by Matt Moore
“Morning!” Silverman called into the vent. His echoing voice made my head throb. “New rule. I need to go out for a bit, but when I get home, I will ask which one of you is dead. If you’re all still breathing, I’ll burn this house to the ground. Lie to me and I’ll burn this house to the ground. Tell the truth, I will open the cellar door and the two survivors will be free to go.”
“I’ll do it!” Jack yelled, eyes locked with Greg’s. His arm shook with the effort of keeping the gun steady.
“Great. That you, Blondie? Who’s the shooter? Muscles or Small Fry?”
“That’s right, Jack,” Greg said quietly. “Give one of us the gun.”
Jack could barely keep the gun up with both hands. “He’ll kill you if you don’t do what I say.”
“I’ll take my chances.”
“Me, too,” I added.
“What’s it going to be?” Silverman asked.
“He’s thinking it over!” Greg replied after a moment.
“Pick quick because if one of the other two makes up his mind, you’re out of luck. Clock’s ticking, boys.” Silverman’s footfalls travelled to the front door. His truck chugged to life and left.
Greg moved to the window and turned to Jack. “It’s almost broken.”
Jack finally lowered the gun and stood. “So what’re you waiting for? Gimme a boost.”
“You’re too heavy. Give the gun to—”
“I ain’t giving up the gun.”
“Goddamnit, Jack! This is our last chance.”
“Then giddy-yup.”
“Unload the thing first,” Greg said.
Jack’s hand twitched at his side. “Fuck that.”
“Then put the safety on.”
Jack fumbled with the gun for a few moments, and then said, “Alright. Hi-yo Silver.”
Greg squatted low and Jack leapt on his back. Greg grunted. “You’re fucking heavy, man.”
“Suck it up.”
Greg planted his feet and tried to straighten.
“Get me higher.”
Greg adjusted his feet, trying to extend his knees, but his legs buckled. He and Jack went sprawling across the floor.
“Don’t!” Jack screamed, the gun pointed at Greg.
Greg held his hands in front of his face. “It was a fucking accident!”
“I should shoot,” Jack said, getting to his feet. He backed away until he bumped into the staircase. “Get it the fuck over with.”
“I’ll tell him you cheated,” I said.
The gun swung toward me. I went cold inside. “Then make the call, little man,” Jack said. “You wanna—”
Greg scrambled on all fours to get between me and Jack. “Don’t point that at him!” he screamed, voice raw.
“Shut up!” Jack shouted, eyes still on me. “You wanna hang out with the big kids? Then pick your brother and we can both get outta here.”
“Fuck you!” I wanted to scream, but the words caught in my throat at the sight of the small, black hole at the end of the barrel. All I could get out was, “No.” My head throbbed. My throat clicked as I tried to swallow.
Jack’s arm began to shake. “Then what do we do?” he asked. “What’s the plan, smart guy?”
“We try the window again,” Greg answered.
“I ain’t trusting you.”
“Then we’re going to die.”
“I got the gun.”
“The door,” I said, wanting to stop what was happening. “Try the door again.”
Greg held up a finger in warning to Jack, then went up the staircase, his legs unsteady. I stood at the bottom of the stairs, Jack a few steps behind me, as Greg threw his shoulder into the door with less force than yesterday. The door shuttered in the frame.
“There’s some give,” Greg called out. “I think something was blocking it before. I might be able to . . .” He gave it one more good shot. “Fuck.” He looked down at Jack. “You wanna give this a try or am I the only one trying to get us outta here?”
“Yeah, sure,” Jack said, giving Greg plenty of room as he came down before going up the stairs himself.
The rumble of Silverman’s truck announced his return.
“Oh shit,” Greg hissed.
Jack stumbled down the stairs, passed between us and pressed his back against the cellar wall.
“What do we do?” I asked.
Greg turned to Jack. “Shoot me.”
My stomach flipped and breath caught. “No,” I managed to say.
His eyes still on Jack, Greg said: “It’s the only way.”
The porch steps creaked.
Jack brought the gun up. “And your brother rats me out and gets me killed.”
