Glitch #ONC

Chapter Thirteen

Luke checked his phone with increasing frequency. He found moments when Melody was out of the room or distracted to view his messages. Nothing changed. The temptation to send a second message made his fingers twitch.

You sent it, he got it, if he isn't responding it is because he doesn't want to. Or he can't.

The second thought sent a chill up his spine. He remembered Alex's words and felt too desperate to sit still.

"Are you okay?" Mel paused her crochet work to look at him, "You've been getting edgier and edgier ever since your mother left. What is going on?"

"I'm trying to make a big decision."

"By your self?" There was a flash of hurt on her face that she quickly tried to hide.

"Thinking things through, weighing up the options, I want to have things clear in my head before I discuss them with you. I would waste less of your time that way." Luke felt his phone vibrate. His emotions dropped as when he realised it was just an auto-text from his bank.

"Can you at least give me the general idea, so I don't sit here all night worrying about what you might be getting yourself into?"

"I was thinking about Queenie," Luke checked his phone again to keep his eyes away from hers.

"You don't want to sell her, I can tell that much, but we need the money to keep the farm. The prize wasn't big enough to change that fact."

"I know." Luke turned the phone over so he didn't have to look at it. "And foals take too long, we would lose everything before it touched the ground."

"We don't need to sell her right now, the prize money and my side hustles can keep us for a while."

"Doesn't that make it worse, to know you have to do it, but make it linger."

"We are still talking about the horse right?" Mel put her half-constructed cardigan into the canvas bag beside her. "There's nothing else going on in that brilliant brain of yours?"

Luke felt the kick of guilt. 

Mel looked at him longingly, the glow of the ceiling light making him look workout. "I think it's been a long day, a good one, but long all the same. I'm calling it quits. Time for bed." She stretched and yawned.

"I'll follow you up in a minute."

"What are you doing?" She followed him into the kitchen.

"Just going to check Queenie's legs, can't sell her for top money if she blows a tendon." It sounded more bitter than he intended, but it also felt good to release the poison. It was like removing an unseen noose from his neck. 

Mel clicked the outside light on for him, turned her back and marched heavy-footed up the stairs. 

The mare wickered to him and trotted over.

His hand found her nose in the semi-darkness, warm and velvety. "I'm sorry, I cannot find any other way around it. It has to be done. I have to do it, as much as it pains me to."

She nudged his pocket, her lips toying with the fabric in search of treats.

Aware that people may be watching, he drew his hands over the mare. Slowly progressing down each leg to check for heat or swelling. All clear. He steadied himself against her as his tired body swayed. His plans would have to wait until morning. 

Dog tired, Luke lay in the darkness listening to Mel breathe and wished he could sleep. His body longed for it. His brain had other ideas. He rolled onto his side to stop the mattress spring from making his arm go numb.

A fox called out into the night, a sorrowful cry. It started a Mexican wave of barking from the neighbouring farms that spread out to the village. Luke lay there silently guessing the breed by the sound of the bark. 

The 'yappers' were harder to identify. With only slight changes in a tone indicating a smaller breed or a larger. The 'real' dogs have a more breed distinctive bark. There was a Doberman out there, two Staffordshire bull terriers and the last one sounded like a Labrador. 

An image of the old man and his dog filled his thoughts, suffocating everything else with a puce rage. His jaw locked in a grimace as he tried to keep himself from waking Mel. He couldn't lay there any longer, he slipped out of the bed and crept downstairs.

He didn't bother turning any of the lights on. With his arms outstretched he felt his way towards his armchair. Focusing on his breathing he tried to calm the storm in his head. It brought only glimpses of rational thought, enough to tell him he shouldn't but not enough to give him an alternative. He relaxed back in the chair and closed his eyes.

"I'm coming to get you," He whispered. 

His muscles bunched as he concentrated all of his thoughts into one coherent punch. The more he pushed the more it hurt. He used the intense burning to push his energy, his intention, further.

He wasn't sure what he would achieve with his attack, a part of him doubted it would do anything more than blow up every lightbulb in a three-mile radius. But he couldn't drop it, he couldn't let go. His mind drifted to Alex's dismissal and it poured petrol on the already roaring fire consuming him.

All at once, he felt the woosh, he had left his sim. He didn't drop into his body though. His consciousness, his energy kept pulsing forward at an incomprehensible speed. The director didn't stand a chance. Luke's energy went straight through him, creating a wave of interference until all at once he glitched out of existence.

Knowing he didn't have long before the director pulled the plug on him, Luke looked around. The desk, a mid-century victorian piece with peeling varnish on the legs, was cluttered with photographs. A picture of three individuals, two young men and a woman, all with the same prominent brow ridge and thin lips caught his eye. They appeared again and again in the glass. Graduations, all three from the same university by the silver and blue gowns.

Luke scanned the photographs for a moment. While the woman and the older brother appeared in several pictures with a string of children of their own, there wasn't a comparable one for Richard. 

Good riddance.

Remembering his mission Luke left threw the pictures on the desk and turned to the door. Shadows darted past the window, obscured by the blind. He tightened his grasp around the knob and pulled it hard toward him. People, at least ten, hurried down the corridor in both directions. None of them stopped to look at him or even showed a sign that they were aware of his presence at all.

Not wanting to stay still, he stepped out. As he walked he took in the names on the doors. Directors, sub-directors, division leaders. The last door to the left made him stop. Voices picked up behind him as he took the leap and let himself inside.

The room was impossibly large for the building it sat in. A large table stretched from one end of the room to the other, thirty chairs positioned neatly around it. The back wall was whitewashed and plain for the projector hanging from the ceiling.  Luke walked over to a stack of paperwork and skimmed the page.

'Progress report for improving genetic diversity in the low producing facilities of the united kingdoms.'

Without a second thought, he slipped the papers back and continued exploring. The clock by the door chimed the hour. Luke jumped and prepared for an attack by grabbing a discarded pen from the floor. With it held close to his face he checked out the monogram - AZM.

Mason, Morgan or McDonald, who do you belong to?

Images of each one of the doors flashed before his eyes as he rolled the pen between his fingers. The familiar voices from his nightmares closed in. It was as though they lingered on the other side of the door calling his name and cussing him out.

Time's up.

With trepidation, he snatched the top sheet of paper and hastily scribbled a note. He let all of his thoughts spill onto the paper in a mess of ink and slanted scrawl. Cold crept through his veins and the bite of the needles stole his breath. 

He folded the paper in half and tucked it under the filing cabinet. Pain shot up his spine, forcing a scream from his lips. The pen tumbled from his fingers, flipping end over end to the ground.