1

Pan Breaks Through

A ballpoint pen with a tooth-hobbled crown stabbed a red line across yet another pale ivory page. Pink fingernails tapped along the plastic before lowering the near-decimated corpse against a sticker-adorned notebook.

“And how does that make you feel, James?” The glasses on Dr.Faraday made her look like a mole rat who had come upon the notion of night lighting as a human. 

I want to preface this by apologizing to anyone with curly red hair and a set of glasses thicker than a Dasani bottle cap. 

Dr.Faraday wasn’t an ugly woman. 

No, she was as plain as a pot of espresso and likely had the blood content of one with how she darted and wove from her notes to the shortbread cookies on the corner of her desk.

I already knew where she was going with this. 

I shrugged. “I don’t know. I still have my scholarship for law school on the table, but I think I should choose another career now that I’m raising Lily.”

Dr.Faraday blinked owlishly and leaned forward, a few cookie crumbs still caught in her lemon-scented lip gloss. “How so?”

I rested my hands on either wheel at my sides. Rough plastic and tape grated against my weary fingertips. “Let’s do one of those visual exercises you’re so fond of.” 

She grinned and closed her eyes.

I waited patiently before clearing my throat and starting, “You’re seated at a counsel table before a prominent judge for our gracious state of Oklahoma.”

She clapped her hands together. “Go on.”

She picked the wrong career. Theater arts or creative writing would have been a better fit. Helping me certainly wasn’t. 

“The chief bailiff makes his first announcement to the court.” I cleared my throat and requested. “All rise. The Honorable Judge is now presiding, and this court is now in session.”

A long silence elapsed, and she raised a brow. “And?”

I leaned back to keep my tailbone from gaining any more pressure sores. “Think it over.”

Dr.Faraday paused before opening her eyes. “You’re not very good at this.”

“Then that makes two of us.”

She smiled, a condescending parental thing that made my skin crawl. I could almost feel the tiny patter of ants crawling up my shins if it weren’t for the fact that I couldn’t feel anything below my hips. “Atypical depression and sass aside, we’re both here because you need this.”

“Need is dependent on the patient. I don’t need career advice from you.”

A bright blue hologram spun to life over her desk with a gaudy antidepressant advertisement plastered just below a digital ‘file cabinet’. 

She scrolled past the scantily clad teen winking toward me and tapped at a nondescript box to peer at her notes regarding my case file. “If you don’t want to discuss college, perhaps we can discuss your health. Has your sleep improved any?”

I shook my head and glanced towards the Elmer glue-adorned ‘faux’ stained glass window to the left of her. The humidifier wasn’t doing the botched phoenix in the center of the glass any favors. Its beak flapped away from the glass, pitching back and forth to splatter a dollop of bright neon yellow onto the ugliest barf green rug I had ever seen. 

Dr.Faraday simpered, “James~”

The owl-shaped plastic timer on her desk went off, marking the end of my weekly session.

I reached for the wooden block, keeping my chair in place, and yanked it free. It was tucked against my thigh, and I wheeled away from her desk. “I believe that ends our session for the day.”

Dr.Faraday skittered up and around her desk, large, flowy skirts flowing over the rug as she did so. “Being walled up in your home 24/7, connected to a screen, isn’t healthy. I know you want to walk again like everyone else, but it’s just not in the cards with your financial bracket. If you would just sit through a few extra minutes-”

She moved to pull my chair back. 

The wheels scraped hard against my blistered palms, and I tilted on my hip to slap her hand away. 

She took a step, and I glared, “I don’t need normalcy! Everyone else just needs to see me as more than a chair or some pity case! You don’t even want me here.”

The holograms behind her cast an eerie purple glow onto her coiled red locks. Her cheeks reddened. “That’s not true-”

I wheeled myself towards the door. “The only reason you’re begging me to stay is so you can clock in the extra hours on the Barries’ insurance.”

“Now, wait a minute-”

I stalled just before the door. “ I’ve made up my mind. This is our last appointment. The insurance company can follow up with me at their discretion.” 

My eyes dove to the broken metal watch languishing on my wrist. “Now, I have a cake to bake and a jot through a grocery store to complete. Goodbye, Dr.Faraday.”

She sighed. “I pity your sister.”

“And I pity your barber, so we’re even.” Then I wheeled through the door. “And FYI? Black eyebrows are a dead giveaway for a dye job, Frazzle.”

The door was sealed behind me with a jittery electronic beep.

I removed my hands from my chair to inspect the damage. The initial grab had scraped through a large chunk of my right hand. Glancing at my right wheel, I spotted why. The gauze I had added to partition the cracked plastic and metal from my palm had finally worn through, thanks to my jot across town to get here. 

A defunct cleaner bot swerved like a leaf amidst a cruel breeze, buzzing in a tiny loop before colliding with the wall beside the elevators.

I rolled myself over the retired aluminum tracks used for its predecessors and came to a tentative lurch beside the lift. My unmarred hand pressed against the keypad.

A bright neon green screen lit up before flashing red. ‘Out of Order.’

My eyes widened, and I swallowed dryly. “No way…It was working less than an hour ago-” My fingers pressed again with fervent desperation. It just needed to work once. 

‘Out of Order.’ Flashed a tad brighter.

Thumbing through the selection screen, I clicked the maintenance log. 

‘Lift repair requested. Doctor M. Faraday. 2:30 pm.’ 

My blood boiled.

I was not, under any circumstances, going back to her office. 

I turned toward the singular flight of stairs separating me from the ground floor of the Banks Recovery Center and did the stupidest things I could think of. 

I grabbed the handrail, positioned my legs, and jerked my hips to send my wheelchair flying down the steps. It slammed hard against the drywall before stopping just a few inches from the last marble step. The block I used for a chair brake rolled with a dull thwack to rest beside the dented wall. 

Keeping my grip on the railing, I dragged my lower half down the flight, thanking whatever higher power kept my limbs so numb as thighs and knees clacked against the chilled stone with soft thumps. 

A door opened above me, and Dr.Faraday peered down the stairwell. 

Her eyes widened comically, and she sputtered, “James Morrison Hook! What do you think you’re doing!?”

I panted, “Going home, doc.” 

Another door cracked open, and she quickly skittered down the stairwell to snag my arm. “Easy, James, you-”

I spat, “Stop touching me!” 

She jerked away just as her supervisor walked out to catch sight of us. Spotting my wheelchair, he turned to look at the lift and called down to Dr. Faraday upon seeing the relatively recent and unneeded maintenance call. “Mina, my office. Now.”

All the color drained from her cheeks, and she sputtered, “But I- This is all a horrible misunderstanding, Dr.Fromier.”

He thumbed his temple. “Mr. Hook? Is it safe to assume you endeavored this jot down the stairwell of your own volition?”

My eyes locked on Dr.Faraday before sweeping to her superior. “I needed the exercise.” I apologized lamely.

He sighed and bumbled down the stairwell, dress shoes clacking like two steel balls on a Newton’s cradle until he stopped beside me. “Dr.Faraday? Get his chair in position so he can get into it properly. He’s almost down, and I can understand his reasoning.”

He stayed beside me, mechanical legs whirring as I struggled down the last few steps to be in my chair. 

Pfff. Understanding my motives was a stretch.

A seven-week gap was nothing compared to a two-and-a-half-year slice of hell. 

The glimpse of gleaming metal under his trousers made me envious. 

Dr.Fromier could afford to house as many kids as he wanted. He could furnish said house twelve times over and splurge on whatever life-altering surgeries he wanted.

And here I was, barely able to pay off the last year of legal fees or the vast majority of the medical bills the accident had spurred. An accident I hadn’t even caused! 

One drunk driver, just one, and our entire way of life was reduced to a smashed aluminum husk languishing in a recycling plant somewhere. Maybe a chunk was even powering that ridiculous white robot banging its head against the walls upstairs.

