars and boils. The soldier’s eye’s were wide, and his long, sharp teeth went from ear-to ear. He whispered to Peter. “The King has requested an audience, Peter.”
“Alright.”
Peter and the clock were taken across the sea to Tepotomac. It was here where Harold would meet Peter and persuade him to start and finish the project for the remainder of his life.
Peter put in the last cog.
“There.”
He looked down at the motionless city of gears. They sat still, with a tension that seemed to tell Peter that it was ready. The project wanted to be awakened. Peter’s head began to pulse again when he heard a voice.
“Don’t listen to it Pete.”
Like a swift punch to the stomach, the voice knocked the wind out of him and made his eyes well up with tears. A sadness came over him.
“Roger?”
He looked into the darkness again, and saw his brother across the table from him. He was wearing the blue collared tshirt that accompanied him whenever he would go out.
“You need to stop Pete. This project is going to kill you.”
“I can’t. I’ve been working on it for so long. This is my life.”
“Do you know what they did to me Pete?”
Peter looked at Roger’s shaved head. He looked away and closed his eyes. “Yes.” He remembered the photos Harold had showed him. Roger being tortured for Peter’s insolence. Roger being cut open because of Peter’s ignorance. And Roger in pieces now, because of Peter’s mistake.
Peter fell to the ground, sobbing. “I’m sorry Roger. It wasn’t supposed to happen like this. I didn’t know they even knew you existed. If I had known it would have been different.” He sat on the ground, hugging his brother’s ankles.
“I love you, brother.” Peter listened to his brother’s words. “You need to stop. You’ll die.”
Peter looked at the cogs, and there was one last thing to do. All that was left was to seal the plate over the compartment, and he would be ready to test it with Harold. The symbols began to glow a faint blue. He looked up at his brother.
“I’m sorry Roger.”
“No Peter!”
Peter pulled down the drill arm from the ceiling. His brother’s pleas turned into a muffled droning. Peter stood there drilling the panel while reminding himself that his brother was a hallucination. He was nothing more than the culmination of many a sleepless night. As he finished screwing the panel over the compartment, he lifted the drill back up to the ceiling and saw a reflection of something behind him. He turned around to a figure in a suit, facing away from Peter.
“Harold, what are you doing here?”
Harold stood there motionless. “Peter, what’s wrong?” Harold’s whisper seemed to move backwards into Peter’s ear. “Help me.”
“I was just tired Harold, the thing is making me tired.”
Harold stood there. “You are so close Peter, so close.”
Peter stepped towards Harold. “Harold, are you alright?”
“You’re floating, boy.” Harold moved his arm to fasten his tie. “You got it this time.” He began to cough, the cough quickly turned to a choking, the choking into a gurgle.
Peter ran to Harold and spun him around. His suit was sopping wet with blood. His throat was gone, and in its place was a gaping wound. A fleshy tube hung out of it, mocking Harold’s necktie. Peter fell back, and could see Harold clutching his own throat in one fist and his pistol in the other. Harold’s eyes were wide open and bloodshot. A smile drew across his face.
“Train’s a comin, Pete.” Harold drew his gun and began to suck on the barrel. “I’ll give my regards to Roger.” Peter closed his eyes, and heard Harold’s brains splatter against the wall.
He was trying to think of his youth again, but couldn’t. He opened his eyes to the terrible blank darkness that shrouded the room. There was nothing there.
Peter was sobbing hysterically. “Just stop, Just stop. I don’t want it. Just stop.” He looked over at the orange pill and ran to it. He downed it with his cup of coffee and could feel his muscles begin to relax. He sat down on a chair and looked at the clock. 5:00 A.M.. Harold punctually walked in from the white hallway with two highly decorated military personnel on either side of him. They disappeared into the darkness and came out across the table from Peter.
“How is everythin’ Pete?”
“It’s ready.”
“Good.”
A light in one corner of the room turned on and shone brightly on a clear plastic barricade and four steel chairs. Harold and the officers walked over and sat down in the chair. The one on his left whispered something into Harold’s ear. Harold towards Peter.
“We’re ready Pete. Begin the test.”
Peter walked over to a switchboard next to the monitor. He spoke into a small tape recorder sitting idly on top of it.
“Sunday, 0514 hours, Test 105,” He flipped a small silver switch and the cogs began to rotate. The first green light in a series of three lit up.
