The Transcriber Part 6

The Transcriber Part 6

Twenty pages in, and Josef Karringer received another gift. Another vibrating box with the same festive wrapping and the neat red bow. He placed it on the table next to the first, since Josef had not opened it. Curiosity had not compelled him to force the box to reveal its secrets to him yet, for there was a certain element of fear in the unknown that advised against such a rash action, not when there was still so much to be done with the book and the paper and the pen. The box could wait. The vibrating was getting on his nerves though. And that was exactly what it was designed to do. Slowly chip away at his resistance; slowly implant itself into his brain waves until he would no longer be able to consciously decide anything else.

…The creator of the contents of the vibrating box was a man named Lux Harding. He had been contacted by a consortium seven years ago, and was asked to create something that fit a very specific design brief. He came up something that they paid very highly for. Lux was surprised but not reluctant to accept the four hundred thousand dollars he was paid for what he deemed a relatively simple task. As far as he was concerned, it was one of his smarter transactions, and with the money transferred safely to an offshore bank account of his choice, he left behind that to pursue even greater deeds, thinking he would not need to do anything more for them ever again. However, Lux was contacted three months later by a representative of the consortium known to him only as Milton. He was asked to meet with the board of directors to discuss an even more ambitious scheme.

It was decided during the meeting that Lux be made the prominent researcher of their company, and given a substantial amount of funding to research, design and complete the project. Lux had no family and no friends; such was the cost of being a genius…

Josef was tired. He had only been about to write about 200 words in that sitting. Considering that he usually got through about a page or two before he took a break and re-energised his spirit, this was abnormal. Well, it wasn’t entirely abnormal. The past few times he had sat down with an aim to write more than he had the previous effort, he had found himself exhausted after writing increasingly fewer words. He didn’t know what was happening to him. But he did, actually. It was that vibrating box. Every time another box appeared out of nowhere, the vibrating affected him just that little bit more. It was getting unbearable. Josef knew he could scream and protest but he also knew that would achieve nothing whatsoever. There was only one thing he could do. He stopped writing, got up and looked at the boxes arranged neatly on the side of his table. Now there were five of them. Josef picked each of them up and transported them toward his bed and set them upon it. Once all five were across, he sat down and picked one of them.

As he contemplated what he was going to do next, the green dot in the corner of his room turned red.