Jack stood in front of a hollow metal door. Unlike the absurdly large one at the hall’s entrance, way back there, this one was normal sized and had the numbers 421 embossed in the center. It was industrial gray with a silver, circular knob.
Jack had walked so far the entrance had shrunk to a minuscule pin prick, too small for eyes to see. And he couldn’t make out what lay head either because the hallway beyond this point was dark.
Jack knocked a hesitant three, four, five times. The echo was prominent but there was no response. He knocked again and got the same result. Jack sucked in and looked at his hand. It was shaking. He cracked his neck back and forth, let out a shuddering breath, then twisted the knob and pulled.
The door was weighty, but it swung open easily enough—albeit on awfully squeaky hinges. Beyond the door was … more darkness. Jack could make out vague outlines of a small room. He sighed in relief, half expecting another long hallway.
“He … hello?” said Jack, stepping inside, feeling the inside wall for a—bingo. There’s a switch. Jack flipped it and a dim fluorescent light flickered on overhead.
Jack blinked, his eyes focusing on something against the back wall. Something … he gasped, covering his mouth. He staggered backwards into the hall nearly tripping over his own boots.
“What is … ” he said, lowering his eyebrows. His heart pounded. His bladder tightened. Slowly, he crept forward. He swallowed, then stepped back into the room.
There was a cot in one corner, a plastic wardrobe in the other, and at the far wall a chair and wooden desk. There was someone in the chair, back facing Jack, slumped over the keyboard of an ancient computer. The person—or what used to be a person—was in a gray jumpsuit that covered them from neck to ankle. A left arm dangled, its decrepit hand in crumbs on the floor.
Jack used the collar of his coat to cover his nose as he peered over the corpse. It didn’t stink the way a decomposing body should. Instead, it seemed to fill the room with a flaky, arid dust. How long has this person been here?
Jack coughed a few times. The head was turned to the side, right side up. An empty eye socket stared up at the intruder, its teeth bared as if accusing Jack of crossing some forbidden line. How dare he enter this tomb. How dare he find him here like this.
Jack leaned forward, inspecting the withered flesh. The cheekbone suddenly collapsed, and Jack stepped back, gagged, turned, and puked onto the floor. As he did, he bumped the chair leg, pulling the human husk into a swirling heap onto the floor.
Jack spun away, coughing more. He waved the dust away in front of his face, and let out a few choice words.
Beep.
Jack’s eyes widened at the harmonic sound. He turned back to the computer. What was that? The monitor on the desk, centered in a copper and plastic frame, abruptly illuminated. The screen showed a solid green background. Jack had seen old computers like these before in museums. How old was this place? A soft hum followed the beep and a bright green cursor appeared at the top right hand corner of the screen, blinking. Then a line of text appeared:
Terminal activated. No code required. Press return to continue.
Jack leaned forward, squinting at the screen, still covering his mouth. He looked around then pushed return on the keyboard. A tone emitted as the cursor dropped a line. Then a message populated across the screen one line at a time:
Dear traveler, I am the last of … [message corrupt] … was a mistake. We unleashed … [message corrupt] … locked … [message corrupt] … reprogrammed the doorways and left clues. The void is hungry, it is smart, it is … [message corrupt] … but outside the loop. Learn its protocols. It’s a creature of habit. Your actions will determine … [message corrupt] … don’t forget that. Due to damage caused by the void, the system has become dangerous and limited. The loop is not endless, not anymore. Do not … [message corrupt] … and avoid … [message corrupt] … at all costs. It is in the system, knows how to access the intranet, so I can’t list the codes here in the network. You’ll have to find and decode … [message corrupt] … The only way to keep it contained was to … [message corrupt] … each door requires a six digit alphanumeric code to open and … [message corrupt] … this is the first terminal. To activate the second, use my name and room designation … [message corrupt] … my time is up. I can’t escape the … [message corrupt] … fulfill my purpose. Good luck traveler. Welcome to the Halls of Death and Time.
“The Halls of Death and Time,” said Jack. “Sounds … inviting.” There was another line of text below that said, “press return to delete this message permanently and reconnect the terminal to the intranet.”