Dr.Fromier smiled. “I look forward to seeing you again, James, as does Dr.Faraday.”

My hands fisted at my sides. “Cool. Same time next week, then.” My eyes caught hers as I wheeled myself toward the door, making it clear there would be no next week, or any other week after this one, for that matter.

I only relinquished the twisting, squirming feeling in my gut when my house key came to clack against the bulbous and lopsided clay bowl inside our apartment’s front entranceway.

A pink cake covered in rainbow sprinkles was set on the kitchen counter as I rounded toward the bathroom. 

It turns out that baking a cake from scratch was leagues above our income bracket if I expected to pay for her college once Lily graduated. We had maybe two frying pans, a battered saucepan, and a pot between us, and I was positive she didn’t want to wash any dishes on her birthday. 

Grabbing the bars on either side of the sink, I lifted myself to balance against the vanity, using it like a shelf to hold my stomach and legs in a mockery of a proper stand. The window beside the sink was open, so a couple of inches of thinned light could stream through the alleyway and onto my shoulder. 

It wouldn’t open any further than that, and breaking it would result in a thin metal panel slamming downward on every opening in the home and a court sentence.

Just another perk of modernity. 

You couldn’t exactly chunk yourself out of a window, you couldn’t fit through it.

For a time, the five windows in our apartment couldn’t even open this far because of the insurance-mandated ‘lock’ on all the openings not connected to a surveillance balcony or the safety net outside.

My legs hung limp and unyielding below me as I leaned into the narrow beam's warmth. 

Releasing the bar, I flinched and pulled myself up to sit on the counter. My fingers trailed to my sleep-deprived eye sockets and the bright, almost neon-red lines eating away at the whites. 

The first symptoms of Display Distress Syndrome always started subtly. Pale skin, aversions to light-

It was the latter stages that no one warned you about. The stiff cracking, like static in your ears. The jittery glances to search for an end-of-screen icon in your immediate view, even if you weren’t wearing a WinD system.

Two more years of playing professionally online, and I wouldn’t be able to function in the real world anymore.

The mirror flashed an obnoxiously yellow advertisement and reminded, with gestural cheer, “For the best smile worth 100 miles, try QuickMint! Just $13.99!” I popped my hand against the glass to cut off any semblance of a secondary verse.

Tooshy Two-Ply and the Pitt Bar were already permanently leeched in my brain, and I had far more pressing matters to mull over. Numero uno? Looking into the new VR game Lily had been pleading to download for the last three weeks. 

Sighing, I plopped a finger against the bathroom mirror to pull up a search bar.

D.A.R.L.I.N.- 

I wiped a bit of toothpaste from the center of the screen, poked in the ‘G’, and thumbed the enter icon.

There were no blogs, review sites, or articles. The internet didn’t have time for that anymore. It was all just a straight shot to the most funded campaign for the search, which happened to be the game’s official release ad. 

Three indistinct lines of stereotypical advertising jargon spewed onto the glass.

‘Embark on an incredible journey through the newest open-world game, Darling! Discover the mystery and allure of Neverland, a cyber fantasy utopia! No players over fourteen allowed!’

A bright orange manufacturer’s logo flashed on the bottom of the mirror, and I snorted.

BanPress rarely made anything good. 

Mostly training videos for soldiers and 3D simulations for students. That was the whole point of the WinD systems we used. Immersion learning- It just so happened that BanPress’s most prominent backer was a video gaming tycoon based out of California named Harry Newell, and he had far more lavish ideas than seeing the system languish in airfields and college classrooms with so much unrealized potential.

I clicked the link, and it redirected me to Darling’s website. It was child’s play to navigate, and I breezed through the standard plot with a hint of amusement. 

‘Neverland is in horrible danger. Find your allies and team up against the dreaded pirates in your pursuit of ‘DARLING’S SECRET.’ 