“Pistons one, two, three four and five running at eighty percent.” He could see a faint blue light pulsing underneath the sheet. In the compartment he could see lights begin to flicker on, and cogs begin to rotate like clockwork.
Peter whispered to himself. “Perfect.” And it was. The clockwork and starry light within was truly a sight to see. It was unbelievable that one man could assemble such a beautiful example of complexity and efficiency. Those people behind that barricade had no idea how beautiful this project already was when it wasn’t even fully functional.
Peter could feel the subject begin to come to life, to breathe. “0515 hours, continuing test one: beginning phase two.” The light grew brighter. He could hear a beat from the pulsating light. He could hear more cogs and pistons begin to cycle.
“Pistons 6 Through 14 are online.”
The light in the room flickered. He sat there with his finger on the last switch and looked at the monitor, waiting for that line to squeal again. He watched as the blue light pulsed rhythmically, waiting for him to flick the switch.
A squeal.
Peter pushed the last switch upward. Instantly, he could feel the project begin to resonate. It was a vibration in his chest that seemed to warm his lungs. It made him think of the old locomotive that he and his brother would sit and watch pass through the field after school together.
“Pistons 15 through 18 are online. All pistons cycling at one hundred percent.”
This is where Pete had failed catastrophically the last time, when the wall collapsed. He could hear the project cycling and even the light pulsating now, with what sounded like a heartbeat. All that was left to do was start the cogs. He walked over to Harold and the officers.
“I can see I’m not trusted.” Peter tapped on the barricade remembering the lives and money he had cost the Tepotian government. “I understand. I can activate it whenever you’re ready.”
Harold whispered into Peter’s ear “The fuck is wrong with you boy? You don’t toy with me! Jus do it!”
“I’m waiting for my orders.”
Harold turned to the officers. “Excuse me, gentlemen, Pete here needs some assistance it seems.” He glared at Peter and stormed to the operating table. “Do it boy.” Peter felt a pistol being jammed into his back.
“Yes sir.”
Peter pressed the button.
The project began to shake to life. The symbols that were tattooed and engraved over the flesh of the subject began to burn a bright blue. It began to lean upwards, letting the sheet fall from it’s chest. For an instant, the subject turned towards peter, and held out it’s hand. Its eye glowed a bright blue, beckoning to Peter. Light began to flicker along it’s spine, transforming the darkness that had plagued Peter for so many days. As it began to move, the monitor began to squeal again projecting the same squeal heard during so many failures before.
“God dammit!”
Peter ran over to the monitor again, pressing sequences of numbers and 6 digit codes over and over again. He looked at the project, which was now attempting to unclamp itself from the table and floor. Its eye was a deep red now, and it’s spine was sparking out of control.
Peter saw the subject rip one of its own wires and begin to convulse. A light began to burn brightly from the cog-filled void. It engulfed the darkness that shrouded the room, and in that same instant shriveled back into the subject.
The room was the same again, the subject was laying there, no longer fighting to escape. Harold looked at Peter, fuming.
“Boy, it’s over. We’re scrappin the project. You’ve ha-”
Silence.
The light violently came back from its spine and engulfed the room. A violent tranquility filled Peter’s head. They could all feel the tower shaking now. Peter could only hear a high pitched ringing. He sat there on the floor looking away form the light. After what seemed like an eternity, Peter saw the light fade, and began to see smoke wafting past him from the operating table.
He turned to see the subject. It was now a mess of flesh and metal, all fused with one another, crying in pain. A single red eye looked at him sadly, and up towards the floodlight above the table. He could see the leg of the operating table fused into what was left of his creation.
Fused into the side of this sin was Harold. His legs were inside the thing now, his chest part of its skin. His neck was twisted and his face upside down. As Harold lay stuck there, half dead, Peter could see one of his molars growing out of one of his eyes. His bones were deformed, fused to the metal instruments surrounding the subject.
Peter looked down at a small piece of metal protruding out of Harold’s forehead. It was his gun. Peter knelt down in front of Harold, exhausted. Harold eyes motioned upward in what felt like an order to Peter. He didn’t care, he’d do it anyway.
The tower was still shaking. He looked over at the officers, but they had already ran out of the room. Peter leaned forward, pushing the barrel of the gun into his head. He began to remember again. He tilted his head up and placed his lips around the barrel. He saw Roger sitting in the field with him, waiting for that trusty train to pass through the field. As he wrapped his hands around the trigger, he saw Samantha, standing in the snow, smiling warmly for him.
