Axone

Chapter 1

Josh Coleman glanced out the living room window of his apartment at the top of Queen Anne Hill, and wondered if the storm would pass soon. The clouds were dark and menacing looking, even for a November morning in Seattle. He figured he might have just enough time to walk downtown before the rain started to come down hard, and he really needed a walk today. He had a large problem at work that he needed to sort out. He drank his coffee a bit more quickly as he opened his closet to get his rain jacket. I’ve measured out my life in coffee spoons, like T.S Eliot, Josh thought to himself, especially lately. He wished he could see the answer he needed at the bottom of his coffee mug, but he supposed that only worked with tea leaves and not the fine grounds of coffee left over from his French press.

He grabbed his jacket with his free hand, and as he yanked it out of the closet an object fell from the shelf that ran just above the hanger rod. Josh kneeled down, placing his mug and the jacket on the floor next to him, and he saw that the object was a hand-carved elephant hand made from red stone, which was a souvenir he’d bought from a marketplace in Kenya. He picked it up and inspected it for damage, and was relieved to find that it was still intact. I need to find a better place for you, he muttered to himself as he placed the elephant on his living room table. He thought about the Fulbright Scholarship that had brought him to Kenya right after college, and wondered what his life might be like now had he stayed on to do research there. It would have made more use of his second degree in biology, at any rate—he’d managed to even publish a paper just a year after he had graduated that could have led to a career in medical research, but among the many job offers that came to him after finishing school was the one from Digital Interactive Gaming that led to the job he had now. Can’t do it all, he thought.

Josh finished his coffee, put on his jacket and stepped out the door to make his way towards the Smith Tower, where Digital Interactive Gaming, or DIG as it was called, was headquartered. He began to walk along the waterfront of Puget Sound, ignoring the drizzling rain as he thought about the shutdown problem facing him at work. Digital was close to releasing a revolutionary gaming platform, which was based on a high-speed controller chip that gave the game an unprecedented ability to build a rich interactive world. Everything was working well except that the program would crash unexpectedly when the user would try to exit from certain levels of the game. His thoughts were interrupted by the honk of a car horn coming from a blue 1979 Camaro that pulled up beside him.

Dude you really are a glutton for punishment today! the driver of the car yelled, as he pushed the passenger side door open. Josh gratefully slid into the seat as he looked into the face of his friend Tom, who also worked at the same company. Tom was a tall, strapping man Josh’s age with jet black hair. He was fit and handsome, and not at all the usual stereotype of the typical technology geek.

Hey Tom thanks for the ride but today could you not… Josh started to say before Tom punched the accelerator as they merged back into traffic, sending Josh’s head back against his seat rest.

Not what? Tom asked with a grin.

Drive like this. I’d like to get to work alive.

We’ll be fine. You know I like to drive to win. Unless, of course, you are trying to delay getting there today, which I totally understand. Dunsmore is gonna be red faced with hysteria over the shutdown problem.

Just like any other day then, you mean. The two both chuckled.

It was only a few miles to the Smith Tower, where DIG occupied several floors. Located in the southern part of downtown Seattle, the Smith Tower was the first skyscraper on the West Coast when it was built. Having one of Seattle’s hottest startup companies headquartered there made for an interesting juxtaposition of old and new. The elevators in the historic building were still operated by hand, but led to floors full of offices with fashionable porthole cubicles and server rooms humming with state-of-the-art computer technology. Tom parked at the top of the unusual parking garage located across the street from the Smith Tower, which was nicknamed the sinking ship. It got that name because of the fact that it seemed to sink into the ground at an angle, with most of the structure below the surface.

Tom and Josh got out of the car and dashed across the street to the entrance to the Smith Tower. The elevator going up was just opening as they entered the lobby, and so the two stepped in and told the operator to take them to the seventh floor.

That sinking ship lot reminds me a lot of you, my friend. For everything you say out loud, you’ve got ten times as many ideas buried in your subconscious, Tom said, as the operator lifted the handle and the elevator car began to move upwards.

Only two weeks to the ship date, I better have some idea buried somewhere.

I never bet against the boy genius, Tom replied.

The elevator door opened on the seventh floor, and as Tom and Josh walked into the room they were met by another colleague, a curly headed young man with glasses who looked a lot like a young Art Garfunkel. His name was Lawrence Waxman.

