Chapter 11 “The Butt-Dial that Broke the Universe.” June 26h, 2027. The Coffee Machine’s LED display filled without warning. Lines, symbols, and fragments slid downward too quickly to follow. Matt adjusted the camera mount by a fraction, waited for the feed to stabilize, then shifted his gaze to the
Chapter 10 “The Tower of Babble.” May 25th, 2027. Williamsburg, Brooklyn, NY. The freight elevator hummed to a halt before its doors parted on a loft that felt less like an office, and more like a launch pad moments before ignition. The sight of the steel pylons on the distant
Chapter 9 “Monkey see, monkey do.” April 6rd, 2027. As Matt opened the repository and let it fill, he pulled out his phone and checked his bank account balance once more. It was nowhere close to black, but the red of death had been stalled. Now, all he had to
Chapter 8 “A New Dawn.” December 3rd, 2026. Nothing new existed under the Sun. Or so it was said. Still, the phrase unsettled Matt more than it should have. There was just something off about it. As if the certainty of such a declaration hid an omission. He let the
Chapter 7 “The Search for the Rosetta Stone.” October 27th, 2026. Matt leaned into the creaking chair, fingers interlaced behind his head, and let his eyes drift over the copper lattice of the inner cage. The way the lattice caught light unevenly caused him to reflect over its structure. Every
Chapter 6 “The Hand over the Ledge” September 6, 2026. Matt squinted at the flickering LED display. Pale pulses reflected in his lenses as the room stayed dark around him. He loosened the tripod head, nudged the camera a fraction of a degree, tightened it again. The symbols slid down
Chapter 5 “Hi. My name is Matt, and I’m a pyromaniac.” August 15, 2026. The warehouse exhaled around him, the steel and dust and winter breath coiling in between the ribs of the rafters as they themselves groaned with the wailing wind. Shadows, like limbs reaching down from the
Chapter 4 “Money, money, money! Will no one rid me of these debts?” January 4th, 2026. 150,000. Matt stared at the figure on his notepad, both aghast at the number and at the same time relieved it wasn’t higher. It didn’t take long for both to wither
Chapter 3 “Found.” September 27th, 2025. It was in the dead of night, at an hour so ungodly no one honest should have been up and about, when the impasse broke. Matt, was sitting in his dim kitchen. He had the one light on to save on electric bills. Half-drunk
Chapter 2 “All my means are sane, my motive and my object mad.” ~ Ahab. April 1st, 2025. Matt’s hands hovered over the coffee maker. Its aged metallic covering barely reflected any light in his dimly lit room. Just as he was about to reach down for his worn tool
Matt pushed the trolley slowly, its wheels squeaking across the warehouse’s concrete floor. The walk was more of a trudge than an amble. He simply felt too weary, and his soul bore a fatigue too bone-deep to hide. Sitting for hours, answering inane questions while trying to force a
Matt, down on his luck and almost checked out, stumbles upon a strange artifact while shopping for broken down machines he can turn to profit. Drawn into an immediate struggle for agency, he wins out the grand prize of an old, beaten, and worn Coffee Machine that he believes will