The Wounded World

Bootlegged Controls

It was excruciatingly green, the kind of green that makes you want to squint with its brightness, its vividness, its greenness. So Quin squinted, and as he gazed at the sight in front of him, other colours began to appear – some browns, some greys, little black hovering dots, and one vibrantly red stripe that carved down the middle of everything. The entire planet floated before him, in a bubble of grey – it appeared that the so-called 'clouds' which they had looked at from the surface of the planet were, in fact, the walls of the inter-dimensional space in which the planet floated.

The room that they stood in was a planetary-development control room. It was different than the ones they used at the Globe; those were crisp and clean, the very definition of modern technology, but this one seemed to have been cobbled together from used and broken parts. Wires were visible everywhere, and keys had broken off the keyboards. Motherboards for the computers were visible, not safely hidden inside of their casings.

"A bootlegged control room," John noted coolly, a thin smile crossing his lips. "I would have thought you could have done better than this, Dad."

"It wasn't necessary," Grise replied, ignoring John's pompous tone. "I wasn't planning on having many visitors."

Quin glanced behind him. The guards hadn't followed them through. Landon stood awkwardly next to a computer, looking back and forth nervously from John to Grise.

"Take a good look, Quin," Grise continued, "because this is your inheritance. All the money your mother left, all the money I earned from my inventions, all the money I've put aside for you over the years I poured into this wonderful, beautiful—"

"Horrifically stupid idea that's about to blow up in your face and several thousand million other people's faces!" John interrupted harshly. "How could you do this? I mean, you've clearly been working on this for years, for a long time! But it only took me a few days of wandering around aimlessly to figure out what a mess you've gotten yourself into! If you don't get this thing into orbit, Dad, it's going to tear itself apart at the seams. And the polylocus Doors! What on earth possessed you to invent those?"

Quin watched as John's face got redder and redder and his voice louder and louder.

"You know what happened to Antony's planet – I know you do! It's not like you haven't been around the block a few hundred times or so! So what do you think will happen with these new Doors? We can't possibly develop risk management scenarios for every single Door in the universe! It's impossible! You know what, Dad, you're insane, completely and utterly insane," John gripped his hair with his fingers, "but for some reason, I think I'm going to end up saving your sorry ass, and then you know what? You know what? You'll get away with it. Because that's what you do. Get away with things. Yeah."

John's voice petered out slightly as he gazed at the planet below. "And... and, just tell me – exactly how much time do we have?" A sudden quaver appeared in his voice.

Grise took a deep breath. "Well, you've come just in time. I'd estimate approximately two hours."

John fell over – quite literally fainted.

Quin didn't move, but stared angrily at his father. Out of his peripheral, he noted that Landon took a nervous step backwards.

"Why?" Quin asked harshly. "Why did you leave us messages, hoping that we would come and find you, while risking the lives of millions of people, assuming that we would make it here in time and be able to fix your bloody idiotic mistakes? Why didn't you just ask?"

A sad look crossed Grise's face. "I didn't think you would come," he said. He turned to gaze at the planet below them. "I thought you would be too angry. About your mother. About me. About you."

Anger was the tip of the iceberg of Quin's feelings. He was angry, yes – furious, in fact. He was also sad, disappointed, and violently, crushingly afraid, in a way he had never, ever experienced. He clenched his fists and began to take slow, deep breaths. This issue was no longer about him and his father. It didn't matter what he thought or how he felt. All that mattered was that they solve this problem and spare the lives of millions of people from his father's arrogant idiocy. And it appeared that the responsibility for this this nightmare now lay at the feet of him and his unconscious genius friend.

"I am angry," Quin stated. "At you."

He bent down and began to slap John's cheeks gently. John groaned and his eyelids fluttered.

"Wake up." Grabbing John's shoulders, Quin shook him.

"Don't want to," John muttered. Then, all of a sudden, he sat straight up and began talking. He didn't seem to be any worse for wear. "Less than two hours. Damn. Dad, you're an idiot. I need paper, chalkboard, something. Tell me your whole process. Where are your numbers? I need everything and I need it as fast as you can possibly give it to me. Actually, that's not true. I already figured out your base structural components – or something close to them – back at Meriym's house. Did you build a moon? What star system are we going to? I need your Faucet Numbers and the linear equations you used to graph the geographic infinity codes. And you better hurry before I run out and hop on a plane into the middle of a desert somewhere!"

Grise didn't say anything, but simply gestured to Landon. The young man stepped forward timidly and handed John a book.

"It's all in here?" John asked. "How convenient." He flipped it open and scowled. "Grise Franklin Black. This is in CODE. How the hell am I supposed to fix all of your problems and figure out how to read your bloody code in less than two hours?" He turned and angry stare towards the old man.

"Oh, Landon will help you. That's why he's here," Grise said nonchalantly.

John turned to look at the boy standing over him. "You can read this?"

"Yes, sir," the boy replied.

John took a deep breath and handed the book back. "Fine, since we have no other choice. You hang onto this and stay close." He pulled himself up off the floor and turned back to Grise. "Okay, now where are the controls and how are you manipulating the switches? Also, Quin?"

"Hm?"

"Sorry, but we're going to have to get down to the surface as soon as it's programmed. Not sure where though."

"Temple, in the village past Meriym's," Grise answered. "I tried to make it easy." He then turned to a series of computers against the far wall and began to pull up some programs. After a moment, John took over, his fingers flashing on the keyboards and his tongue hanging out one side of his mouth. Landon stayed close, peering over John's shoulder, eyes riveted on the screens. Grise watched for a moment, eyebrows raised, and then stepped back to stand by Quin.

"He's good," Grise said. "Better than I ever was."

Quin didn't respond.

They stood in awkward silence for a few more minutes while John worked.

"Don't supposed you would want to come by for the Tree Festival this year? Thought we could look at some lights and then have dinner."

Quin still didn't respond.

After a few more minutes of awkward silence, Grise said, "well, I guess I'll see if John needs help then," and he stepped away from Quin.