Free The End of Marking Time by CJ West Page B

operate the system. The instructions took twenty minutes, and when they finished I felt like a moron for watching. Wendell stood three feet from me, glaring down.
    I got up to go get a drink from the fridge and mini Wendell stopped me.
    “Whoa, big fellah. If you need to take a break, remember to hit the pause key, like this.” He jumped on the gigantic remote and playback stopped. The real Wendell hadn’t moved or spoken.
    I wondered if he had a button in his pocket, so I took two steps back toward the couch and watched him intently. Miniature Wendell said, “That’s better.”
    I stepped toward the kitchen and he said, “Whoa, big fellah.”
    “Listen to them,” real Wendell said. “They won’t steer you wrong.”
    He left me there wondering how a television program knew I wasn’t watching. The box didn’t have any sensors on the front panel. I wasn’t an electronics expert, but it had to have some sort of motion sensor or something to know where I was. Wendell had secured the box to the television stand so firmly it wouldn’t even wiggle. The stand itself had been built into the floor. It was impossible to move. The fastener that held the box down was hidden underneath the box. I couldn’t release it without moving it, and I couldn’t move it without releasing it. I guessed it was important to Wendell that the box be placed exactly in front of my television and aimed squarely at me on the couch.
    The outside edges were smooth. I couldn’t find a single screw to open the cover and get a look inside.
    “Please don’t do that,” mini Wendell said.
    “What are you going to do?” I said to him as I rummaged through my boxes to find a standard screwdriver.
    “The educator is an expensive piece of government electronics,” mini Wendell said. “I cannot allow you to tamper with it.”
    There was a lip at the top of the box. I choked up on the screwdriver and worked it inside to pop off the top cover.
    “I warned you,” mini Wendell said.
    I was actually glad for the warning. I got up and unplugged the television. The little box had to get its power from that wire so I went back to work on the box, assuming I was safe. The instant the screwdriver tip shimmied inside, a painful current pulsed out of the tool, through my fingers, and knocked me flat.
    Mini Wendell reappeared, this time floating above the black box.
    “Hurts, doesn’t it?” The hologram floated seemingly out of nowhere. The television was off and the solid black cover of the box seemed incapable of projecting anything. The most haunting part of the experience was that Wendell wasn’t looking at the spot on the couch, he was looking at me down on the floor.
    Holographic Wendell followed my retreat to the couch and then I thought I understood what was happening. The box was tracking the ankle bracelet. Prison may have been outlawed, but the government wasn’t giving up that easy. They replaced prison cells with brick apartments, prison guards with ankle bracelets that kept you inside, and your time was measured not in years but with a bunch of plastic videos you watched like a kid in timeout. I couldn’t imagine the whole thing fooled anyone. Did they really expect talking to a few counselors and watching a few videos—well maybe a bunch of videos—to change anyone?
    Wendell Cummings wasn’t my friend. He was the new prison warden, and from the moment that black box zapped me, I decided to get through the program as fast as I could and get back to my old life. I plugged the television back in and mini Wendell picked up where he left off just like nothing happened. I glanced at the stack of videos and realized I couldn’t possibly sit through this drivel for three hundred hours.
    I outsmarted the box the only way I knew how. I slipped off my ankle bracelet. Left it on top of four magazines, precisely where it would have been if I was sitting on the couch facing forward and paying attention. Then I walked out the door to freedom.
    The