Anne was lounging in the living room, in a spacious, cozy armchair, watching TV. It was about 4pm; Akos wasn't home yet. One of the stations had her favorite cartoon series going on. She was munching on an apple in the meantime (which has been her favorite, even without any symbols being involved).
There was a knock on the front door... only Akos knocked like that. She darted to the front door, turned the key, and ran right back, so that she surely wouldn't miss any important detail of the show.
In the meantime, her brother threw his snow boots into the corner, dropped by to say hi to her, climbed up the stairs and disappeared into his room. As usual. Not for long this time though: he reappeared again a couple minutes later, carrying a big ream of paper sheets. Looking like... he had something to say.
"Can you... later?"
"No. This is actually important. More important than..." Akos grabbed the remote from the table, and killed the TV with a well-placed button press.
"You're... so very classy when you do that... Even you would like this show though. You and your refined brains."
"Sure...? So, here is the thing I was talking about. If everything goes well, we could get in tonight!"
"... thing? And I can't go tonight anyway, I'm going to a party with Laci & friends!"
"What? You're not... serious..." her tone hovered somewhere between a statement and a question.
"But!" he continued. "We have the plan, we built all the devices, they've been packed into the car, we're leaving at 6pm" he declared, proudly.
"And... it's still my brain that you still want to... mess with?"
"Not... messing with it, it's more like... switching it on. I... have explained this once already, but..."
"Yeah, I know, they removed something from out of it, and, creativity, and math, and so on... and..." she paused, "what if I'm... okay this way?"
"What do you mean?"
"That... I don't need all kinds of... stuff, in addition. Sorry that I'm only saying this now, but, I'd rather not go."
Akos looked at her sister, surprised. He wasn't angry, no, just... surprised. He didn't expect anything like this. From her. Anne. That...
"Look. You don't have to be afraid. You'll be just more, with this" he started explaining, nicely, calmly...
"Why, have you tried it yet?"
"Almost. Or, actually... I don't know. Anyway... so why not?"
"Because... just because."
"Can I get something... more logical please?"
"Who cares about logic." She jumped up and stormed out towards the direction of her room, leaving Akos with all the printouts in his hands and all the convoluted thoughts chasing each other in his head.
They counted on everything... everything! Thousands of kinds of security systems, all sorts of code schemes, getting around all of these. And then... her... as an obstacle...
But no. After all, it's about her. Almost. If this succeeded, she'd be happy about it too.
But who exactly is "her"? If she says, right now, that she doesn't care, she doesn't want it, then... then no? Do they have the right to decide what she wants? And who is it who wants it? Which Anne? And if she doesn't either...
He slammed the bundle of printouts into the ground, and gave the nearest sofa an angry kick. They'll persuade her. Or... not. But it won't work without it. They'll need her for it too. So...
From her own perspective, she is right, after all. But... that's exactly the problem, that her perspective is stupid! Period.
He started walking towards his room in a terrible mood. He had no idea where to go from this.
It was halfway towards there where he ran into Anne again.
"So... um..." she started. Akos was looking in such a weird way at her. As if he wasn't even looking at her, but...
"Is this... important for you... why exactly?" she asked the question tentatively. "Because... if it is... very important..."
"Not for us; for you."
"So, actually, if you want to, like, a lot, then..."
"... so are you in? But not just because... us, right?"
"Well... what you're saying is... not all that stupid?"
When Akos left his sister's room, he already felt a lot more calm and reassured. He could finally explain everything to her. Of course, she was sometimes asking questions that he didn't even think could be not obvious. Like, when he started explaining what the elevator feels happy or uncomfortable about, she was somewhat surprised that it's now up to them to take care of elevators' mental wellbeing, too...
As for her sister's mental wellbeing: by the end of it, she has become actually curious about things. And enthusiastic. Not that she could understand all the things they were throwing at her, from the temperature dependency of voltage measurable on ferroelectric crystals to the wiring methods of security cameras, but... at least she understood why they'd need so many electronic gadgets.
