The Button

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It happened so suddenly I had no chance to react. One second I was sound asleep, dreaming sweet dreams of a beach in Nha Trang, cool beer on one side, girlfriend the other, when rough hands grabbed me.
I lurched awake instantly.
A scream built in my throat, but was stifled by a palm pressed down firmly against my face, muffling the sound almost completely.
“Don’t fucking move.”
The words were spoken quietly, hissed, seeming as if they were formed through teeth still clamped together, but there was such malevolence in the voice that I froze where I lay, certain that to do otherwise would lead to sanctions best not contemplated.
The hand was removed from my face and I spoke into the darkness.
“Don’t touch her. Please.”
Suddenly, the bedside lamp illuminated, blinding me briefly, forcing me to blink repeatedly to adjust. As my vision cleared, my plight was revealed.
At the foot of the bed stood two men, clad entirely in black, even down to the balaclavas they wore to mask their faces.
Both clutched assault rifles to their chests.
Their eyes were fixed on my prone form.
To my right, another figure, this one kneeling beside me, clearly the owner of the hand that had fastened to my face momentarily.
Lisa lay beside me and I chanced a glance at her, relieved to see the steady rise and fall of her chest, yet puzzled that she seemed able to sleep through this madness. My eyes lifted and took in the fourth figure in the room, his attire identical to his companions, though he wore nothing to shield his face – a worrying development - and, instead of a weapon, he held in his hand a hypodermic needle, the tip glistening with a drop of clear fluid, the barrel of the instrument now devoid of liquid.
‘Don’t worry,’ said the man, ‘We have no interest in her. She’ll awaken as normal in the morning.’
‘Thank you.’
I didn’t know what else to say.
‘You though, Mr. Jackson, may have a very different experience come daybreak.’
‘What do you want?’
The man shook his head, tutting as if irritated at the question.
‘Please. I’ll do whatever you want. Is it money?’
The man with the needle lowered himself towards me, pivoting at the waste and, for one crazy moment, I thought he was going to kiss me but, instead, with his face no more than three inches from my own, he swung his brow down savagely, connecting with the bridge of my nose, pain exploding through my head, rendering me blind once more as colours danced and flashed internally and my mouth, chin and chest were instantly covered by a stream of blood and mucus.
I groaned involuntarily, the sound coming out more as a gurgle as fluids bubbled.
Gradually, I regained my composure, though still my head pulsed with pain. I focused once more. Needles simply gazed at me with eyes utterly unreadable.
I dared not speak.
‘Don’t insult me again, Mr. Jackson,’ he said, pointing at the sleeping form of Lisa.
I nodded.
Message received and understood.
Needles sat on the edge of the bed, Lisa between us, and simply stared at her as she slept.
‘She’s very beautiful, Mr. Jackson.’
I remained mute.
‘You’ve done well for yourself.’
My mouth stayed clamped tight shut.
‘Tell me, do you think she’d have even looked at you twice if not for your bank balance?’
Silence.
‘Cos, let’ face it, she’s a fucking gold digging bitch, right? She wouldn’t have given you a second glance if you were poor, if you were an unknown. I’ve met her type before, Mr. Jackson and, a word of advice: she’s just waiting for you to screw up, she’s just waiting for an excuse to file for divorce as soon as she can. To begin with, you’ll be upset. Devastated even, losing the love of your life but, when the fog of blinkered emotion lifts, the tears of sorrow will be replaced by shrieks of rage as she takes you for every penny you are worth.’
The knots of muscle at the hinges of my jaw began to pulse.
He was trying to provoke me and, despite myself, he was succeeding.
‘Am I getting under your skin, Mr. Jackson?’
My plan was to remain resolutely silent but, as Needles grabbed a handful of Lisa’s hair and tugged sharply, I realised the rules had changed.
‘You’re starting to,’ I admitted.
He laughed, a delighted, sudden outburst, high pitched, feminine even.
‘I like you,’ he said, releasing Lisa’s hair, letting it fall back to the duvet where he gently stroked it straight.
‘So, Mr. Jackson: What’s the magic number?’
I shook my head instinctively, processing the question in an instant, but acting as if I were confused and attempting to glean some meaning from the words.
“Wha-?” I began, before being cut short abruptly.
“Don’t lie to me.”
He screamed the words, the sound so deafening I felt certain he must have torn a vocal chord or two, the ability to go from totally silent to ear-splitting intensity instantaneously seeming almost unnatural. No elevation, no crescendo, simply nothingness to all out rage.
He’d seen straight through me.
I pushed my head back into the pillows, instinct trying to force me away from the source of the sound but, of course, I was going nowhere.
