Creator
~
It was a mistake. I shouldn't have gone the extra mile. I shouldn't have stayed at work another hour that night. I shouldn't have pushed myself to finish all the mindless paperwork stacked upon my desk.
But I really shouldn't have volunteered, when I heard someone complaining that the security was malfunctioning, to go check on the control servers. I now regard that as the worst mistake of my life.
But I did.
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Standing in an elevator, I reflected on my life. I really felt that there was no point left. The news that I had heard yesterday hung over my head, a storm cloud in a world so dark that you always think things can't get worse, just before they do. Every time you think you've hit rock bottom, they throw you a shov-BING! My depressed inner monologue was thrown off by the announcement that we'd reached the floor with the control servers.
I walked out of the elevator. The halls were a blur, my fatigue was finally beginning to show. The locked door approached and with a sigh I cleared my mind and drew my access card. With a swipe of plastic, the lock gave way and I entered a world of computer databases. Pulling out my pocket computer, I made a few taps on the lighted screen and found what I was looking for: security MASTER SERVER: #214. I strolled among the huge machines that really ran our company (it didn't matter that I was CEO, because the computers run everything). 212. 213. 214. There. "All right then," I said aloud, "What the hell is wrong with you now?" Connecting my the pocket computer to a port on the machine, I instructed it to run a few diagnostic tests, and then left it to its work (Estimated time remaining: 2 min., 33 sec.). As I looked absentmindedly around the room, my head turned to the right barely in time to catch a glimpse of motion in the corner.
This is, if anything, a textbook example of being in the wrong place at the wrong time. Or, more specifically, looking in the wrong place at the wrong time. This set off some thoughts in my head. Whoever it was, he was not supposed to be in here. That could mean someone was hacking our system, which could account for our security problem- I tore my computer violently from the server and ran towards the corner as I stuffed it in my pocket
There was no one in the corner. This disagreed with my logical processes. There was no where anyone could go from here. I hadn't seen the intruder leave. I contemplated this while I leaned on the door next to me- wait. "A door?" I thought, "What the hell? I've been in this room plenty of times before and there is certainly not a door in the corner." So, of course I twisted the handle and ran in.
It is really, really disconcerting to walk into an area and discover that your means of entry no longer exists. You can imagine that between that and finding myself staring into about 200 of my own face, I was a little freaked out. A man in what looked like a pretty standard computer chair spun around to face me. "What is going on? How'd you get in here?!!!?" "I followed you through the door in the server room," I quickly responded, "and if you don't let me out of here right now and fix the damn computers" (I was starting to have a feeling the security failures were his doing) "I will call the police and they will trace my cell phone to this room!" The man laughed.
"An oversight," he said, now with an air of extreme confidence, "on my part. I should have remembered to close that thing off." Several of the screens reflecting my expression that walled the room suddenly changed to show a combined picture of the server room, and I saw the door quickly melt into the wall. The screens returned to my now shocked gaze. My strange companion in the room cheerfully said, "There!" before returning to some kind of absorbing task on the other wall.
I was now beginning to suspect insanity on my own part but I tried to remain calm. "Who… are you?" I inquired cautiously. The man spun back around and said, "Who am I? I have many names. Components call me The Architect. You would probably call me God." With a sense of panicked confusion I tried to say something, but my vocal chords froze up producing only a quiet, "um. uh…... um…"
"God" continued speaking. "You ended up here because of a small mistake I made when leaving your world for this place…" (he gestured grandly to the room around me which still seemed to lack a door) "I can probably have you on your way in a few minutes, but I am working on something of considerable importance that I need to finish. Please sit tight." I decided to stand tight instead, while trying to get my head around what he had just said. All of a sudden, through the confusion, I remembered my life, and the horrible news yesterday, and I was struck by an idea.
"Hey!" I called to address The Architect's attention, "If you're God, or whatever, can't you, well, change things? In my world?". He rotated his chair slowly. "Like…" he said. I kept on speaking "Yesterday, I learned that a childhood friend of mine was diagnosed with cancer. Can you cure him?"
