Chaosbutterfly

By David Wright

Monday, 7:00 a.m.
The invigilator sat directly across from Alan. Her name was Janis Oliver. She was a beautiful woman. Long black hair. Stunning blue eyes. She smiled at him and spoke with gentle politeness, but there was a coldness to her aspect that let Alan know she was all business.
“The interview will consist of three parts and will run for approximately seventy-two hours. Were you aware of this?”
“Seventy-two hours?” Alan had never heard of such a thing. What kind of interview takes three days to complete?
“Yes. Do you need to make arrangements?”
Alan thought for a moment. “No.”
“Do you wish to continue with the process?” Janis had Alan’s digital application form up on her laptop screen. He’d submitted it over two years ago, complete with half a dozen high profile reference letters and government, corporate and faculty endorsements. He’d been on the short list for the last six months.
What if he said no? What if he said, ‘This is a big decision, and I’m afraid I need more time to think about it’? Would she delete those oh-so-valuable files right there before his eyes? Sometimes the sum of a person’s life came down to a few megabytes of information, one big decision, and a fleeting moment of time. This was Alan’s moment.
“Yes. I am ready to continue.”
Janis smiled coldly and opened another window on her laptop. “Please read this and sign here.” She handed Alan her laptop pointer and sat back in her chair.
The form was extensive, covering everything from paper cuts to accidental coronaries. It didn’t do much to ease Alan’s apprehension. Janis waited patiently as Alan skimmed through the five scrolling pages and eventually signed at the bottom.
“Good.” She took back the pointer and closed the file efficiently, turned the needle-thin laptop screen to face her and settled back into her tilting leather chair.
“I see you attended Harvard.”
“Yes. Graduated fifth in my class. Pyro-Ballistics with a minor in Modern Ethics and Terrorism.” This wasn’t so bad. He might have to take the fifth on a few questions about the Company, but he looked forward to revealing his very successful corporate record. Alan began to relax.
“Ah.” The invigilator put the laptop pointer to her lips. “Had several romantic liaisons,” she said wryly. “Ended badly.”
“Um.” Odd question. Did she want him to explain?
“Flirted briefly with thoughts of communism, larceny, homosexuality.”
“What?” Alan stood up, suddenly angry. “Look. I don’t know who you’ve been talking to?”
The invigilator continued to stare at the laptop screen as if nothing had happened. “Can hold your breath for three minutes and twenty-three seconds. Very impressive. We’ll have to test that.” She slapped the laptop closed and looked straight into Alan’s eyes. “What’s your favorite color?”
“I . . .” Alan shook his head and sat down slowly. “Blue.”
“Your favorite animal?”
“I had a dog when I was a kid.”
Janis reached into her vest pocket and grabbed a handful of something. “Put the following objects in order of preference.” She tossed the objects onto the glass table in front of Alan. “Favorite closest to you and least favorite furthest away from you.”
There was a cracked and slightly dented marble, a blue, four-sided, pyramid die, the racing car game piece from Monopoly, a white plastic cross with ‘Jesus Saves’ written on it and a tarnished, double-headed quarter. Alan was no stranger to psychological testing – he’d had plenty of that at Harvard and even more in Special Ops – but this was just stupid. He’d play along. He had to.
Alan arranged the objects in no particular order and sat back. Janis looked at the arrangement thoughtfully.
“You chose the coin first. Why is that? Do you like games of chance?”
“When you can’t lose,” Alan said impulsively.
“Very interesting. We’ll start there.”

