Chapter Twenty-One: When Safety Fails
"I want you to pay a visit to the Rockwells. They're happily married and I'd like you to change that." Sunshine stares at Betty.
"Why?" she asks. Betty rolls her eyes.
"Because it's fun, of course! Now go on and impress me!" She makes shooing motions with her hands. The dog barks and stands up. He moves over to Sunshine with his tail wagging and a whine in his throat. Sunshine bends down to pet him.
"Oh, you want to go with her?" Betty says uninterestedly. "Fine. Go ahead. Just don't be a pest. She has very important work to do." The dog growls and Sunshine stands up. She breathes out a soft sigh. She didn't know the first thing about breaking up a marriage. She isn't in the business of hurting people for sport. But Betty is and she is the key to finding her father. As much as she hated it, she had to do what she wanted. She wanders around aimlessly for a while and talks to some of the residents of Tranquility Lane. She doesn't learn anything of note until she talks to Mabel Henderson.
"What can you tell me about the Rockwells?" she asks. Mabel looks at her suspiciously.
"Why on earth would you want to know about them?"
"Uh, school report," Sunshine answers. Mabel instantly brightens.
"Oh, how sweet of you to write your report on them! They're really nice, aren't they? It's swell that they worked everything out!"
"Worked everything out?" Sunshine asks wearily. Mabel's hand flies to her mouth in faux restraint.
"Oh, I'm not really one to talk," she says excitedly. "But they had a fight last year. Everyone could hear them arguing. Janet was convinced that Robert was having an affair with Martha Simpson but he eventually convinced her it wasn't true." The woman looks around from side to side before leaning down to whisper,
"I've seen the way Martha looks at him. Janet may believe him, but I sure don't."
"Thanks for the tip," Sunshine says miserably, ignoring the protests of 'I wouldn't call it a tip!' that spring from Mabel's mouth. She looks over toward the Simpson house, sighing heavily. She looks down at the dog.
"I hate this place," she says. The dog barks in what seems to be affirmation. She reluctantly goes into the Rockwell's house. She hears the couple in the kitchen and sneaks up to their room. Maybe she could steal some lingerie from Martha and place it on the bed? She eyes a journal next to the nightstand and snatches it up. The dog whines lowly in his throat and nudges her leg. She leans down to calm him.
"Shh," she says. "I need you to be quiet, okay?" The dog whines again and she hears footsteps coming up the stairs.
"Shh," she says again before pulling the dog with her into the closet. She watches the wife, Janet, turn to the wardrobe and sigh unhappily. She runs a hand over a dress forlornly before turning to the closet. Shit. Sunshine clutches the dog, who decided to be quiet, closer to her. He nuzzles her in a seeming act of comfort. Janet freezes before opening the closet. Her hand is on the door before she inexplicitly turns and leaves. Sunshine lets out a shaky breath before stealthily exiting the closet. She scurries down the stairs and leaves the house.
She plops down on the park bench she spawned on the read Janet's diary.
"'Sometimes I wish I really had beaten Martha to death with that rolling pin last year," she reads. She shudders as she thinks that a good way to break up their marriage would be to beat Martha to death and blame it on Janet. But she pushes that thought out of her mind. She doesn't have the stomach for such a deed, let alone the physical capability. She reads about how dissatisfied and suspicious Janet is at the fact Robert spends all of his time in the basement.
"Looks like I just figured out where to plant the 'evidence'," she says to the dog. He whines unhappily and she mutters, "Yeah. You and me both." She stands to go to the Simpson house and sees an old woman leaning against a tree as if she were hiding. The woman's eyes are alight with a strange fear as she watches Sunshine's every move. Sunshine moves to walk toward her but catches Betty's gaze first. She doesn't slow her pace as she barges into the Simpson house.
Martha isn't home and Sunshine is thankful for small favors.
She heads straight to her bedroom to knick her lingerie. It lies haphazardly on the bed and Sunshine winces as she picks it up. The dog takes it in his teeth and tries to tug it away from her.
"No," she says irritably and tries to tug it back away from him. "I don't expect you to understand because you're just a computer simulation, but I'm doing this for my dad." The dog sits down and whines, letting Sunshine pull the lingerie from his teeth.
She makes quick work of placing it in the Rockwell's basement. She goes back to Betty with lead-lined steps and slumped shoulders. The girl claps her hands excitedly and takes Sunshine by the hand.
"Let's get closer and watch the show!" Sunshine sighs and allows herself to be dragged along. They plop down on the sidewalk next to the Rockwell's house and Betty says,
"Any minute now!" Sunshine stares up at the sky as they wait. It's a cold, unnatural blue and the sun sits stagnantly in place. The light of it is more reminiscent of a light bulb than actual sunshine. And there is no way to tell the passage of time, something that she is certain was done intentionally.
A prison with no windows.
Sunshine kicks her feet as the screaming starts. Betty giggles as Janet calls Robert and Martha all sorts of horrible obscenities. The argument crescendos with Janet pushing her husband out of the house and slamming the door in his face, yelling threats about how she was going to drop her ring in the garbage disposal.
"That was amusing," she says, her voice changing again. "But you were sloppy. You almost got caught!" She shakes her finger in Sunshine's face.
"Do I still win?" Sunshine asks, hating herself for asking the question. Betty smiles beatifically and makes Sunshine's skin crawl.