“I’m going to ask you just one more time, Mr. Jackson and, if you truly love this woman beside you, you’ll jolly well answer.”
He nodded at the two men at the foot of the bed.
“My boys here aren’t quite as liberally minded as I am.” He paused, letting me think about that before elaborating. “They don’t hold with feminism and sexual equality. Way they see it, a woman’s place is to do a man’s bidding, no matter how depraved.”
He seemed to savour the last word, allowing it to trickle from his mouth slowly, emphasising his point with a suggestive waggle of the tongue, just in case I had any doubt what he was talking about.
I didn’t.
“So, what’s it going to be?” he asked. “Do I get my answer, or do these fella’s get to sample the merchandise?”
I shook my head, a battle raging within. See, I knew the answer to his question, and I also knew I loved Lisa and, in the end, it was no contest.
“17,” I said softly, as if the dimness of the words would somehow nullify the damage I had just done.
Needles surprised me, then. Instead of thanking me, or knocking me out or, worst case, killing me stone cold, instead he clambered to his feet and began to applaud. Quietly at first, but building in intensity until I felt I was a performer being commended at the end of a fine show.
“Good, good, Mr. Jackson,” he declared, humour in his voice and, for all the world, I half expected him to end with a ‘Bravo, bravo.’ Rather, he reached into the inside of his coat and retrieved a small brown envelope, opening it at once, glancing down at the post card sized piece of paper he now held, nodding to himself, apparently pleased.
“Very good, Mr. Jackson,” he said, flipping the paper so that I could read what was written and, in clear, black marker pen, two numerals: 17.
“You see, we knew the answer all along.”
“What the fucking hell is this all about,” I bellowed, suddenly furious. I was being toyed with, and I did not like it one little bit.
“Calm yourself, man,” Needles said impatiently, as if talking to a love sick fool on the verge of fighting a much stronger man. “You’ll do yourself an injury.”
I had managed to sit myself upright and, momentarily, Face-Holder had allowed me to do so, but firm hands pushed me back down now.
“That was merely a test. You’d have done the same if the position were reversed. Right?”
He gazed down at me, clearly expecting an answer.
“I guess.”
My nose throbbed, now, the sudden spike of anger setting my blood pumping, the added pressure intensifying the discomfort emanating from my shattered face.
“What’s say we carry this on over dinner?” Needles asked, the combination of his apparent sincerity and the oddness of the question, considering the circumstances, leaving me blind to the rifle butt that powered into my temple, sending the world suddenly black.

The room was white. Blinding white, or so it seemed to begin with though, as my eyes adjusted to the intensity of the glare, I realised the ferocity was more to do with perception than reality. Water swam in my field of vision, as though tears flowed, but this was just the residual effects of the blow to the head. Fact is, it wouldn’t have surprised me had little yellow birds started dancing before my eyes, cheeping and trilling, a melodious accompaniment to the dizziness.
Something banged on a hard surface in front of me.
Loud.
Hard.
“Wakey, wakey, Mr. Jackson.”
Needles. The voice belonged to Needles. Who else, really?
“See this?” he asked, a question surely intended as mockery, for I could see little just yet.
“Focus,” he demanded, a rap of knuckles against my brow bringing me somewhere nearer to attention, though still not all the way back to the real world.
“Here,” he said, the sound of something striking a hard surface coming again, though not quite as forcefully this time.
Slowly now, my eyes began to clear, the room I was in began to take form.
All around, the walls were bare. Pure, pristine white, like a make-believe hospital. No posters, no notice-board, not even a flake of paint chipped away to reveal the brickwork beneath. In front of me, the only other piece of furniture in the room besides the chair upon which I sat: a desk, surface wooden, supporting legs metal; stainless steel, perhaps. And now, the object to which Needles drew my attention, set precisely at the centre of the desk. I had no idea what it was, so I piped up.
“What is it?”
Needles laughed, a short, sharp, bitter sound, like dried bark snapping underfoot.
“This, Mr. Jackson, is the most important thing in your life.”
He perched on the edge of the desk, gazing down at the object as if admiring a new ornament, determining the optimal position for others to view, though this was like no ornament I had ever seen. A square cube, matte black, made of either plastic or metal – it was impossible to tell without touching – with only two discernible features. On top, a red button, large, round, like something from a cartoon, a Wile E. Coyote ACME explode-a-matic, perhaps and, at the front, a red LCD display, with two digits illuminated:
17.
“Number’s familiar, isn’t it?” he asked, indicating the read out with a dip of the head only. “Like something you’ve seen before?”
“I know exactly what the number means,” I spat, feeling confrontational all of a sudden, no matter the circumstances.