Well, okay. But wait. He didn’t want to delete this message, not yet. What if he needed to refer back to it later? Most of it was missing, yes, but this seemed like a vital piece of info. This guy probably knew exactly what this place was and how to get out.
Jack read it a second, third time then had an idea. He pulled the Polaroid camera from his bag and snapped a shot. It spit out a fresh cut picture. Jack had never used a Polaroid before but he’d seen them in old movies. He tore the photo out and shook it. He waited until the image came into clear view before pocketing it. Now he could move on.
Jack pressed return and the screen turned a solid dark green. An image appeared. In the center was a long vertical column and at the top was a small box to the right of the column. It took Jack a moment to realize what it was. But when he saw the small triangular icon inside the square with the word “terminal” next to it, it became obvious. He was looking at a crude, bird’s eye view map of the hallway and this room, a blueprint of the area he’d just traversed. Jack pushed the down arrow key. The screen flickered and changed, now revealing a large amorphous shape with a circle in the center.
“Hmm,” said Jack, dusting off the seat with his foot and sitting down. “Okay. And this must be … the cavern. Yeah, this has to be the cavern. And the floating platform. Got it.” He pressed the up arrow twice, three times and the screen inched up over the hallway, past the little room, to show … nothing. Well, that’s not true. There were more icons all over the place but no map boundaries to give them placement—just a bunch of triangles, circles, lines, etc. all floating in a sea of dark green.
There was no mouse to easily navigate the screen, so it took a bit of trial and error on the keyboard to figure out how it all worked. Most helpful, he discovered that if he pressed “L” a map legend box would pop up:
T - Terminal : [Triangle symbol]
H - Ladder : [Letter H symbol]
D - Door : [Line symbol]
O - Object [Circular symbol]
Press Esc to return to Map.
Jack pressed the “T” button and another box popped up with an array:
Terminal 1: Active. Code: 000000
Terminal 2: Inactive. Code:______
Terminal 3: Inactive. Code:______
Terminal 4: Inactive. Code:______
Terminal 5: Inactive. Code:______
Terminal 6: Inactive. Code:______
Terminal 7: Inactive. Code:______
Terminal 8: Inactive. Code:______
Terminal 9: Inactive. Code:______
Terminal 10: Inactive. Code:______
Terminal 11: Inactive. Code:______
Terminal 12: Inactive. Code:______
Terminal 13: Inactive. Code:______
Terminal 14: Inactive. Code:______
Terminal 15: Inactive. Code:______
Terminal 16: Inactive. Code:______
Terminal 17: Inactive. Code:______
Terminal 18: Inactive. Code:______
Press Esc to return to Legend.
“18 terminals,” said Jack. He was about to press escape when he noticed something scratched into the desk’s wooden surface under the keyboard, the edge of the scratch near the return key. He had to slide the entire computer to the left in order to see the whole message. It read: MM3106.
That was convenient. Jack moved the cursor down so that it was blinking on top of the underscore next to the word “code” on terminal 2’s line. He typed the digits in and pressed return. The word “INVALID” briefly flashed on the screen before the code erased itself and reverted back to empty underscores.
Jack moved the cursor down to terminal 3’s line and tried it there. That too was invalid. He attempted all 18 terminal codes but none of them seemed to work. He needed a six digit, alphanumeric code to activate a terminal. Okay. Great. This guy had scratched one into his desk, so why wasn’t it working? What would even happen if he activated a terminal? Would it help him get out of here? What was the point of all this secrecy, all this cryptic messaging? Where was the nice and friendly note that said, “hey, pal, if you fell down a hole, press this button for the easy access elevator.” By the looks of it, Jack wasn’t going to find anything like that anytime soon. And what in the world was the Void?
Jack sighed, then snapped a picture of the scratched code before adjusting the computer back into its original, dust-lines place on the desk. He pocketed the fresh picture then brought out the first picture. He tilted his head when he reread the line: “this is the first terminal. To activate the second, use my name and room designation …”
“Your name?” said Jack. “How am I supposed to know your …”
Jack peered down at the dusty jumpsuit on the floor next to him. He kicked it around for a minute until—There, in blue letters, written on a tag above the breast pocket were the words: Rodney Brown -- Technical Infrastructure.
