#writing
Chapter 2: The Arbitraries of Modus Operandi
“Did we get it?” A small man in a blue lab coat asked a taller man excitedly.
“Looks like it, thank god.” the taller man sighed, reeling back from the microscope-like object he was looking into. The microscope was an appendage of a much larger machine, of which there were many protrusions, all equally as complicated and alien as the latter. The machine was adorned in all sorts of beeping lights, dials, and monitors, of which a plethora of scurrying people adorned in similar lab coats were maintaining. The taller man stopped a diligently walking woman with a clipboard.
“Susan, how goes the extraction of the data?” The tall man asked, slightly louder than before as a result of a new whirring noise produced from the large machine.
She clicked on her clipboard, to what would appear to be a digital screen, which shined in a seemingly positive manner based on her confident smile at the results of her tapping. “It’s running at 98.6 percent efficiency Dr. Merridew, the machine should only take an hour or so to compute the data, and then we’ll finally have the recipe.” She said beaming with joy, her voice taking a higher pitch as she finished her sentence.
“Good job” Merridew said, as he patted her on the shoulder in praise. “You all did great today! Every last one of you. I couldn’t be happier to work with a better team on this project, and in record time as well. Everyone go home early!” The doctor yelled across the room, being met with applause as people smiled and hung up their coats and left through the clean room exit. Now all that was left was the Dr., and a few other head scientists.
The remaining scientists stayed in celebration of the end of their research. A plump man with a green coat with the words “BIO TECHNICIAN” printed on the back rummaged through a desk to reveal a bottle of whiskey, of which he then poured 3 glasses for the remaining men.
A man with an orange lab coat now stood up, his liquor sloshing around the glass and clinking the ice cubes together as he raised it to give a toast to his comrades. “Of all the shitty jobs at Anubis, simulation research has got to be the worst one, but at least I got to spend these past 3 months with you bastards!” He said, causing an uproar of laughter from the other men. They clinked their glasses together, sloshing alcohol all over the spotless sterile tiles. The other men went around the room, giving their own speeches, each getting more and more illogical as their alcohol consumption went up. After a while of talking and drinking, the Doctor, revealed to be the main scientist, seemingly remembered his job to retrieve the results of the experiment. He drunkenly walked over to a phone on the wall, tipping over a few test tubes next to him on the way. The man in green looked up from his seemingly empty glass at the crash in a state of alarm, but then wondered if maybe some more alcohol had appeared and stared back into it. Merridew, unaware of his actions, reached the phone, and failed to punch a string of numbers into the phone twice, muttering some curses under his tongue, before finally typing the right numbers to induce a brief buzz, and then a click as someone picked up the phone on the other end.
“Hello, this is the intern’s office, how can I he-” The gloomily sounding man said on the phone, his voice being cut off by the audibly irritated doctor.
“We were supposed to receive the recipe results by now!” The doctor yelled angrily into the phone, beads of saliva flying carelessly out of his mouth onto the speaker.
“Uh yes sir, i’ll send someone right away to retrieve it” The man hastily said on the phone, desperate to end the conversation with the belligerent man. He clicked the phone into its base, briefly staring at his nameplate reading “temporary manager”, which gave him a great sense of pride and determination. He grabbed a clipboard of names, before walking into the main office of the intern center to make an announcement. A grid of cubicles stretched on for 50 feet or so in front of the man. People worked and bustled about much like the science lab, albeit with less enthusiasm, and whirring and buzzing being replaced by phone calls and personal conversations. The manager followed a list of names on a clipboard with his finger, hesitantly deciding who to scar with an encounter from the man on the phone, before finally landing on one unlucky poor soul. “People, we need someone to go up to simulations for a delivery, can I get Jerry to do it?” The manager asked politely, going mostly unheard to the office space, until finally an irritated woman rolled into view from her cubicle on her desk chair, a cupped hand over her phone. “Oh Jerry went up to shipping to deal with a dispute, he’ll be back later today” The man sighed, and pushed up his smudged glasses as he went a few names further down the list. “Ok, what about Dexter, Dexter Adams? is Dexter here?” The man said, spying over cubicles for the unlucky soul.
