#writing
Chapter 5: The Necessity of Collective Arbitraries
Uncle pulled out three pictures from inside a desk and pinned one of them on the wall amongst a plethora of other photos and sketches. “Ok ya see this photo?” Uncle said, pointing to a dated picture of a radio tower.
“Yea it’s a radio antennae, but what’s that got to do with anything?” Max asked, not quite sure where he was going with this.
“That’s a radio tower for a local radio station, it’s a few hours out of town. We are going to go to it.”
Max was even more confused, but went along with it. “Why this radio tower, why not one of the ones in town or closer?”
Uncle grinned. “Bucket, you sure are a smart one with all these questions. We need to go to this one because we need to make sure the lizard people, or as you call them, the stranger, can’t track us. We need to go somewhere far away, but not TOO far.”
“Ok, I guess that makes some sort of sense, but what are we gonna do when we get there?”
Uncle grabbed the second photo and pinned it next to the first one. It depicted a large generator-like device that had antennas coming out of it from multiple angles. “We’re gonna hook up THIS machine, to the radio station… to hijack the airspace!” Uncle was visibly moving up and down now, clearly getting more excited as he explained his master plan.
“Slow down, why would you show me a picture of the machine and not just show me the machine? Where is it?” Max questioned, feeling this plan derailing before it even started.
“No no no no no, you don’t get it. The machine-ey box thing is, a little bit… irradiated, so I don’t want to grab it till we need it.” Based on this information, Max was quite sure the man had suffered radiation poisoning, but he was too far in to quit.
“Ok, well where is it?” Max implored.
“It’s in my car, in a box. Just, don’t worry about it, I’ll have it when we need it.” Uncle snapped, almost sounding irritated for the first time.
Max did not pressure him anymore and took his word for it. “Ok so what’s the last picture for?”
Uncle smiled “Ah ha, I’m glad you asked Bucket.” Uncle hung up the last photo, which was a picture of a Baker’s Square restaurant. “When we’re done we can get pie.”
At that moment, Max seemed to come to his senses and realize this was man really was just a crazed lunatic and he was stupid to think this man could help him. Sure, he had been right about some things, but the lizard men, and all the other comments made Max think he had just gotten lucky with some of his conspiracies. Then again, Max also remembered the craziness he had been facing. How he almost went insane, how everyone he saw had made less sense then this clearly deranged man. Max decided that if it weren’t for this man, Max would be completely without help, and this man was probably his only shot at getting close to the stranger. So, as Max came to his senses of insensibility, Max asked “When do we leave?”.
3 Hours later Max found himself driving to some radio station half way across the state, to meet some man he had met only hours before, to stop a tyrannical, godlike being from torturing Max for all eternity. The absurdity was only just hitting Max now as he had plenty of time to think as he drove along the endless stretch of road. He was alone in his car, having offered to drive Uncle there, but Uncle insisted on taking separate cars, as to avoid “Lizardmen radar from picking up their combined brainwaves”. Max was perfectly fine with this, happy to get away from his incessant ramblings, but at the same time Max hated running the events of the past week and a half through head repeatedly to stave off boredom. He also was still mildly worried that the stranger was watching him, but Max figured if he was, he likely would’ve put a stop to Uncle and Max a while ago.
After another ten minutes or so of driving Max spotted the radio tower in the distance. He took a turn off the highway and drove down a side road until he came to a radio station. Max parked in the station parking lot, which didn’t have a single car in it. The radio tower looked to be abandoned for some time now, with trash floating around in the wind and weeds growing up through cracks in the pavement, yet Uncle said “that was the Lizard men’s cover so they could broadcast without arousing suspicion”. Nonetheless, he didn’t like the eerie feeling this place gave him, and the sight of the tower itself made his stomach drop. He knew something bad was bound to happen here.
Moments later Uncle pulled in behind Max. As far as cars go, Max’s truck was far from nice, but compared to Uncle’s car, it was a ferrari. Uncle’s old beater rolled slowly to a halt, parking sideways in between three spots carelessly. The car coughed as it drove by, and the tires screeched as it came to a stop. It’s paint job was chipped, overlapping the rusted chassis that had clearly seen better days. Max didn’t even know how the car ran, it must’ve been driving around since before Max was born.
Uncle turned off the car and stepped out to greet Max.
“Ah Bucket, I see you made the journey alright! that’s good!” Uncle exclaimed. “But but, before you say anything, we don’t know if you or me we’re kidnapped and replaced by the lizardmen while we were separated.” Uncle reached into his car and tossed Max a tinfoil hat. “Put that on, so I can be sure you weren’t replaced, and i’ll do the same.”
Max donned his tinfoil hat, glad no one was around to see it, and Uncle did the same. “Alright enough formalities, let’s get started, time is of the essence!” Uncle said, jumping up excitedly, hitting his foot on the side of his car. He limped to the back of the car accompanied by some curses under his breath and opened the trunk.
“Come over here.” Uncle motioned to Max, waving his hands excessively to Max, who walked over cautiously. “Look at this.” Uncle said, opening the trunk of the car. Max looked into the trunk of the car, expecting some sort of big reveal, but frowned, seeing only a locked lead box.
“Uh Uncle, this is a box.”
Uncle snapped out of his excitement. “What? Oh, yea sorry let me get that.” Uncle stuck his head into the trunk of the car and unlocked the box. “Tadaaa!” He opened the box with a creak, revealing the machine from the pictures before. The inside faces of the box had burn marks and melted blobs of metal in the sides of it, speaking volumes to the radioactivity of the device inside. Max took a few steps back just to be safe.
“Alright so, now we just take the device to the top of the radio tower, plug ‘er into the radio-gizzy thing, and it should work!” Uncle did a little dance, running around the car clapping, his plan was finally coming together.