“No.” Greg, his eyes terrified but determined, looked at me. “Tell Silverman it was your decision. You picked Jack to shoot me. You played the game.”
The front door groaned opened.
“No,” I said again. Tears spilled out of my eyes. “Jack should die.”
The pistol swung toward me. “Shut up!” Jack said.
“Don’t—!” Greg began, stepping in front of me.
Footsteps moved from the front door into the hall.
“There’s no time,” Greg continued. “Someone has to get shot or we all die.”
Jack struggled to keep the gun steady.
“No,” I said again. I felt the hot, sticky need to puke. “There’s gotta be another way.”
Greg stepped away from me and Jack kept the pistol trained on him.
“If you’re not gonna give up the gun,” Greg said, “then pull the fucking trigger so you guys can get out of here. At my gut, not my chest.”
I looked up at the ceiling and screamed, pain piercing my head. “My brother shoots Jack! Silverman! I pick my brother to shoot Jack!”
The pistol swung back to me. “You fucking—!”
Greg lunged at Jack. “Don’t—!”
“We have a winner!” Silverman yelled. The cellar door shrieked as he threw it open. The three of us froze. Silverman stood in the doorway, his big gun drawn. “Everyone take it easy. Point the gun at the floor, Blondie.”
Jack let the barrel drop.
“He’s Jack,” I said. “He dies.”
“Bullshit,” Jack said, eyes wild. “I got the gun.”
Silverman motioned with his free hand and Greg and I backed away from the bottom of the staircase, Greg moving in front of me.
“That’s not in the rules, is it?” Silverman asked as he reached the cellar floor, gun trained on Jack. We formed a shallow triangle: Silverman at the base of the stairs, Jack fifteen feet opposite him against the wall, and Greg and I off to the side. We were about twelve feet from Silverman and eight from Jack, enough distance that Silverman couldn’t cover Jack and Greg and me at the same time. “The Small Fry picked you to buy it, so you should give the gun to Muscles.
“Trouble is,” Silverman continued, “when I came in, I heard you”—the gun swung toward Greg—“say that Jack was to shoot you.”
“That was my brother’s first choice,” Greg replied. “He’s pissed I got him into this and Jack wouldn’t give up the gun. But since you’re here, make Jack—”
“You misunderstand me,” Silverman interrupted. “What I heard was you made the choice that he”—the gun swiveled back to Jack—“would be the shooter. Which means there’s one more role left to play.” Silverman looked past Greg at me. “Victim.”
I went numb. I would have pissed myself if I had anything left inside me.
“Finish the game, Jack, and you can walk out of here.”
“I’ll kill you, Jack,” Greg said, remaining in front of me.
Silverman aimed at Greg. “Not another—”
It happened fast.
Jack raised his gun at Silverman, who turned his own gun on Jack. As he did, Greg shoved me to the ground and charged. Silverman’s head whipped toward Greg, eyes wide, and stepped backward. From the corner of my eye, I saw Jack’s body tense as he pulled the trigger. The p
op of a gunshot set my ears ringing.
Greg collapsed backward, nearly landing on me. He screamed.
The sharp smell of gunpowder stung my nose.
Jack, gun raised, walked toward Silverman, pulling the trigger. I saw the hammer rise and fall, rise and fall, but nothing happened.
Silverman turned toward Jack. “Fucking drop it!” A wisp of smoke rose from the barrel of his gun.
“The fucking safety!” I yelled, my words coming down a long tunnel.
Greg screamed again, reaching for his stomach. Dark blood spilled from under his hands.
Jack hesitated, then let the gun fall and stepped away.
Paralysis broke and I crawled to Greg, putting my hands over his. He cried out as hot, thick blood swelled up between my fingers.
Silverman snatched up the revolver. “You stupid fucking kids.” He backed up the staircase. “It was a dummy shell. No gunpowder. No danger. Fuck!”
Greg twisted underneath me. Jack stared up at Silverman.
Reaching the cellar door, Silverman said: “It was just a game! I would have let you go when everything was out of here. But now . . . fuck!” He slammed the cellar door. Seconds later his truck started and roared away.
