Chapter 7

Daimon wondered for a moment if both Mr. and Mrs. Morlin were impaired. Mrs. Morlin's explanation made no sense, but then again, very little about his own life made much sense lately.

"So..." Daimon began, trying to process the story, "you're saying that Mr. Morlin... built a machine that...captured his mind?"

Mrs. Morlin winced. She knew how crazy it sounded. "Well...it did not begin like that, but ultimately that was the result."

"It's a little hard to believe."

She nodded. "If I had not lived through all this, I would be skeptical as well. My husband is a scientist, and when he claims something, it is usually true. I know it is...how do you say...hard to swallow?"

"But he's alive. He talked. His mind is here."

"Only part, a small remainder."

"Regardless, what does this have to do with me? Or my...sister's project?"

Mrs. Morlin nodded again, as if expecting his question. "You have questions you would like answered, yes?"

"Yes."

"But I cannot answer them. Again, my husband is the scientist." She looked at Mr. Morlin. His milky eyes were looking directly at her, as if spurring her on. She seemed to be speaking for him. "You have questions. I want my husband's mind returned. There is a way to kill two beards with one stone."

Daimon smirked. "You mean birds?"

"I'm sorry?"

"The saying is kill two birds with one stone."

Mrs. Morlin considered this for a moment, then smiled. "That makes much more sense!" She continued musing over the idiom.

"You were saying?"

"Yes. Help us retrieve his mind."

"What does that even mean?"

"Enter the machine he built. Find Timothy. Bring him back."

Daimon looked at the man in the wheelchair. The eyes were now firmly stuck on Daimon, making him feel uneasy.

"No offense, but won't the same thing happen to me as happened to him?"

A grunt escaped Mr. Morlin's throat. He was trying to talk again. " I..."

Mrs. Morlin walked to her husband, who was shaking imperceptibly, and pulled his head back three inches. Apparently, this helped him breathe and continue talking. The sight unnerved Daimon, not only because it looked so unnatural with his limp head being held in her hands, but also because he was imagining himself in the same helpless condition.

"...I..." the professor continued, "will...help."

Daimon considered the entire situation: the Excel attack, the strange jacket, the 618. He looked at the front door. He was used to saying no. To resisting and playing it safe. As a result, his life had become a stale job and an empty routine. He could walk out the door, back to a life that was safe and predictable, and depressingly so, or he could, even if for a day, indulge the wild fantasies of some strangers. What had he to lose? He hardly knew these people, so it was not as if he could embarrass himself in front of them. Furthermore, he had always liked Professor Morlin. It would be interesting to discover more about what he had invented.

Additionally, if Daimon left with no answers, what would he tell Eric?

Mrs. Morlin was right; Daimon had come here for answers. Besides, his curiosity was too insatiable. Then again, maybe these two people were just crazy. If so, maybe Daimon should see just how crazy.

"I'd like to know more," he said, though shaking his head in disbelief. "Show me this machine."

Mrs. Morlin's eyes widened. By contrast, the professor did not looked surprised at all. As Mrs. Morlin escorted Daimon downstairs, Daimon could not help but feel like he was in some twisted horror movie. He hoped he would not end up chopped into pieces and cooked in a stew while Mrs. Morlin wore his skin. He also hoped he would come out of this better than Mr. Morlin had, who waited upstairs, prisoner of his wheelchair.

"You must tell no one of this," Mrs. Morlin warned. "Not of the accident. Not the machine. None of this."

Her caveat actually soothed some of Daimon's concerns. Her hope for discretion meant that she expected Daimon to live through this.

A musty smell announced that they had reached the basement, that, and the metallic smell of hot wires, like that of an old heat register turning on during the first cold night of winter. Mrs. Morlin flipped a switch, and light revealed the scrapyard in front of them. Rainbow wires, metal gears, flickering computer monitors, copper tubing, whirring fans, and green, maze-like circuit boards littered the majority of the space as though a computer store had fallen through the upper floor. Although, after further inspection, Daimon noticed that the components were all connected. There was a system, even if Daimon could not understand it.

"This is the machine," Mrs. Morlin announced breathlessly and with a tinge of bitterness, as though she blamed it for all the recent hardship.

"It's still running," Daimon said, surprised.

"I was afraid to be turning it off," Mrs. Morlin replied. "After I found Timothy on the floor, I disconnected him, but when we discovered that part of him was still trapped in it, I did not want to take the chance of losing him, so I left it on."

Viewing the expanse of machinery, Daimon asked, "It must use a lot of power."

"When it is active, it drains much energy. It is sleeping now."

Daimon laughed quietly. He wondered what it looked, smelled, and sounded like when it was awake. It was definitely not a discreet contraption, LED’s flickering and fans whirring.

"How do you...enter...it?" he asked, looking for an interface.

Mrs. Morlin stepped gingerly over numerous parts, almost tripping over a swath of cords in the process. Managing to reach the other end, she raised up a massive shape connected to a river of wires, like a gigantic meatball with countless spaghetti noodles running off it. She turned it so that the bottom could be viewed. Inside the mass was a depression.

"It's a helmet?" Daimon guessed.

"Of a sort, yes."

"So, Mr. Morlin just stood over there, put on the helmet, and lost his mind?"

"Well, he was sitting actually. One loses motor control when it is active. It is like when one is asleep and dreaming."

Daimon started making his way over. "What exactly was this supposed to do in the first place?"

Mrs. Morlin looked at the single squat window that let in natural light from the yard. "Tim would be able to explain it better than I. It would allow information to be...transmitted...over very long…distances very quickly."

Looking again at the small zipcode of equipment, Daimon said, "Seems like a lot of work for a quicker internet."

"It is much more complicated than that, Mr. Camano. As I said, Tim will be able to explain it more precisely."

Daimon reached out for the helmet, but Mrs. Morlin pulled it away. "I need you to understand," she said. "While I appreciate your help, it is very dangerous. I want you to know that up in the front. The only reason I would even allow a stranger to help is because Timothy seems to know something I do not. I trust his judgment. I understand if you would like to take some time to consider this all."

Contemplating his backpack, Daimon said, "I don't know how much time I have." He inspected the wires feeding into the helmet. "After I put that on, what do I do?"

Mrs. Morlin raised an eyebrow. "I do not know. When Tim tested it the final time, it seemed instant, so hopefully it will not take much time. He will help you, as he said upstairs."

Uncertain as to how the handicapped man would do this, Daimon nonetheless carefully transferred the helmet from her hands to his. "No time like the present," he said, hoping they would not be his last words.

"Please, sit down," Mrs. Morlin suggested, clearing off a space on the concrete floor that would allow him to have his back against the wall. He wondered why there was no chair or gurney for this, but he assumed that practicing inventors had no time for such comforts.

Once settled, he lifted the helmet up, the wires slashing his vision into long, narrow strips of light. The concrete wall cooled his back.

"Once you put it on," Mrs. Morlin advised, turning on switches and tapping on a keyboard, "just relax. I will activate it and monitor you from here."

Daimon lowered the helmet onto his head, obscuring his vision completely and muffling most of the noise outside it. However, he did hear one last thing. From outside the helmet, he faintly heard Mrs. Morlin say, "Thank you."

Suddenly, the basement shuddered as though a massive bass speaker had been turned on. His cheeks and lips immediately became numb.

After a snapping noise, the universe disappeared.

Next Chapter: Chapter 8