Outside the Box by Grant Luebbe

THIRD PLACE

Outside the Box by Grant Luebbe

Hank Jennings opened his eyes. He dressed for work and stepped outside. The innovation of the Box always amazed him—a 200-kilometer enclosed Utopia. He gazed at the familiar skyscrapers reaching up to the Box’s ceiling as he walked. If they were any taller, they would poke the lights that mimicked a summer sky. He stopped at his favorite lake, staring at the city upstream. He dipped his toes in the water, sending small ripples through the lake. This quadrant was Hank’s favorite. A perfectly regulated ecosystem. No pollution, no climate change, just beauty and productivity. Not even noises from the weapons testing in the city could be heard. Welcome to Paradise.

Hank’s first observation of the day was Worker 618-E. Hank liked to call him Farmer Sprott. Sprott’s task for the hour was detassling the corn stalks. He methodically snapped and pulled the tassels off the plants, row by row. Hank filled in his report. As he completed it, he looked up and saw Farmer Sprott standing still. He had finished the last corn stalk, but had not moved on to his next task. Hank checked Sprott’s work order. He should have moved on to weeding by now.

“Hey, 618-E!” Hank yelled. No response. Hank walked over to Sprott and immediately noticed something was wrong. Sprott wore a blank expression. He didn’t move. But even stranger, his eyes pulsed and rumbled with a black-and-white static. Hank could see nothing in those eyes. He checked Sprott’s invigilator watch. Everything seemed to be functioning. Hank waved his hand in front of Sprott’s face. He poked and prodded him. Still no reaction.

Not panicking just yet, Hank checked his schedule. The closest Worker was 532-E in the barn. Hank ran over and threw the barn doors open to find 532-E idle, with the same blank face and static, surrounded by pails of milk. “What is going on?” Hank said, trying to bury his panic. Just like Sprott, she’d finished what she was supposed to be doing and then…stopped? He took a picture with his watch to include in his report. “There’s no way these are the only cases…” Hank muttered to himself. If he raised the alarm now, he’d be bombarded with questions by the Colonel that he wouldn’t know how to answer. He needed more information.

Hank ran to the hyprochip factory at the center of the city. He frantically flung open the factory doors to find 300 Workers slack-faced and static-eyed. Before Hank could even submit a report, his eyes involuntarily closed and he felt himself being pulled out of the Box.

Hank’s eyes opened. The hum of machinery and muted explosions told him instantly where he was. Outside of the Box, in the Board Room. Colonel Anderson sat at the head of the table, surrounded by Boxies, the scientists. An American flag wilted in the corner. “Do you mind telling me what the HELL is going on in there?” Anderson was more irate than normal.

Hank blinked. “Well, uh… I’m not exactly sure, sir.”

Anderson scowled. “Oh, you’re not? Well, you better GET sure, because we have a war to win. What is happening with the Workers?”

Hank took a deep breath and replied calmly. “Obviously there is some malfunction. Maybe you could ask one of the Boxies if…”

“Don’t you DARE put this on us,” a haughty Boxie interrupted. “We programmed them to invent, you observe them. If they stop inventing, that’s your ass.”

“They have invented everything! That’s what this is about!” Hank protested. “Every energy source, every medicine, every weapon…they have nothing new to create! They no longer have a purpose! Can’t you see that?” Hank realized he hated everyone in the room. “They are done! Kaput! This experiment is over!” he finished, seething. A silence hung in the air.

Colonel Anderson looked at Hank, pure vitriol in his eyes. “Is that so? Then as Leading Colonel, I find that this establishment has no other choice. We need to find the next level of weapons. If they need a reason to build, by God we’ll give them a reason. Put our observer back in his Box. He gets to watch his race start all over again. There must always be progress.”

Hank realized what Anderson meant. “You wouldn’t…That won’t work! It’ll just…” But midsentence, Hank’s eyes were closed, and he felt the familiar pull return.

Hank’s eyes reopened. He scrambled to his feet, back in the Box. But it was too late. He stared down at the lake, now coated with viscous, black oil. Noxious chemicals poured into air, turning the sky red.

Everything inside the Box was destroyed. Blown to rubble. Blocks and blocks of city, demolished. “There must always be progress.” Colonel Anderson’s words rang in Hank’s head. He looked around, trying to see the extent of the damage. Throngs of Workers, from all different areas of the Box, shambled to the center of the city. When Hank saw them, his heart sank. They still had static, empty eyes.

Hank followed them to the rubble of the hyprochip factory. He knew he had to take control of the situation quickly, if he had any hope of keeping his job.

The crowd formed a circle and stood there, staring blankly. The static splashed around their eyes, showing no sign of stopping. Hank walked to the middle of the circle, studying the Workers as he went. Everything was silent except for the crackling of the burning fires.

As Hank weighed his options, he looked into the lifeless eyes surrounding him. He knew he didn’t really have a choice. They were still humans. This wasn’t right.

“My name is Hank Jennings,” he shouted to the crowd. I’ve been living among you for a year now. Observing you, watching your progress. I’m part of a team. A team who is using you to invent everything that humans can invent, but mostly weapons. You are being kept in a Box and controlled by people on the outside. They converted you, so you could invent for them. But because you are finished inventing, you have run out of purpose. They destroyed everything, trying to give you that purpose again.”

As the Workers processed this new information, the static disappeared from their eyes. Inside them, Hank could see curiosity returning. There was something new to discover—the world outside the Box. Hank put his hand on his invigilator watch. He took a deep breath, and pulled. The watch resisted, pulling itself back down onto his arm. With a yell, Hank ripped it off. With the watch came meters of wires and blood. It poured out of the precise, small hole where his watch

used to be. The Colonel and his lackeys couldn’t control his eyes now.

The Workers all watched in quiet curiosity. They followed Hank’s example, and in perfect synchronicity ripped their watches off of their bodies. The bloody wires were thrown down in a tangled mass.

The Workers mobilized. Moving as a unified force, they excavated a massive energy cannon from beneath the rubble. Hank watched, amazed, as the strongest ones carried it toward the edge of the Box, the rest of the Workers following in a silent parade.

When they reached the edge, the Workers prepped it, aiming the cannon at the wall. The cannon began to hum.

Ready...Aim...

Hank’s blood ran cold. He watched in horror as a small turret rose out of the ground behind the Workers. “Hey, look out!”

Fwooooosh! A gust of flame blew through their ranks. Workers dropped like flies. The few survivors ran. They were met with more turrets, in every direction. Immediately, their eyes lost the hopeful curiosity and Nature’s instinct gave them a new purpose—to survive.

Some of the Workers put up a futile fight. They never made a sound as they were euthanized.

The Box was quiet. Hank sat by his favorite lake, no longer pristine, but dirty and polluted. Fires crackled around him. There were no more static, empty eyes…no more attacks from turrets… just the sound of the dying fires and the gentle splash of ripples. “There must always be progress.”

Hank felt the static start to envelop his eyes.