Chapter 65
NOVA play: Glass Houses by Bad Omens
Iwas used to not being able to see, but usually when I couldn’t see, it was because I’d misplaced my glasses.
My hands instinctually flew to my face to check they were still perched on my nose, even though I knew that they were.
It was the lights that had taken my vision from me. The panic at being completely blinded by stagelights was jarring. I found myself teetering on my feet as I stumbled forward.
Blinking furiously, I tried to clear my vision, and I could literally feel the crowd cheering. Their voices rolled over me like a living thing, and I shivered beneath the oppressive wave of sound as I struggled to get my bearings.
Adrenaline and anxiety warred in my chest as the crowd before me finally came into focus. It took me a moment to realize I wasn’t alone on stage. Luke was standing to my left, using a wireless headset to speak confidently to the crowd.
His features were scrambled into a new face by his own cloaking device, but I would recognize that cold, domineering voice anywhere.
I blinked again as the shock I seemed to have succumbed to sizzled through my body, and I tried to force myself to listen to what Luke was saying.
Luke gestured in my direction with a smile, introducing me as the lead MTR on the project, and I waved obediently to the crowd, flashing the manipulator in my white knuckled grip.
My breath was coming in fast, short, panicked bursts, and I tried to hide how terrified I was to be up here as Luke continued to speak.
“Now, I know many of you were looking forward to seeing the NeuroManipulator 1.0’s first public test performed on Neurvance’s founder…
But when I told my son, Sebastian, about my plans for today, he leapt at the opportunity to show the world how much faith we have in this new, groundbreaking technology.
“Sebastian? Come out and say hi to everyone.”
Wait… what? No!
My stomach bottomed out as Luke turned and smiled at Sebastian, who was now walking out from backstage looking like the billionaire’s son that he was.
He had his left hand casually slipped into the pocket of his crisp, navy blue dress pants, and he flashed a professionally whitened smile at the crowd as he waved enthusiastically with his other hand.
To those who weren’t close to him, I knew he was coming off as the relaxed, confident, rich CMO that Luke wanted the world to see. But, as he strode closer to me, it was clear to me that he was in pain, even with the cloaking tech.
His smile was tight and didn’t come anywhere near reaching his eyes. There was a fine tremor to his fingers as he waved, which he quickly hid by slipping his hand into his other pocket and turning to face me.
A large hole opened up in the floor between us to allow a bright, white surgical chair to slowly ascend into the center of the stage. Sebastian perched himself on the edge of the chair and shot me an exaggerated wink that was so performative it made me nauseous.
“I hope you know what you’re doing with that thing, Milo.” He smirked at me, sounding rehearsed and overly cheerful.
The crowd laughed at his joke, and I cringed.
Swallowing thickly, I glanced at Luke before shifting my gaze back to Seb, who seemed to be trying to silently tell me something with his expression.
I forced myself to give him a shaky smile before nodding, not trusting myself to speak. I was frantically trying to get my brain to work as all of mine and Jay’s plans crumbled around me.
This wasn’t how this was supposed to go!
Oblivious to my internal panic, Seb swung his legs up onto the chair and leaned back dramatically. He rolled his head to the side to look at the audience and held up a small black remote. He pressed a button, and the screen behind us lit up with an interactive poll.
“Alright, you should all have a notification on your Nexus apps inviting you to this poll! My father and I thought it would be fun for you all to vote on which memory of mine Milo should manipulate.”
The crowd moved as one to pull out their phones. A wave of excited chatter erupted as they all rushed to vote on which memory they wanted me to irrevocably alter for their comms executive.
My gaze flicked up to the screen, and I felt the blood drain from my face as I took in the options.
There were three choices, and all of them felt like intimate moments I doubted Seb would have chosen to change.
Each memory involved Jay’s father, Stephen, in some way.
The first one was a memory of Stephen’s funeral.
The second one was a memory of Stephen talking Seb out of switching his minor from graphic design to biochem.
The final option made me literally sick to my stomach.
It was the memory of Sebastian coming out to Stephen, and to my horror, it was quickly pulling into the lead as Luke continued to speak with charisma to the crowd.
“For those of you who know my son, you’re likely aware that our family had a very complex relationship with the late Stephen Reynolds…
may he rest in peace.” Luke painted a grief-stricken expression on his face, and I saw some people in the audience subtly dab at their eyes at the mention of Luke’s late business partner.
“Due to how close our families were, Stephen was involved in some very intimate moments of my son’s life.
Now, this isn’t something we’ve shared with the public, but Stephen had his demons as many brilliant men do, and some of these memories have negatively impacted my son’s mental health over the years. ”
The crowd made a unanimous awww sound that was so dang fake it made me want to scream.
“Before memory technology, someone like my son would never be able to get closure or confront the man who fumbled these crucial highlights of his life. But that’s all changed now…”
Luke gestured to me, smiling like he had the answers to all the world’s greatest problems.
“With the help of our amazing new Director of MTR, Milo, we can now tweak some of these painful memories and alleviate any trauma that otherwise would have gone untreated due to the tragic death of the man behind the moments.”
I was doing my best not to gape at both Luke and Sebastian. Seb was staring straight ahead, that terrifying fake smile on his face as he nodded along, despite the fact that I knew everything Luke had just said was a lie.
“So, take your vote on which memory you think caused my son the most pain, and we can manipulate it and give him the peace he deserves!”
The crowd cheered, and the votes started rolling in.