***
Monday, 5:32 p.m.
Alan could hear the lions roaring on the other side of the doors, but there was no way he could know behind which door they were hiding. For all he knew there could be a lion behind each door, or behind none of them. It could all be some elaborate trick. But how could it be? He’d seen one man die already. The blood was still on the sand.
“You must choose one door.” The invigilator’s voice boomed from the speakers mounted high above the arena.
“No way. I quit. Let me out of here.”
“You must choose one door.” The voice repeated.
Alan struggled against the metal straps that bound him to his chair. By accident, his finger touched the little keyboard on his armrest. A bell sounded.
“Stop. I didn’t choose a door. It was an accident.”
“A door has been chosen.”
Alan watched in horror as one of the heavy stone doors on the edge of the ancient Roman arena began to rise slowly. Alan felt his heart race once again and the sweat bead on his forehead. He saw a little glimmer of gold and then an Asian man in a pinstriped suit rolled unceremoniously under the slowly rising door. The heavy door shut with a thud behind him.
Alan recognized the man from the pre-interview party. He was an entrepreneur, a real business tycoon from Hong Kong with a ninety-million-dollar home and three mistresses. His gold Rolex sparkled in the hot North African sun.
“Help me,” the Asian tycoon pleaded. He could see Alan strapped to the chair, but a pane of unbreakable glass smeared with blood separated them.
“Get out of there,” Alan screamed. He struggled against his restraints but was careful this time not to touch a button on his armrest keyboard.
“You must choose one door.”
“No, I won’t.”
“What’s happening? Why are they doing this?”
“You have five seconds to choose one door or all the doors will open.”
“Stop this. Please, stop. I don’t want the job. Let me go.”
“Five, four, three . . .”
Alan pressed a button and closed his eyes, but he could do nothing to cover the sound of the lion’s roar or the man’s screams. When the arena eventually grew quiet, Alan opened his eyes and peered through the blood smeared glass. The only thing left of the Asian tycoon was his blood-stained Rolex.
“You must choose one door.” The invigilator spoke again, and as she did, the protective glass before him sunk into the sand. He was alone and exposed in the arena. There were only three doors left to choose from.
“You have five seconds to choose one door or all the doors will open.”
Alan could not hear any lions, but that did not mean they weren’t there.
“Five.”
Alan swore and cursed the invigilator with every foul word he could think of in the five seconds left to him.
“One.”
Alan pressed the middle door.
“I’m sorry, but your choice was after the count. All the doors will now be opened.”
“No. I pressed it.” Alan pressed the middle button again and again in panic. The doors were opening. Alan closed his eyes. Now he knew why a condemned man preferred to wear a mask. It’s better not to see the face of death. After a few unbearable seconds, Alan opened his eyes, but there were no lions. There was nothing behind the last three doors.
“Congratulations, Mr. Jeffries. You have successfully completed stage one of the interview process and eliminated a third of your competition.”
Alan’s straps popped open and he stood up warily. He felt suddenly angry.
“Why did you do this?” He screamed at the speakers mounted high above the arena.
“You chose the door. It was a game of chance, was it not? A game of chance which you could not lose, like a double-headed coin.”
Alan fell to his knees and sobbed.
***

Monday, 7:30 a.m.
Janis was staring at the objects arranged on the glass table as if they were the Rosetta Stone for all the mysteries of the universe. Alan shifted in his chair uncomfortably.
“And the car?” she said casually. “Do you have a fondness for automobiles?”
Alan shrugged. “I guess so.”
“You like to go fast?”
“Not particularly.” Alan thought for a moment. “I guess I just like to be in the driver’s seat.”
Janis nodded. “Oh, you will be.”