Dexter sat staring intently into his computer monitor, ignoring the calls for what he would assume would be him, but he didn’t know for sure because he knew nobody’s name. His desk was completely empty except for the bare necessities of supplies like a stapler and a few pencils. He could leave at any time and nobody would have even known the desk was being used, in stark contrast to the personalized desks of his fellow employees, which were anything but vacant with their motivational “hangin there” posters, and bejewelled pencils. He had it organized and cleaned exactly how he liked it, everything according to his decision. Dexter finally figured it was his name they were indeed calling, so he stood up from his dark, privy cubicle to address the man who had called his name so many times.
“Dexter, where have you been? Sleeping on the job again?” The manager said to Dexter, putting a hand over his shoulder in a comraederic way, to which Dexter shuddered with relentment.
“No sir, not on company time” Dexter said insincerely, as to speed up the pointless conversation. He wasn’t actually sleeping, but he may as well have been. The interns contributed nothing to their job, and only did the busy work no one wanted to do. Dexter hated the job, he found it demeaning and a travesty to his true image of himself to be ordered around by other people, but he had no other choice. The company he worked for, Anubis , was inefficient, but was anything but strapped for money. They payed well, and he’d have been stupid not to take the job, but sometimes he wondered if the pay was worth the degrading treatment.
The Manager led Dexter out of the office into the main stairway, the sounds of the phones and general office commotion going quiet as the door closed behind them.
“I’m really sorry about this assignment, the gentleman seemed cranky on the phone but do what he asks and you’ll be just fine, uh pal.” The manager said embarrassedly patting him on the back, realising he’d already forgotten the employees name. He always tried to bond and get to know his employees, but that was hard when they usually left or were fired after about 3 weeks. Even with that Dexter was a tough cookie to crack, but the manager had fleeting hope. Dexter hid a sneer behind a confident smile, and contemplated dark thoughts as he turned away from the endlessly overconfident manager up the stairs to the simulation wing.
Dexter stepped into the lab room, greeted unpleasantly by the thick smell of booze and the loud whirring that seemed to suspend all quieting thoughts. Broken glass and soiled papers littered the floor, and three scientists slept obnoxiously, flailed over chairs and tables. The 4th scientist, Merridew stormed intently and ungracefully over to the intern, crushing broken glass beneath his polished leather shoes.
“Where have you been? We have been waiting for you!” The uncomposed man said, gesturing to his sleeping friends, of which two were snoring loudly.
The intern, initially off put by the tall man, smiled with ulteriority as he realized he was too drunk to have any real power over him, or at least exercise it over him at the time.
“Doesn’t matter where I’ve been, all that matters is I’m here now, so what do you need, old man?” Dexter said confidently, pushing aside Merridew and stealing a glass cradled in a sleeping scientist’s arms, who only made a slight whimper at the loss of his sleepy companion. Dexter poured himself a glass of whiskey, gently shaking the bottle as the last sliver of liquid left into his glass, much to the dismay of the now awake scientist. Dexter sipped the whiskey, making sure to savor every last drop, his arms crossed as he leaned against the large metal machine contently, causing his back to vibrate greatly. He watched as the doctors’ appalled, frozen gaze turned into anger, and then into helplessness as he realized that everything was being recorded on the security cameras. If the footage got out of his abuse of company equipment, time, and not to mention employees, he’d most certainly be fired. His career was in the hands of an intern now, and Dexter knew it. A normal, maybe provisionary person would’ve asked for money, or access to the break room etc, but Dexter was anything but normal nor provisional. He intended to do what would best benefit him, even putting his personal efforts of vengeance aside to gain the upper hand in the long run. He was vengeful, maybe even cruel, but he wasn’t stupid.
He considered his options, looking around the room intently for things could aid him, while the doctor looked onwards nervously. Dexter crept into computer cabinets, examining the various chips and wires. Dexter knew all about machinery, and looked for parts he wouldn’t normally be able to acquire himself. “Particle connectors, Hodkin repressors, is there anything good in here?” Dexter exclaimed irritatedly, both to show actual anger and to partly scare the doctor.
