Chapter 2 “All my means are sane, my motive and my object mad.” ~ Ahab.
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 kit, he paused, then reached for his phone.
Clearing his throat then easing into a practiced rasp, he scrolled through the short list of ‘favorites’ before settling on ‘Jenn’.
“Hey. Jenna.” Matt, voice low, let the second word stretch a little. “I…can’t come in today. Running a fever. Really bad one.”
Unbidden, a memory flashed across his mind. Cubicles, narrow and stifling. The endless rings of telephones, punctuated by barely suppressed voices answering questions with practiced patience. With a shudder, Matt brought himself back.
On the other end, an almost shrill voice forced Matt to pull his ear from the phone. “Again, Matt? This is the third time this month! We can barely cover the backlog as it is! You need to at least come in for the API!”
Wondering why the woman had to punctuate each sentence so much, Matt set the wrench aside as he balanced the phone between ear and shoulder. Clearing his throat again, he set his voice to reduce in decibels. “I’ll handle callbacks remotely if anything’s urgent. Sorry, I–”
Jenna’s own voice dipped in reproach. “Look, you’re the only one who’s not mapped the new endpoints! Everyone else is waiting on your notes. And the call teams need–”
Matt eyes moved over the back of the old machine, struggling to keep track of the conversation while a new world lay before him. Again, the slight indentations at the back called out to him. “Ok, I have to go now. Barely slept. Trying to see if I can get to the clinic before they close.”
Matt, belatedly realizing his phone was still perched on his shoulder, knew he couldn’t be the one to just end the call after such a long pause. A vindictive silence crackled between them, extended and punctuated by an even deeper silence as both sides realized they couldn’t be the one to break the impasse.
Finally, Jenna sighed, “Look, you know the company’s been downsizing and all. We really need our best at their station right now. Why don’t we–”
“Alright then, bye!” Barely whispering, Matt seized the moment, sent a last rasp in a voice laden with illness, pulled the phone from shoulder and tapped to end the call.
Turning away to open a leather-bound notebook etched with lines of notes, he flipped a few pages, going over his last series of investigations. A quick wave of his arm unrolled the old toolkit. An even older precision screwdriver set lay there, plus all three of needle-nose, lineman’s, and insulated pliers, voltage tester, multi-meter, crimping tools, cable cutters, a magnifying glass, a roll of gauze, and a hacksaw.
Laying out the tools he’d need was another of his rituals, one from back in his glory days in college. Back before curiosity got him scalded and forever ‘marked’.
First was the coffee machine’s surface. Matt wiped it down gently, this time painstakingly going layer by layer, surface by section. A quick brush was next, one that was followed by a frown. Shrugging, that was next followed by another rub with a dry cloth, then a wet, soapy one. Finally, another cloth, one dipped in cleaning fluid made from vinegar and water, before a final once-over with a micro-fiber cloth.
The final effect didn’t feel like much. Thing still looked as battle worn and battered as ever. Beneath the grime, a sheen of burnished metal rose though. Not stainless steel. Neither was it aluminum. Lighter than it should be as well. Colder too.
After a quick glance over last night’s notes, he begun a new inspection.
Matt circled the machine; a surgeon about to open a patient no textbook could prepare him for. The LED panel, still non-reactive, looked intact enough to be functional. Matt pulled out the multimeter and tested for everything from voltage and resistance to capacitance and continuity. The lack of reaction from the stolid LED display irked; he still hadn’t gotten a way to get in to the damn thing and this particular line of inspection was going nowhere.
A rumble from his stomach told him he had to move on before necessity imposed sanctions.
No keypad; just the set of three knobs up top stiff with grime and dirt. When he cleaned them up, they gave no feedback on the display either. No click or spring. Just… pressure. A softness his own well-trained human fingers found strange. That prompted a reflection:
‘Like pressing into dough.’
Then he flipped it over, the thing’s weight suddenly testing his couch muscles. No screws he could engage with on the base. Instead, there were three indentations shaped like crescent moons and etched rather than manufactured. Again, Matt got the feeling they’d been added by a hand unsure of what was being built. As if the many stages of iterations between conception and execution had been skipped.
The rest of the investigation only strengthened that feeling.
Again, he could see no logos on the coffee maker. No circuit board was visible. There were also no obvious seams or overlapping edges he could work at. This was no brand he’d seen or heard of before. And if it was, it was definitely too expensive to waste on the common folk.
Maybe a prototype? Matt thought to himself before shaking his head for the nth time that day. The thing was too well 'together' to be one.
“Something in between?” Matt asked himself out loud, punctuating the noisy, mid-morning city air with his own noise.
Reaching for his laptop, he paused, hand hovered for a second too long before he pulled back, wiped his palm on his jeans, and tried again. While waiting for the screen to come to life, he pulled out a spare phone, took some photos, and linked the two via USB.
He typed. Paused. Deleted. Typed again.
A sub-reddit post window filled slowly. Title. Description. When he got to ‘Attachments’ he hesitated again before uploading the set of photos. Matt stared at the progress bar, each excruciating jump punctuated by a hand reaching for the laptop and a finger twitching. Seeing the uploads and post go through, he sat back, jaw tight.
