Acceptance of the Self

Book 1: Attunement of the Hearts

Chapter 41.d - The Control Room

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Dawn

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[ - Monday, September 16, 2019 - 4:19 am - Dawn’s Room- ]

 

I lay awake in my bed, alone in my room. The covers are pulled up to my chin and I’m lying on my back, staring up at the posters of various video game characters - ninety percent of them magical girls - I’ve taped to my ceiling over the years. The posters bring back memories of all the various video game and comic book related conventions that I’ve been to with my friends over the years. Each con I bring back a small collection of art from the artist’s alley, and the best of them get put up in my room. The memories are almost enough to lull me to sleep again, but not quite.

 

I raise my head and turn slightly to glimpse the digital clock on my bedside nightstand. 4:20 am, way too early for me to be up and about, yet here I lie: awake and worrying myself sick about my sibling. I’m not even cheered by the thought of the 420 meme: smoke weed everyday.

 

Sky has been gone for approximately a day and a half, and not a minute’s gone by during that time where I haven’t had the burning need in the back of my mind to find them and bring them home safe. I’m anxious as all hell, alone in my room with my thoughts.

 

I groan softly into the still morning air. To hell with this, I think.

 

I throw off the comforter and sheets, slide out the side of the bed onto my feet, and walk over to my desk. I sit down in my comfy orange gaming chair and turn on my desktop PC. It’s the work of a few minutes to draft a ‘sorry I’m sick, can’t come to class today’ email and send it off to my Tuesday teachers, then I sit there browsing the latest reddit posts as the day dawns outside my window.

 

It’s an hour later when I decide to try sleeping again, and three hours after that when I wake up from a nightmare that leaves my bed and clothes soaked with sweat. I decide on the spot that I’m done with sleep for this morning.

 

I leave my bed, grab some clothes, and make my way slowly and quietly out of my room, down the stairs, and around the corner to the family bathroom. I lock the door behind me, turn on the overhead fan, and climb into the tub-shower for a hot fifteen minute shower. I dry off with a towel and dress myself in a pink bikini kill t-shirt and black jeans while scrolling through memes on twitter. I barely use the bird app, but right now anything’s better than being alone with my thoughts. There’s a new game out that I’m pretty interested in, Control by Remedy Entertainment, and I spend a few minutes reading up on the latest tweets about it from my gamer sphere of friends.

 

After I’m presentable I emerge from the bathroom and hear sounds coming from Aiden’s office, so I wander over to his door and peek inside.

 

I behold my taller dad struggling to drag his huge mechanical desk into the middle of the room alone. He’s trying to pull the whole thing backwards, and he’s heaving with effort.

 

“Dad?” I enquire

 

“Ah!” Aiden yelps, dropping the desk and turning quickly to face me. He looks anxious, and slightly embarrassed.

 

“Do you want some help with that?” I ask with a raised eyebrow.

 

“M- Dawn,” he says, catching himself before my deadname slips from his lips, “what are you doing down here?”

 

“Couldn’t sleep,” I confess.

 

He nods, his face saddening. “Of course. Gods willing, we’ll have them back by the end of tomorrow.”

 

I nod. “I know,” I say, “it doesn’t help.”

 

“Tell me about it,” Aiden replies, “insomnia sucks. Especially when you have very good reasons to be worried.”

 

“Mmhmm,” I say, “So did you want help with that desk?”

 

Aiden glances from the desk back to me. “I... suppose I could use a hand, thanks sweetheart,” he says with a smile.

 

We manage to carefully shift the desk to the middle of the office space, then we lower it to waist height. The white and tan desk now bridges the divide between the room’s beige carpet flooring and white tiles. 

 

Aiden explains that he wants this space to become a ‘command center’ of sorts for our operation tomorrow, so that us younguns can sit in the same room and watch the adults from different camera angles while planning amongst each other. 

 

To that end he’s already clearly spent hours this morning carefully packing up the most fragile and in-the-way displays of space ships and star cruisers, so that now only the Deep Space Nine station and a few errant fish-like Babylon 5 Minbari cruisers are still hanging from the ceiling. The big Babylon 5 station itself is now on a shelf against the far wall of the space instead of hanging in the middle of the room. All of the furniture has been moved to the edges of the room as well, so only the desk is in the middle. Aiden and I spend the next few minutes ferrying chairs from the kitchen over to his office, until we have four wooden chairs plus his padded red office chair.

 

While we work, Aiden tells me that he’s been on the phone off and on all day, calling in favors from colleagues in vaguely worded ways that left them none the wiser to our plans. Already, he says he’s got a good idea of how he’s going to hack into the Mazon warehouse’s security feeds. 

 

We set about setting up various devices on the table: we move his desktop computer monitor to one corner and clear off the rest of the desk, then set up his personal laptop, Jay’s personal laptop, mine, and Sky’s as well on the cleared surface. I set about making sure each computer has up-to-date security features like malware detection and prevention and a Virtual Private Network (VPN) to mask our location.

 

Vielet comes down stairs around nine am to help us; I direct her to set up Jay and Sky’s laptops while I finish up with mine and Aiden’s.