“Just take what you want, I can write it off and then we’re done.” Merridew sighed reluctantly.
“Oh don’t worry I will, but why the rush? I just got here” Dexter taunted, stepping over the puddles of broken glass and alcohol spills. He bent down, picking up a shard of glass and examining it. “Jeez you guys really wrecked the place, you were really screwed anyways, I didn’t even have to come down here” Dexter snickered, tossing the shard of glass at one of the scientists, who snarled in disdain.
Finally, one of the scientists chimed in nervously. “Why don’t you just take the simulator?”
Dexter turned around, the scientist’s uneasy words having peaked his interests. “I’m sure you guys can write off a lot of things, but there’s no way you could write off a whole simulator, there’d be an investigation” Dexter said accusingly.
“While that would normally be the case, this is an old model, one of the last of the x200 series’. This was it’s last experiment before it was meant to be dismantled. It would be much easier to get rid of something the company doesn’t want in the first place.” The scientist said apprehensively.
Dexter scratched his nonexistent beard intently, his calming appearance seemingly releasing some tension from the scientists. “I see your point, but this thing is massive! They would notice an entire room sized machine disappearing, and I certainly couldn’t hide it.” Dexter motioned his hands to show the bulk of the machine.
Another scientist stepped up from behind the other, almost in que to answer a question he had more expertise in. “While that is true for most simulators, this one was a custom built model. It has a detachable core that is about the size of a consumer simulator, the difference being it has the power of a full commercial one. Only thing needed is proper coolant and power.” The scientist said confidently, tapping on the machine affectionately as he spoke as if it were his own child. Dexter, after some thought, agreed to the idea, seemingly satisfied with the idea of owning a commercial grade simulator in his own home. He had many consumer ones, but they were slow and unrealistic, especially for his crazy ambitions. He imagined taking control of an entire country, maybe even a world, and having complete control over every detail down to the atom. His house was more than capable of cooling the device, with his extensive cooling devices collected throughout the years for his jury-rigged contraptions, and power was all good too, as he stole it from a local power line. He motioned for the scientists to unhook the machine, making sure to watch them in case they added a tracker, or removed a vital component. The scientists were blissfully unaware of his surveillance, nor any such ideas, they were just happy to be released from the control of this lowly worker.
They pressed some buttons and turned some knobs, which prompted the machine to open like a pharaoh’s sarcophagus, revealing the core inside. It was a small glass-like cylinder, which glowed a faint green hue around it. Wires clung to a tall scepter that held the core, the wires going off in all directions like vines on a jungle tree. The scientist reached in to grab the core, already warm to the touch from being away from the coolant, but Dexter pushed him aside to grab it himself. He unhooked it easily from its spot in the machine, causing the whole machine to turn off and the lights to flicker momentarily from the power change. Dexter held the core in his hands, the faint green light radiating over his evil green.
Dexter turned to the men, thinking how funny it was that for people so drunk, they sure sobered up quickly when their jobs were on the line. He wondered why he was even there for a second, the whole moment seeming like a dream, then suddenly he remembered. “Oh! The recipe! How could I forget.” Dexter said, putting his face in his palm comically. He walked slowly to a back room, where a small terminal lay unlit on a dark, neglected desk. A small green cursor flashed on and off on a prompt line, to which Dexter typed PRINT KEY into a dusty keyboard. The machine made a beeping sound, and then emitted a large, floppy disk-like, well, disk. He had the recipe for the scientists, but before he left the room, he had another idea. He typed PRINT KEY SIMULATION into the machine, and once again he acquired a disk. This one was not a recipe, but the simulation seed for where the recipe came from. He found it more meaningful, and symbolic, if he were to toy with the pre existing members of the simulation, instead of creating a new “seed”. They were the reason he even came down here, he felt it right to save them from deletion. It would also save him the time of generating a new simulation. He quickly tucked the simulation disk into his pocket, and waved the recipe disk around like a flag as he walked triumphantly to the door, the scientists eyeing it anxiously like dogs. Right before he was exiting the room, he remembered one thing. He walked back to the room with the computer and typed EJECT SECURITY TAPE. This caused one last beep as a disk came out with all the footage of the past 3 hours or so, enough time to prove what happened that night. With his new toy in hand and his blackmail material hidden away, he finally handed the recipe to Merridew.