Dudes, Dunsmore’s called an all hands meeting. Like, right now. He’s freaking out big time, even for him, he said.

Thanks Lawrence. Where is it?

Rainier Waxman replied, referring to the conference room name. There’s supposed to be donuts, too, but they aren’t here yet.

Most of the team was already in the conference room as Josh and Tom entered. Ted Dunsmore, the Chief Technology Officer, was already running his hand over his bald head, something he did habitually as his mood became anxious. Good of you to join us. Josh you are the man of the hour here. Tell us you have the answer. No pressure, just you’re fired if you don’t, he said with a smarmy smile.

Josh walked over to the large whiteboard in the conference room. Someone had already drawn a large flow chart on the board. The boxes on the left were filled with code fragments, and on the right was a large square representing the controller chip. Next to the square was an arrow with a large question mark drawn over it. Josh picked up a marker and began to draw some smaller rectangles inside the square.

These are the memory buffer registers, which are part of this chip’s unique configuration. I think there is a flaw in the shutdown subroutine that is causing these to be addressed incorrectly, which results in the fatal crash we’ve been seeing. He continued to expand the diagram, drawing additional paths inside the square and back out again to the blocks of code. The other team members in the room seemed to become a blur of confused faces, as he began to focus on the problem and ideas began to roll out of his mind. Tom frowned as he leaned forward in his chair.

Slow down, man, Tom said. We mere mortals aren’t keeping up.

Don’t look at me, dudes, I am just the quality assurance guy, Waxman added.

It’s all in this sequence of calls, Josh said, as he tapped his marker on one of the squares on the board.

This controller chip is the problem, Dunsmore said. It’s a prototype and we’ve wound up doing the quality assurance on it. Maybe we should not use it.

No can do, Chief, Tom said. We can’t do our graphics rendering without it.

What if you use the older library from the older release?

Then we lose the lifelike interactions, which was the whole point of this release. Nobody else has anything like this technology! Josh said, as he fidgeted with the cap on the marker.

We don’t have it either at the moment Dunsmore responded.

Josh put the cap back on the marker and flung it into the tray on the board with a bit of force.

We can figure out this issue, it’s not magic. We just need to focus our efforts. We have to go forward with this. Tom and I can work this out by the end of the day.

Fine, then we don’t need to have everyone here. You and Tom come by my office at nine. That gives you about ten minutes, Dunsmore said as he got up to leave.

The other team members streamed out of the room behind Dunsmore. Tom grabbed Josh’s shirt sleeve to stop him at the doorway.

Thanks for pulling me into this mess, buddy, Tom said.

Misery loves company. Besides, we’re going to get this. We have no choice.

I wish I had your confidence. You’ve been obsessed with this problem for weeks. Are you really on to something today or were you just trying to appease the Emperor?

Josh grinned. The Emperor was their private nickname for Dunsmore, ever since the day he decided to hold a company meeting in the historic Chinese room of the Smith Tower, where the Chief Technology Officer liked to sit in an antique chair that looked like a throne.

We’ll find the answer, I know we’re close. Then I can go back to having something resembling a life, I suppose.

There is more to life than all this, ya know. Are you still seeing that artist chick?

You mean Sarah? No, I guess she got tired of me living here lately.

Sorry man. That’s the price of working on the bleeding edge of technology.

I’m not sure if she was the right fit anyway. She’d try to get me to paint, but I didn’t have any idea what to do. And when I talked about my work…well, she could never follow a word.

Tom glanced at his phone. Well speaking of words, it’s time we head over to Ted’s office. We’ve got a lot better odds of fixing the chip shutdown problem than we do of finding women who can really understand the likes of us. Tom clapped a hand reassuringly on Josh’s shoulder as they walked out into the hallway.

Dunsmore’s office was nicknamed the fishbowl since it was all glass, and sat roughly in the center of the sea of pea green cubicles used by the engineers. Josh and Tom entered and sat in front of Dunsmore, who leaned forward behind his desk. He motioned for the door to be closed, and Tom reached back and pulled the door shut by its handle.

Coleman I hope for your sake as well as everyone else’s you really know what the hell you are doing. A lot more than you do, Josh thought.

