**Chapter 6: The Black Box Console**
There is a distinct difference between playing a game and living a nightmare. Usually, the difference is the refresh rate and the consequences. I intended to blur that line until it vanished entirely.
The server farm I had stolen and transmuted into a quantum-crystalline brain was humming efficiently, cooling itself with the stolen water table of the Atacama. Zero, my fragmented ego-turned-AI, was managing the intake of the first two hundred thousand players.
But it wasn't enough.
The standard users—the Kenjis and Claras of the world—were connecting through standard hardware. Laptops, phones, commercial VR headsets bought at electronics stores. These devices were bottlenecks. They could transmit visual data and audio, but they couldn't transmit *prana*—the raw, cosmic potential energy leaking from my body—efficiently. The signal loss was nearly 90%.
It was like trying to fill a swimming pool using a garden hose that was riddled with holes. I needed a fire hose. I needed a direct line.
I stood in the "Forge," a small antechamber off the main Machine Hall. The air here was superheated, shimmering with heat haze that would have boiled a normal man's blood. To me, it felt like a warm bath.
"Zero," I said, staring at a pile of raw materials I had gathered: lead, gold, obsidian, and the catalytic converters from a few hundred stolen cars (for the platinum). "Pull the profiles. The Alpha Cohort."
**[Searching global database...]**
**[Criteria: Desperation. High pain threshold. Low societal attachment. Psychological volatility.]**
**[candidates found: 100.]**
"One hundred," I repeated. "One hundred rats for the maze."
I reached into the pile. My hand, glowing with the golden aura of the *Evolutionary Overflow*, closed around a chunk of lead and a bar of gold.
I squeezed.
There is an art to molecular fusion when your grip strength exceeds the gravitational pull of a black hole. You have to be gentle. If I squeezed too hard, I would create a nuclear explosion. If I squeezed too soft, I'd just make a heavy paperweight.
I applied pressure, visualizing the atomic lattice. I forced the gold atoms into the gaps of the lead, creating a super-dense, highly conductive alloy that was shielded against radiation but permeable to psionic energy.
The metal flowed like putty between my fingers. I shaped it. Not into a sleek, white Apple-esque device. That was too friendly.
I shaped it into a black cube. Vantablack. It absorbed the light of the room, sitting in my palm like a hole in reality.
"The NerveGear is too clunky," I muttered, critiquing my own inspiration. "I don't want them to wear a helmet. I want them to wear a crown of thorns."
I pulled a strand of fiber-optic cable from the wall and fused it into the black box. Then, I crafted the headset. A simple, brutal band of dark metal with nodes that would press directly into the temples and the base of the skull. No screen. No controllers.
This device wouldn't project an image into the eyes. It would bypass the optic nerve and project reality directly into the visual cortex. It would hijack the motor functions. It would simulate pain with 100% fidelity.
I placed the finished unit on the cooling rack. It hissed, steaming.
"One down," I sighed. "Ninety-nine to go."
I worked in a blur. My hands moved faster than the eye could follow, a symphony of destruction and creation. *Grab. Squeeze. Fuse. Shape.* The pile of scrap metal vanished, replaced by rows of identical black boxes.
They were heavy. Five kilograms each. They felt cold to the touch, even straight out of the forge.
"Zero," I said, wiping a speck of platinum dust from my cheek. "Logistics."
**[Traditional shipping methods are too slow, Architect. Customs scans would identify the alloy as unknown and potentially hazardous. Confiscation probability: 100%.]**
"I'm not using FedEx, Zero."
I looked at the stack of boxes.
"I need these people to believe this is magic. Or fate. If a drone drops it off, it's tech. If it appears on their pillow while they blink? That's divine intervention."
**[You intend to deliver them personally?]**
"I intend to stretch my legs."
I picked up a crate I had welded together from the chassis of a stolen tank. I loaded the hundred black boxes inside.
"Slipstream Protocol," I commanded. "Route planning. Optimize for the shortest path visiting all 100 coordinates. Start with the Americas, move East."
**[Route calculated. Total distance: 42,000 kilometers. Estimated time at Mach 10: 3.5 hours.]**
"Boring," I said. "Let's try to do it in ten minutes."
I stepped out of the facility, the crate tucked under one arm like a football. The desert night was cold and clear.
I took a breath. I focused on the sensation of the air against my skin.
"Don't break the world, Shigu," I whispered to myself. "Just bend it."
I kicked off.
***
**Chicago, USA. The Stacks.**
The apartment smelled of boiled cabbage, stale cigarette smoke, and despair. It was a studio in a tenement block that the city council had forgotten to demolish, situated in the shadow of the sleek, new mag-lev tracks.