The page refreshed.
Nothing.
Then a notification.
u/FluxCapNope
“Cool render. What engine did you use?”
u/BeanMachine69
“That’s just part of an espresso rig. Late ’70s. Missing the pump housing.”
A third followed almost immediately.
u/RedAlert1701
“Looks like a Starfleet replicator from Wish. 🖖”
Matt leaned closer to the screen, switching tabs.
The replies stacked.
u/PixelSnitch
“Noice Photoshop dude! Lighting’s off on the port. Half*for effort.”
u/AnalogAndy
“If you’re gonna fake tech, at least make it feel original.”
The cursor blinked in the reply box.
Snorting, Matt typed a single character.
!
He hit ‘Enter’. Closed the tab. Deleted the account. Another set of clicking and punching of keys and the browser vanished as well.
Morning light crept across his work bench, the warming glow provoking another rumble from his belly. Rubbing the soreness from the corners of his eyes, Matt stared at his laptop’s screen, one now a mess of tabs listing even more obscure tech sites.
His stomach growled, low and hollow, the sound swallowed by the hum of the laptop fan.
~ Ѡ ~
May 19th, 2025.
Over the next two weeks, everything else dropped away as Matt fell into a daze. Today, he woke up in a start on his workbench, face covered in spit and sweat. Realizing he’d been sat still for hours as drool fell from his lips, a tap on the power button of his phone brought up his home screen.
The font was a blur to his eyes, making it difficult to make out whether it was a ‘T’ or an ‘S’. When his sight angled slightly upward and saw the larger font, another groan broke out before he could repress it.
‘Too late to check in today anyway.’
Shrugging and pinching the bridge of his nose, Matt gave his head a quick shake before ‘focusing’ his eyes on the laptop’s screen in front of him. With a tap, a set of schematics from a Japanese electronics’ company disappeared, replaced by a picture of a trio of knobs. Then he fell into a different daze as he stared at the picture and recalled last night’s work.
The screws warped under pressure, yes. But that was all. The base wouldn’t give, save for those indentations that offered even less with their give. As for the buttons? Pressed hard enough they seemed to push back ever so slightly. There seemed to be a threshold to just how hard he could push, one that shifted goalposts on a whim. Like the knobs, they obeyed all commands save for ‘speaking’ back to him in a language he could understand.
“I don’t know what you are,” he said, kneeling by the counter, “but I think I was meant to find you.”
Silence was all Matt got in return.
~ Ѡ ~
July 21st, 2025.
Even the word “Tolerance” has a limit: nine letters, start with a ‘t’, end with an ‘e’. Used by itself, you indicate a topic. Mix it in with other words, you imply engagement. All you need is a simple understanding of the English language and there you go.
Matt’s tolerance was eight weeks. Eight weeks of a split, torn, and battered focus struggling to keep on track. Eight weeks of waking up to get to a job that drained him more than usual. Eight weeks of a series of ‘whys’ that every dissatisfied blue and white collar worker had to answer each morning their minds got back online.
Eight weeks over which he’d long ceased asking that series of ‘whys’. Ceased bothering to respond to calls from Jenn altogether.
Instead, a new set of ‘whys’ begun.
Why this machine? Why now? Why was he so drawn to its lackluster metallic cover? Why was his attention always drawn to the LED display? Why did it sit there like a confession he hadn’t read yet, sealed in metal and puzzle?
Matt rubbed his face before lifting his eyes from the why in front of him. Resting it from the back of his chair, he got up abruptly, making to move towards his bedroom as his booted feet crunched against the chaos ankle-deep below.
Stacks of empty noodle boxes littered every inch of space on the floor. In a corner furthest from the door was a stack ‘thicker’ than most others in the room, the product of a sad attempt at bringing order to the chaos of his double-roomed apartment.
With a startle, Matt realized he hadn’t left the apartment in weeks! Then, with a wry smile as he took a runny dump, he tried to recall what he’d done to come to this pass.
Keeping track of the months was easier; they were too few in a year to lose track of those. Even with paychecks stopped. Weeks were somewhat harder, the Mondays blending into Wednesdays into Sundays into Fridays. Weekly pilgrimage to the laundromat below helped with that though. As did the ‘weakly’ shopping that helped keep track of time.
Days were hardest.
Hunger didn’t seem to help as 'The Project' helped ignore the twisting and clenched fist in his abdomen. Thirst was less easy to ignore; especially when his stool turned from ‘dump’ to more like something resembling ‘sludge’. Standing beside his work bench once more, ankle deep in take-out boxes, unshaved, hair awry, and nothing but shorts and vest on, Matt realized he was the picture perfect avatar of a sage.
A ‘ping’ from the edge of the table led him thither. Then he stopped his hand from reaching at the phone; had to be one of only three things.Mum. Debtors. Landlady. Mumbling to himself, Matt groused out loud, “Best not check messages and have your hand forced. Form over essence was the true path.”
