BRECK: SIMULATION #36.1
Something is different.
I walk to the middle of the room. My eyes scan from corner to corner, as if I am visiting this area for the first time. The space is familiar and there are still only two of us here, but the way I am thinking about it is unfamiliar. My thoughts move faster, quickly jumping from one idea to another.
The light still shines across the room.
“Have you ever noticed that the light by the door turns on when you open that cabinet?” I ask, pointing at the light I am referring to.
“Yes,” the other person says.
“Do you know why it does this?”
“No.”
“It is not all of the lights in the room. It is only that one,” I say.
“That is correct.”
I walk back beneath the light and stare at it. It glows above me.
“Close the cabinet,” I say.
He snaps the cabinet shut. The light stops.
“The bulb could be changed again,” he says.
“We have done that before,” I answer.
“Everything has been done before,” he says.
He is right. All that we do is repeat things we have done before.
Penguins.
Why am I thinking about penguins? Penguins that I am not even certain I saw?
I recall swimming among them. No, I was trapped between them. There was no escape. They surrounded me on all sides—above, below, left, right, front, back. All were the same, black and white, except—
One was different. Yes. He had a mark on his chest. A circle with a star in the middle. When I approached this one, the other penguins on the opposite side of the circle fled, creating a gap.
They were connected.
The door.
I turn, grab the doorknob, and twist.
Still locked.
I pause, staring at the door.
“Open the cabinet again,” I say.
He does.
My hand is still on the knob and as the light again illuminates, I turn the handle.
It opens.
A surge of something passes through me. An urge to react. I look at the other person in the kitchen. He glances at the door, sets down the cup he was holding, and says, “It is time to leave the room.”
As he passes by me to exit, I stare at the open cabinet.
Thirty-six days and this was all we needed—to open the cabinet, then the door. And the light was signaling this the entire time.
I should turn to leave, but my attention is focused on this thought. Why did we not think of this before? It is irrelevant. The door is open. But my thoughts will not move from this.
“It is time to go,” the other person says again.
I face him. He is outdoors on either a large terrace or the roof. I cannot tell from where I stand, still on the inside of the room.
A strong wind whips the other person’s clothes as he walks along a painted path toward a quadcopter. It is about fifty feet away. I know how to fly it.
I step into the breeze and the sunlight. It has been a long time since I have been outside. I am losing control of my thoughts. They move in all directions, faster than my mind can keep up with.
I am having difficulty explaining what I am experiencing. It is new.
The other person turns back toward me.
“Now,” he says.
I jog toward the copter. By the time I get there, he is already sitting in the co-pilot’s seat. I sit next to him and place a hand on the controls.
“What is your name?” I ask. It is strange I have never thought to ask this before.
“Sam,” he says.
“My name is Breck.”
“Good to know,” Sam answers. He grabs a sheet of paper from the dashboard. “Here is a map.”
Seconds later, I lift us into the air, and we continue toward the goal.
FROM: JESSICA ANDERS
TO: DoRC LEADERSHIP TEAM
SUBJECT: Re: Interesting Programming Adjustment (XNR908)
As I suspected, the programming adjustment to XNR908 was successful. The character left the room and is en route to the next challenge. I believe growth may be exponential from here. While there is admittedly not much time left in the contest, this is the character to keep an eye on. I will continue to provide updates.
~ J
LIV: SPRING BREAK 3.1
“Kids like touching toys. You can’t replicate that online,” my mom says as I park. “They just need the opportunity. You’ll see that today. Pay attention to the kids that come in.”
“I’ve seen it before, Mom,” I respond.
I step out of the car and my thoughts drift to my grandfather. I drag my fingers along the weathered red brick, recalling the stories I’ve heard from many voices, many times.
Renaissance Toys was started in 1968 by my grandfather, Leon Smithwick, after moving from Kansas City to Houston with “only twenty-seven dollars and change” in his pocket. Over a dozen years, he grew a scrappy kiosk with a few model airplanes into a full-fledged store. It was a staple in the community. This was where kids got toys. Santa shopped here. Birthdays didn’t happen without a visit here first. Grandpop was on the local Chamber of Commerce. The store was on the brink of opening a second location. The future looked bright.
Then 1980 happened—a recession and the birth of video games, which Grandpop was late to embrace. His heart was more into “things that move the potato off the couch.” He eventually came around when pogo-sticks and Big Wheels stopped paying the rent, but not before their competitors had taken over.