***

Tuesday, 11:48 a.m.
The panel lit up like a Christmas tree. Alan had never seen a more complicated array of buttons, dials and levers, each with its own incomprehensible label. He felt like a student driver taking his road test in the cockpit of the space shuttle, except that it wasn’t a space shuttle. It was something far more dangerous.
“Listen to me very carefully.” The invigilator’s voice spoke clearly from the metal speaker in the ceiling. “This is an interactive recorded message. I cannot hear you or see you, but I assure you that everything you see before you is real.”
Alan stood up. He was not bound. Maybe he could escape this time.
“This is a real nuclear facility and you are in the actual control room.”
Alan scanned the ten-by-ten foot prison in an instant. It was a grim relic from the cold war with aging yellow walls and a dozen black and white security monitors. Alan ran to the only door in the room and tried desperately to turn the handle. It was useless. The door was made of solid steel and apparently locked from the outside. He couldn’t break through it with a sledgehammer.
“The faces on your security monitors are the real faces of two hundred and eighty desperate men and women trapped in the four levels of this facility. Some of them are your competition and are faced with a similar challenge as your own.”
Alan pounded his fists against the cold steel and screamed for help. The door had no words or symbols on it save for a large blue triangle in the center. Alan couldn’t fathom its meaning.
“And the blinking red lights and sounding alarm are warnings of an impending nuclear meltdown. Radiation will spread through each of the four levels of this facility killing all in its path until the reactor finally reaches critical mass and explodes with the force of ten nuclear bombs.”
Alan turned away from the door. On the security monitors, workers in hard hats and lab coats were waving to him frantically and speaking but he could not hear them. He could hear only the blaring alarm and the dispassionate voice of the invigilator.
“The power to stop this catastrophe is in your hands, and in your hands alone, Mr. Jeffries. You are in the driver’s seat. Good luck.”
“Why are you doing this?” Alan screamed but the invigilator’s monologue continued unabated.
“To deactivate stage one, depress the colored diodes on the Alpha panel in the following sequence. Green. Red. Yellow . . .”
Alan became aware of another softer voice coming from the control panel. He hadn’t noticed it before because of the alarm and the incessant drone of the invigilator. It was a computer voice speaking Russian words in a steady rhythm. All at once it stopped. Another alarm sounded, this one more urgent in intensity. A series of green lights came on one at a time.
Alan looked back at the cameras. In three of the twelve cameras, the men and women were no longer gesturing to him. Their hands were on their throats and bloody tears were streaming from their eyes.
“No!” Alan screamed.
“You have failed to stop the first stage of reactor meltdown. Radiation is currently flooding Alpha level of this facility. There are sixty-eight men and women on this level.”
Alan stared at the cameras with morbid horror as blisters appeared on the men and women’s faces and one by one they fell to an agonizing death.
“You have ten minutes to stop stage two of the reaction or Beta level will likewise be flooded with radiation. There are ninety-five workers on this level. Good luck.”
Alan looked for a clock but there was none. He wished he had a watch, or better yet, a cell phone.
“To deactivate stage two, depress the colored diodes on the Beta panel in the following sequence. Green. Red. Yellow . . .”
Alan ran back to the control panel. He had to do something. He had to try. Maybe it wasn’t so hard. Maybe he could figure it out before anybody else died. He cursed himself for not trying before.
“Blue. Orange.”
Alan pressed the first red button he saw, and then the rest of the colors in sequence.
“Scarlet. Vermillion. Cerise.”
“What the . . .?”