"I could," said the old man, calculating something, "but I wont." He turned around and returned to his work. As I started to angrily demand why, The Architect spoke, still facing away from me: "I know who you're talking about. He's the man who runs a wealthy restaurant chain that started across the street from your bank." (this was exactly right, but I didn't want to interrupt him) "Too much of the public eye is on him. If he were somehow cured, people might be suspicious. Might start discovering me. No, I'm sorry, but it just doesn't make any sense to risk exposure for one insignificant human life."
I felt my blood begin to boil. I felt anger rising in me, mercury in the thermometer that was my mind. I leaped at the chair, and knocked it over.
"I can't believe you!" I screamed, pinning the man to the floor, "What is wrong with you? Don't you have any compassion at all?!?" I began to pound him with my fists. Uncontrollable rage took hold of me. This man could save my friend, and no one else could, but he refused to. A sinister smile appeared on the man's face as I beat down on him.
"Stupid, arrogant, human!" he said, "I really don't have time for this crap." With that he flew to his feet so forcefully that I spun through the air, flying at a TV screen particularly larger than the rest (come to think of it, they were all the same size before). It was now showing a view of the city I lived in- from 1000 feet in the air.
The room and the TV set began to twist and mesh together and suddenly I was falling from the sky, still spinning, around buildings at the edge of the sprawling city. I didn't fall too far before a roof found me. I hit it flat on my back. Pain shot through my legs and my feet, far too much pain to move them, and I heard a sickening crunch from my spine.
I was quite shocked to discover that I could move my arms and my hands. As they brushed past my pocket, they felt something, and as I painfully withdrew my pocket computer, I noticed that it was, amazingly, unharmed. Which brings me to the here and now. No help will come to me here. This building is completely abandoned. They may never find my body. I'm going to drop my stylus now, and I'm going to die. I have only this to say: There is a god. I've met him, and he's not friendly.
20:03:36
September 2
1998
--END OF USER INPUT—
22:13:48
September 2
1998:
A man clutching an automatic pistol dashes from a stairway, firing back at the door he just left. He can see his partner waiting in a helicopter to make their getaway. But he can see something his partner can't. Lying on the roof, there is the dead body of a man who looks like he died in terrible pain after a fall from some great height. In his lifeless hand is a small, sophisticated pocket computer, stained with blood. Interested, the man with the pistol rushes over, grabs the computer, and then walks around to the helicopter. Opening the door, he jumps in, securing himself and slamming the door shut again as police run onto the roof accompanied by two men in suits with sunglasses. "Go. NOW!" The command echoes inside the helicopter as it lifts off, and the man shatters his window with automatic fire. The cops die quickly but the suited men bend and twist around his shots, unimpressed. As the helicopter flies away, the pilot says to the man in the passenger seat, who is still waving his gun out the window, "What was that?" "What?" the man responds. "You hung around for a second," says the pilot, "You grabbed something. What was it?" Finally the chopper was out of reach of the bullets fired at it. The man brings his head back in the window, and holds up the computer in his left hand. "This?" he asks. "I found it on the roof. I think it might have a story to tell." He drops the gun as the helicopter lands. He opens the door and begins to run toward a ringing phone on a street corner. He and the pilot stop on the corner, high five, and then the pilot picks up the phone and disappears. The man hangs up the phone and it begins to ring for him. He picks it up. "Hey wait!" he says, "don't jack me out yet. I'm holding a computer. Do we have time to download its contents?". The voice on the other end responds: "Yeah. They're still about a mile off. I've got it. What's on it? Didn't you already transfer to me what we were after?" "Yeah, I did." the man says, "We'll talk about it later. Is it done?" "Yes." the phone buzzes, "anything else, or can I get you out now?" "Nope, that's about it. Go ahead." The man disintegrated into code and the phone fell dangling on the hook.