“Hope it was worth it” Dexter whispered closely as he placed the disk in his unmoving hands, before walking away proudly. He strided down the stairs, making sure to do a slide down the handlebars to properly show his happiness, before almost falling and regaining his composure. He didn’t bother going back to his dank dark office, because he was sure he’d be fired the next day anyways. It didn’t matter to him, as he had everything he could want right now and more. He descended all the way down the stairs to the emergency exit, a shortcut any employee knew to get out faster. It was covered in warning signs saying “don’t open unless emergency, alarm will sound” but in the time he had worked there, it never did, nor did it this time. He opened the door to a torrential downpour, which wasn’t that unusual considering it rained nearly every day. He sheltered the two discs under his jacket, and made his way to the shelter of his car. After fumbling with the keys for a second and getting into his car, making sure to place down the disks safely, he got back out. He ripped off the employee ID card stuck to his shirt, and threw it at the building, landing in a nonchalant flop. He felt totally emancipated, physically and mentally. The water felt cleaner, the air felt crisper. He drove home with a smile on his face, making sure to take the long scenic route home.
Dexter pulled into the driveway of his crappy apartment. His tires bounced as they rolled over the unrepaired crack in the cement, bringing his car to a sudden halt. The apartment was at best a squatters den and at worst a threat to public safety, it had bars over the windows and trash overflowing from the unkept bins out front, some of which had spiderwebs laced in between the handles. The front lawn was befitting of the house, a small patch of brown weeds lay dying in a dirt patch, and a rusty pink flamingo stood to mark its former glory, where green grass must’ve been at one point. A bystander might think the apartment was abandoned, save for a dim light creeping through the dirt-stained barred windows. Dexter fumbled with the door key for a second, propping the tapes and the core up onto his knee, using his free hands to find the right key from his pocket. Finally, he found the key, and the door opened with a click. The door creaked open to what can only be described as a hoarder’s paradise. Trash filled the entire house, going back as far as one could see, and the smell it excreted did little to distract from the view. The stench clung to Dexter’s nostrils, and it would’ve made him shudder if he hadn’t grown used to it as he slowly grew the trash piles over the years. He assumed a guest might take notice of the sights and smells, but snickered at the idea of anyone purposely coming to his place of refuge. He liked to remain anonymous, away from the peering eyes of the outside world, and this apartment was perfect for that task. He paid “rent” to some shifty russian man he’d actually only seen once, and the only government document with his name on it was his driver’s license. In reality, he was quite a neat and orderly person, but allowed the trash to build up and the outside to decay to deter anyone from finding out his apartment was anything more than a squatter’s den.
He made his way through the sea of trash, passing by a herd of soda cans, grazing on his kitchen countertop, safe from the rolling waves below. He navigated out of the living room to a room in the back of the house. It was empty of all furniture of any kind, but some discernible craters in the carpet partially covered by water stains indicated this was once a bedroom. Dexter gently set down his items on the floor, moving some plastic bags out of the way to make room. He stood up again and pushed his palms against the wall, moving slowly across the wall like a metal detector. He continued shifting his hands in this motion until he seemed to have found what he was feeling for. He grasped at a seemingly invisible object on the wall with his fingertips, until slowly the edges of an object began to reveal themselves from the wall. The fake object appeared to be a fake panel, and Dexter moved his hands to get a better grip as the object exposed itself more from the wall. Finally, Dexter pulled the panel from the wall effortlessly, setting it down against the wall to reveal a hidden passageway with an ominous staircase, trailing down like a dungeon, shrouded in darkness. Dexter picked up his items from the floor through the passageway, putting the panel back on the wall behind him, once again hiding the true meaning behind the crumby, decrepit apartment.