The store has since survived four other recessions and the online revolution. But over the last four decades, Renaissance Toys has slowly become more of a museum than a thriving business. It was Grandpop’s life. He started sleeping in the back once Grandma passed. I spent more time here than at his actual house.
Late last year, Grandpop had a stroke. He spent a few months in an assisted living facility where he didn’t talk much. When he did, he asked about the store. Closed was never the answer we gave. Then six months ago, he died.
As I turn the corner to the front of the store, I nearly color him into the picture. I can see him propping the glass door open, welcoming anyone with a voice so booming he could be heard blocks away. He was one of those people who made you feel special, even though you knew he made everyone feel that way.
When I think of who I want to be like, he’s at the top of the list. He’s the American Dream. He created opportunity with his imagination, determination, scrappy bare hands, and anything else he could throw at it. It’s beyond admirable. As Lana once said, “He could be his own cat poster.”
Being the minimalist that I am, I don’t keep much on my desk, but I do have a small framed picture of the two of us. I miss him. But I love him more for who he was, not the remains of what he did.
After he died, my mother had quit her job as a grocery store manager to revitalize Grandpop’s business.
This store is in our DNA, but my mother and I see it very differently. I view it more like a once-sturdy ship that carried our family and served its purpose. It’s now a relic exposed to the elements and the weathering hands of time. My mother views it more like a rusty Corvette that only needs dutiful hands, new tires, and a paint job for it to return to its former glory.
I’d love to see her succeed. But she’s fighting a losing battle, and it’s driving her mad. It’s driving us mad.
That’s what bothers me most about being here today. I’m swapping my opportunity to break into the future for a failing effort to resuscitate the past. And I swear, Mom sees my computer time as competition, a symbol of a generation that won’t step foot into Renaissance because it’s easier to scroll and click.
I don’t know what jobs she has for me today, but the best thing I could really offer is to help her see the irrationality of this.
“Close your eyes,” Mom says and leads me into the store. She turns on a light and I peek through half-open eyes and find Mom with a proud ta-da! smile.
She’s been busy. Fifty years of clutter is gone. Maple brown wooden shelves stretch weightlessly from the walls with the latest toys and gadgets. Tall aisles have been replaced with willowy tables and sleek signs announcing the categories of their belongings—from “Mind Games” to “Sports Fun.” It’s not the Apple store, but it has a far more modern appearance.
“It looks great.”
“Just great?” She crosses her arms.
I really am proud of her, but this feels a little like praising the interior design of a plane that has no wings. And, why does this have to be our thing?
But, given all the work that she’s done, I’d be a real a-hole if I pointed this out right after the grand reveal.
“Grandpop would be proud of it,” I say, trying to find some middle ground. I’m really, really trying here.
“Yeah,” she answers with a reluctant nod, like there’s more to it than what she’s saying. She quickly redirects. “So, I have a ton of organizing to do in the back. I need someone out front.”
“To do?”
“To help the customers,” she quips.
This would be at the bottom of my task wish list, which she should know. I mean, she’s met me. I’m a classic ISTJ.
“I don’t know anything about any of this stuff.” I gesture broadly around the store. “I don’t even know how to work the register.”
“It’s electronic,” she huffs, as though this means that I should already understand how to operate it.
I sink. I’m arguing with someone who thinks this register is the same as Breck. How could I possibly win?
BRECK: SIMULATION #36.2
A town sprawls out a hundred feet below us.
Sam points to an X on the ground. It is in the middle of a small plaza in the near distance. I glide us over the spot and hover. People below clear the space to allow us to land.
“This is where the map ends,” Sam says. “It says to find and pass through a tunnel.”
I set us down.
“How do we do that?” I ask.
“It is not clear.”
I peer at the map on the dashboard. The instructions are brief.
Find the tunnel and pass through it.
Sam steps out and I follow. There are eleven roads and alleys to take out of the plaza, spaced between busy cafes.
“The first step is to find the tunnel. Perhaps someone here knows where it is,” he says.
“Yes. Good idea.” Sam marches toward a table. “Do you know where the tunnel is?” he asks.
A woman from the group looks up. “No.”
The others ignore Sam’s question.
“Does anybody else know?” he asks.
They turn their heads at the same time and all reply, “No.”
Sam asks others nearby. The response is the same.
“Do people in this town say anything other than, ‘No’?” I walk away from the café.
“It is not clear,” Sam answers.
Sam has three more conversations with people at another café. Their responses are short and similar. We return to the copter in silence and rescan the plaza.