“Rodney,” said Jack.
Jack typed in “Rodney.” Nope. Didn’t work.
“Room designation?” said Jack. “What is your room designation? He scanned the room for anything that might designate this room. Whatever that meant. But how would someone designate an entire room? What did that even mean?
“Oh, duh!” said Jack.
He stood up, walked to the door and opened it up. Craning his neck around, he found the three digits he was looking for: 421.
Jack left the door open and returned to the computer. He opened the Terminal array and moved the cursor to the second line. Rodney 421 was too long but ROD421 would fit nicely. He typed it in and pressed return.
“INVALID”
Jack threw his hands in the air and shook his head. He peered down at the jumpsuit, examined the polaroid, tapped his nose a few times, then typed: 421ROD.
The computer screen flickered, then the light in the room turned off. A waterfall of nonsensical data filled the screen. No, wait, he could make it out … some of it at least. It was … was that his name? That was definitely his name. Line after line, the word Jack poured through the screen so fast it was almost a blur. Then it started repeating the phrase, “Can you hear me?” and “Are you receiving this?” over and over again. What is this? Did he break something? Then the word “Dad” began to repeat followed by …
The screen flickered, returning to the terminal array. Jack blinked, confused. What just happened? Was that a glitch? The light in the room turned back on. There was a low harmonic tone and the words he’d been waiting for appeared on the screen:
“TERMINAL ACTIVATED”
“Hey, there we go,” said Jack. “High five, Rod.” Jack air high-fived the jumpsuit on the floor, then jumped out of his seat in a panic when a loud bang, bang, bang filled the hallway behind him.
Lights. More fluorescent lights pounded on like they did when he first entered the hallway.
Jack let out a breath that ended in a hesitant, nervous laugh. He turned back to Rodney on the floor, shaking his head.
“I don’t know who you were or what you were doing down here, Rod, but this place really gives me the creeps.”
***
Bob pumped a fist into the air. The kid figured it out. Of course he did, Jack was his son. And his son was smart. He wasn’t quite sure what happened there for a moment when Jack typed in the correct code. The system seemed to glitch but only for a second. Good thing it snapped back without any warnings or system errors.
Bob’s phone rang.
“Divya, hi. Didn’t expect to hear back from you so qui—”
“So I looked you up, Bob, and people say you’re crazy.”
Bob sat back in his rolling chair and smiled. “I’ve been called that before, I’ll admit.”
“Okay, then answer this. If you figured out a way to talk to your sleep victim, why haven't you published anything? This should be all over the news. If you’re telling the truth.”
“Divya, you’re literally the first and only person I’ve told so far.”
“Why?”
“Because it was your game that was the catalyst. And I’m not … I don’t think I’m ready for the world to know, not yet.”
“So, let me see if I completely understand this. You’re saying you built a machine that allows your son to … play the 8-bit text-based video game I developed in grad school with his … unconscious brain?”
“Yep. That’s what I’ve been trying to tell you.”
“Yeah, I can see why people think you’re crazy.”
“Do you think I’m crazy?”
“How do I know you’re not, like, a murderer? And this is some elaborate rouse to lure me to your sex dungeon and stab me to death or something?”
Bob laughed out loud. “You haven’t changed a bit, Div, have you?”
“Just want to make sure. Can’t be too careful, Bob. Not nowadays.”
“Divya, if you come visit me, I promise I wont murder you or your daughter. I may make you dinner, but that’s the only time I’ll pull out the knives.”
“Yeah, That’s exactly what a psycho murderer would say.”
Bob laughed again. “Are you coming up or not?”
She paused. “I’ll think about it.”
“Okay, you do that. Like I said, happy to pay for your flights. I know how expensive it is to transport a sleep victim.”
There was a long pause, after which Bob finally said: “Div, you still there?”
“Yep.”
“What are you … you okay?”
“Yep. Just thinking about it.”