Dexter walked down the stairs carefully, descending deeper into the oubliette, before finally the staircase came to an end at the room itself. He flipped on a light, flooding the room with light and revealing the room to be reminiscent of a mad scientist’s lair, if only a bit small. The hidden room was in direct contrast to the rest of the apartment above. The floors were a stainless sterile tile, clear enough to mirror the rest of the room in glossy detail. Countertops topped with papers and flasks were strewn around the room, fitting into the scientists stereotype. The walls were a clean and scientific white, unlike the stained, peeling wallpaper of the apartment above, The lights shone brightly and clearly, unlike the dimly lit apartment, where the light that did shine revealed a multitude of dust and pollutants which floated freely throughout the air. The most impressive thing was a massive machine that took up over half the room. It sat right in the middle of the room, with a multitude of wires and hose hanging off of it, some connecting to various other terminals and controllers around it. The whole machine buzzed, beeped and whirred, and it was clear this was some form of simulator. It had a resemblance much like the one at the Anubis building, albeit much more makeshift, as if it was ready to blow up at any moment. Dexter had been working on it over the years from a collection of parts, both legal and illegal, but it was missing one vital part, the core, of which he hadn’t had until now. In the far corner sat Dexter’s bed, the sheets unfolded, littered with paper scraps and ideas. This was the way Dexter had actually lived, and perfectly represented him in his own mind. It was clean, scientific, yet hidden from the outside world, forced to don an ugly persona; not in fear of being found, but in fear of being judged and limited in the freedom this place allowed. When Dexter had moved into this apartment, he didn’t know about the secret room. It wasn’t until a month or so of living here that he noticed and opened the panel in the wall, revealing a shoddily hand-dug room, which had most likely been used for drug manufacturing or storing of some sort. All that was left of the previous operations now was a table and some lights hung on the walls to illuminate the rough makeshift passageway that looked due for a cave in any minute. Dexter knew when he found it that apart from the people who made it, who were long out of the picture, no one knew of this place’s existence besides him. He took it upon himself to rework the entire room into a sanctuary, a private oasis for free practice of ideas, away from the prying eyes of human opinion and morality. Bit by bit, month after month, he rebuilt the room. He started by demoing the plywood supports, replacing them with rebar and a concrete foundation. He laid steel beams and sleek tile floors. Then he meticulously learned the basics of plumbing and electricity, not wanting to compromise his location by hiring a professional, and not to risk his ego by transferring work to someone else who could possibly mess up his dream oasis. Finally, he laid the foundation for a liveable home, with room to work and to grow. What was once just a prison cell to him, further tying him to society’s nosy grasp, had become his wardrobe to Narnia, a place where he could be free.
Dexter set down his various items on a table, sighing a sigh of relief as he relaxed in the confines of his true home. He pulled out a journal from a cabinet in a nearby desk, knowing that his real work was just beginning.
He consulted his journal, opening to a page showing a list of hand-scribbled operations for what appeared to be a very confusing machine. With the help of the journal, he flipped some switches, which prompted the machine to start flashing some red lights as if in distress, but Dexter remained calm. He hit a few more buttons, until finally the machine seemed to open up, a great deal of smoke pouring out from inside onto the floor to cool the now exposed core. The process was much like the one done at the Anubis building by the scientists, although unlike a tomb, this machine seemed to be more like an iron maiden with all its haphazard protrusions jutting out like spikes. Dexter reached inside to unhook the core from the machine. He grabbed hold of the cylindrical object, and yanked it out without care to it’s fragile chassis. The machine’s lights turned off and the sounds quieted down momentarily and then spurred back up at the sudden power change. Dexter stared at the core, the yellow light emanating onto his face and the outside warming his hand mildly. Knowing he would not be needing it anymore, he tossed it onto the ground in a nonchalant way, watching it smash into a million tiny pieces, the light lingering momentarily in the wreckage, before slowly dying completely. He probably could’ve sold the core, as he was very resourceful and clearly not one to waste an opportunity, but he figured the value of the message behind smashing it was worth far more than the money he would’ve gained from selling it. The smashing of the old core both metaphorically and literally sparked the end of an era, and ushered in a new one, full of new heights, possibilities, and ideas. Not to mention the further stretching of the limits of human morality and ethics.