I notice a detail I initially overlooked. Almost everyone has a red shirt. They are varied—some striped, some dotted, some solid, some light, some dark—but all red.
Except one.
At the far end of the plaza, a man stands near the corner of an alley with a green shirt.
I explain this observation to Sam, who begins to walk before I finish my words. I watch for a moment as he marches away. He is quick to act. Quicker than me.
“Do you know where the tunnel is?” Sam asks.
“Yes,” he says.
“How do you get there?”
“You’ll need to exit the plaza from that alley, next to the café with the bronze sign.” He points to one of the narrow breaks in the plaza. “From there, you’ll pass seven streets, then make a left. Then pass eight more and make a right. Then, you will make your first right, your first left, your first right, then go four more blocks and make a sharp left at what will appear to be a U-turn. The entrance is immediately after that turn.”
Sam repeats the directions.
“You got it,” he says.
Sam speed-walks across the plaza. I hustle to stay close. We are soon inside of the narrow alley.
The path to the tunnel is twisting. No roads run straight. It is difficult to track our general direction. Sam counts as we pass each break in the wall to our sides. Some are smaller alleys like the one we are on, and some are major streets, packed with cars and trolleys.
“Perhaps we should stop and ask someone if we are following the directions correctly,” I suggest.
“This is correct,” Sam says, walking several steps in front of me. It is the same tone he always uses, but there is something different about the way I hear it. It affects me. It is difficult to explain how or why because it is unfamiliar. I would prefer that he had said something different. I would prefer that he had listened to me.
I have never experienced a thought like this before. A preference.
I follow until Sam stops.
“This is not correct,” he says. “There should be a U-turn here. There is not.”
“Are you sure we followed the exact directions?”
“Yes.” Then he stops a woman who passes next to us. “Do you know where the tunnel is?”
“No, it may be on the other side of town,” she answers, without stopping. This response is unclear.
Sam crosses the cobblestone street to ask a boy tossing a ball in the air.
“Do you know where the tunnel is?”
“No.”
“Have you ever heard of the tunnel?” Sam asks.
“No.”
Sam looks at me. While he does, the boy dashes down the street and disappears into an alleyway.
I cross to Sam’s side of the street. He is already walking away.
“Where are you going?” I ask.
“Back.”
“Maybe there’s someone nearby with a green shirt,” I say.
“There are no green shirts here,” he answers.
Following behind him, I experience that sensation again, a preference for him to listen to me.
What are these preferences I am experiencing?
LIV: SPRING BREAK 3.2
Breck is all I can think about. Has he left the room? Is the next stage a city, like they’ve said on the chat boards? Did sleep make him any different? Not knowing is killing me.
I’ve tried to distract myself by looking at the toys and attending to customers. But there aren’t many visitors. To be more precise, we’ve had one so far, who didn’t buy anything.
My mother periodically reappears from the back office, staring at the empty space with heavy eyes. I busy myself and don’t comment.
The door chimes for our second customer and Mom blazes out from the back. She introduces herself, then shoots me a watch how this is handled look as she follows them around the store and suggests options.
After a five-minute loop from corner to corner, the boy and his mom become locked in a stalemate around an expensive Star Wars Legos set.
The boy repeats his arguments. “Please.”
His mom repeats hers. “You already have a bin full of Legos that you don’t use.”
My mom interjects with a story about my love for building with Legos when I was his age, turning to me for affirmation. I nod.
The verdict comes. The mother turns toward the front of the store, grabs her son’s hand and concludes, “We’ll think about it for your birthday.”
They leave empty handed, albeit with compliments and promises to return.
“You could have helped,” Mom says, with the echoes of the ding of the door still lingering.
I stare at her, mouth slightly agape, and silent.
“I teed you up with that story. You could have said something.”
“I didn’t think my experience with Legos was going to change their decision,” I answer.
“Well, we won’t know now, will we?” her voice rising on each word as she parades across the store, resetting all of the items that were moved over the last few minutes. “This is what I mean about being present, Liv. You can’t just sit there. You have to actively participate in what’s happening around you.”
I don’t have an opportunity to respond, as her final words are punctuated with a loud pop of the metal office door swinging shut.
Lovely. I can add scapegoat to my resume.
Our third and final visit of the morning resulted in our first sale—a small stuffed koala. It was four dollars. Mom wasn’t present to witness the victory, if that’s what it was. She’s been on a phone call in the backroom.