"Yeah! And... that the whatever-I-don't-know function like this or that. He actually believes, even, that I'll get this. Also, he's like... exam's next week. Well, I'm like, what the actual..."
"... while having promised that the exam is the week after, right? Does he give you pop quizzes?"
"Sure he does! Once he did one like, if you don't get at least 30 percent right, it's an F. Ridiculous, right? And I guess he later realized that this is bullshit, and he stopped giving them out. And then we then persuaded him to just ignore the grades even for the existing ones."
"Ohh yes, in our class he did this sometime last year. And imagine this: there were some teacher's pet nerds who liked this even! Like, the quizzes... um, sorry, Anne, didn't mean you, I was thinking of... um, Geza. Seriously. Geza is an asshole. Right?"
"Well, if you're a math genius like her, you can't do badly even if you try..."
"What, I'm so definitely not one", Anne piped up, slightly hurt. "See, I got a D the last time, on that exam that Geza had an A+ for!"
"Sure, sure, we'll get used to it!", Laci Fenyes smiled at her. "See, math is not the most important thing in the world after all? Just think about it, this time last year you were still...."
"You know what we'll need more of. Vodka!" interrupted Steve, walking up to a table, full of various kinds of booze bottles, and started splashing some kind of liquid into a row of tiny plastic cups. The fluid, smelling somewhat like hospital disinfectant to her, disappeared into the guys' throats in a few moments.
"Actually, Anne. You mentioned the last time that... you'd be up to trying how milk-cola-orange vodka tastes like. We now have all of the ingredients! Not giving you a lot, just in case it... doesn't want to stay in. Steve, remember that great class trip with the camp site and the tents? By the time we cleaned that one up..."
While he was talking, the mix was nearing completion. "And because we all know that drinking alone sucks... here is beer!"
Anne started sipping on the concoction, the others on their beers. "She is a good sport", someone added. Laugther. Anne smiled.
At the agreed-upon time, the elevator door opens. It's Akos and Aladar, standing inside, with sizeable backpacks. Anne steps in, behind her the spacious, empty corridor, with the rythmic thumping of music filtering through from the other end. The door closes.
"We got the infra projectors?"
"Of course. And... you've got the BX13?"
"Sure I do. Also, by the way: have you noticed that you have a screwdriver sticking out of you?"
"Oops. Indeed." Aladar stuffed the tool back to his coat pocket; they continued talking. Anne didn't understand a single word of it. But... she wasn't paying too much attention anyway. She didn't know how much time has passed; it felt like a lot.
Suddenly, someone pokes her from the side. She shuddered, then opened her eyes. Elevator doors open, the dark corridor was lit only by the green light filtering out.
"Don't fall asleep; we're almost ready to go. You didn't drink anything, right?" Akos asked, with some concern in his voice.
"Well... no."
"Good." Akos stuffed something into his pocket, then stepped outside, helping Aladar, who was crouching on the ground, setting up a strange piece of equipment. It was cold and dark; she was leaning against the elevator walls, they were a little warmer. She was, still, shivering.
A lot of time passed like this. And then... Akos showed up in the elevator door again.
"Come. All good so far."
They traversed dark corridors, lighting them up with torches emitting red beams of light; sometimes, scary lights jumped forth from dark corners. She was following Akos and Aladar, closely, so that she doesn't get lost, because then... Then they got to a larger place, the two boys got busy doing something again; computer screens and all kinds of mysterious, metallic, white, sharp-lighted contraptions. On one of the screens, she saw something that felt familiar, but she didn't know what, because it disappeared... She was staring into the darkness... but it was just cold and quiet. She sat down on an office chair that someone must have forgotten to put away, waiting for feeling a bit better. That vodka thing, maybe... no, she needed to. She'll... get used to it.