Sending a questing finger into his armpit, Matt was surprised at the resistance it got, thinking, “Too much hair...”
With a sigh, Matt went back to the only other room in the apartment. He reached for his coffee maker – the one that actually worked – and brewed a cup. As he did, he couldn’t help grin at the bags and bags of coffee stacked side by side on the top shelf. Those would keep him running for months.
Standing by the window, breathing in the city, Matt could tell it had rained recently. Sometime in the night. Or early morning. Well, some time between 5 and 7.
~ Ѡ ~
August 3rd, 2025.
Matt held his hands up in front of him. No grease. No grey smears on the pads of his fingers or palm. They were clean. Weeks of repeated rubbing and wiping made sure of that.
“Yeah… maybe get these things covered. Just because you can’t see them doesn’t mean there’s nothing there, no?”
Matt mumbled to himself out loud, sucking a molar on the right side of his jaw while his mind wandered. He’d spent hours twisting the knobs on the damn thing to no avail. Days! Weeks? Through all that time, all that contact, the only takeaway was the strain on his own joints.
Gently, then firmly. Clockwise. Counter-clockwise. All at once. One at a time. Combinations, sequences, rhythms. Matt leaned back from the work bench, staring at the coffee maker first, then his notebook, then back at the machine. Squinting at the book, a thought flitted through his mind. Then he reached for one of the knobs and twisted it. Slowly. All the way to the stop. Back again. Another knob followed. Then a third. He worked through them in silence, jaw set, wrists tightening as resistance refused to appear.
He let go and shook out his hands. The joints ached.
He tried again. Firmer this time. Clockwise. Counterclockwise. Two knobs together. Then one, then the other. He paused, adjusted his grip, tried a different sequence. Nothing clicked. Nothing shifted. The machine did not even creak.
At some point, the room grew darker.
Matt stopped and stared at the knobs. His thumb brushed their surface, slower now. He closed his eyes and turned one by feel alone, listening for something that never came.
~ Ѡ ~
August 11th, 2025.
The next day, a padded packet lay torn open on the table. Inside lay textured gloves. He pulled them on, ran his fingers across the coffee maker’s metal, and tried again. Still nothing.
Next day there was another package. This time it was the mighty duo: an oscilloscope and a thermal camera! Then his lips twisted at the sight of the piece of paper on the same workbench. It was a credit card receipt, lying curled and crunched and straightened beside the machine.
Any chance they’ll accept a refund?
Matt wondered, the quiet thought a stable oasis marred by his tummy’s rumbling.Matt laughed once, quietly, then leaned back in his chair. His gaze drifted, unfocused.
There was one week weeks ago he’d even imagined there was something to the texture, and that he had to manipulate them by specific ‘feel’ if he was to break the impasse. That particular avenue down the Sphinx road had cost him a few hundred dollars.
~ Ѡ ~
August 17th, 2025.
The laptop’s cracked screen was displaying a popular DIY channel. The Vlogger, with a face both earnest and bright, was going through the techniques they were displaying on a reduced window.
A violinist fingers, dancing over strings, made Matt wonder whether he had to move the knobs or indentations below in a certain way. Made sense; companies nowadays wanted you to use their own repair shops and no one else’s! Next was sewing; seeing a popular seamstress online work their magic without looking pulled him down a rabbit hole for a few hours.
Matt chuckled again; what madness inspired him to waste time watching a painter working on a canvas filled with ‘ideas’? A craftsman working on a miniature dhow. Still, those false starts paid off a little; a locksmith explaining how one had to listen to the pins and tumblers fall made him settled on that idea as his breakthrough route.
The idea was to reach in with a pick and listen as the tumblers were touched. With enough attention, one could detect the pins engaging and falling. Plus, a stethoscope helped with some… better than the damned thermal camera in any case.
Nothing.
~ Ѡ ~
September 5th, 2025.
Way back in June... or was it May? Matt had stopped trying to power it. Stopped expecting it to behave like a machine. Long after he’d worked out a way to make the charging port compatible, he’d decided to drop that particular riddle and focus on another approach.
Besides, he’d spent tens of thousands on a digital force gauge, a vibration isolator, a bore dial gauge he could not even get started with, and even a fiber laser machine he’d got fourth-hand in a forlorn attempt to scratch the damn thing’s surface. Those and the ones before all told him he’d have to stop as lest dwindling finances flare up in revolt.
It was sometime ago, in March or July, that he’d started treating the coffee maker like a puzzle box. Back in April, now that he remembered the month, when he realized that solid as the thing was, it might have been broken inside.
July seemed to have passed by in a daze, from the food poisoning and cramping in his belly. September, on the other hand, was clear as glass. That was when he started on a diet of cold ramen. The power bills were getting to him, as were the ulcers and a cold. That was also when he’d dropped the whole ‘lock-pick fingers’ nonsense in favor of brute force.
The hours and days and weeks and months of experimentation, learning, and effort had failed to do more than sink him deeper into the mire of debt. He was getting in deep… and yet... the lights down there called to him strongly.