“Oh, right.” Bob nodded, his eyes plastered to the screen showing his son’s avatar walking down an 8-bit hallway. On the map he could see a large rectangular room ahead, maybe an eighth the size of the cavern. For the life of him he couldn’t remember this part, but there was something significant about this room. Then again, nearly every room in this game serves a purpose, if he remembered right. Then something caught his eye. A small square with an X through it near the rear of this new room. There was something about that X that made him feel uncomfortable. He remembered it being a … not nice thing, but he couldn’t—
“Okay, I’ll come,” said Divya over the phone. Bob snapped back to attention.
“You will?”
“Yes, but just me. And if you’re telling the truth … Well, then we can have another conversation. But yeah, I’ll come.”
“Great, when can you get up here?”
“Give me a day. And only in and out for me. And I can stay in a hotel. Send me the flight info.”
“Great. Works for me.”
Divya let out a breath. “Okay.”
“Cool. Yeah, well, see you then.”
“See yah, Bob.”
***
“Whoa,” said Jack as he walked into the large room. It felt like he traveled another mile or so down the hallway until it finally opened up to this. Nice to know the hallway actually had an end.
It was hard to describe how big the room was, but a football field came to mind. Except, instead of painted line segments on the ground, it was filled completely with organized shelving. Stacked, metal shelving, like what you might find in a vast warehouse, all the way down. The shelving structures were pretty tall too. Maybe a good thirty feet high?
Jack walked over to the nearest shelf. It was filled with cardboard boxes and metal cans—all organized but unmarked. He opened up a box and found it empty. Hmm, that was strange. Why store a completely empty box? Then he picked up a can; it was sealed tight. It reminded him of something his grandma might store rice in then forget about it for a hundred years.
He peered down between two rows and got a sudden feeling of vertigo. Seriously, how big was this place? He shook his head, the feeling. He was about to head down the aisle, to explore, when something in his peripheral grabbed his attention.
Against the wall, further down the way to his left was a … yep, that was definitely another computer monitor, this one propped up on top of a smaller version of the shelving bolted to the wall. As he made his way down, he noticed that the rows were labeled. A, B, C, D … and so on all the way down. There were a lot more than twenty-six rows, though, so how … oh, right, they just doubled the letters after Z and started over. He passed row AA, BB, CC … and so on.
Finally, at the end of row KK, Jack reached the computer. It didn’t seem to be plugged into anything, but when he pressed the spacebar, it hummed to life all the same. How this place received power, he had no idea. Must be some exotic battery storage thing-y running this whole place. Or maybe that floating disk had something to do with it, he didn’t know. And right now, he didn’t care much. What he needed to do now was activate this terminal.
This terminal functioned exactly the same as the previous one did. Looked like a carbon copy of it too. He scanned the map and found the triangle he was at. The map now showed boundaries around this storage room. It even had lines to show the rows of shelving. In the far right corner of the room, a bold line stood out along the border of the room. That, assumed Jack, had to be a door.
He pulled up the terminal array and entered MM3106. Maybe he had to be present at this terminal for it to work? Nope. Jack scrunched his face up when the familiar INVALID word appeared. He took a step back, hands on his hips. He scratched his head and let out a long breath.
After a good ten minutes, he pulled out the beef jerky and chomped on a piece. He was starting to get tired and hungry. And he had to pee. He hadn’t seen a bathroom anywhere so far. He looked back at the rows and rows of shelving. Maybe he could crack one of those cans open and …
Jack’s thoughts drifted back to the polaroids in his pocket when something in the back of his mind scratched at him for attention. He pulled out the photo of the code Rodney presumably scratched into the desk: MM3106.
He tilted his head as he looked up at the nearest shelf. It was titled KK.
“MM,” said Jack out loud. “Hmm.”
He wiggled the photo in his hand as he made his way down past row LL, then stopped at row MM. He turned and made his way down, keeping his eyes on the shelving. He noticed the row was divided into sections. The one nearest him was numbered: 01. About ten steps down a new section was designated 02. The numbers protruded out at eye level on little white and black cards.
