Page 40 of Control

I watched the change…in you.

I wanted him to focus on me. I wanted him to come closer. I felt the resolve in my mind building as my hands pushed back into Reyna, signaling to her to retreat further into the apartment. I felt her grip on me loosen and heard her footsteps as she backed away. I imagined the confusion on her face, but didn’t focus on that, instead wanting to keep my eyes trained on the person in front of me. I wasn’t going to give him the satisfaction of making me feel small, scared, alone. I wasn’t going to let it happen to me the way it did back then. No. Not again. Not this time.

“I look at the cross,” I said to him, my voice finding its’ way back to me. A look of slight confusion came over his face as I spoke to him as if he was uncertain of how I’d managed to speak to him so quickly after I was racked with fear. I held my gaze on him, not breaking eye contact and not wanting to give him an inch on me mentally.

“What?” was all he could manage to get out to me. “What did you say?” He was confused, unsure of what it was I was saying to him. His eyes broke contact with mine long enough for me to, without thinking, reach forward and wrap my hand around the blade and squeezed down onto it. Shocked, Four stepped back but I held on firmly to the blade, the pain from it slicing into my palm severe.

“Then I look away,” I said to him, his eyes meeting mine again and still filled with confusion. I felt my legs become stable and the fear began to slowly flow out of my body. I could feel myself getting closer to my goal, an inner clarity that I so often sought when I was going through a hard depressive episode. I raised my hand up to eye level and scanned my fingers and my palm. I imagined what if anything that I could do with it if given a second chance to confront Will on that fateful day. I remembered the gun he held up to my head, the feeling of the cold steel pressed against my forehead. I imagined that same pistol in my hand, wondering how it would feel if I had managed to take it from him and turn the tables. I stared into my hand, a light digital flicker distorting my palm which took on a metallic color similar to aluminum. With each second, the vision became clearer. I could feel myself wanting to have that gun in my hand. A small disturbance partially distorted my hand for a split second causing me to blink rapidly. When I was able to open my eyes and look again, there in my hands, was that very same gun.

I felt its cold metallic form slide against the skin of my palm which cause me to reflexively grip it, my fingers wrapping around the barrel. I could feel the weight as it sat there in my hand. I stared at it for several seconds, wondering if I was imagining things. I had somehow, against the game’s programming, managed to spawn the same gun Will had used to threaten my life.

I looked away from my hand and back up to Four, the gun still extended in front of me. He stared back at me in what appeared to be a state of shock, him obviously knowing that what had just happened, me creating a working pistol out of thin air, should have been impossible given the safety protocols the game has in place. For some reason though, seeing the gun appear in my hand didn’t affect me the way I thought seeing something like that would. Instead of feeling a sense of awe, wondering how it got there, it felt almost natural to me, as if I had done something I knew I could do all along.

I stepped closer to Four without thinking, the fear having drained completely from my psyche. It had seemed that the dread I was feeling just moments before had somehow transferred over to him, his eyes shooting back and forth between my own and the gun. Four loosened his grip on the knife allowing me to pull it away from him, still not caring that the blade was cutting into my palm. I turned my head slightly, wanting to get a better look at his eyes as the fear gripped him. I didn’t feel any sense of power or satisfaction though. All I felt for him, in that moment, was pity.

With a flick of my wrist, I spun the gun around in my hand and gripped it by the barrel, letting the pistol’s grip face him. Stepping to him again, I pushed the butt of the gun up against his chest, offering it to him. My bravery having finally piqued only made me want to give him what he wanted from me. I didn’t feel that I should point the gun at him and hold him off as most people would do. I didn’t feel the urge to shoot him and put him down for what he’d done. Instead, for reasons I sincerely don’t understand, even to this day, I wanted him to take it from me.

“I give you the gun,” I said to him, pushing its’ grip harder into his chest. After a few seconds of confusion, I felt his hand brush against my own as he took the firearm from me. Sliding his finger behind the trigger, I kept my eyes locked on his, my stare unwilling to give him the satisfaction of seeing my fear again.

Once he’d taken hold of the gun and gripped it into his hand, I pulled on the barrel and lifted it to my forehead, pressing the muzzle against my skin. I gritted my teeth and pushed my head forcefully against the gun more, wanting to be sure he knew I was no longer afraid of him.

“I give you the gun,” I said to him once again, in a light and non threatening voice. I fixated on his eyes to the point where I could see the fear gathering behind them. It was as if he’d never encountered someone acting in such a way in his life. His befuddled stare couldn’t seem to comprehend what was happening between us. People like Four wanted and yearned to see the fear in someone else’s eyes as he trolled and tormented them, but I had managed to turn things around. I knew what I had just done to him and it was finally dawning on him. I’d taken away that satisfaction. I’d shown him that I was no longer afraid of him. In that moment, I’d show him that I had won. “Now…blow me away.”

It took me a moment to get my bearings, the dizziness from this teleport being much more abrasive than any other I’d taken before. I opened my eyes and saw nothing but white around me. The walls, the ceiling, the floors were all the same bright white. I looked around for something other than more white, but saw nothing else. I looked down at my hands and clothing and I was, thankfully, still there. There wasn’t even a cut or mark from where I felt the blade slice into my palm. Looking out into the white void with no visible light source was unnerving and strained my eyes so I kept my hands in front of me to avoid any vertigo. I turned around over and over until I heard a voice behind me.