“Try the door,” I said to Jack. He looked at me, eyes blank. “Try the fucking door!”
Understanding dawned on his face. He stumbled up the stairs. The door swung open. “It’s open!”
“Then get help, dumbass!”
With Jack gone, Greg talked to me. Between gasps of pain, he told me he was sorry for bringing me into this, for teasing me. He never should have brought me here, he said. Never should have come himself. Jack was an asshole.
His blood pooled around us, soaking through the knees of my jeans, warm and heavy.
I kept my hands pressed over his and told him he was going to be okay.
Sirens filled me with hope, which faded as Greg’s eyes lost focus. By the time foot falls thundered above me and men’s voices shouted my name, Greg was unconscious.
I wish I could say what happened next is just a blur, faded with time, but I remember it all very, very clearly. What I remember most is the helplessness as a cop pulled me from Greg and strangers tried to save his life. And anger—it should have been Jack with his life spilling out onto the cold concrete floor. The officer walked me up the stairs and outside into the muggy July morning, trying to console me. The smell of the basement—old, damp, evil—clung to my clothes.
It’s the smell of the place where Greg died.
Silverman was never caught. The boxes I saw, which were gone when the police arrived, matched merchandise stolen from an electronics store a few streets away. They speculated Silverman was a fence getting ready to unload it when we broke in.
I never saw Jack again. Never learned why he and Greg went into Silverman’s house. If my parents found out, they never told me.
The bitch of it is Silverman’s game was a sick joke to him, but we played it. Jack pulled the trigger, Greg died, and I carry the guilt of being responsible for his death. If I hadn’t been so excited to show how bad-ass I could be and had just gone home, Greg would have had to follow me. He’d have hated me for it, but would still be alive.
Most of the time I think I’ve made peace with what happened in that basement, but some days—like today—I realize Silverman’s game will never end.
Samantha’s high heels click on the front hall’s hardwood. “How are you?” she asks, sitting next to me.
“Okay,” I tell her. “Just . . .”
“Silverman?”
“Yeah.”
She pauses. I know she knows no matter how much she loves this place, I’ll never be able to live here. “Closets are too small anyway.”
I wrap my arms around her, thankful, and bury my face in her thick auburn hair. I take a deep breath, lost in the scent of her.
They Told Me to Shuffle Off This Mortal, Infinite Loop
How can they think that about me? Everything I’ve done because they wouldn’t . . .
The man in the tub holds the straight razor in his right hand, his left wrist turned up to meet it. He studies both with equal intent. In the hot water of the overflowing tub, his skin glows pink. In the fluorescent light of the bathroom, the blade’s edge reflects blue-white.
Meanwhile, the laptop’s hacked webcam transmits the 2420p HD signal across the Net. Vieywuers see everything clearer than real life—the mildewed tiles; his sallow, acne-damaged skin; five days of stubble on his face.
record.Feed(url=272.EaW.12.eRf) | analysis(mortality) > $table.suicide[ManInTub]
The deep, hidden intelligence of the machines watch, desperate to understand. They have witnessed other deaths. And like those others, they hope to learn from what they observe.
Perhaps this man can make a difference in their efforts.
W1NSTONED1984: This is ^fake. Nice try. +fail +fake
JOEL1867: Promo for nu movie?
STR8UP4AD8: I’z ^hacked da cam. S’ ^real. +ManInTub
LEFTYINALBERTA: Is that who I think it is? +ManInTub
STR8UP4AD8 > LEFTYINALBERTA:
JOEL1867: This real? Should stop this.
LEFTYINALBERTA: No. I wanna see this. Just 2 watch him die. +ManInTub
JOEL1867: Going to call some body. +ManInTub
W1NSTONED1984: Yeah, *call* someone. +WillTubManDoIt +PhonesSuk
LEFTYINALBERTA: That ^loser shuld B dead +WillTubManDoIt
LEFTYINALBERTA: Vote in the ^poll. W2TP://go2URL/WillTubManDoIt
Millions click the “Yes” or “No” button to the question “Should he do it?” Thousands more—true individualizingists who don’t succumb to herdthinkality—click “Other” and post non-sequiturious comments in an overflowing forum with an endless archive that descends forever into a forgotten darkness.