“Russet. Terra cotta. Morocco red. Turkey red. Chrome red.”
Alan froze. There were hundreds of reds, hundreds of blues and greens. It was hopeless. The computer voice was speaking softly. It was probably counting down in Russian. Abruptly, it stopped. The urgent alarm sounded once again and a series of red lights lit up one at a time.
“No. You said I had ten minutes.”
“You inputted the incorrect sequence thus bypassing the countdown. Radiation is currently flooding Beta level of this facility.”
Alan looked back at the security monitors. People were bleeding, dying in agony and it was all his fault.
“You have ten minutes to stop stage three of the reaction or Gamma level will likewise be flooded with radiation. There are one hundred and seventeen men and women on this level. Good luck.”
Alan turned away from the monitors. He felt physically ill and vomited on the floor. He wondered if radiation was already seeping into his level making him sick.
“To deactivate stage three, depress the colored diodes on the Gamma panel in the following sequence. Green. Red. Yellow . . .”
Alan scanned the panel in desperation. There were at least a hundred dials, maybe a thousand different lights and buttons. It was hopeless. Maybe if he just turned them all down.
“Blue. Orange.”
No. It wasn’t entirely random. He could see a pattern of sorts. Half the lights had gone out. He needed to concentrate on the right side only. Alan found another series of colored lights and pressed them in order. It wasn’t so hard after all.
“Turn down the one inch dial ninety degrees.”
“The what?”
“Turn up the quarter inch dial forty-five degrees.”
Alan’s fingers were shaking. He found one fat dial and one thin one. He turned them and prayed to God he was right.
The soft computer voice stopped its countdown and the urgent alarm sounded. A series of yellow lights lit up one at a time. Alan screamed.
“You inputted the incorrect sequence thus bypassing the countdown. Radiation is currently flooding Gamma level of this facility.”
Alan could not bear to look back at the dying faces on the security monitors, but he saw them in his mind’s eye nonetheless.
“You have ten minutes to stop stage four of the reaction or Delta level will likewise be flooded with radiation. There is one man on this level. Good luck.”
One man.
Alan felt an incredible weight of regret well up inside him. Two hundred and eighty people had died because of his incompetence . . . because of this stupid game. What did one more life matter? Suddenly he remembered the blue triangle above the steel door. He was on Delta level. He was the one man.
“To deactivate stage three, depress the colored diodes on the Delta panel in the following sequence. Green. Red. Yellow . . .”
Alan shook his head. He had to focus. Another quarter of the panel had blanked out. There were fewer lights to worry about. Maybe he could do it right this time.
“Blue. Orange.”
Alan pressed the remaining sequence of lights.
“Turn down the one inch dial ninety degrees. Turn up the quarter inch dial forty-five degrees.”
He must have turned the dials the wrong way last time. Alan found the two dials and carefully turned them in opposite directions. That should be it, shouldn’t it? Alan listened for the computer voice. It was still counting down.
“On the count of three, reduce the ambient temperature five thousand degrees.”
“But how do I do that?”
“One.”
Alan searched the panel for a temperature gauge. There were four bulky levers at the bottom of the panel, but the indicators were all in Russian.
“Two.”
How could he possibly know which lever was the right one or how far to pull it? Maybe if he had a few more tries, he could get it right, but this was his last chance.
“One.”
Alan pulled the last lever as hard as he could. The computer voice stopped its countdown and Alan felt his heart sink in his chest. There was a loud whirring noise as if a giant fan was spinning to a stop and then abruptly the alarms ceased.
“Congratulations, Mr. Jeffries. You have successfully completed the second stage of the interview process.”
***