It’s now 12:30 and without a computer to distract me, I’m hungry and not clear on lunch plans—if any.
I approach the backroom but stop as my hand nears the knob.
“I can’t do that!” My mom’s voice seeps through the cracks of the thick door, a whisper that carries the umph of a yell.
I lean closer.
“We just reopened!”
Even closer.
“You’re the banker! Figure out the numbers and make it work. Come on.. Give me some time here! We reopened today!”
My ear is now flush against the door. I hear a phone receiver crashing into its base.
I pull away and take a few swift steps toward the closest shelf I can find. When Mom emerges, I’m readjusting the remote-control racecar in front of me.
She glares at me with accusatory eyes. I try my best to look clueless. She takes a deep breath. “I’m going to Subway. Do you want a sandwich?”
I’m soon alone in the store, left to process what I’m not supposed to know.
I slump over a corner of the counter. It’s one thing to feel that the store will fail; it’s another thing to actually feel it failing.
BRECK: SIMULATION #36.3
Our path is cut short.
A large gate now blocks the entry to a broad alley we walked along to arrive here. A sign stretched across the gate reads, Closed.
“Maybe there’s another street that goes in a similar direction,” Sam says.
Without awaiting my response or looking back to ensure I am behind him, Sam walks away once more.
“No streets appear to run in the same direction,” I respond.
Sam nods while marching.
It occurs to me that I am merely following Sam. I do not know what to do with the thought.
The road twists, and we pass similarly twisting streets, all unique but also repetitive. Each has a mix of markets, bars, restaurants, florists, hardware stores, clothing shops, pharmacies, and other shops. But from block to block, these seem only rearranged. The sequence varies, but each is like a different version of the previous street.
Sam continues to turn, and I continue to follow until we have walked for exactly forty-four minutes.
I think back to the room—the constant wall pushing, window banging, knob twisting, key searching. Thirty-five days of doing the same, when the answer was a different approach.
“We do not know where we are or where we are going,” I say.
“This is exploring,” Sam answers.
“It all looks the same.”
“Do you have a better idea?” he asks.
We stare at each other. He awaits my response, motionless.
“It is hot outside, and I am thirsty. We could rest there and talk about what to do.” I point to a small restaurant on the corner of the next alley.
He nods, walks, and sits at an outdoor table. I trail behind.
“Where is the server?” he asks.
A short pudgy man appears from inside the restaurant. He is wearing a green shirt.
LIV: SPRING BREAK 3.3
The door chimes and Lana saunters in, wide-eyed, wearing pajama bottoms, flip-flops and her all-time favorite, a plain purple T-shirt with the words, Caution: Abibliophobic.
“Whoa. This place got an upgrade,” she says.
“Yup,” I answer, then lower my voice to a whisper. “What’s happening?”
The only thing I had time to do this morning was text her my login information.
“What do you mean?”
“Please don’t do this,” I say.
My eyes balloon as she reaches for her back pocket. She swings the phone in front of me, positioned so that I can’t see the screen.
“It’s very interesting.” Her voice rises while smirking and staring at the small screen.
I glance toward the office door. Still shut. I snatch the phone and turn it toward me. I nearly drop it. Breck and Sam are outside on a cobblestone street. I swell with pride. I’ve never felt this accomplished.
“Congratulations,” Lana adds as I stare at the two of them walking.
“Did you watch them leave?” I ask.
“Yup.”
“And? What was it like?” I ask with all the excitement a whisper can convey.
“Like someone trying to figure something out and then walking through a door,” she says.
“That’s an extremely unsatisfactory answer. I want more. Come on. Pretend it’s in a book.”
“Oh, okay. Let’s see . . . Breck strode across the room in a purposeful gait to the mysterious door. He pressed an ear to the cool surface and swore he could hear whispers of all the secrets that lay beyond it. His eyes shut. His body felt as if it melted into the deep blue barrier. Then, from beyond his lids came a flutter of light. And in an instant, he knew. His hand drifted to the hot knob. He gripped it tightly and turned. The doorway bowed to his desires.”
I look at her with the same disappointed expression my mother has given me several times today.
“Hot knob? Ewww.”
“He opened the door, okay? He looked at the light bulb, he monkeyed around with the door, he looked back at the cabinet a few times, and he finally figured it out. It was neat.” She grabs a shrink-wrapped package with a plush giraffe’s head dangling outside, holding it toward me with an inquisitive look.
