13. A Game of Pool

A soul is just a machine for operating an animal

Previously — In episode 12, Vandyck reveals her misgivings about Area J operator procedures — specifically the over reliance on aperture screen technology. She mockingly compares this to Santiago’s no-frills demonstration from earlier, when he took control of a recorded session to directly address a room full of operators from his stone dungeon in Puerto Rico. Privately, she admires the old man, and wonders if she might be able to duplicate his results — essentially creating a bridge between her world and his.

Back at the Grass Cutting Area, there’s a catastrophic descent into chaos shortly after machine gun fire erupts. Communications have been cut off. JTF Alpha is inside the wire. In the confusion, the men of building two rush to the armory to gear up for a fire fight. Meanwhile, Captain Sepulveda takes a two-man detail to collect Santiago from his detainment cell, but when they hear the explosions and gunfire above, they realize building two is lost. The captain leads the group to cell number 3, locks the door, and orders his men to leave through the secret evacuation hatch built into the floor. When they’re safely gone, he draws and uncocks his sidearm, prepared to join his men upstairs. Santiago prevents him from leaving, tell him he’ll die if he walks out that door. They argue a while, but when Dawkins shows up, wiping his bloodied hands along the walls of the hallway outside and loudly boasting of his kills, Sepulveda realizes everyone he cares about is dead. Moments later, just as Dawkins kicks the door in, the air of the room folds over on itself. And Sepulveda and Santiago vanish in a pinwheel of blue sparks.

“Somewhere inside, we hear a voice. It leads us in the direction of the person we wish to become. But it is up to us whether to follow.”
—Pat Tillman

Part 1: El Pequeño Viento en la Luz Azul

A wind whipped around the flagpole of the Grass Cutting Area and from high up toward the truck, came the rhythmic soft beating of nylon and metal clinking of halyards against aluminum. These were the only noises that interrupted the woodpeckers and parakeets and warblers that flew around the treetops on the other side of the perimeter fencing. In front of building one, the captain’s jeep stood parked in its usual spot on the gravel. A few hundred meters away by the helipad, the air shimmered and deformed above the painted concrete square as it baked in the morning sun. And aside from a few out-of-place sandbags by the machine gun nest, everything looked as it would have on any other day — all except for the inside of building two.

And those Air Force SP’s driving along the dirt road earlier in the morning — had they reached the Grass Cutting Area, they would have stopped at the front gate and looked in from their jeep, not bothering to cut the engine or get out. They’d have judged from the absence of activity, that today was just like any other day. They were four in total: an officer, a staff sergeant, and two airmen. And after a cigarette or two, one would pipe up, “Maybe we should just leave the Porto Ricans to their own devices.” This would have been instantly understood by everyone, an example of shorthand imported by men from places like Fort Lee, Fort Polk, and Fort Bragg, who enjoyed starting their sentences with… lemme’ explain somethin’ to you ‘ole boy. The two airmen in the back of the jeep were just such men. And had they lived to suggest leaving the Porto Ricans to their own devices — their lieutenant, being a good officer, would’ve paused before speaking. He’d hear their words and let them pinball around the old meat computer awhile before voicing aloud some boilerplate musing appropriate for the moment, then order the driver to pop the jeep back into gear and return to base. On the way back though, he’d spend a minute or two ruminating on the question many of the young officers at Ramey wondered about privately. What exactly went on inside the Grass Cutting area?

But none of that happened. The Air Force men never got to the checkpoint.

By 10:10 AM, the ‘ole boys in the back were lying on the road like broken up dolls, brains spilling out of them, like those soft bits that clog up a sink basket strainer. What remained of the staff sergeant’s face was widened into a moist disk of hair and skin and teeth, flattened by the front tire of the jeep. And the lieutenant was still seated in the front, his head tucked down low into his chest, spine sheared completely between C2 and C3.

By 10:25 AM, Delaloza had taken cover outside the Grass Cutting Area, perched high in a tangle of magnolia branches. He chose a spot where he could easily observe the men in the machine gun nest, and listened to their conversation from two hundred meters away, stroking at his mustache and picking at his cuticles as he waited for Chaulette and Dawkins.

¿No lo ves — la luz azul, en los árboles? one of the men whispered.

Cállate idiota, the other replied.

They carried on like that for a few minutes and Delaloza heard everything. It didn’t matter that he didn’t speak a word of Spanish. He could smell the worry and fear coming out of that first man. They argued until the first one — who kept jabbering about la luz azul — scowled and spit on the ground and swiveled his M1919 around the ball of its pedestal mount, pointed the barrel up toward a spot in the trees, and waited. Delaloza was glad the arguing had stopped, even if just for a minute, and went right back to picking his cuticles.