She was thinking about things though, sometimes. Once, for example, she realized that her thoughts meet her neural pathways in her stomach, and that's where they are supposed to coil up onto each other, but now there is some issue, and they can't coil up well enough, and they got all tangled up, and this is very bad, so this is why her head hurts. So now they'll need to suck everything out of her head, and they'll lay out the threads of her brain onto a table, and sort them out with tweezers. And it's so cold, and the tiny, thin, flexible threads are now rigid and the tweezer is so hard... and then the entire thing will be put into a big centrifuge, which will coil it up again, and push it back in, together with some white-ish liquid... but oh no, they left some detergent in it, and it will dissolve everything if they don't switch it off! And...
She woke up without any transition, suddenly. She felt almost giddy with relief, concluding that her head is still in one piece. Only a moment later did she notice how cold it is. Or where she was.
"Look. We'll put this white thing on your head..."
Akos and Aladar were standing next to a large, sofa-chair-like contraption; above it, in the shadows, the outlines of a large, spherical object could be seen, with a lot of wires hanging from it.
"Don't worry, everything will be OK, you'll see", Akos added.
Anne looked around, and started, haltingly, walking towards the chair, glancing up to Akos, to Aladar, but mostly staring at that white entity. She looked like as if... she didn't even know where she was. She sat; they were busy with things, computers, cables... even, somehow, her own voice, from somewhere...
Fatigue started catching up with her, again. She closed her eyes, but then forced them open again. She had vertigo, too, a bit, as if she were about to fall over. Events in the outside world couldn't hold her attention for long, despite her trying to concentrate. She was so tired. So very tired.
"... let's tune the..."
"... this will be surely good, we just need to change the modulation..."
"... she had said we could try it..."
"... is this the best time to...?"
Shadows lurked, around the door. Getting closer. Slowly. Two. Three. Many. They were coming, closer and closer. Above them, an EXIT sign; why is the door symbol on the right of the word? No, she can't close her eyes, she'd fall asleep...
Aladar was typing something on a keyboard, and then turned to Akos, to ask him about... and bumped into someone. He froze. Suddenly, around them, out of nowhere... Laci and his friends! What are they doing here??
"Relax" Laci started, stepping forward from his crew, consisting of just a few people. "Glad you came, doing us the favor of disabling every single security system. For the longest time, we've been really curious about..." he gestured at the screens and the large, cube-shaped machine, "what this actually is. Now, thanks to you..."
"... us?" Aladar said. "How did you know that..."
"Does not matter. I think it would be a great idea for you to, say, head down that way", he pointed at the restrooms symbol towards the end of the corridor. "Surely they don't have cameras in there...?"
Laughter from the rest of his group.
"Ohh, one more thing. If you try doing anything... questionable, we here were just... 'attempting to stop the unauthorized intrusion'. Any questions?"
Akos concluded, in despair, how their entire glorious plan just crumbled to dust. Bastards! But... what did they get wrong? And how can they fix it?
Laci & company were still better than the security guards. And just as they said... all they need to do is flip on a single light switch... topple a single infra projector... and...
"But... this is... really important" he interjected. "Anne is here too, exactly because... seriously. We'll show you what the Cube is, if you don't know it yet, it's OK, just give us ten more minutes... or... half an hour... or..."
"Eventually." joins in Steve. "Maybe, you'll get some. If Steve's Elite Nuclear Special Forces gives such a command. Such command has not been given. Meanwhile, I have gained authority to decide over every non-booze question as Deputy Imperator. But... maybe I'll organize a coup and I'll be Chief General or something. Comrade Lord Prime Minister. If he ends up being totally wasted. Which is, actually, pretty likely. We'll... discuss. Later."
In the end, Laci was fine to pick a records archive room as their area to stay in. There was an entire guard squad, escorting them here, now armed by flashlights glowing red... Laci was following the procession, drunk with victory; he then returned to the others, handing out commands, even staging a little presentation about, about their own very systems, what is OK to do and what isn't... as if it was him figuring out how to neutralize an infrared camera. But how does he know? How???
"So. Now everyone knows everything, right? Except..." he pointed at the black cube, "what this thing is. We... do have some bits of intel though. My dad's company, as far as I could figure it out, put together some virtual world of some kind. This will end up being... either a movie, or, more likely, some stupidly impressive game. Which... we'll now get to try out."