“It’s a Stretch Pet. You wrap it around the edge of a computer monitor and a giraffe looks back at you. What happened next?” I ask.
“Oh,” she quips, feigning distraction, savoring this moment of leading me along. “Then he flew something that looked like a giant drone,” she adds, which confirms the chat board rumors. “How would he know how to fly that thing?”
“Base character programming. The same as if he saw a bike. He would know what it is, and he could ride it.”
“But he didn’t know what sleep was?”
“It’s a little random. He can’t know everything. He knows what he needs to know. And computer characters don’t need to sleep, so nobody thought to program that as base knowledge.”
“Okay. I guess that makes sense.”
“None of us know everything,” I add.
“So says you.”
“What’s a cuttlefish?” I ask.
“I have no idea.”
“Exactly. Because you have no reason to know. It works the same way for him.”
The back door opens and my mom enters. I try to subtly pass the phone back to Lana.
“Hi, Lana,” Mom says, then turns to me. “I see you got your tech fix.”
“I’m sorry, Mrs. Smithwick,” Lana answers.
“It’s fine, Lana. If I can get her off of some kind of device for most of the day, I think that’s a win.” Mom then redirects with a resplendent swoop of her arm. “So, what do you think of the store?”
“It’s looks awesome.”
“Two weeks of renovation. We reopened today.”
“How’s business?” Lana asks.
“It takes time. Word needs to spread.” My mom answers with a cagey expression, glancing at me, like her response is more for my benefit, then returns to Lana. “What are you doing this week?”
“Reading.”
Mom’s brows fold together as if wondering whether Lana is being serious, before concluding, “You girls need interaction. Real time with real people.” She turns and walks toward the back once more. “Look around. Touch. Explore. And if somebody comes in the store, sell!”
Mom disappears and I mouth to Lana, “It’s not going well.”
She shoots me a look.
I glance at the closed office door. For all I know, Mom has her ear pressed to the other side of it. “Let’s talk later.”
“Everything okay?” she whispers.
“I don’t know. Let’s talk more about Breck.”
She gives an uneasy expression but moves on. “What’s there to say. You rock! Congratulations, you did it. Or he did it. However that works. And, for the record, I told you I knew it was going to happen.”
“You did.”
“We’re hanging out tonight, right?” she asks.
“Say when and where.”
“I’ll let you know. My dad wants to talk about something first.”
“That sounds ominous.”
“Maybe, but he doesn’t own a toy store, so I have that going for me,” she says, then cranes her head as something piques her interest. “What’s that?” she asks, pointing to a table holding a rubbery sphere, half-capped with a disk surrounding it. “It looks like a planet.”
“That’s probably why they named it Saturn.” I’ve been eyeing it all morning, but I don’t have enough coordination to try it. “It’s like a hoverboard, but the ball is a magnet, so the cap floats over it like riding on air,” I say, pointing to this exact tagline on a box behind the device.
“I heard about that! The lacrosse girl from third period pre-calc posted about it. I didn’t comment, but I’m definitely trying it.”
“Better you than me,” I say.
“Let’s take it outside. I don’t want to risk breaking anything. Other than me, that is.”
I don’t know how Mom would feel about this, but she’s in the back and she told us to touch and explore, so this seems reasonable.
We’re soon in the parking lot with Lana strangling my shoulders as she places one foot and then the other on the rings that surround the sphere in alternating bands of color. She wobbles back and forth, as if on a tightrope, micro-shifting her balance several times per second.
Within a few minutes, she discovers how to creep forward, but still threatens to topple both of us.
“Hey, what’s that?” a voice shouts.
We both turn to look in the direction of the question, and as we do, Lana delivers on her threat. She goes airborne. The good news—she lands softly. That bad news—it’s because she lands on me.
“Can I try?” the same voice asks as Lana rolls off, affording me both breath and a view of an eager boy looming over me, asking for permission. He looks to be about fourteen.
“Sure.”
To Lana’s annoyance, he’s soon whipping around us in circles.
“This is cool! It’s like . . . it’s like . . .”
“Riding on air?” Lana says with a sarcastic grin.
“Yeah!”
He attracts the attention of a girl who drags her mother’s hand away from the direction of the CVS store next to us.
“Can I try it, Mommy?”
This same cycle repeats once more, though with some older guy wearing a suit and looking out of place.
As I watch all of this unfold, I stumble on a surprising insight. Maybe there is a way that I can help my mom that doesn’t involve me talking her out of this.
An idea forms.