“Don’t get chippy, Mr. Jackson.”
He sounded genuinely offended.
“Chippy. I’ll give you chippy. If I could get my hands on you I’d…..”
But I let the words trail off, knowing even as I spoke them how hollow they sounded. There was little I could or would do., especially not with my hands bound.
“So here’s how it is, Mr. Jackson. You’re here, with us, for as long as we fit. Get used to it.”
I felt like spitting at him.
“I’m going to leave you now. You stay here, and have a good think.”
Have a good think? Was he demented? What the hell was I supposed to think about, besides getting the hell out of here and curling up back in bed beside Lisa?
Needles made for the door and was about to leave when, seemingly as an afterthought, he returned to where I sat in the chair, leant down, and untied the binding from around both wrists.
“Don’t do anything silly now,” he advised as he removed the first, simultaneously reading my mind and preventing any recklessness on my part. “It’ll do you no good.”
He stood, and I flapped my wrists about a bit to get some life back into them, not really paying him any attention until he spoke once more, this time from the threshold.
He pointed at the device on the table.
“Whatever you do, Mr. Jackson, don’t press that button.”
Then he was gone, the door shut behind him, the sound of an electronic lock being activated briefly echoing through the room before complete and utter silence fell, so profound, in fact, it almost made my ears hurt, straining as they were for any stimuli, finding only the sound of my own heartbeat and the blood rushing through my ears.
His words reverberated through my mind, a dissonant feedback loop, over, over, over again.
“Don’t press that button, don’t press that button, don’t press that button.”
And why the hell not?
What would happen if I did?
A sudden hiss of inrushing gas, toxic, flooding this seemingly airtight room with a mist so poisonous I would be dead in seconds?
A burly mercenary assassin sort bursting through the door, ready to snap my neck?
What?
See, I knew what the number meant but, despite that, I was unable to tie it to any possible repercussions of pressing the button. The large, red, comic-book button. Like something Bugs Bunny would have Yosemite Sam press to scorch him with a flamethrower, or that Tweetie Pie would trick Sylvester the Cat into pressing shortly before a 1 ton lead weight fell from height, squashing the poor, bipedal feline into a cat pancake.
Could that happen to me?
If I pressed the button, would the ceiling suddenly start descending, spikes emerging as the room got steadily smaller, Indiana Jones style?
17.
Yes, 17.
The magic number.
That’s what we called it.
The number of personnel within the Ministry of Defence who knew about Project Potter, a sobriquet derived from the famous series of books about a young wizard. In the books, Potter came into possession of a cloak which, when worn, rendered the wearer invisible. Though not directly inspired by that source – the inception of the project predated publication of the original novel - certainly there were comparisons which could be drawn between the magical item in the book, and the technology the department was working on today. A soldier’s uniform, though quite unlike anything seen before. Worn head to foot, the material used relied on refraction of light particles – bending light, in layman’s terms – but refraction with pinpoint accuracy, the light bouncing from element to element with infinitesimal precision, so that the light beam continued on as if uninterrupted.
The effect?
The soldier simply disappeared from view, as if never there at all.
And it worked.
The laboratory tests had been conducted in total secrecy and the results had proved just as extraordinary as had been hoped. The project was one month away from conducting initial field tests, again under a veil of utmost secrecy and, in all likelihood, it would be many years before even the existence of such equipment was admitted to in public.
Yet Needles clearly worked for an organisation that had discovered the work in progress, and was even now…..what?
So far, no demand had been placed on me, at least as far as I could work out. The number had been demanded, true, but perversely it was clear that the number was no secret.
Yet there I was, locked in a pure white room, a red glowing 17 my only companion.
What the hell did they want?
And what the fuck was with the button?
I stood, took the one step required to reach the table properly, and peered down at the object, moving around the table, taking in every angle.
Nothing.
No clue.
The same matte black surface on every face, with no additional features on the blind side.
Gingerly, I reached out a hand and touched the damned thing – metallic, after all - half expecting a response; an electric shock to fry the skin, an audible alarm loud enough to perforate an eardrum; something.
All remained quiet, and my skin remained blissfully blister and scorch free. Emboldened, I lifted the contraption, and was surprised to find it came away from the table with ease. Not affixed in any way, I was able to carry it back to the solitary seat, where I dropped into place and examined the device more closely. Bringing it to my face, I squinted as I pored over every square millimetre, using the fingernail of my thumb to search for any hidden flap that may reveal some form of controls.
Nothing.
Not a thing.
It was as it appeared to be: a comedy device made by an insane scientist to test the patience and credulity of just one man: me.