Dexter turned back to the table and grabbed the new, green core. In his haste to leave he hadn’t actually fully examined his new toy. It looked alot like the old core that was now shards of glass stuck in his boots, but it was much bulkier and commercial. The light it emanated was almost blinding and Dexter had to wrap his hands in a piece of cloth so as to not burn his hands, showing just how much more powerful the core was compared to the old one. Stretched across the side was a picture of an ankh charm, with the word ANUBIS™ under it in gold font, clearly showing how this was never meant to be used by anyone but the company. Carefully, Dexter placed the core into the center of the machine where the yellow core had sat before, pushing aside clamps and wires to make room. He had to readjust the machine from an internal level as well, to make sure the circuits wouldn’t immediately fry from the sudden power surge. He hooked the wires up to the core, before finally giving it a light shove into the machine. The machine recognized the new core immediately, the lights around it shining brightly and the sounds from before whirring back to life again. Dexter stood back from the machine while it closed back into itself, admiring his Magnum Opus. He had been building this machine for years to come, but with this final part, it was complete. Dexter turned around to grab the simulation key he had taken from the scientists. He was eager to test his new toy, and didn’t want to spend the time making a whole new simulation from scratch, plus he felt he owed it to save the simulation, how in a way, without the simulation, he would never have stumbled upon the core in the first place. Besides, he could just delete it at any time, it had no power over him.
Dexter stuck the floppy disc-like card into a slot on a console. The machine made a few beeps as it loaded up the information.Just then a monitor to the left turned on, a picture appeared on it showing the gold ANUBIS™ logo with the ankh symbol like on the core, accompanied with a small loading bar. It finished loading, taking its sweet time loading at 99% which annoyed Dexter, before finally finishing and displaying the simulation.
The simulation itself was displayed on a plethora of monitors, some showing some basic, yet incomprehensible data about the simulation itself, while others showed Matrix-style code running constantly across the screen. These screens were incomprehensible to humans, as they were a representation of the core itself thinking. The simulation worked by simulating what was supposed to happen, while using deep-learning to assume what would happen, some of them were more powerful than others, and could be more precise and simulate more as well. This current one was simulating a small county, and was accurate enough down to a single atom. Two other monitors right in the middle were the actual screens used to interact with the simulation. On one screen, was a prompt, where data could be input to modify, while the other screen showed various views inside the simulation, like a camera in a tv show. When Dexter had turned on the simulation, it had picked up exactly from where the scientists he’d stolen it from had left off. Dexter saw a man sleeping in a bed on the monitor, there didn’t seem to be anything unusual about the picture, and the man didn’t seem to be under any stress or pressure, he was just sleeping peacefully. Dexter was intrigued as to what he was looking at. He moved his sight to a monitor to the right, the one where he could input data. He typed in a few lines, until he found some notes the scientists before had left while researching.
—————————–ANUBIS——————————-
Researcher: [Dr. Merridew]
Test Subject Name: [Maximilian Miller]
Age: [35]
Current Residence: [Logan Town, Ohio]
Occupation: [Auto Factory Worker, Horus Automotives]
Friends/Family: [N/A] Notes: Family detached, No attempt to socialize
except in necessary interactions, no pets.
Possessions: [1B 1Br House, 1 Automobile, Colt M1911 Handgun + 3 green tipped magazines, various miscellaneous household amenities]
Additional Notes: [Max is a regular Joe, he has a normal job, no social life, no romantic interests, no intent to buy new things. If he disappeared right now no one would even notice. This makes him the perfect test subject, he doesn’t change, which gives us a clean base to test on, and an easy way to “undo” him if we mess up.]
Dexter was pleasantly pleased, he had misjudged the scientist’s as incompetent, but clearly they were smart enough to choose a great candidate for testing. Whether they had custom made him, or found him by chance Dexter didn’t know. It didn’t say exactly what they were testing him on, or what they were trying to get from him, but knowing corporate bureaucracy, it was probably something stupid and overly expensive like finding the best breakfast food.
Dexter stared once more at the screen. This man inside this machine had been living uneventfully his entire life. Unbeknownst to him, his ordinary life was about to change forever.