Maya rested her forehead against the cool glass of the window, watching the rain streak through the grime. Below, the neon lights of the noodle bar reflected in the puddles.
She looked down at her legs. They were thin, atrophied sticks covered in cheap sweatpants.
Two years ago, Maya had been a contender for the Olympic sprint team. She was wind and fire. She was speed. Then came the drunk driver, the screech of tires, and the crunch of the spinal column.
Now, she was a recipient of disability checks that barely covered the rent and the pain meds.
She spun her wheelchair around, the rubber tires squeaking on the linoleum. The TV was on, blaring some news report about a "Global seismic anomaly" in Chile, but she wasn't listening.
She rolled to the tiny kitchenette to get a glass of water.
*Thump.*
The sound came from the small, rickety table near her bed. It was a heavy, solid sound. Not a knock on the door. A sound *inside* the room.
Maya froze. She gripped the armrests of her chair. "Hello?"
Silence. The rain pattered against the window.
She turned the chair slowly.
On the table, where there had been nothing but a pile of unpaid bills a second ago, sat a black box.
It was darker than the shadows in the corner of the room. It seemed to drink the light from the TV.
Maya's heart hammered against her ribs. She hadn't heard a door open. She hadn't heard a window break.
She rolled closer, her survival instinct warring with a sudden, magnetic curiosity.
There was no logo on the box. No shipping label. No return address. Just a single piece of heavy, cream-colored cardstock resting on top.
Her trembling hand reached out. She picked up the card. The text was handwritten in ink that shimmered like dried blood.
*To Maya,*
*They told you that you would never run again.*
*They lied.*
*Put it on.*
*- The Architect*
Maya dropped the card. It fluttered to the floor.
"Is this a sick joke?" she whispered, her voice cracking. Tears pricked her eyes—hot, angry tears. "Who is this? Is this you, Jerry? Pranking the cripple?"
She grabbed the black box, intending to throw it across the room.
But she couldn't lift it.
It was impossibly heavy. It felt like it was bolted to the table.
She frowned. She used both hands, straining. Her biceps, still strong from years of wheelchair use, bulged. The box didn't budge. It sat there with the arrogant permanence of a mountain.
*Click.*
The lid of the box hissed open, revealing a smooth, dark metal band resting on velvet.
A soft blue light pulsed from the interior of the band.
*Thrum-thrum. Thrum-thrum.*
It sounded like a heartbeat.
Maya stared at it. The logic of the situation—the impossible entry, the immovable object—faded. All she saw was the promise.
*They told you that you would never run again.*
She looked at her useless legs. Then she looked at the headset.
"If this blows my brains out," she whispered, "at least I won't have to pay the rent."
She reached in. The headset felt cold, then instantly warmed to her touch. She lifted it—it was light now, as if it wanted to be held—and placed it over her head.
The metal nodes pressed against her temples.
Pain.
White-hot, blinding electricity arced through her skull. Maya opened her mouth to scream, but no sound came out. Her world dissolved into static.
***
**The Machine Hall. Atacama Facility.**
I was back in the chair before the sonic boom of my return trip had even finished echoing through the valley. I had dropped off ninety-nine packages. The hundredth I kept for... later.
I sat in the Sarcophagus, staring at the main display.
**[Unit 042 Activated: Subject Maya Vance.]**
**[Neural Synchronization: 100%.]**
**[Bio-Feedback Loop: Critical.]**
"Show me," I commanded.
The main screen flared, shifting to Maya's perspective inside the simulation.
But I also kept a smaller window open showing her physical body in Chicago. She was slumped in her wheelchair, head lolling back, the black headset pulsing with a rhythmic violet light. Her body was seizing. Muscles that hadn't moved in two years were twitching.
"Zero, stabilize the input," I ordered. "The Black Box is forcing her nervous system to reboot. Don't fry her."
**[Injecting 0.00005% Prana to repair spinal pathways. Rerouting neural signals through the digital interface.]**
"Good."
I watched the simulation.
Maya stood in the "Hall of Beginnings"—a white marble temple floating in a void of stars. It was the standard character creation screen, but for Black Box users, it was different.
She looked down.
In the game, she was wearing simple linen clothes. She was barefoot.
She lifted her right foot.
She wiggle her toes.
In the silence of the server room, I heard her breath hitch through the audio feed.
"No way," she whispered in the simulation. "No fucking way."
She took a step. Then another.
She began to run.
She ran in circles around the marble floor. She was laughing and sobbing at the same time, a raw, guttural sound of pure liberation. She jumped, landing clumsily, and scrambled back up.