Laci jumped down from the large, black machine, and headed towards a terminal. Others also followed his example. More beer and vodka surfaced, too ("you should absolutely not spill even a tiny amount of it anywhere, so drink it very, very carefully").
This was when he noticed Anne, who was still sat, huddled up, in the armchair.
"Well... any enthusiasm here? Was it the cocktail that was a bit too much? Come on, out of all people, you should really take a look at what we found here, after all... Are you feeling OK?"
"Doesn't... matter? It's... so... cold... or not really, but..." she finally spoke up, quietly. Then, she continued just gazing blankly ahead.
"Well... your hands are indeed very cold. Hey, does anyone have a sweater or something? ... OK sure, I'll come and we'll figure it out... great, thanks. So... What's the matter? Don't worry about your brother too much, they are just curious about the same stuff as we are. We'll show them around too, eventually. Actually... we could possibly let them out soon, once they have gotten used to the situation in there? You did everything great, by the way. Sorry, I have to run now, will be back soon!" He gave Anne a friendly pat on the head, then joined the others, absorbed into fiddling with the terminals. A bit later, someone showed up, pressing a bottle of vodka in her hand. "It's from Laci", he said.
This made Anne feel a tiny bit better (and it wasn't that cold anymore either). It was a good idea, to have done this, after all. Right? And... he didn't say a word to anyone, about the brain machine thingy. He'll explain Akos and Aladar that... that she didn't really want this entire thing to happen, but...
In just a few moments, her thoughts returned into the same circle, where they have been spinning for who knows how long. Like... like how the world was just... flowing forward... and worse and worse things kept happening... first Akos and this scary, alien plan, but... there wasn't a better option, and what should she have told them... and then Laci & friends, with that concoction... which... which wasn't even that bad... yes, it was tasty, actually... well, at least this is how "tasty" tastes like, apparently... it is supposed to... she just hasn't gotten used to it yet. And then... there was this idea, what if... Laci and his friends saved her somehow? Back then, they were so nice, and understanding, and it sounded like such a great idea... and... then she told them... and gave them a printout of the symbol, even... and things just then... flowed into this. It's not her fault... There is no way... but why is everything so bad then?
She was quietly sobbing, alone, for a long, long time. Laci has disappeared, too. It's as if they found something, and were excited about it... But what if they break something now? Laci is talking about some deletions, and how it crashed... But it's all the same anyway now, everything is just bad, in this terrible, dark world, Akos will be angry, Laci and the others will hate her too, and nothing will ever be the same, like before, when....
Her gaze, blurry through all the tears, wandered onto the object above her. She shuddered. If she puts this on her head now... then... surely something really bad will happen... or not, but it doesn't matter anymore anyway... Maybe, she won't be thinking about these things then, and anything is better than thinking about these things... Akos wanted this to happen too... and... actually, maybe she wants this too...
And what if... what if she is actually missing something? And... and now... maybe it will be fixed?
She stuffed all her soaked tissues back into her pockets, knelt up in the armchair and started pulling the white sphere downwards. It didn't move easily; after all the futile efforts, she burst into tears again, but she kept going. Finally, success: she could now reach it with her head, even while sitting. She then looked around: Laci's crew were shooting at each other in some video game, laughing loudly on occasion... Akos & Aladar somewhere on the corridor... her, alone. She was still afraid; she was staring at the contraption, towering above her, even taking some of her space. On one side: a red switch. Slowly, she extended her trembling, cold arm, towards the switch; she pushed it, and, clenching both her hands into fists, she slowly pulled the helmet onto her head. A few tears rolled down her cheeks, but otherwise, no effect.
Then... something indescribable happened. As if she flew through herself, into all directions at once; rays of light, thin as nails, flew apart, rotating, swirling, then they came together, some strange medium was surrounding her, the light rays gave a sound like bells ringing, and everything smelled like as if you mixed cranberries with... banana... or... like machine oil... as if she was dreaming...