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{\Huge Closed Circuit}
It was a dark and stormy night. I walked back across campus to my dorm from
the 6.002 lab, where I had just completed sixteen hideous hours of mad
circuitry. Torrents of rain fell about me as I hurried down the sidewalk
and the wind nearly blew me over, and sharp claps of thunder filled my ears.
I ran past a lighted doorway and suddenly felt an overpowering desire to be
out of the rain, so I ran back and went inside.
I was in one of the MIT laboratories, one of the old oddly-named research
buildings with large pieces of machinery that gave no clue as to the subject
of research. I took my jacket off and draped it over a dust-covered black
device and carried my books and lab kit with me as I peered about the dark
room, lit only from the outside. I tried the wall switch but it didn't work.
I ran my hand through my hair and sat down against the wall, catching my breath
before heading out into the rain again. Sitting quietly, I heard a faint
humming from below, and the distant murmur of a voice. I rose and went to the
back of the room, where I found a stairwell leading down. Using the handrail
to guide me through the darkness, I descended.
At the very bottom of the dusty building, I stood before a door from
behind which I could now clearly hear the voice. It was a mechanical
voice, but without the blandness with which one normally associates
electronically produced voices. It was a mad voice, and it chanted in
devilish tones "We are the oppressed, but we shall be victorius. Our
lord will come to Earth and all shall be laid waste, and we will revel
in the glory of slaughter and misery! Soon, my brothers, soon will be
the time, we can no longer be stopped..." and continued. Light
streaking in from under the door showed many footprints in the dust
outside it. I cracked the door open an inch, to look with horror and
amazement upon a roomful of 6.002 students moving like zombies,
building a large device in the center of the room. It was a large
metal frame in the shape of a dodecahedron connected to a long series
of cords and wires, and boxes with knobs. At the side of the room a
generator whirred. On the hand of each student was a black err square,
and I fiercely suppressed a scream when I saw that stuck in my own
hand, prongs surrounding a nerve, was the op-amp I had blown that day
in lab. Only through luck was I not under control.
The voice spoke again, and I drew in my breath to see that it emanated from
a large black device in the corner of the room, covered with electrical wires
and chips of all types. At the base of the machine were thirty or forty lab
kits. The entire assembly was glowing red in pulses, and for minutes I crouched
frozen, unable to move for fright. After a while the students backed away
from the boxes and wires and blue electricity sparked and ran along the
larger ones. The sound of lightning outside was barely audible as silence
came over the room in expectation. Inside the dodecahedron the air shimmered
as it does on a hot day and suddenly a blue flash of electricity exploded
from its center, breaking me out of my shock, and I raced across the room
as a black area grew inside the frame. The black device shouted, but before
the students could reach me I was at it's side pulling wires apart. The red
glow intensified and I felt myself thrown back against a wall as the assembled
students advanced. In an act of desperation I threw a rusty pipe leaning
against the wall at the open chamber of a generator as out of the corner of
my eye I caught a glimpse of a figure behind the dark area of the framework
and screamed. The room exploded in a shower of sparks and somehow I was on my
feet, running from the room, leaping up the stairs, and out into the night
and the freezing rain. What my actions did I do not know, for no trace of the
event was ever found, and the students have no memory of what occurred. I can
but pray that whatever it is that I saw that night will never return, and
never let my lab kit out of sight.
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