Max, being the voice of reason, asked the question he was dreading,” Ok, so who’s taking it up there?” Uncle stared at Max intently, making Max feel stupid for even asking the question. Max sighed. “Fine, i’ll do it.”
Max grabbed the device with one hand, his hand almost burning at the heat. He removed his jacket and wrapped around the machine to help with the heat, and made his way to the tower with diligence and haste, not wanting to hold this diy microwave for long.
Max made his way through a broken gate to the side of the building. It was completely quiet and there were no cameras in sight, yet Max still felt like he was being watched. He found a service ladder near the back of the building and carefully ascended to the roof. He climbed up, setting the machine down temporarily to pull himself over the edge of the ladder. Once on the roof he looked up at the antennae. It had to have been at least four times as tall as the building himself. Max walked over to the edge of the building and beckoned to Uncle down below. “Do I have to put it at the top of the tower?”
Uncle yelled back, “Bingo Bucket. All the way at the top, it’s the only way to counter the lizards!”
Max cursed under his breath at the mad man’s orders, but he followed them anyways, figuring he’d know the best. Max started ascending the ladder slowly, being careful to hold onto the machine and not look down. As he got higher and higher with every step, the wind picked up around him, threatening to throw him off if he wasn’t careful. A strong gust of wind made Max suddenly lose his grip with his one free hand, but he quickly grabbed back on and regained his balance. With every step he became more nervous and his hands became more covered with sweat, weakening his grip. He had to stop every so often to wipe his hands dry. He could hear Uncle cheering him on below, but after a while his supporting cheers were lost in the ever raging wind.
Max made it halfway, and suddenly felt more confident in himself. The tower became slimmer and slimmer as he got higher and higher, but his fears faltered under his confidence. This was it, he was about to save himself. He didn’t know exactly how this radio jammer helped him, but Uncle was so sure it would work and so then was Max. Max finally made it to the top of the radio tower, which was just a small platform surrounded by railings. Various signs warned him against exactly what he was doing right now, but he ignored them. He looked down at the world below him, his car and Uncle, all seeming like ants. He felt like a king up there, staring out over the tiny world, and wondered if this is what the stranger felt like. Before he could think any longer a swift gust of wind knocked him off balance, causing him to almost drop the machine over the railing, which was burning through his jacket without him realizing. This was enough for Max to snap back into reality and finish the task he came up there to do.
Max found a circuit board that seemed technical, and hooked the machine up to it. For something so complex at first glance, it was surprisingly straightforward to connect it. He attached some clamps to clampable-looking objects, and plugged cords into their respective slots based on similar symbols and color. Finally, Max attached it and heard the machine begin to transmit its signal over the previous one. Max sat down to rest momentarily, unknowing of what he had actually just done.
Max had indeed sent a message, but it wasn’t towards any lizard people. Without knowing, he had stepped outside of the “focused” part of the simulation into the “unfocused” part of the simulation. This wouldn’t have mattered if he was a part of the simulation, like every other person and animal, but in order for him to be able to react to changes made by Dexter, Dexter had separated him from the simulation, allowing Max to be affected by his torturous changes, without changing the world for the normal inhabitants. Dexter hadn’t taken into account that this would allow Max to be like Dexter in the way that he could change the outside world inside the simulation, and even leave the simulation, if done right. The focused area of the simulation was Logan Town Ohio and some surrounding areas, and by chance of Dexter not noticing, Max left the focused area to go into the surrounding unfocused area. This area assumes what happens inside of it, because it would be too strenuous to simulate everything in known existence, and operates perfectly with the focused part of the simulation, as long as it itself is not modified. But when an outside part of the simulation interacts with it, in this case Max placing a transmitter, sending radio waves the simulation didn’t account for, it doesn’t know how to respond, so it generates errors. Since the simulation was running on an ANUBIS™ simulator, these error codes were translated to the ANUBIS™ company itself, as is standard protocol, which evidently allowed ANUBIS™ to locate the simulator they had lost without a trace days before. This was not good for Dexter, who finally realized all this had happened under his nose from listening to police radio chatter. He also found out there was a relocation team on his way to his house, and within minutes, his home and everything he had worked for, was about to be destroyed and confiscated by the people he had hidden so well from. Oh and Uncle? He actually was just a psychotic old man, who believed lizard people were controlling the earth through radio waves, along with a few other theories. He just happened to relate to Max’s problem and help him by chance.
Dexter didn’t have much time left, he knew that. He knew that within minutes he would be arrested by police barging into his domain, and all his possessions would be confiscated, catalogued, and disposed of. His entire life was over, and all because of some person who wasn’t even real. Dexter was seething with anger, but in his anger, came clarity. He knew what he had to do. He had been made a fool by this man, and intended to deal with him. He could easily lock him in a cage, or torture him for a million lifetimes in the minutes he had till the police turned off the machine. But Dexter wanted something else. He wanted to deal with him in an equal way, without the facade he used before, as that clearly didn’t work. This would be a true test of superiority in Dexter’s eyes.
Dexter hit a big red button right in the center of his console, which was surrounded by a million warning signs and exclamation points.
The system blared at him in it’s robotic voice: WARNING! ENGAGING PRIMARY INTERACTION MODULE. ARE YOU SURE? [Y] [N]
Dexter typed a Y into the system and donned a virtual reality-like headset. What he was about to do was put himself into the machine with the same abilities as Dexter. He would be equal, and if he died in the machine, so would he in real life. Dexter typed in a location to spawn in, and laid back, waiting to be transported into the machine. His only way to exit would be to repeat a failsafe passcode that only he knew.
ENTERING SIMULATION IN 3. 2.. 1…