Sometimes, men in the Army do strange things, and there are no explanations. Like that man in the machine gun nest who saw la luz azul. At 10:35 AM, this man decided to squeeze the trigger. A half second pull that sent a hail of bullets into the trees at two thousand miles an hour.

One of those bullets hit their intended target in the hip, another in the cheek. They didn’t do any damage of course, but still, Delaloza shook his head in disbelief. Much later, he’d learn from Spillers how that man had detected his presence. But at the moment, he recalled the section of the op order detailing the desired end state for this exact complication.

This set into motion a chain of events, beginning in building one, where Montoya was explaining to Captain Sepulveda he had just lost coms with the XO’s office. Across the mini parade ground in building two, Sergeant Zayas was barreling down the hallway behind the XO to go get the First sergeant. They found him in the rec room, standing motionless next to the pool table, listening. He could have been posing for some figure drawing class, his chin tilted up in the air, eyebrows furrowed, holding a pool cue with the fat end on the toe of his boot. He stayed like that until the machine gunner outside opened up with thirty seconds of sustained fire. Then he tucked the stick into the long rail with a crack, and led a column of men down into the armory.

Zayas wanted to join them, but Lieutenant Cabello shook his head. Tell me what Montoya said, he ordered. Zayas’ face flushed for a second, and as the men filed past, the recap came out rushed, diluted in an acoustic slurry of boots and mumbled words and elbows and knees hitting double doors. Barely contained chaos that moved and pulsed in a direction, like fresh magma pushing forward, past the double doors, out, left, into the stairwell, down into the arms room. The XO was saying something but Zayas was thinking, were they under attack? Was this a drill? Maybe yes, on both counts. When the doors finally swung closed again, he could still hear boots pounding against steel stair treads. From further down, the clanging of doors and rattling of chains, and metal rounds being shoved into en block clips.

He was going to ask the lieutenant if he could be dismissed when a strange wind came by. It kissed his left wrist before blowing out into the rec room by the card tables. When he turned to track it with his eyes, he caught the outlines of a blue gauzy smear that seemed to hop around. Strange, he thought, and followed it a while longer. Until his nostrils flared and a small ripple of peristalsis ran through him. He looked down, and the breath went out of him. His hand was gone, blood tumbling on to the floor like loose ketchup from a bottle.

Unable to form words, he looked up, eyes bulging and darting back and forth from his bloody stump to the floor to the profile of the XO who stood an arm’s length away, holding a cup of coffee, not saying a goddamn word.

Then he realized why. The lieutenant’s mouth wasn’t where it was supposed to be. At first glance, he thought whatever took his hand had lopped off the XO’s head. But no, his head was still there. Only now, he was wearing it like the hoodie of a rain parka. The man’s cowlick touched his upper back, and all along his neck were dark streaks and folds, like the ones you see on mishandled bananas.

Zayas started to drool, ready to vomit, when he saw the XO’s right hand twitch and contort in a tangle of knotted up fingers, causing the ceramic cup he had held until then to shoot out into a drooping arc and smash against the floor. The XO followed the cup, straight into a stack of fold-up chairs. Zayas, still needing to vomit, felt his tongue grow heavier inside his mouth. He began to pitch and yaw and sag to the floor.

On the other side of the double doors came the sound of rapid footsteps rising up from the armory, two stairs at a time. Zayas looked to see Ramirez kick open the double doors, yelling something like it was the end of the world, one hand clutching at his chinstrap, the other holding his rifle.

Ramirez’s outburst, while strange, didn’t fall into the category of men doing strange things in the Army. It was unusual in that it seemed to be going against the flow of the magma. Perhaps he sensed, in some elliptical spooky way the enormity of what was happening upstairs. Or maybe the man just lost his marbles. Regardless, whatever electrical impulses were responsible for his behavior were about to succumb to the inevitable chaos of entropy. By his third footfall, he had run right into the blurry blue ball responsible for turning two-handed Zayas into one-handed Zayas. The next instant, he was flying headfirst into the wall like a missile out of a trebuchet. The impact made a moist sucking noise, like a bag of overripe squashes falling from a great height and slamming against pavement.

Upon hearing that noise, Zayas passed out. Shortly after, from somewhere outside the building, the first grenade went off. Every man down in the armory stopped what he was doing for a second, tried to home in on the exact location of the explosion and pondered briefly the je ne sais quoi-ness of it all. Just for a moment, then right back to filling up ammo pouches. They were like desert pack animals going about their dry thirsty business, quietly siphoning off a bit of nourishment from a secret organ that replenished them as needed.