“MM3,” said Jack, stopping at section 03. He looked up and down, scratching his head. “Okay.” He looked around, moved some boxes. Then he stepped back and looked section 03 up and down. He titled his head and squinted his eyes when another number caught his eye. He walked forward and looked at the very bottom of the section. On the edge of the shelving, right on the lip, the number 01 was embossed into the metal. The next shelf up had the 02 engraved on it. And the next shelf up, which was about eye level with him said 03.
This entire room of shelving, he realized, was organized. The rows by letters. Then each row into designated numerical sections. Then each shelf in each section also had a number. The bottom shelf started with 01 and got larger as the shelves traveled higher up.
“Okay, I got it,” he said.
Jack stepped back and looked up, up, up. There were a lot of shelves up there, but he doubted there were 106 of them.
He looked back at the polaroid and read it out loud. “MM … 3 … 106.” MM was the row. Yep. 3 was the section. Yep, okay. And … Wait, no. How about MM 31 … 06?”
Jack looked down the row and … his eyes went wide and his heart turned to a block of ice. His jaw slowly gaped but he couldn’t breath, he couldn’t move. A sensation of terror induced paralysis the likes he never felt before penetrated him in his entirety, overtook him completely.
He dropped the photo in his hand and simply stood there, staring, gawking. At the very end of the row—way, way down there, someone, no, something was just … there, watching him.
Somehow, Jack managed to take a step back, then he found his legs, spun, and ran. As he did, the lights in the enormous room flickered and a sound—a horrible, almost electronic undulating sound—hit his ears. He could almost feel the sound.
Jack ran towards the entrance of the hallway, slamming into the wall as he made the turn. The backpack fell off his shoulder and he dropped, leaving it behind.
***
You have been discovered by the Void. What do you do now?
Bob read the words then covered his mouth as he watched the square with the X inside follow Jack’s tiny avatar as the boy retreated back into the hallway. Jack was fast, but the X was much faster. It only took a minute for the X to catch up and …
Jack’s body shook. Bob spun around, eyes wide. Alarm bells went off on the heart monitor. Bob slid over to his son and grabbed the bundle of wires connected to Jack’s receptor node cap ready to yank it off if—Beep beep … Beep beep … Beep beep … Jack’s heart suddenly returned to normal.
Bob sat there, frozen for a moment, unsure if everything had truly normalized. After a good long moment, he let go of the cords and a long breath. He wiped sweat from his brow and slid back to the kitchen table. What just happened?
Bob was surprised to find that the ACE and GAMA levels had been wobbling, but only temporarily. A status report gave him time stamps of the changes. He discovered that when Jack figured out the code structuring, the ACE had gone up 3% percent. But it dropped once the X icon caught up to him on the Map.
Bob looked at the COMM+ window. The game was still there, but it had changed. Sort of. Jack was no longer in the hallway; he was back on the floating disk inside the cavern.
“Oh, that’s right,” said Bob. “The time loop.” He remembered now. Every time you died, you reverted back to the floating disk platform.
“Oh,” said Bob, realizing that from his son’s perspective, Jack had just been torn apart by … an unknown terror. This Void. He cringed at the thought. No wonder the heart monitor went haywire. Good thing it didn’t kill him in real life. Just for redundancy’s sake, Bob checked all his son’s vitals one more time.
“Green—good to go, buddy. Round two.”
Bob frowned when he saw the message on the bottom right corner of the screen. A message that wasn’t there before.
It read: 49 more attempts until file corruption and you have to buy a new game. Sorry sucka! Nothing in life is free.
There was Divya’s personality shining through again. But what did that mean? Would the game refuse to work if Jack died 49 more times? Bob had heard of programs you could build into applications that would destroy all the playable files if certain criteria was met.
“Oh, no, no, no, no,” said Bob, opening the game’s integrated source code in another window. If there was a virus hidden on the SD card, it could very well be in his system now. What would it do to COMM+ if triggered? Even worse, what would that do to Jack in real life? At best, the game would simply cease to exist and Bob would be back at square one. Worst case … well, Bob didn’t want to think about that right now. There were too many unknowns. Maybe there was no worse case scenario. Or … maybe he just committed his son to a slow, torturous, hellish death—50 of them to be exact. Who’s to say?
Only time would tell.
