Trapped Inside A Phone

Part 5 - Take The Money

       "How much is in there...?" they asked hesitantly. 

       "Enough," Xavier shrugged. "These are all hundreds and you can see the stacks. I just asked someone to fill it and they did."

       "I'm sold! Take the phone, take the house, take that nice vase over there, I don't care! I'm rich!"

       "Well that's one less person to worry about," I laughed. "Don't spend it all in one place!"

       "My money, my choices. Whoo!" I heard their sounds of glee slowly fade out and a door closing, so I guessed that Xavier was taking me somewhere else.

      "Alright, we should be good here," Xavier said on a lighter note. "Most people can't pass up that amount of money, not that they wouldn't take it. It's death if something goes wrong, or money for the rest of your life!"

       "I am a little sad to see them go though. Would've given them the adventure of a lifetime. But the whole death thing makes sense. So where are we off to now?"

       "I was thinking I should drop you off at the base for safe-keeping. Plus maybe see if we can give you some more room. It's probably cramped in there, not to mention if I turned it this-"

       "NO! Please don't! ...Also I should warn you, that if you take out the chip, it takes a little while for me to regenerate. It also hurt quite a lot when I got pulled out."

       "Did they use the safety remove chip feature or did they just take it out?"

       "They... just took it out..."

       "Good thing they didn't come with us! Next thing you'd know, they'd pull a sensitive, radioactive, clearly labeled, "DO NOT TOUCH", cylinder of green goo that science fiction has clearly warned us about; out of the holder without pressing the safety release switch."

       "Has this happened before?"

       "Yes." That was the last thing that was mentioned before the call signal finally turned off after a few minutes. I quickly started to get bored without anything to do and no one to talk to for the first time since I was trapped in here. I really missed their strange humor, even though it usually resulted in my own pain. After a while, the apps on the back wall changed revealing that Xavier was doing something. I waited curiously until I saw the settings app wall drop. From there it switched to a few menus eventually lighting up the "remove microSD" and everything turned black. At least it wasn't as painful as before.

       But just as fast as it turned black, a wider room lit up ahead of me. On the back was a bunch more apps, but a basic computer screen background behind it. I decided to explore my new living space and tried to figure out where would be the safest part to stand. Assuming that I was now in a computer, either the front or the back seemed safest. With the amount of pop-ups able to infinitely appear in front of the other, the front or back would have to extend whichever way. Using prior knowledge from the phone, the bright wall probably wouldn't move as it is the only screen to interact with. With that, I decided it would be safest to either be as close to the screen as I could, or follow the back wall as it extended. I sighed and started walking to the back of the room as I saw the lighting shift behind me. A cursor-looking-box was moving around just before the bright wall. Then another box moved out from the wall with what looked to be code on it. More was quickly written just as a webcam page appeared with Xavier standing really close over another's shoulder. It then grew to the size of the bright wall ahead of me, before collapsing again to a smaller size. I laughed realizing they probably couldn't see me if they were to do that. Even Xavier can make mistakes like that every once in a while.

       I gave a small wave which caused a smile to appear on his face, probably happy that I could see them at the same time as him seeing me. He tried to say something, but nothing came through the walls on my side. I sighed relying on my lip reading skills again.

       "How's the size?" I read from his lips.

       "Bigger," I tried to enunciate so he could read my lips in turn. He nodded and another coding wall appeared and disappeared after a few lines were written.

       "Now try to speak," Xavier spoke quickly, which took me a second to realize what he meant.

       "Uh... can you hear me?" I asked tentatively. He immediately perked up and started talking continuously at a pace I couldn't keep track of. "Wait! I can't read your lips that fast! I can't hear you on this side. I'm also not sure if we could use the same trick as we did with the phone with this." Xavier pressed his lips together, seeming to think about it before looking downcast realizing that I was probably right. "But hearing me is still a step up! I'm guessing my code puts me in as an application or browsing window, not sure what you've done with that or going to do." Xavier had a strange look on his face as he pushed the person off the chair in front of the screen over and started scanning through files. I felt some strange sensations in what I assumed to be my code as he pressed on different items in it.

       Next thing I knew, there was another me beside me. I stepped back from it in shock, but was relieved to see that my consciousness was still my own; for now at least... hopefully. The other me then suddenly disappeared as the cursor moved. The file window suddenly went through the wall to what seemed to be a separate monitor. I was worried to see what he was doing as his smile continued to grow. These are the times when I wish he was a bit more on the spectrum of normal. Then I remember that if he was, I would be trapped here forever. He gave a final look over to me before saying something to those around him and left the view from the camera. Soon enough though, the others there turned off the webcam and went to work on their own projects.

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