And that’s when it happened. What popped up was the last thing I could have ever expected: 1994 Nintendo and then the title screen. It was Donkey Kong Country, a game I had gotten for Christmas as a five-year-old. How in the hell did it know?
The music was crystal clear, like listening through headphones. I forgot all about Ray’s, Henry, and my own life. It wasn’t that I felt like a kid again. I was a kid again.
The game suddenly ended when I laughed. Somehow Nous knew that it had done its job.
I returned to my stool a little dazed. “How about that,” I whispered.
“How about what?” Andy served me another lager.
“Didn’t you see it? Didn’t you hear it? Donkey Kong!”
Andy shook his head. “No, I didn’t.”
That was the thing. He really hadn’t. I couldn’t believe him until I saw, or didn’t see it, for myself. Unless you were the person playing, Nous looked broken. It was like every player was miming.
Each experience was different. Like me, sometimes it was a video game. Other people revisited old vacation spots, or watched favorite episodes of television shows. Andy viewed a memory of himself working with his dad. No matter what, though, the experience lasted no more than twenty or twenty-five minutes.
Word got around fast. Over the course of a week I watched no fewer than two hundred people stand in front of Nous, goofy smiles on their faces as if they had just fallen in love. A few people did try it a second time, but the line was usually so long that the overeager ended up just going home. Andy, of course, made a killing off drinks. By the end of the week he seemed back to his old self.
Now here’s where the story gets interesting, if that’s what you want to call it.
It was after the initial excitement about Nous died down that I finally convinced Henry to come back to the bar. He had lost weight, making him look a hell of a lot older than sixty-eight. Andy, being the good guy he is, welcomed him back with a free pint.
For an hour or so the three of us caught up. We let Henry talk about Ann as much as he wanted. He didn’t cry, though. Henry’s a strong guy, or at least so we thought.
“Business is good,” Henry said after a while, finally talking a look around the bar. There were plenty of younger faces enjoying each other’s company. It was one of those nights when you wished Ray could have seen it.
“Thank that little baby back there,” Andy said, pointing to Nous. Surprisingly, it was free. “A new game,” he said, placing a quarter on the bar. “Give it a try, Henry. It’s on the house.”
“Okay.” Henry went over to the machine.
Andy and I made the mistake of not telling Henry that Nous was more than an old arcade cabinet. Even if he had known, I doubt that would have changed what happened next.
As Henry began to play I turned my attention back to Andy. Twenty, thirty minutes must have gone by before I noticed that the stool next to mine was still vacant. I turned around. Henry hadn’t finished playing. Besides his right hand moving the joystick ever so slightly, his body was a statue.
His face... that expression. It was something between absolute desire and absolute devastation. I didn’t know the human face could look like that. I stood to get his attention when Andy grabbed my arm.
“Don’t,” Andy whispered. His voice was actually shaking. “When they put Nous in here, they said there’s only one rule: the user has to choose to end the experience. If we ended it for him, it could...” He didn’t have to finish his sentence.
“Jesus Christ, Andy.” I was really trying to keep my voice down. “It’s hurting him.”
“We can’t do anything. We just have to wait.” I was pissed at Andy, but I didn’t say anything else to him. What good would it have done?
We waited. Thirty minutes became forty, forty an hour. The patrons who had come to play Nous went home frustrated. A few people asked if ‘that man’ was all right. I drank water the rest of the night. Whatever was going to happen when Henry stopped playing, I needed to be stone cold sober.
Finally, it was only the three of us. Henry’s face had relaxed somewhat, but he had begun to sweat. His legs were shaking, too. It looked as if he had just run a marathon.
It ended just after one in the morning. Henry whispered his dead wife’s name before collapsing like a puppet with its strings cut. Thankfully, Andy had already called an ambulance. As the EMTs took Henry away, all I knew was that he was still breathing.
The next day Henry called me from the hospital. He sounded all right, but the doctors wanted to keep him a few days for observation. I didn’t ask what he had seen. Honestly I didn’t want to know.
Right away I came down here to tell Andy, but when I arrived he was already talking to someone I’d never seen. He was a young man, at most twenty-two. He still had pimples.
It was Andy’s investor.
His name was Colt. He owned a start-up that specialized in passive neural interfaces. Nous was his way to showcase the technology. Over the next twenty minutes he explained everything about Nous. In short, there was no miracle or curse. A little scan here, a little amplification there.
“Nous was just supposed to give people what they wanted,” he told us. Poor kid. He was actually crying over what had happened to Henry. “I’ve already taken care of it down at the hospital. Your friend won’t have to pay anything. And Andy, you can keep the investment money. I really love what you’ve created with this bar.” Wiping his eyes, he took a good look around the place.
“Thank you,” Andy said. “And for the bar, thank my dad.” Andy told Rita to lock the door, that Ray’s was closing early. Over lager, Andy and Colt had a long conversation about the difference between what people want, and what people actually need.
“There’s not much to it, really,” Andy said. “It’s easy to tell what people want. Giving them what they want, you got to be careful. I’ve been doling out alcohol my whole life. I’ve come across plenty of desperate people who wanted to drown themselves in booze. I saw that same look on Henry’s face when he played Nous. He didn’t want to die. Please don’t think that, Colt. He just wanted his Ann back.
“Henry needed to know that his wife loved him, that he was a good father, and that he should try to be happy again. That would have been enough.”
Colt took Nous with him that night. He was, Andy and I hoped, a little wiser about the human condition.
Well, that’s the most interesting thing that’s ever happened here. The bar’s still doing okay. It’ll last until Andy, Henry and I bow out, at least.
In fact, now that I think of it, you’ve come on an interesting night, yourself. I bet you didn’t even notice it in the corner there. You see, Colt came by earlier today. Said he’s been fiddling with Nous the last couple months, used Andy’s advice to adjust the programming. He even renamed it: Kardia.
What do you say? I’ll spot you the quarter.
……………………………………………
Thomas Broderick is a writer living in Santa Rosa, California. Since 2012, his short stories have appeared in various U.S. and U.K. publications. His goal for 2016 is to become an Associate Member of the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America. Follow Thomas on Twitter @BROD_in_the_AM.
It’s Been a Long Day