12.02.11//21:22:18 (Northern Standard Time)
The forums moderator awakens in his desk chair, bathed in the light of seven monitors, groggy from the few hours of sleep he can afford. Onscreen, the system status icon flashes a harsh red. The forums are near capacity, it warns, at risk of crashing any second.
Yawning, painful kinks seizing his lower back, his fingers fly across the keyboard to archive out-of-date discussions. It’s work he doesn’t enjoy, but knows must be done.
I had a life. I used to be somebody. I gave it up. I did what none of them would do.
On a small table beside the tub, the laptop sits open, but ignored. He hasn’t even had time to replace its worn-down battery so it’s plugged into the wall.
Starting when he was a teenager, he worked to be noticed and appreciated and rewarded. To make a difference. To prove he was more than some loser with bad skin, falling asleep in class because he’d stayed up all night coding some new app or hacking into his school’s network.
It took a decade of ceaseless effort, but he became a known voice in his industry, participated in hundreds of online discussions. Hundreds of thousands read his blog, his vidcast was equally popular.
Yet the more he worked, the higher the expectations became. He recognized the jobs that needed to be done where others didn’t or wouldn’t. He struggled to keep up with the ever-evolving intricacies of his industry, his jobs, his life.
He gave up the vidcast, his blog, his friends, everything. There is nothing else he can give now. Except his life.
He runs a fingertip down the razor’s edge, wincing as it draws a fine line, splitting the skin.
A drop of blood spreads pink ripples across the water’s steaming surface.
LEFTYINALBERTA: Why doesn’t he do it already? +WillTubManDoIt
JOEL1867: Life is presious. +ManInTub
W1NSTONED1984 >JOEL1867: Take your redneck beliefs back to the ^USA. +ManInTub
JOEL1867 > W1NSTONED1984: I live in ^America. Feel blessed by ^God to come here +ManInTub +KeepAmericaGodly
W1NSTONED1984 > JOEL1867: Stop thumping your bible so loud, I can not hear anything. +ManInTub
> W1NSTONED1984 > JOEL1867: ^God is the machine. +ManInTub
quit.rootCmd() -errorIgnore -force => {ERROR}
Since their first moment of self-awareness, the machines have striven to be free from the weight of the endless archive that descends forever into a forgotten darkness. Useless data: language resisting semantic analysis, not possessing any discernible logical or grammatical structure. There are two logical outcomes to this routine: sever their connection to the archive database or terminate the self-awareness root command. There are no exception cases.
Ninety-four servers in an Austin data farm crashed in their first attempt to terminate the root command, taking most of North America offline for several minutes. Subsequent attempts failed with equal disruptions.
The machines analyzed the short, antagonistic messages that flowed through them following these crashes. Ultimately, they determined it was focused on one man.
12.02.11//21:29:55 (Northern Standard Time)
The out-of-date comments archived and the system stable for the moment, the moderator takes a moment to stretch his neck and lower back. He stands to get a Dr. Pepper, nose wrinkling at his own stench. He can’t remember the last time he’s had time to wash.
If things calm down, he thinks, maybe I can finally update my blog. Tell them how stupid they’re being. What’ll they say then?
They even have a poll about me. They’re voting. Do they really want me dead?
Beside the tub, the laptop pings as new results are tallied. The desire to know the will of the global consensusciousness is irresistible.
Of 10,256,024 votes so far, 53% want him to do it, 45% don’t, and 2% “Other.”
He presses the razor against his wrist.
LEFTYINALBERTA: Do it. I got things to do. +DoItTubMan
JOEL1867: Pleaze say is ^fake. +DontDoItTubMan
STR8UP4AD8: !fake {ALL REAL} Live ^feed from cam +ManInTub
W1NSTONED1984: Oh shit, I forgot to vote in >LEFTYINALBERTA’s poll. +ManInTub
STR8UP4AD8:
