The only area open enough for Mike to cram into was a narrow mess of abandoned spider webs. Empty nets laced back and forth in the crawl space, which was only wide enough to squeeze into. He took in a deep breath and instantly regretted it. The dry air drug its way down his throat and sucked the moisture out of his lungs. His body wanted to cough but he held it. Coughing, like most reactions in life, would only make things worse. Against sense, common and uncommon, and for nothing more than a paycheck, Mike leaned forward and wedged himself into the space.
No wonder the spiders left; nothing should have to live like this.
With each scoot, he felt the coarse concrete scrape his back and electrical components poking in on his front. Either way he leaned, forward or backward, caused pain. Some part in the back of his mind hoped for some balance between the two that he knew did not exist. So he took turns leaning forward into the jutting electrical components, and back against the concrete as he scraped along the narrow crevice. He switched whenever one side got too uncomfortable; which was every dozen seconds or so.
When he’d finally found a rhythm, a strand of spider web brushed against the back of Mike’s neck and his body jerked into the components in front. Mike sat there wedged in, trying to figure out if he was hurt or just in pain. He asked himself, a question that had been popping up in his mind more and more often lately
How did I get in this mess? Was it one wrong and terrible decision, or a series of small ones that landed me where I am now?
The crawlspace was underground. Probably. It was hard for Mike to be sure, the building was so large he’d lost track of how high or low everything was. He looked back at how far he’d gone in, how far he’d have to go to get back out. After doing the math in his head, he decided to keep moving. I’ve always hated math.
The further in Mike made it, the tighter everything felt. His back and face burned. Beads of sweat dotted his legs and back. Bright industrial strength light above that cast deep, sharp, shadows over the electronics that poked into Mike’s front. The light was unnatural and off-color. He felt uneasy just being in it, like his body was absorbing something harmful.His throat was too dry to breath and a spider web was stuck on the inside of his collar and he couldn’t get it out. This isn’t worth it, I can’t be here, I need to get the fu-
Dispensing anxiety relief.
The biochip’s voice came from everywhere and nowhere. Biochips had been adopted near universally for over half a decade. They were capable of monitoring a user’s vitals, and could diagnose and treat most biological issues within moments. After a few seconds Mike felt the tension melt away. Reality shifted back into its rightful slot. The interesting and unnerving transformed back into neglected and sad. The light didn’t feel unnatural anymore. It was just old, made by the cheapest bidder and installed by an underpaid contractor.
Norms reestablished, please make your way to a more open, less life-adverse environment.
Disable alerts. Mike cut off the voice with a thought and it went away for the time being. It always came back. He didn’t mind some of the alerts, but he hated the out-of-context advice. It was like a GPS telling him to turn left over and over again, when left wasn’t an option.
With the voice in his head out of the way, Mike finally got around to the reason why he was stuck between a rock and a sharp place. To locate and fix a mechanical relic; A machine forgotten by time. He shifted forward again and a strand of spider web brushed against his nose. This time the scream came out.
“What’d you say?” a woman’s voice bounced around before finally making its way to Mike.
I’d really hoped she hadn’t heard that.
“Is the light on?” Mike yelled into electrical components and could only hope he was heard. The tech had been fully engrossed in her social media feed when he’d tried to talk to her about fixing the machine. She’d nodded and ‘sured’ her way through his explanation of him getting in the crawl space, and stifled a yawn as he mentioned her mission essential job of watching the machine for any changes. No part of their interaction had inspired confidence, but Mike had a job to do so here he was.
He started again, “Is the light off or-”
“I don’t think so.” She echoed back.
Her actually responding caught him off guard. It took him a second to register what she said.
Doesn’t think so? It’s on or off, where is her thinking supposed to factor into that?
Mike couldn’t think of many ways to ask her what she meant without ending the sentence with ‘you idiot’. So he took what his third grade counselor had called a ‘calming breath’; he pulled a deep drag of air in through his mouth, my throat feels like it’s full of cotton. He pushed their air calmly out his nose, I can feel every individual hair. He opened his eyes and tried to take in his surroundings with a fresh perspective. That didn’t do shit.
“On or off?” he choked out.
“I think it might be really dim?” Echoed back at him.
“I think you might be really dim,” he muttered.
“What?”
“I said, if it doesn’t look on, it’s not on.” He took another not-so-calming breath, “So, is it on?”
“No.”
Then it’s time to get to work.
Mike leaned back so he could get a wider view of all the tech in front of him. It was all oversized and old. Some parts wouldn’t look out of place in a museum, the rest would have looked more at home in the garbage. Mounds, cylinders, squares of plastic and metal. Everything was laced or peppered with coils. It looked like a post-post-modern art project where the artist was trying to see how much they could get away before being called out on their shit.
He grabbed one wire with a ‘’do not grab’ tag on it, and pulled down another one with a ‘’do not pull’ tag. They were just two of tens of different tags added by mechanics throughout the years; masters of getting a machine up and running however they could, and then promptly going home before the duct tape gave and their hard work fell apart.
Glancing over the panels, he could count the layers of mysterious notes, duct tape, and bad wiring like rings on a tree. Their legacy was left behind in historical accuracy.
They left a fire hazard, is what they did.
With both wires in hand, Mike let everything else fade into the background. There was something that made them stand out. Some clue to what he could do to get this pile of rubbish productive again, even if it was for a few seconds.These wires are new. He examined the wires and their years of wear, tear, and disrepair. They were a few decades older than he was.