We’ve got this, I know we’re close. I almost thought I saw it on the board while I was brainstorming, Josh said.

Dunsmore frowned. I just got off the phone with the VP. I shit you not, there will be blood in the streets if we miss the launch date. It always amazed Josh just how rapidly Dunsmore’s entire demeanor could change, from calm one moment to simmering with anger at the next moment. He continued talking about how urgent fixing the controller chip problem was, and how it had to happen no later than the end of today; and as he spoke he started to rap his knuckles on the top of his desk.

Josh tried to listen to his boss, but the rapping sound of the knuckles on wood became strangely distracting. After a few seconds Josh noticed that the noise was strangely orderly, almost mathematical in its pattern. It had morphed into a strange staccato sound. How is he doing that, Josh wondered.

Don’t worry Chief, we’ll all be sipping beers on the beach after we go public in a few years, he heard Tom say, but the staccato sound had become so loud now that he could barely hear his friend’s voice. Suddenly for a brief moment, Josh saw a quick flash of a beautiful beach with palm trees and turquoise waters, and the horizon looked almost impossibly perfect, like one of those beer ads. The sunlight seemed so bright, he closed his eyes for a moment.

Josh shook his head and was alarmed to see that the roof of the office had been replaced by blue sky, and the light that had almost blinded him was the late morning sun. He was now sitting on rock instead of the chair he had been on. He was wearing khaki shorts instead of his Dockers and had a backpack slung over his shoulder. He glanced around in confusion at a landscape of red rocks and desert scrubland that almost seemed like the surface of another planet. Tom and Dunsmore were nowhere to be seen. Josh stood up, his heart racing in a panic. He took a step forward without realizing he had been sitting at the top of a steep hill. He felt his feet slip on the loose rocky surface as he lost his balance and fell tumbling down the steep grade.

Chapter 2

Sir? Are you with us?

Josh looked up to see a young woman crouching over him, dressed in some sort of uniform. As he started to focus he could see she was a paramedic, and her arm patch read Metro Search and Rescue.

Yes, Josh said weakly. The paramedic had mousy brown hair tied neatly in the back into a ponytail. Next to her was a gurney and some bags of medical equipment. Her vehicle was a short distance behind her near a small building.

Great! the woman said. My name is Stefani. Can you tell me your full name Sir? Josh noticed that the backpack he’d had on his shoulder a moment ago was now on the ground next to Stefani. It appeared to have been opened, and a billfold sat on top. She appeared to be holding something in her hand.

It’s Josh. Josh Coleman.

As he said the words, Stefani glanced down at her hand. It must be ID from the billfold, he thought.

Great! Stefani said, leaning in closer. She set a card down on top of the backpack and reached into her shirt pocket for a small penlight. She leaned in closely to him, shining the light near his eyes.

You’ve had a bit of a fall, Josh. I just need to take a quick look here, she said.

He still had no idea how he suddenly found himself here. Stefani put the flashlight back in her pocket and started writing some notes on a pad she took out of her jacket. This place was very vaguely familiar now. He looked at the small building again and saw that the sign on its side had words that read RED ROCK CANYON. He remembered that he came here with Tom once. The two had gone on a trip to Las Vegas for a technology conference. They were broke and somewhat hung over after a night on the Strip, and they had thought that maybe a hike around this park would do them some good; at least it would be free.

What were you doing out here today Josh? Stefani asked. Her expression was pleasant but also studious.

Hiking, apparently, Josh replied. He saw no point in telling her he was in the middle of a meeting nearly a thousand miles away.

Stefani frowned a bit. And what is your address? she asked.

I live on Roy Avenue in Seattle, Josh replied reflexively.

Stefani’s expression became more serious. And what is the name of your employer?

Digital Interactive Gaming.

And they are also in Seattle?

Yes.

Josh, we found an employee badge from Henderson Community College in your backpack. Your driver’s license shows a local address as well.

This can’t be real, Josh thought. He wondered for a moment if perhaps he was having some sort of stroke or something and was really laying on the floor in the fishbowl, and he was hallucinating Dunsmore leaning over him, seeing him as Stefani the paramedic. Yet he felt the rough ground underneath him and the midmorning sun on his face. He could hear a voice near the parked ambulance talking into a radio, just fragments of sentences. Caucasian male, 29 years old. Seems disoriented. Checking vitals, preparing for transport. This was too real, but it couldn’t be. This was not right, it was insane.

