Lost in La La Land(6)

Slowly they made their way up the door, gripping the handle.

The desperation in her face broke my heart.

My fingers made a terrible choice.

They turned the lock against my better judgment.

They ignored the promise I had silently made to myself, swearing to never open my door to her again.

But her hopelessness and need spoke to my own.

Again, my brain whispered what if?

What if she needed it just one more time because this was the thing stopping her from running back into the burning house?

What if this were the one time that cured her obvious depression and convinced her to leave the moronic bastard she was married to?

What if she simply needed one last time, for closure’s sake?

What if I was living vicariously through her, and as hard as it was for her to say no to herself, it was equally as hard for me to say no?

What if?

I opened the door, ignoring the men in the car across the street—the men who watched my shop because they watched her. She was more or less a hostage or a victim of her marriage and that made me want to help her even more.

The moment the door closed though, she became the addict I had convinced myself I didn't see.

She scrambled to the chair, shaking her head of dark hair back and forth, preparing for the ride of a lifetime. Most people came because they wanted to live out their love of a novel. Most thought it was like a ride at a fun park for the literary people of the world. A fun park based entirely upon your own imagination and pleasure.

Lana Delacroix saw it as an escape.

And I saw her as an escape.

She was mentally fleeing a situation she deemed hopeless.

I was mentally fleeing my own mind.

I clamped her in and pressed the screen, bringing light into the small room. The man in the other room, who was enjoying Moby Dick, was nearly done, so I left her as she drifted off into her slumber and woke him up, smiling as he sighed. “You really are a genius, Emma. That was incredible.”

“Thank you.” I bowed slightly. “Thank you, Mr. Frank. I am so pleased you enjoyed yourself.”

“It was inconceivable. I feel the need to wipe the seawater from my face. I can’t believe the reality that is party to it all. It’s overwhelming and at the same time enchanting.” He got up and left, cheerful and waving. I locked the door after him, noticing the car across the street was gone.

I suspected it wasn’t something I should be relieved about. Their absence was ominous.

But I let her stay in the machine a bit longer than normal, allowing her to be free for a while longer. This was definitely her last time.

When I woke her, her eyes didn't have the same relaxed look. Her pupils didn't go back to the right size, and she didn't stretch or yawn. She sat there, staring at the ceiling.

“You all right?”

“Yeah.” She nodded but it took several tense seconds for her to blink and speak, “I just wish it were real.”

“I can’t let you come back, Lana. Ever. This was the last time, okay?”

“I know.” She got up and left, no thank you or goodbye. She unlocked the door and walked out into the rain. She truly was the drug addict leaving the dealer’s house, perhaps hating both of us for her needing and my enabling.

It felt a little off. I had made a mistake in letting her back in.

Instead of allowing the guilt to linger, I fell back on my go-to answers to justify my actions. The research had proven it was nonaddicting because the reward system in the brain, the limbic system, is tricked into shutting down. The neurons cannot send neurotransmitters, specifically dopamine, because they have been fooled into believing there is nothing worthy of a reward going on in the brain. That section of the brain is blocked from enjoying the process to the point of euphoria since the euphoria is falsely created for the subject. It cannot affect the body, only trick the brain into creating feelings that aren’t there. If the dopamine and neurotransmitters aren’t there, one cannot become addicted to them.

That was the theory, but seeing her face made me think otherwise.

The map of the machine started to flutter about in my head. I wondered where I might have gone wrong. I suspected the false euphoria was the problem.

There was also the possibility that the nanocomputers, microbiosensors, had changed or evolved. They could be tricky to control since they were highly adaptive. It was conceivable that they had mutated. I had to take the machine apart and see. But I needed some fresh air to contemplate it all.

I closed the shop and left through the back door.

During the short walk to my apartment I was seemingly on autopilot as I considered the places I might have gone wrong. One fearful thought played in my mind: what if Lana had gained more control than was intended? What if she was not only choosing her own adventure but also creating a new story from within?

Or what if the nanobots had taken over inside her and were doing it for her?

Jesus.

The possibility made me laugh as I entered my building, imagining evil robots taking over the world in a zombie-apocalypse-styled raid, like in a videogame. Nanocomputers taking over people, controlling them.

Had I made the first zombie?

Lana had acted like one when she left.

When I got inside, Lola was panting at the door. She leapt at me, still amped from the neighbor taking her out for her one of her scheduled walks or bathroom breaks.