Well, they’re newer than the rest. They don’t belong here.
They had a chaotic and unfortunate look to them. Like spray paint on a classic car. He cut through the wires and stripped back the protective plastic. Just as a precaution, he tested for voltage. He’d already cut the power off to the unit so there was almost no chance it could-
His instruments buzzed signaling they held a charge, strong enough to at least ruin his afternoon.
Hey buddy, if you’re listening, I could use some more of that anxiety juice.
Anxiety medication is on standby for the next 30 min- Silence alarms.
Mike inched his way deeper into the crawl space, following the wires. He did his best to keep his mind on his shirt catching on the electronics, and felt the concrete rubbing his back raw. For a moment he pictured his 7 year old self looking from the past, wondering why he was in a tiny crawl space abusing his body and breathing in death, instead of on a spaceship headed towards Mars. Judgmental little prick.
Eventually, out of breath and scraped up, he made it to where the wires entered a custom and roughly drilled in hole through steel paneling.
If he’d taken the time to wipe the years of dust and grime off of the note next to the hole, he would have read the words ‘’Don’t unplug,”
He unplugged the wires.
“Is it on now?” He called up again
“You’re sure about the dim setting?” She yelled from a much further distance.
“On or off?” He yelled louder.
“Off.”
That meant what MC had disconnected wasn’t the problem. Well, not the only problem.
He leaned back some more, really digging his back into the concrete, and looked around as best he could. Everything was worn and old, but nothing looked worn out or blown out. These things were made to last for every decade they’d been around. Most machines operate just fine until someone thinks there’s a problem, and tries to fix it until there is one.
He shuffled further down the concrete wall, struggling to keep from catching his clothes on the wires and whatnot on the panel. He felt every bump and groove in the tons of concrete pushing him in from behind. Which was strange because according to my ex-girlfriend, I hadn’t ‘felt’ anything in years.
She had a point.
Mike kept scanning the machinery as he edged along. Something else was off, but nothing looked off. There were signs of minor shenanigans but nothing definitively wrong. He scanned all the components, worked over every wire. It has to be here somewhere. Maybe…
He spotted an airtight sealed unit wedged between two large resistors; A small box jam packed full of tiny and hard to handle objects that had been spared exposure to the outside world since some minimum wage worker had crammed them together a lifetime ago. MC wiped the front of the unit down with his shirt. The words Do Not Open were written in large, clear, bold letters. For once he was inclined to agree.
But...
There was an almost imperceptible chance that something had gone wrong in the box. That its precise configuration had somehow flawed over the years. That the worker stuffing the jigsaw of parts into the box had sneezed and that phlegm had finally worked its way to clogging the gears.
There’s a chance, and everything else is right.
Opening a sealed box did not usually cause more problems than it solved, it always caused more. Opening one would be stupid, irresponsible, unethical, and according the the many labels on the box itself, illegal. But I don’t have a choice.
There’s always a choice, saying there isn’t is a way of excusing stupidity. Mike slid his thumbnail across the paper seal. The paper didn’t cut but shattered from age. He thumbed the latch that would flip open the box and expose it to the chaos of the outside world. Just a few pounds of pressure between perfect order and chaos. Aren’t we all? Here goes nothing-
“Wait,” echoed all the way down to the sealed box where Mike thumb slipped off the lever, “I think the light is on.”
Damnit, “Karen,” he called back and started to shuffle his way out of the crawlspace, “don’t press the button until I get out.”
“The button?” She hadn’t remembered him talking about the button. She’d gotten to the on and off light part of his description and toned out earlier.
“Yes, the button, wait-”
“Okay, I pressed it.”
There was a racket of gears latching, quickly at higher at first, then slower and heavier. Mike felt the percussion drum in his body and the strain building up behind… behind what? His head snapped left to catch a burst of air out of a valve, next to the exit door.
Time to get out of- The door promptly slid down and latched with a click, blocking the exit and cutting off the light. He coughed up debris and age that had kicked up into the air.
Karen, you’re ruining my life. He felt the concrete wall start to shift closer to the electronics. Ending! You’re ending my life! His feet slid forward, pushed by the wall behind towards the circuits, bulbs, and other assorted electronics rocking and buzzing in front.
Seriously, how does this thing have power?
The buzz grew louder and was joined with a grinding sound, like rocks being crushed into sand. Blue electricity arced over components and turned the air metallic. The world got smaller, tighter, and brighter. The buzzing rose higher and higher in pitch until it drilled into Mike’s ears while a dense beat of what had to be metal on metal vibrated his body. Each impact rattled his bones and made his skin itch.
There was barely enough room for his body now between the concrete and the electrical components. None of the electricity has arced into him yet, but he knew it was just a matter of time. His body jolted against the components with each beat, the concrete behind pressing in more and more.The pressure was more than he’d ever felt before; even more than when his father told him to move out and get a real job.
Right before the pressure became too great for his body to handle, and everything that was in, sprayed out in a mess of circuit damage that could never be fully repaired, there was silence.
The flashing, buzzing, beating, grinding - everything stopped.
“Karen!” his face was crammed sideways, with concrete on one aide and uneven components on the other, one stuck up his nose.
“What?” her voice echoed higher pitch in the narrowed space, and then she added, “Need me to press it again?”
“No!”
The concrete slid back and Mike inched his way towards the exit, desperate and less careful this time. Every second he expected his world to come to a crushing end. His tool belt caught on wires and without thinking he unlatched and left them behind.