...Other Things Go Wrong
[A few hours earlier in the world outside the Lordes Mansion.
Location: Systema Games HQ]
It was a couple of hours before dawn and the headquarters was devoid of life. All that existed in the building was the flickering of a few lights from the entrance an the pathways that lead to the CEO's office and the lights in the break room where all the coffee and tea machines were kept.
Darren, however was not in his office now. He was on his way to the topmost floor of the glass building, to the locked store room. The place where Dad had left all his ideas.
The search to find the traitor among the staff already looked like it was going cold. Every single person had proved alibis that nobody could contradict. "I must be missing something," Darren muttered to himself as he made his way up the spiraling stairs leading up to the building terrace.
He stood up on the top a few minutes later, panting. Strong gales whipped his brown hair around his face and his coat whipped along too forcefully. He walked against the wind and tried the lock of the lonely box room on the terrace.
After a few tries of switching keys, the ruddy door finally creaked open. Darren got inside fast and shut it close before the wind whipped everything on the inside too.
Darkness enveloped him for a few seconds. He felt the familiar walls for the switch. And clicked the light on. Spiderwebs glistened in the air, drawing transparent lines from one shelf to another and little eight legged families building new homes.
He took in the smell of the room. Many people had come and gone in and out of this room during the design of IRL Technologies. But still, there was that characteristic smell of our father that hung in the air.
Like, when he decided to leave this world, he left a part of his soul here. Darren could feel it. His soul. "Dad?" he whispered. No answer. Just the memories of all the time they both had spent here together.
Darren spent a lot of time there among the black leathered books stacked up in the room and the countless drawings littered on the floor, tacked up on the walls, the ceiling and even in the box washroom at the back.
"Give me an answer, dad," he sighed exasperatingly, tossing the black book in his hand to the side. It rolled over to the corner and flapped open, its pages fluttering with impact.
Darren looked at the large writing on one of the pages. It was something he had never seen before. He jolted for the book and caught the page before it all flapped close.
[HOW TO SHUT DOWN BREAKFIRE ONLINE]
"When did you write this, dad?" He proceeded to read everything under it. But there wasn't much. Simply one line.
'Darren or Ashe, if you're reading this, you'll find the answer in the place where we three first played a game together.'
Darren flew up after reading that, as if shocked by lighting and ran out of the box room, switching the lights off and locking off the doors before flying to the ground floor. Soon his car rolled out of the building, headed towards home for the first time that day.
"First time we played a game...was at father's old office branch closer to our house," Darren realized. It was the time when Robot Duty 6.0 had just been released. The big thing before Systema Games entered the gaming scene.
He stopped in front of the old abandoned office and got in through the open backdoor and found Dad's old office room. The computer where they had played it was still there, but this time caked in dust.
Like a madman, Darren rummaged all around the room for anything, a piece of paper with instructions, a black leather book. He pulled open drawers and even dismantled the monitor to find if anything was hidden inside.
Nothing.
He fell on the half broken chair behind the desk with peeling wood. "Rggghh..." he groaned in frustration. "This place is too well known to staff...he would never have hid priceless information here," Darren realized and dumped his head on the dusty table.
The sun had started its slow ascent and pinpricks of light entered the sodden room. He blinked his eyes open and tried to think harder.
"First game..."
His eyes went wide. Of course! The first game the three had played together! Laughing now, Darren went back to his car, knowing that this time, he was right.
The morning roads of this side of New York city were empty and only a a couple of cars whizzed by on the bridge. The sea glistened as the morning sun slowly showed its full face, painting the clouds a deep blushy red.
Tasha called once before Darren switched off his phone and continued his journey to that place without any disturbances. Work comes later. First he had to reach where we should have gone long ago.
Queen Alatria Park. The place where we had gone for our first trip after Dad got his first paycheck in a small software company.
The park was still rosy and green, unlike the other places that reminded us of Dad. The swings had been replaced with better ones that didn't squeak as the wind made them sway. Other than that, everything was the same.
He almost saw his Dad standing there and them two when they were little kids. I had been just three then. He had been older, 6 years.
"Okay you two, Ashe go stand at that corner and Darren, this corner!" Dad had instructed while tossing the beachball from one hand to another.
"Okay! You ready?" he called out before throwing the ball for us to catch. Darren remembered running for the ball along with tiny me to see who would catch it first.
Darren always did, of course, he was taller. But then Dad used to buy me ice cream later on from the shop opposite the park. Nobody went home sad.
At one point, our visits to the park had become so frequent that the shopkeeper gave a jolly smile whenever he saw the dad and children trio coming and made our ice creams ready when it was noon time.
Darren stood on the corner of the park now, inhaling the morning air. He looked over to the ice cream shop.
It wasn't an ice cream shop anymore. A paper was tacked on the glass door that flew slightly in the wind.
"ChockErman's TyPing Centre
-Fax
-Binding
-Cafe and more."
Darren sighed. A shopkeeper sat inside the shop. He turned his head from inside to look at Darren on the other side of the door. No jolly smile. No ice creams.
Those times were long gone.
Like the stars in the night sky. The more farther we drift away from it, the lesser the light. But from here on Earth, as we look up at those distant stars, we find them prettier than the Sun, who is much closer to us.
Sometimes, clouds cover it and the night is black, almost seeming to be hopeless, but there is this belief in us that even if we can't see it, those stars are there. Shining, twinkling, waiting for us to embrace their beauty once again.