Monday, 8:48 a.m.
Alan rubbed his eyes. He had been sitting across from the invigilator now for almost two hours, and although she was a beautiful woman by any objective standard, there was something decidedly disturbing about her that made him want to crawl under a rock.
“So you are saying that the white marble has no particular significance.”
“No.”
“And your fourth choice, the blue, four-sided, pyramid die.”
“Like I told you before, it means nothing to me.” Alan fell back in his chair as if he’d been suddenly deflated. “I faked it, okay. I just randomly put these objects in front of me. They don’t mean anything to me.”
The invigilator raised her eyebrows.
Alan felt hot and uncomfortable. “I don’t mean to be rude, but maybe if you didn’t play these silly games, the interview wouldn’t take three days.”
“The interview? Oh, we haven’t even started the interview. But I can see you are tiring, so let me just ask you about the last object.”
“The last one?”
“Yes. The one you put furthest away from you. Do you find it offensive?”
“What? No.” Alan looked at the little plastic cross. Why had he put it last? It was cheap, gaudy, but not overtly offensive. What did he care if people worshipped such things?
“Like I said, it was just random.”
The invigilator smiled coldly. “No. I don’t think so, but we shall see.”
***

Wednesday, 6:32 p.m.
Alan stood precariously on a fifty-foot tall, white, marble pillar overlooking the mouth of an active volcano. He had read of such places. Some said that Vesuvius had such an observatory, and Krakatoa. Mauna Loa certainly did. Who knows, perhaps even Atlantis had watchers such as this before that great continent sank into the sea.
For whatever reason, he now stood watch over the gates of Hades looking for all the world like a solitary sentinel from the Roman pantheon, but he was not a god and he was not alone. A dozen yards away was another pillar of similar size and shape upon which stood a dog, a golden retriever, howling in fear, and in front of him was a two-faced statue of enormous size that seemed to rise up impossibly out of the heart of the volcano. In its right hand, the statue held a golden bridge high up above the Corinthian pillars. Both Alan and the dog looked on in wonder.
“This is the final stage of your interview, Mr. Jeffries.” The invigilator’s voice echoed over the crater’s gaping mouth like the thunderous voice of Jupiter. “Today you will be presented with a choice between life and death. I regret that I will not be able to instruct you in your final decision or aid you in the process of making that decision. This final task must be a leap of faith for you and you alone. You will be weighed in the balance and purged in fire. Good luck.”
As the invigilator’s ambiguous speech came to an end, a basket lowered slowly from each arm of the bridge. Alan wondered at the significance of this. Would he be required to make another impossible choice? Would he be forced to send more people to their deaths? Perhaps this time, it was only his life on the line, and maybe that of the dog.
The basket drew within reach and Alan braved the awesome sense of vertigo to pull it on top of his pillar. There was just enough room in it for him to stand, but to what purpose? Would the basket hold his weight, and where would it take him?
Alan looked back at the dog again. The other basket had come to a stop only a foot away from the dog’s pillar and the confused golden retriever was pacing apprehensively before it. All at once, the dog made a leap and Alan felt the strain on his own basket almost pull him off the pillar.
At last Alan realized the purpose of this simple but enormous machine. It was a scale, a diabolical scale from which he could not escape alive. If he let go of his basket, the dog would sink into the volcano’s smoking mouth and Alan would be trapped on his pillar until he died of starvation or rolled off in his sleep. But if he jumped into his basket, he would most certainly outweigh the slim retriever and sink into the flames himself.
Alan knew that he should just let go. The life of a dog was not worth the life of a man. But then again, was he worth more than the Asian tycoon he’d sent to the lions, or the two hundred and eighty men and women he’d killed in a nuclear power plant? Maybe if he were gone, this horrible game would all just end.
Alan strained against the dog’s weight, uncertain of what to do. He felt himself being pulled inch by inch off the narrow marble circle. If he could only hold it, maybe the dog would jump back onto the relative safety of the pillar giving him more time to think of a way out.
The pillar trembled sharply beneath his feet. Something was rumbling in the depths below and this could mean only one thing. The volcano was about to erupt. He would be given no more time to think, and he was doomed either way.
He felt the dog’s weight pull him one last inch and then he stepped deliberately off the pillar. For a split second, the bridge seemed to balance on the pyramid fulcrum in the statue’s hand, and Alan wondered if perhaps there was still a chance for his survival. But then the irreversible laws of physics took over and he felt his basket lower towards the sulfurous smoke.
The intense heat filled his lungs and Alan instinctively held his breath. He was only delaying the inevitable but even now his life was precious to him. Maybe these last few minutes of life would allow him to see the ultimate fate of the dog. He could take some solace in that – if the dog lived.
Alan watched intently through the smoke as the lopsided bridge tilted sharply on the pyramid fulcrum and the dog’s basket rose high up to the volcano’s rim. With one last grateful yelp, the golden retriever disembarked awkwardly to safety.
The tension went suddenly slack and Alan was almost relieved as he plunged headlong into the sulfurous regions below. The wait was over.
***

Thursday, 7:00 a.m.
Alan awoke to a familiar sight – that of the invigilator’s cold but brilliant blue eyes staring at him from across the glass table.
“Three minutes and twenty-six seconds. I see you were not lying about how long you could hold your breath.”
Alan shook his head. The taste of rotten eggs was still on his tongue. “How did I . . .?”
“I thought that would be obvious. When your basket plunged into the sulfurous hot spring, you held your breath until our M5 transport could scoop you out. Deus ex machina. I hope you’ll forgive the plot manipulation, but you were the only candidate to successfully complete all three parts of the interview process. We couldn’t just let you drown. It’s just as well you hadn’t lied on your resume about how long you could hold your breath. As it was, we were a few seconds late.” The invigilator smiled coldly.
“But the fire?”
“Did you see fire?” The invigilator shook her head dismissively. “Just a natural hot spring in a caldera, lots of steam and sulfur, and maybe a few pyrotechnics. I’m surprised you didn’t notice, considering your background at Harvard, but I guess it’s different in the field, with your adrenalin pumping and all that. You have a few minor burns but nothing a good night’s rest and plenty of Aloe Vera won’t fix.”
The invigilator turned back to her laptop and began closing a few windows with her pointer. “Did you recognize my namesake?”
Alan shook his head.
“Janus – the two-faced god of doorways, bridges and new beginnings. This is a new beginning for you, isn’t it? I apologize for all the theatrics,” Janis continued without the slightest trace of apology in her voice, “but the position which we needed to fill required an individual with a certain character. That wasn’t something we could tell about you just by looking at your resume.”
She stopped poking her laptop as if suddenly remembering something and stood up from her leather chair. “Oh, and by the way, congratulations, President Jeffries.” She extended her hand over the glass table. “The Oval Office is two doors down. Good day.”