"I should tell you no, but I'm feeling generous." She makes a gesture of acceptance. "Go ahead."
"Why is my father incapacitated, and in what way?" Sunshine all but demands. Betty tsks.
"Only one question. I'll answer the first. Your father was not as accepting as you," she says after a pause. "He wouldn't play with me, instead spouting all sorts of moral objections and other such nonsense. So I incapacitated him. He is still very much aware but unable to annoy me with his useless chatter." Sunshine stares at Betty in horror as she grins again.
"Ready for the next game?" she says in her innocent and child-like voice.
"I," she says, trailing off.
"I'm expecting nothing short of excellence from you," Betty begins. She leans forward as if the two of them are great friends sharing a terrible secret. "I want you to kill that gossip Mable Henderson."
"How?" Sunshine says wearily. A low whine begins in the dog's throat and he nudges Sunshine's leg adamantly. She pushes him away as she listens to Betty's instructions.
"You can't simply beat her to death. That's boring. I want you to kill her in a creative way. Amaze me!" she says, standing and offering Sunshine her hand. Sunshine takes it and Betty pulls her up. "I know you can do it! Show me what you've got!"
She begins the same way she did for the last unsavory task-by using the residents of Tranquility Lane. She finds out from Mabel herself that she loves baking pies.
Explosions are a God-awful way to die.
The dog growls as Sunshine enters Mabel's house and growls even louder when she stops in the kitchen, stooping over to open the oven. She reaches in to dislodge the pilot light and the dog noses her hand away from the light. She lets out a disgruntled groan and pushes the dog away, only to have him crawl in her lap.
"Stop it, you stupid simulation!" she snaps, shoving him off of her. She turns on him. "You're not getting in the way of me finding my dad! I'll go through anything to get him out of this hellhole, even if it means torturing people who are better off dead! Now knock it off!" The dog sits down almost expectantly. She turns to dislodge the pilot light again and he lets out a single, sharp bark.
"God damn it-" she swears, looking at him again. And she sees the same bright green eyes that stare back at her in the mirror, the ones she had trouble remembering before she went to sleep at night. Eyes that have been heavy with sadness and resignation and alight with happiness and pride. She reaches out a single hand to touch his cheek and he leans into it. It's a mirror image of the pose they were often found in when she was a child, she weeping and he gently wiping the tears from her face.
"Dad," she breathes. He barks again. She throws her arms around him, awkwardly hugging him.
"I'm so sorry for everything," she says against his fur. He barks again in what she hopes is his way of saying 'it's all right.' It really isn't but she doesn't want her father to think any less of her. She's only ever wanted him to be proud of her.
"You," a voice breathes. Sunshine startles, falling backwards from her knees onto her back. The old woman who had watched her is looking down at her.
"Who are you?" Sunshine finds her voice.
"You don't belong here," the woman says, almost as if she's in a trance. She falls to her knees and grabs Sunshine. Sunshine screams and struggles, pushing away from her. Her father begins barking wildly. "Shh shh. It's okay! I'm not going to hurt you! I'm not!" The woman's grip tightens almost painfully. Sunshine is afraid Betty sent this woman to kill her, that she knows she doesn't want to torture these people anymore and so she is going to incapacitate her like she did her father-
"It's not real!" the old woman screams. "None of it! The suffering has to end! Please!"
"Please let go of me," Sunshine whispers, frozen with fear. "Please. I just want to get my father out of here."
"The failsafe. You have to activate the failsafe!" the woman's eyes are half-mad with desperation and she shakes Sunshine fiercely. "I know Braun still uses it! It's the only way to free us. Please."
"Where?" Sunshine croaks out.
"The old abandoned house. Please free us! Please stop the pain!" The woman's nails dig into Sunshine's arms and she feels false rivulets of blood stream down them.
"Okay," she says. "I'll activate it. But you have to let me go, okay? Don't tell Betty." The old woman nods mechanically and lets go of her.
"Run," she whispers before curling in on herself in a great convulsing heap. Sunshine barely registers the unnatural way the old woman's limbs bend before bolting toward the door with her father close behind and she flees to the old abandoned house. An assortment of garbage lines the floor and she doesn't see a terminal anywhere. She has to hurry before Betty finds her and stops her. They can't be trapped here forever. She has to get her father out before he starves to death and, oh God, what will happen to Charon if she doesn't make it out? In her panic, she knocks a glass pitcher to the floor. It lets out a single clear and melodic note before falling silent. She hits it again and it makes the same sound. She sees a broken radio and hits it. It lets out a deeper and lower sound. If she listens closely, she can just make out the maddening tune that was all she could focus on when she first entered the simulation.
"Sunshine!" she hears Betty's voice sing from outside. "Come out and I won't hurt you or your father. We can play some more. I really don't want to have to recalibrate the simulation again!" She locks the door for all the good it will do.
She whistles, as Betty did, keeping track of the notes. After several discordant and failed attempts the far wall shimmers before disappearing. She all but sprints over to activate the terminal. She reads through Braun's journal entries and feels a sick dread in her stomach. He had been torturing these people since before the Great War.
"Sunshine!" she hears again and this time it is Braun's real voice laced with a violent anger and-dare she say?-fear. "Don't you dare activate that failsafe. Don't you dare!"
"It ends here," she whispers, activating the failsafe. Gunshots and screaming erupt outside and she hears a peaceful voice over Braun's shouting say,
"Thank you."