"System," I whispered. "Assign Class."
A pillar of light slammed into her avatar.
**[CLASS ASSIGNED: BLADE DANCER.]**
**[Unique Trait Unlocked: Phantom Step.]**
I watched as the energy flowed. This was different from the casual players. The casual players were sipping the energy. Maya? Maya was *drinking* it. Her desperation was a vacuum, pulling my power into the empty spaces of her soul.
In Chicago, her physical legs kicked out. A spasm, yes. But a strong one. The Black Box was using the game data to rewire her actual biology. It would take months, maybe years, but she would walk again in the real world.
Until then, she would be my soldier in Aethelgard.
"She's a natural," I observed. "Look at the dopamine levels. She's addicted already."
**[Subject 042 is generating a 0.003% energy return,]** Zero noted. **[That is three hundred times the efficiency of a standard user.]**
"Desperation is the best fuel," I said, leaning back.
Another window popped up.
**[Unit 017 Activated: Tokyo.]**
**[Unit 088 Activated: Berlin.]**
**[Unit 003 Activated: Moscow.]**
Lights were blinking green across the map. The Alpha Cohort was coming online.
These weren't just gamers. These were the broken, the beaten, the lost. A man with terminal cancer who wanted to die fighting a dragon. A mother who had lost her child and wanted a world where she could protect something. A disgraced soldier who missed the clarity of war.
I had given them a second chance.
And in return, they would give me the one thing I couldn't create for myself: a surprise.
"Zero," I said. "Is the 'First Expedition' ready?"
**[The Gate to the Underdark is sealed. Unlocking requires a combined strength rating of 50,000.]**
"They'll reach it by tomorrow," I predicted. "The Black Box users will power-level the rest of the server. They'll drag the casuals up with them."
I picked up the hundredth Black Box, the one I hadn't delivered. It sat on the console, ominous and sleek.
"Who is the last one for?" Zero asked.
I ran my thumb over the matte surface.
"Me," I said.
Zero paused. **[Redundant. You are the System. You do not need an interface.]**
"I don't need it for power," I corrected. "I need it for *limitation*."
This was the final piece of my plan. The reason I had built the Black Boxes in the first place.
If I logged into the game as Shigu, the God, I broke the immersion. I was too big. Even my avatar "The Architect" was just a puppet I waved around.
But if I routed my consciousness through the box... if I used the lead and the gold and the quantum circuitry to *compress* my signal...
I could play as a mortal.
I could feel the fear. I could feel the lag. I could feel the weight of a sword not because I chose to simulate it, but because the box wouldn't *let* me lift it effortlessly.
"I'm going in, Zero," I said, picking up the headset. "Keep the facility running. Monitor the seismic sensors. If I start thrashing in my sleep and trigger a magnitude 9, wake me up."
**[This is unnecessary risk, Architect.]**
"It's not risk," I smiled, and for the first time, the smile reached my eyes. "It's gameplay."
I sat back in the Sarcophagus. I placed the cold metal band of the Black Box against my temples.
"Login."
The world of the Atacama Desert, the crushing gravity, and the infinite boredom dissolved into white static.
***
**Aethelgard. The Weeping Woods. Zone 1.**
I opened my eyes.
I was lying in the mud. It felt... wet. Cold. Gritty.
I tried to sit up. My body felt heavy. Not the crushing weight of my godhood, but the weak, clumsy heaviness of flesh and bone.
I looked at my hand. It was covered in a ragged cloth glove. There was dirt under my fingernails.
I clenched my fist. It took effort.
A blue box appeared in my vision. Not the System Administrative Console. Just a humble, low-level player HUD.
**[Welcome, Player: Nameless.]**
**[Level: 1]**
**[Class: Beggar (Hidden)]**
**[Strength: 5]**
**[Agility: 5]**
**[Luck: ???]**
A twig snapped nearby.
I looked up. A Thorn-Wolf emerged from the bushes. It was the same low-level mob I had mocked Kenji for fighting yesterday.
It growled, baring yellow teeth. Saliva dripped from its jaws.
My heart hammered in my chest. A real, biological panic response.
I didn't have my infinite strength. I didn't have my gravity fields. I had a rusty knife and five hit points.
The wolf lunged.
I rolled to the side, barely dodging the snap of its jaws. I scrambled to my feet, adrenaline flooding a system that hadn't felt a true threat in three years.
I grinned. I laughed, a manic sound that startled the birds in the virtual trees.
"Finally," I yelled at the wolf, raising my rusty knife. "A fair fight!"