 

All in all we have five fully functioning computers in the room, all on trustworthy VPNs, plus all our cell phones. We disable location services on everything and try to make it look like a LAN party. Aiden even goes so far as to boot up Rise of Nations on his PC and I follow his lead. Soon we have a legitimate Real Time Strategy (RTS) fight going on between Aiden, myself and Vie. It isn’t exactly fun, my cyan haired dad is acting especially somber today, and I’m feeling pretty uptight too for obvious reasons, but it‘s still a nice way to pass the time together.

---

“Aw, you sank my forty seven battleships!” Vielet complains with a cheeky smile about a half hour later.

 

I roll my eyes. “I told you, sometimes you actually gotta build an army instead of just spam-spawning a single unit,” I chide her, guiding my squads of rocket troops, machine gunners, and tanks from the modern era to victory in the north of the map. Aiden quietly takes control of the south and west, while Vielet is stuck in the east.

 

“You two are damn good at this game, I can’t break past either of the walls you’ve set up to contain my awesome power,” Vie says after a few more minutes of stalemate at her end of the map.

 

“My army would be no match for you, were you to break containment,” Aiden says quietly with a hint of a smile in his voice.

 

“Oh yeah I’m sure my medieval era knights are going to be able to take down your stealth bombers no problem,” Vielet says sarcastically. “My navy was all I had, and Dawn sent it to davy jones’ locker.”

 

“Yahar I’m ruler o’ the seven seas o’ this map,” I say with an exaggerated pirate accent.

 

“Undoubtedly,” Aiden replies with a gay face, “would you like to test that claim?”

 

I stare at him suspiciously. “...no?” I hazard.

 

He flashes me a smile. “Too bad,” he says, “pop quiz time.”

 

From the southern waters comes a fleet of aircraft carriers and destroyer-class ships bearing Aiden’s red colors. 

 

“Oh fuck,” I say.

 

My orange colored fleet, weak from the battle with Vie’s green armada, is no match for my father’s onslaught. I rapidly lose control of half my territory over the next few minutes of intense mouse clicking and keyboard clacking.

 

I manage to hold my own just barely against his assault, but he’d nearly knocked me out of the game then and there. I start making more troops in my infantry tent and tank factory, deciding to focus on the land war since Aiden clearly held the water. 

 

Just as a new plan of attack is formulating in my mind, I hear the faint, unmistakable sound of the My Tiny Equine theme song emanating from Vielet’s pocket.

 

She slips her phone out into her hand and frowns at the screen. Aiden and I both halt our machinations in the game out of respect for her.

 

“Sorry, it’s my folks, I have to take this,” Vielet says.

 

“Of course,” Aiden replies with sympathy. 

 

Vie gets out of her chair and answers the phone as she walks out the office door and into the living room. “Hi Mom... Yes I’m fine, I’m at the Anderson’s house. No, I’m not mad at you...”

 

Her voice fades as the office door closes behind her.

 

I look back to dad with a raised eyebrow. “What’s the plan?” I ask.

 

He’s sitting back in his chair, rubbing his cyan goatee with a thoughtful expression on his face. At my words his eyes flick to mine, and I see a glimpse of the fear he’s trying so carefully to hide around me. He schools his expression an instant later and it’s gone, but that doesn’t stop me from speaking up.

 

“You know it’s okay to be afraid in front of me, right dad?” I ask softly.

 

He sighs, slumping back in his chair slightly. “Yes, I know that, but I want to put on a brave face anyway. It can’t hurt to see the adults in your life trying to be fierce in a situation as grim as this.”

 

I give him a slight smile. “I appreciate the thought dad, but seeing my parents bottling up their emotions around me isn’t the best representation either, y’know.”

 

He grimaces. “What are you, your pa?” he asks cheekily.

 

I roll my eyes. “I will be if that’s what it takes for you to open up,” I reply.

 

Aiden holds up both hands in an ‘I surrender’ gesture. “Very well, I’m afraid that game didn’t get my mind off Sky as much as I’d hoped it would. There are just so many variables, so many possible failure points in our plans, that I can’t help but be terrified.”

 

“And that’s okay,” I say in a gentle tone, “it’s okay to be scared. We’re gonna get through this, but we don’t have to pretend it’s anything more than a horrific nightmare shitshow.” 

 

I try to hide the slight quaver in my voice, but Aiden’s eyes soften and I know he heard it.

 

“Language, little Dawn,” he chides with a little smile, “now come here.”

 

He stands from his chair and opens his arms wide in a clear invitation for a hug. I’m only too happy to oblige, practically throwing myself at him as tears threaten to leak from my eyes.

 

“Thanks dad,” I say sincerely as my arms encircle his waist and his wrap around my shoulders.

 

For the first time today, I start to feel safe. The hug lasts for a few long moments, until I hear a knock on the office door.

 

“Yes?” Aiden calls out without letting go of me.

 

“Claire’s here love, thought you’d want to know,” comes Jay’s voice.

 

“Oh fuck yeah, let’s see what goodies she’s brought for us,” Aiden says quietly, then adds as an afterthought, “Our whole plan kinda depends on them.”

 

I nod into his chest. “Let’s go,” I say, releasing his waist. 

 

He lets me go after giving me a brief squeeze.

 

“Love you,” he says softly.

 

“Love you too dad,” I reply happily.

 

And together, we make our way out of the control room. 

End of 

Chapter 41.d - The Control Room