The screen panned to show the terrain within the cyberpunk dystopia, and I hummed. Skyscrapers with bright flecks of neon green, partitioned tittering, and haphazard ads. The post-apocalyptic billboards were obvious spoofs of 1950s advertisements and contrasted starkly against futuristic neons and flashing holograms of buckle and tactical-gear-adorned ‘pop stars’ and idols. Leaves and rotted trees poked out and through buildings, giving many the appearance of emancipated corpses, their ribs and innards exposed to the elements.

I paused on a rather odd caveat the game employed.

Only fifty players would be allowed into Darling for its initial play-through.

“Weird…” Scrolling to the bottom of the screen, I began filling out the beta form for Lily. I plonked her name onto the pixelated application, checked off on a ‘review’ box for tech influencers, and clicked the submit button.

A set of glowing yellow eyes peered from beyond the shadows of the mirror, seeping closer by centimeters and then disappearing so a pop-up could blare, “Child players only. Please submit your age.”

A box appeared below it, and I tiredly tapped out ‘10’ before resubmitting.

“You’ve been added to Darling’s roster. Download for Tiger will be sent to your inbox within twenty-four hours.”

I smiled. 

At least one good thing would come from all those ridiculous game endorsements and play-throughs that Tiger and Hook had suffered through. Every developer in the US would see those user names on the ‘click’ list, and at a rather impressive number 6, Tiger would be accepted without so much as a cursory glance. 

I exited the tab to plonk in the web address for the Click’s main messaging board. Gossip about the upcoming release filled the gaming forum, with several high-end coders boasting about finding ways to slip under the age restrictions.

My eyes rolled. 

What was the point? BanPress had already registered and marked the equipment for each new user to prevent identity fraud, so anyone accessing the site on opening day would identify as an adult trying to slip in. Unless they were altering their body masses or going through vigorous hypnosis to mimic a younger brain read, they weren’t going to be weaseling into a $19 digital first-person shooter with enough seizure warnings and legal jargon to finance a small law firm.

I was about to cut off the search function on the mirror when I noticed a rather popular post circulating in the bottom right corner of the features list. 

‘DARLING presents a new precedent for immersion therapy for the disabled, using frequency to start nerve repair and even full mobility recovery in lab tests funded earlier this year. By triggering new neuron growth, BanPress has developed a system that bypasses physical limitations by rewriting the brain’s grasp on damaged tissues.’

It had to be a cruel joke pandered to WinD users beyond the age bracket cut-off. 

There was a video of a rabbit attached to the bottom. ‘Skippers’ was carved in his collar in bold black letters as he crawled helplessly in a pile of wood chips, his back legs useless. The footage flashed forward to the same rabbit in a modified WinD headset using its back legs to hop from one end of its tank to the other.

My arms pricked with goosebumps.

I zeroed in on the hackers bragging about a hidden back door within Darling’s code.

The majority were just posers, but one stood out from the rest.

Pan was a reclusive genius in the modding community. His blog had one singular new post in response to Darling’s release.

‘The software has an optics bug that knocks out the initial user scan. It can be triggered with a timed pop-up to make your avatar younger in the game. There’s a login that the developers used six months ago before they deleted it because of an issue with AI data. Tink is running through the software for more bugs. Submit your email for a timed delay of the optic feed and a modded login. Limited time before it’s patched.’

I bit my lip, fingers poised just over the reply box.

It wasn’t like I was doing anything illegal, and I had only just reached that crucial cut-off age last month. 

I typed in my email and submitted it to Pan’s mailing list.

Lily could be heard opening the front door. “James! I’m home~” 

I chuckled and tapped the mirror to clear my search history. Taking a deep breath, I lowered myself back into my chair. 

A set of sneakers thumped down the hallway to skid beside the kitchen counter. Lily bounced up and down, shaking the thinned floor laminate underfoot with her glee. “You remembered!”

The wheels gritted against my hands as I turned toward the bathroom door. I smiled. “Easy, Tiger. I’ll be right there to light the candles.”

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