When Chaulette and Dawkins arrived, they knew Santiago’s location and headed straight for the stairwell — right through the magma.

Everything after was an accelerating buildup, arriving slowly at first in a chorus of clacks and dings. Then all at once as a thunderous and incomprehensible medley of nervous laughter… loud curse words… commands being screamed in a mix of Spanish and English… back-to-back explosions… shattering glass and concrete… entire drawers full of small metal things falling to the ground… the pop-pop of semi-automatic rifle fire… a large metal door sliding down the long white hallway at great speed, banging up against every goddamn thing along the way… and the occasional wet sound of something heavy being slammed against corrugated steel or hardwood.

Until at last, all the noise stopped.

Part 2: La Luz Azul

When Zayas opens his eyes, he’s belly down on the floor, one jowl pressing into the cool smooth epoxy. He sniffs at the air, still thick with dust particulate, and works his tongue against his bottom teeth, tastes discharged ammunition and burnt wiring and singed concrete. He lays there like a stone, left flank pinned up against something flat and hard. Not wanting to lift his head, he snakes his right hand around him so it rests on the small of his back, knuckles down. He works his fingers like little feelers, rubbing up against something soft and furry. Of course, the pool table. It must have been flipped on its side.

He blinks a few times, still flat on the floor and jogs his eyeballs in all the cardinal directions, and wonders: how long will the nasty taste be in his mouth for. He stiffens his neck to bring his head up to look, but there toward his feet, a trickle of blood coming out from his right side below his hip, not quite enough to pool. Then he feels it — a burning itch down by his other side and a sudden urge to retch, and he remembers now, he has only one hand. Images rush back to him all at once — of the strange wind and the blue light and the blood falling out of him. Soon his sphincter goes limp and he worries he’ll shit himself in this position.

I don’t think so, a voice says. In his head, there’s a pea-sized angry bull charging at the sphincter, threatening to kick his own asshole’s ass. The sphincter clenches up, tight as a drum.

Zayas grits his teeth, grateful for this small victory, and closes his eyes a moment and focuses on what he can hear. A search party maybe. Or signs of the enemy. He realizes he has no idea who attacked the compound. Or why.

A long silence goes by, and all he hears are distant parakeets and the halyards banging against the flagpole outside. He’s about to yell out for help, but reconsiders. Better to wait it out a little longer. Whoever did this could still be here. So he presses his lips together and slows down his breathing. With eyes wide, face still stapled to the floor, he takes a look around. Straight ahead of his nose, no more than three feet away, he sees the toe kick of the wall. Above it, thin streaks of dark red radiate down and out from a cantaloupe-sized spot, waist high. When he realizes he’s seeing bits of hair and skin and teeth, his eyes move right back down to the toe kick, tracing the black rubber until he sees a body crumpled up on the ground. Ramirez.

Zayas winces, tries not to remember the noise the man’s head made as it disintegrated into the wall. But then he recalls something that happened earlier. From when he was trying to track that odd blue light. Something he heard. The light didn’t make that noise though. It was completely silent. It was coming from a magazine on one of the card tables. The cover was flapping every time that blue light got near it. That’s it! The wind and the light traveled together. Somehow, they were the same thing. And—

He blinks a few times and draws in a sudden gulp of air. All at once, he remembers the powdery-faced man, literally just step out of a blurry spot from inside that wind. Like he was exiting a jeep. Well, that wasn’t exactly how it was. But it was close enough.

Zayas rumples up his eyebrows and sets his mind’s inner eye to work like a pencil. The man he had seen was short and stocky. And he looked strong — like a boxer. Brown powdery dry skin, with the face of an Indian. But not like a Taino. More like that actor — Victor something — who played Tonto in the Lone Ranger serials. Yeah, he thinks, but this man wasn’t dressed anything like Chief Thundercloud. He was dressed head to toe like a soldier. Well, almost. He didn’t have any head gear up top, not even a field cap — just a squarish hair cut that swooped down in the back, like a high and tight mohawk. On his shoulders, no unit insignia either. Or flags. And his boots were different — black and green, with small holes in the sides, like the ones worn by some of the paratroopers who came to Vieques back in the spring — jungle boots is what Captain Sepulveda called them. Not standard issue. Probably hard to find even in places like Fort Benning. Yeah. Zayas is nodding now, finishing up the sketch inside his head as he brings himself up on to his forearms. This odd man, who somehow traveled inside la luz azul, who could shave off hands as cleanly as a mandoline, and throw men into walls like they were bags of grapes — he was the cause of everything today. Fucking Tonto.