I remembered seeing something, a TV show, an advert, I couldn’t remember which, where a hole was cut into a fence on a busy street, above which were written the words “Do not look through.” As inevitable as crows on a lawn after a rain shower, passers by who glanced at the words and spied the hole were drawn to it, seeming unable to resist the lure. Perhaps it was mere curiosity, perhaps it was a desire to be defiant, to break the rules, however trivial, but one by one they wandered up and peered through at….nothing. See, the point was made simply by their actions and, to a man, they walked away slowly, bewildered, confusion etched across their faces.
Why would someone do such a thing?
Who was it that was playing this mind fuck?
What Machiavellian purpose was served by toying with them in such a way, every one missing the point that it was they who had been the deceiver not the writer of the words. Their mind had processed the words. Their own synapses had fired and turned them towards the fence, man’s insatiable desire to know the unknown and to contravene the established ground rules overriding all.
Now I knew how they felt as, almost as if controlled by somebody other than myself, my hand began to move towards the button. Palm flat, now, rested atop the button, my triceps were twitchy, and it took some effort of will to restrain myself, to allow a moment to rationalise, think things through but, ultimately, whichever way I cut it, the same thought formed, again and again: What’s the worst that could happen?
I pushed the button.
Instantly, the wall directly in front of me which, moments ago, had seemed without feature, blinked into life, a flat screen monitor embedded in the surface with such precision as to render it all but invisible.
But shouldn’t the screen have been black? I pondered, aware even as I formed the thought of the delicious irony of myself questioning the sudden appearance of a TV screen when, in my working life, I was elbow deep in a project to make whole fucking humans disappear.
The screen took a moment to render correctly and, when it cleared, the image presented was utterly unexpected.
Simon Dawson, another from the Ministry of Defence, in a room identical to this one, leaning forward, examining the box that sat on his table which, from the angle the camera was positioned, revealed the same digital display: 17.
Suddenly, the door of his cell opened and in stepped a man, clad entirely in black, carrying an SA80 assault rifle, standard issue for the British Army. Even as he took his first step into the room, the rifle was raised and, though there was no sound, the action on screen was unmistakable as first one, then another circular puncture wound appeared on Simon’s chest, his body rocking back in the chair, only its proximity to the wall behind preventing him from falling.
“No,” I screamed, numb in an instant.
Simon’s body was still, clearly lifeless, but the man on screen fired once more, this one straight between the eyes.
Now the camera zoomed, though not towards Simon as may have been expected, but towards the device on the table, so that the digital readout was centre stage and, with the dispassion only insentience permits, the seven blinked to a six.
The screen cleared, but only for a moment, to be replaced by another figure, another known to me, this time Johnson. Sweet Jesus, Johnson, a man I had played badminton with not two weeks ago.
Same room, same contraption.
“Johnson, move,” I shouted, desperate now, knowing I was powerless, refusing to accept it. I swivelled my head, searching the room, looking for the camera I knew must be present but, like the monitor before it, the device was installed with excruciating attention to unobtrusiveness.
Without my wishing it my eyes returned to the screen, to what I knew must be happening by now and, sure enough, the rifle was aimed already and pop, pop, pop, two to the chest, one to the brow.
Sixteen flicked to fifteen.
And on and on it went, face after face appearing before me, slaughtered each and every one so that, as the final colleague was slain, no fear was left within me, only a tumultuous rage. It was my turn next, I knew that much and, instead of the thought terrifying me, the prospect of the imminent void seemed preferable to this, this….undistilled rage that coursed through me.
The screen cleared and, from the door, the sound of the electronic lock disengaging. I got to my feet, muscles tensing, preparing to spring at the black clad figure as he came through the door, my actions delayed when, instead of the hidden individual, Needles stepped through, hands held up, palm out, a placating gesture, ridiculously inadequate in the circumstances.
“Sit,” he said, indicating the chair with one hand, the other still held aloft.
Earlier, I’d wanted to spit at the son of a bitch, now I wanted to grab him round the throat, squeeze the life from him, maybe yank his tongue out whilst there was still some life in him, but all I managed to do was to slump back into the chair as instructed, an inertia sweeping over me as surely as if I had been drugged.
“You choose wisely,” he said. “Welcome aboard.”
I shook my head, unable to make sense of his words, no matter the simplicity of them.
“Welcome aboard?”
“You pressed the button first,” he explained. “You’re the kind we are after.”
“The kind?”
“Inquisitive. Confrontational. Defiant. Impulsive.”
“This was a test?” I spluttered, mind reeling.
“Yes, Mr. Jackson. And you passed. Congratulations. You work for us now.”
Needles turned abruptly, and left the room.

© Ian Stevens (2011)
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