Then he realized that if he kept insisting on his version of events, insane would be precisely what he would be labeled, and then he would lose control over his ability to figure out what exactly was going on.

I mean I used to live in Seattle. I’m just a little dizzy from the fall. Or maybe dehydrated, Josh lied.

Stefani simply nodded as she placed the strap of a blood pressure monitor around his arm. Another Metro paramedic had brought the gurney closer, and was fiddling with a neck brace.

I’m sure I just had the wind knocked out of me, Josh said. It was only about twenty feet from where I was to here. I don’t need to go anywhere.

Just let us worry about that, Josh, Stefani said, smiling. We’re going to give you some fluids and have you checked out at the hospital. It’s just standard procedure.

Josh nodded his head gently as Stefani and the other paramedic quickly placed the brace around his neck and positioned the gurney to lift him into place. Are you good Bill? she said to her colleague who was standing on the other side of Josh.

Yes, he replied, and Josh was quickly on top of the gurney. Stefani chatted with him as she gathered the IV tubes from the side of the gurney.

I just need to give you some fluids. I was so good at doing this during my training that they called me No Stick Stef, isn’t that right Bill?

That’s right. You won’t feel a thing. It is unreal. And I’ve been doing this longer than she’s been alive, Bill replied with a chuckle.

Unreal is right, Josh mused, as Stefani slid the IV into his arm. And contrary to the assertions of the paramedics, he felt the pinch that told that told him whatever this dream was, he was not waking up from it anytime soon.

Chapter 3

The ambulance had left the parking lot of the Red Rock Canyon National Conservation Area. After they loaded him into the back of the ambulance, Josh overheard Bill tell the dispatcher that they were en route to University Hospital. Stefani kept talking to him, asking him all sorts of questions, which Josh realized was just a way to gauge his mental state and keep him alert. He knew something about how medical personnel interacted with patients from his time doing medical research after graduating from college with Dr. Scott Erics. Find the simplest explanation when you form your hypothesis, Erics always told him. It was a principle known as Occam's Razor: the explanation that required the fewest assumptions was usually the correct one. Except that Josh did not have even a single explanation of what was happening to him. It was best for him to accept where he was, for now, he thought.

Do you know what the date is today, Josh? Stefani asked.

November 2, 2015, Josh replied. Stefani nodded. He recalled looking at that date on his phone before he left his apartment in Queen Anne earlier that morning.

Do you have any family in the area? Stefani asked.

Before Josh could reply, Bill interrupted them.

I can’t figure out how to use this iPad. I don’t know what was wrong with paper.

This is not a good time, Stefani said as she rolled her eyes.

Just a few seconds please, I don’t know how to enter the codes in the app.

Stefani looked at Josh again, and at the monitor showing his blood pressure, before turning around to look at Bill and the iPad he was holding in his hand.

Fine, but you need to get this down. Watch, she said as she focused on the screen.

Josh took advantage of the distraction to dig into the large pocket of his shorts. He found a phone, though it wasn’t his iPhone, but a cheap-looking android version. There was also an envelope addressed to him from the community college. Inside was a letter, which was from the biology department chair. Josh read the first lines.

Welcome to Henderson Community College! I trust you are settling into the area and are finding our desert air invigorating. By now you should have your ID and other hiring materials. Let me know if you need anything between now and the start of the semester.

Josh made a mental note of the address on the envelope before putting it and the letter back in his pocket. Time to see if he could get some answers with a few phone calls.

Josh, I’m sorry but I need to take that away from you for a bit, Stefani said as she turned her attention back to him. She held out her hand and Josh reluctantly handed over the phone.

I would be happy to call your emergency contact for you. Do you have family in the area?

I just moved here, Josh said, grateful that he had been able to glean that information from the letter. Saying anything to anyone right now that would contradict the facts as they appeared would serve no purpose, and it would only raise questions about his state of mental health. He needed to figure out what was going on here by himself.

"I really don’t know anyone here yet. I haven’t even started my new job at the college yet.