THE WAY IT WENT DOWN: 4W0HERE6-8AMI175

Fifth day in the stacks, and the MacBook Pro was glitching. Not that I was working, really. They'd forgotten me down here in D, it seemed, and that was cool, cool, cool. AC and silence, away from the rest of the museum while it churned through summer people. I mean, the other option was a pink slip; so saying I was good with this was a huge understatement.

Reddit and AirPods and Tycho on repeat. Eating snacks. Occasionally picking through the boxes. The old man had run the show down here for decades and now he was gone. His desk had been...disassembled really...a puzzle box filled with ancient folders, photographs and older things, and laid out in display room 22u, just off the hall that led to D. In the box, on top of yellowed papers was that jade amulet—the one the doctor had worn everywhere. Hippy shit.

The meeting room was home base for me. "You're just going to want to stay down here, Madeline," Jorsk had said to me, his eyebrows up so high it looked like they were requesting political asylum in his hairline. "Just get this stuff in order before the...uh...August 15." The way he said all of this said other things too. I was to stay out of the main museum. I should come and go through the subway or the side exits. I was not to fraternize with the other grad students. Or Bryce. Especially.

No Bryce. Ohhhhkay.

So, the old man had died in March, and only in the last few weeks had Tulerie and the board gone to taking apart his little kingdom. The D Stacks, where unidentified artifacts went to gather dust. It was his creation and domain, and few had crossed the doors to D without his say-so.

I'd seen him a few times in the cafeteria. A small, hip-looking, old dude with a pony tail and white hair, always reading a thick book. He always had that amulet on. It looked like an pearl, or an eye, or something. It dangled from his wattle on a leather string, swinging as he ate and read.   

He always seemed happy and...still. Like he had arrived at the place in his life where he could just drift along and not worry too much about anything.

I put the amulet down on the conference table.

So. fifth day, rocking and Reddit. The glitch caused the music to stop and then start, and stop again, and then...start. Finally it spewed, a panoply of digital sound. iTunes vomiting up 5 seconds of garbage.

On the computer, iTunes had crashed. So I sat and checked email (no Bryce), then Reddit.

The screen began to flicker, then lose color. Then the image blurred and shook. I stood up to reset it, but then I saw the amulet on the table; half a room away.

It rolled slowly, meanderingly towards the MacBook. Without the leather string on it, it rolled freely. The table was level, but the jade ball still spun slowly, starting and stopping, drifting. As it approached the MacBook, the screen flickered more and a low, dull, hum rose from the casing.

I grabbed the jade ball of the amulet and lifted it before it could touch the back of the laptop screen. When I did, the screen returned to normal. I put the amulet in my pocket.

Then...

Hours of "work". A lackluster sandwich. Nothing from Bryce.

The M train. The walk-up. Feeding the cat.

Still nothing from Bryce.

Then, Netflix.

Except when I flipped open the laptop and the screen finally lit, it read:

"An unexpected fatal error occurred. F10FA905-9A8C-4w0herE6-8amI175-F2F81A7AFi3nside7aMachine11?"