“Ana,” someone said to me, causing me to quickly turn to look for them. Standing not more than ten feet in front of me was a man, older, maybe in his late 50s with salt and pepper hair with a full, well-groomed beard. The black suit he wore was form fitting and outlined his broad shoulders. It was freshly pressed, looking as if he’d gotten it back from the cleaners mere minutes ago. His shoes were black, shining as if freshly polished, and his feet where maybe a foot apart. His hands were clasped together behind him. I’d never seen him before and had no idea who he was. He stood there, letting me look him over, his expression stoic and calm.

“Who are you?” I said, dropping my hands back down by my sides. I could feel my chest rising and falling with each shaking breath I took. My heart was still pounding from the extreme stress of having Four Buttons coming after Reyna and I. It was then that I realized I wasn’t with Reyna anyone, protecting her our our would be assailant. “Reyna...Reyna!”

“She’s safe,” the man said to me. “I took both of you out of there before that player could cause either of you any harm.”

“Where is she?” I said, my eyes focusing intently on him. “What did you do with her?”

“She’s with Cris and the others,” he said to me. “They’re in Mustafa’s room. I figured any of those that were chasing you with half an ounce of sense wouldn’t dare chase her into his place.” He was right. Those who knew Mustafa and his crew knew they could be either the greatest guys you could ever know or your worst enemies. I’d only ever known Mustafa as a sweetheart and he always looked out for me so I knew Cris and Reyna would be safe with him and his friends. “I assure you she is perfectly fine. A little shaken up, but fine nonetheless.” I paused for a moment and looked this man in front of me over one more time to try and figured out who he was.

“Are you…Jazz?” I asked him. He shook his head. “Then who?” He smiled at me a moment and began to step closer.

“I’ve had many names,” he said, his hands still behind his back. I recoiled slightly as he moved toward me which caused him to stop. Seeing that I was still flush with adrenaline, he paused his advance and put his hands up, trying to show me he was no threat. After putting them back down by his sides and into his pockets, he continued. “Depending on who you ask, I guess you could say I’m…God.” I pursed my lips together and squinted my eyes and gave him a quizzical look. After a brief chuckle, he elaborated. “Maybe God isn’t the right word to use in this case. Other names I’ve had are The Creator, The Visionary, The Architect. To put it simply, I’m the person responsible for this entire world. Aurora is my creation. It’s my baby…so to speak.”

“You’re the creator?” I asked, still trying to figure out what was actually going on.

“I am,” he said. “Aurora is my dream come to life. I’d dreamt it up when I was still a child and kept it in my thoughts all through my teen years. I eventually felt it was something I wanted to pursue so I went to college and learned all about computer programming and how to build true to life, interactive worlds. I’d made a few of them, but none of them were quite right in my mind. You’re obviously familiar with sitting in front of a computer and playing video games. You’ve done that for a good portion of you life.” I nodded my head at him and he went on. “All of those games you and millions of others have played…they’re all great in their own way. You can be a wizard battling against ogres or you can be in space, piloting your own craft across the stars. All very fun and engaging for most, but I was never quite happy with them. Something was always missing for me. Even as a kid, I remember sitting there in my living room playing my old Atari 2600 and wondering if there could be more.”

“So you invented Aurora,” I said as my nerves began to settle down some.

“Not at first,” he said back to me. “In the beginning I wanted to make something similar to many of the other games you see out there today. Only I wanted it to be more than just sitting at a desk and smashing your keyboard or sitting on your living room floor with all your friends around while you and a buddy raced digital cars against one another. I wanted something more, something better. I wanted…something real. You see I went to school for more than just computer programming. I also studied things like computer hardware and interactive devices you could plug into computers. Eventually those interests expanded and before I knew it, I was helping to create hardware someone could place on their body and use their muscles to control another object. Over time, it became…much more sophisticated.”

“The headband,” I said, referencing what every player had to wear to bed in order to be able to enter Aurora.

“I invented the technology behind it,” he added. “The headband was not my first choice though. I wanted something I could physically embed into someone’s body, but that was far more difficult to construct and obviously not too many people would want something like that implanted into their heads so the headband was the compromise.” I stared at him a few more seconds, thinking he might try to keep expanding on his thought for which I didn’t have much interest in at that moment.

“Why am I here?” I said, redirecting him to my primary concern. “Why did you bring me here? What is this place?”

“Oh,” he said, looking up to the ceiling and around the room. “This place is basically a staging area. Think of it like the blank canvas you see before beginning a painting. It’s the area of a room one would see if we didn’t start you off with the default room interior.”

“So this is a room then,” I said. He nodded. “If this is a room, then why leave it like this, all white, blinding and disorienting?” He looked back at me for a moment and nodded his head once more.

“You’re right,” he said and in an instant, the room was populated with lighting, furniture, decorations, and everything else a regular room might have, only this was much more elaborate and customized. Taken aback by the sudden change of my surroundings, I felt as if I might fall over but managed to stay on my feet. Surrounding me now were the same things you’d find in the living room of a very rich individual.

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