Sebastian and I watched the bar for the option to alter the memory of him coming out to Jay’s father as it shot past the other two choices. Both of us were pale and trembling by the time the votes were all in.
“Excellent choice!” Luke barked jovially into the microphone.
Sebastian refused to meet my gaze, and I knew that this memory hadn’t been a traumatic one.
I suspected the opposite. I would have bet my master’s degree on that memory being something Sebastian cherished.
From what Jay had told me about his dad, Stephen would have never made Seb feel ashamed about anything, let alone who he was attracted to.
There was clearly a reason Seb had trusted Stephen with that truth over his own father.
But the audience didn’t know that, and Luke was an expert at weaving complicated webs of half-truths and lacing them with coercion.
“How should Milo manipulate the memory?” Luke asked, pulling out a tiny remote from the pocket of his grey suit pants. With a click, another survey appeared on the screen.
Option 1: Have him come out to Luke instead.
Option 2: Alter Stephen’s reaction to the news.
Option 3: Make him believe he never had that conversation at all.
My stomach roiled in disgust as I glanced back at the crowd. Everyone was excitedly tapping in their votes on their phones, and I felt like I was going to vomit all over the stage.
Luke was treating these very personal, very important memories like they were quest options in a freaking video game.
I was absolutely horrified, but I didn’t know what I could do to put a stop to this.
My phone was buzzing like crazy in my pocket, and with shaking fingers, I tugged it out to check it, not caring that I was on stage in front of thousands of people.
I prayed it was Jay texting me.
I needed it to be Jay.
I needed him to come up here and take over.
This was so messed up.
I was going to be sick…
But of course, it wasn’t Jay, which just made me even more anxious.
Where was he?
The vibrations had been notifications coming in from my Nexus app. The app was blowing up with posts from employees speculating on why Sebastian had chosen this memory to be one of the options… because of course, they didn’t know that he was a prisoner here.
They didn’t know that Luke had likely chosen these memories to punish Sebastian.
‘Wow, I bet Sebastian regrets not telling his dad first! We should choose option B!’
‘So brave of Sebastian to do this so openly! We love a man who can be vulnerable! #BeLikeSeb’
‘Omg, poor Seb! Do you think Mr. Reynolds was horrible to him when he came out, and that’s why he wants to manipulate the memory? #TeamOption2’
I glanced back up at the screen, and Sebastian’s smile was still plastered on his face, but his complexion was now tinged green as Option 1 was revealed as the winner.
Luke’s wolf-like smile grew, and he met my gaze across the stage, gesturing to Seb’s prone form.
“Excellent! Milo, would you do the honors of being the first person in Neurovance history to not just extract, but rewrite such a tender and vulnerable moment?”
I opened my mouth to protest, but Seb hissed at me and jerked his head to indicate that I was expected to follow through and do what I was told.
I shook my head minutely at him, my eyes feeling so wide I was worried they would pop out of my head.
Seb gritted his teeth together in frustration and flicked the switch on his headset off.
“Just fucking do it, Milo. Do it, or he’s going to know you’re free and we’re all going to be even more fucked.”
So he had seen Jay’s messages… Why hadn’t he responded?
Sebastian spoke low enough that only I could hear as Luke was still rambling to the crowd about how this technology was going to change the world and redefine trauma therapy as we knew it.
Seb was right.
If I disobeyed a direct order from Luke and didn’t obviously exhibit signs of pain, he would know I’d found a way to remove the chip, and we would never be able to free Sebastian or Jay.
I nodded and stepped forward, taking my place by Sebastian’s head and clicking on the NeuroManipulator.
“Be careful not to touch me,” Sebastian reminded me through pursed lips as he leaned his head back and closed his eyes.
I nodded, still feeling like everything was moving in slow motion.
My brain wasn’t working as quickly as it normally did.
The horror and shock of what I was being forced to do was rushing through me with the force of a tsunami, and my hands were shaking violently as I pressed the tip of the device to Seb’s temple.
“You’re fine. You’ve got this, Milo,” Sebastian tried to soothe me, but my eyes pricked with tears, and I knew before I activated the device that I wasn’t going to be able to do it.
I wouldn’t do it.
Everything fell away, and all I could think about was how if I was ever going to mess anything up, now was the time.
I was Milo freaking Murphy.
Murphquake.
The human embodiment of Murphy’s law.
If anyone was going to fumble a giant, internationally televised event, it was going to be freaking me, and no one would be the least bit shocked.
For the first time in my life, the thought of that didn’t hurt me or make me sad.
Jay’s words from earlier floated through my mind.
He’d called me a hero.
A hero wouldn’t do this to an innocent person.
No.
A hero would do whatever it took to save Sebastian from this evil shit his father was doing to him… even if it meant humiliating themselves in front of thousands of people.
My body was moving before my mind could catch up, and I turned to face the crowd, painting a big, fake smile on my face.
I held up my hand, showing the audience the NeuroManipulator, and took a step away from Sebastian’s chair as I addressed them.
“Here’s to creating Neurovance history!” I cheered, making sure to project my voice into the tiny microphone clipped to my shirt.
The crowd went wild, and as I moved to step back into position, I intentionally crushed my heel into my shoe lace that perpetually came undone.
The audience gasped as I tripped and tumbled backward. I waved my arms wildly as I pretended to try to catch my fall.
Instead, I allowed the manipulator to slip out of my fingers, and I watched as it sailed through the air in a perfect arc, before shattering into hundreds of tiny, useless pieces.