He tries to work out the why of it all, but can’t. Feels a wave of searing heat travel up his left arm. But then—

Zayas shakes his head and pricks up his ears as soon as he hears the dull rubbery squeak of the double doors. Then footsteps, two people, maybe three, talking in low voices. Shielded from view by the pool table, he lifts his head off the floor and strains to quietly pull himself forward three or four inches, to get a line-of-sight view, eyes nestled down low behind the netting of the corner pocket resting flush against the floor. He peers through it, and sees the double doors propped open. The distance is fifteen feet. Tonto is nowhere to be seen, but there are two gringos — one in a dark double-breasted suit, another younger one dressed like a civil engineer. The younger one stands there, saying nothing while the man in the suit paces in circles around him, one hand stuffed in his front pocket, the other gesturing in the air. He’s in charge, Zayas is sure of it. But there’s something off about the man. He moves like a wooden robot or something. But then the man stops and tilts his face toward the bend of the stairwell just beyond the double doors. He says something Zayas can’t hear. A third man walks in from the stairwell. He’s tall with narrow angry eyes. Dressed just like Tonto, his forearms slicked with viscera and blood, his face pale and powdery. As he walks by the suited man, he jabs his chin up in the direction of the pool table.

Zayas shoots a look to his right, to the rear fire door exit. It’s at least thirty feet away. When he turns back around to look through the corner pocket again, he sees the gringos. Only now, the one in the suit has stopped pacing. He’s facing the pool table, both hands out now, patting down the pleats along his trousers. He stands tall for a moment, then cranes his neck forward as though trying to read a sign from far away. He’s looking directly at the three ball, which is right in front of Zayas’ face.

Part 3: The Story Teller and the Robot

Zayas nudges himself backwards along the floor with his elbows, when he hears a voice.

Listen, it says.

Zayas doesn’t want to listen. He’s still staring at the gringo through the corner pocket. The voice though, is familiar. Like someone he met a long time ago, and forgot. He shakes his head, and tells himself this is the single most fucked day there has ever been.

It’s so fucked, the voice says. It can’t be unfucked.

Zayas grins, but doesn’t really understand why. He knows that voice, but how? He pictures a man two inches taller than he is, a bit older, with an athletic build. Sort of a sporty intellectual you might cross paths with at a barbershop who’s a real shark at dominoes — a handsome type with a strong chin that old people like to wave over in the street when they need someone to resolve disputes or provide color commentary on important baseball games and things discussed in the newspapers. Successful with the ladies of course, but also a whiz at fixing small engines.

“How do I know you?” Zayas whispers, one eye still on the gringo. “Why is your voice so familiar?”

It sounds familiar because you’ve heard it every day of your life, the voice replies.

Zayas says nothing, and wonders if this is some trick. Maybe from the gringo in the suit.

No, the voice says, sounding annoyed. Not even close. Look… every person contains an inner person who’s like… the complete package. The sum total of your potential as a person, expressed as a story you have to sit there and listen to inside your head your whole life. Kinda’ like a tape recorder. I’m that inner person for you Zayas, get it? I’m the storyteller who’s been whispering to you since you had your first thought — HEY PAPI. THIS IS WHO YOU’RE SUPPOSED TO BE.

Zayas pictures walking around with a magical speaker box in his head his entire life, puzzling through all manner of design questions such as: how to power such a device, where to obtain spare parts, how to troubleshoot mishaps, and most importantly how much one would cost. The voice, being aware of Zayas’ fondness for literal meanings, tries a different approach.

You remember that day in Miramar when you were walking home from school with your friends? You were nine. And from down the street, you waved at your papi who was waiting for you at that fancy bodega. And do you remember that little puta in the yellow dress, smoking a cigarette up on the 4th floor balcony of the hotel across the street? She opened up her little sliding glass door when she saw your papi’s dark skin and his big lips and wide nose and yelled… “You’re a nigger lover!” — and one by one, more glass doors slid back on their rollers. More people came out on their balconies to see what was happening, and the kids you were walking with, they couldn’t look away. Your papi kicked at the ground and put his hands in his pockets and you smiled at him. Then you, all nonchalant, looked across the street again and your steps got big and you cupped your hands around your mouth and clapped back at that little girl — “You better believe it PUTA!” That’s what you said. And one of the valets in front of the hotel cackled. Then from high up in the balconies, there was clapping and laughing and glasses being clinked. Your friends all laughed and patted you on the back. And then some Canadian gringo from a floor above said P-U-T-A. And the clapping from the hotel got louder. Until there was the sound of one door slamming shut. When you got to the bodega, your papi hugged you and held your hand all the way home.

The voice pauses so Zayas can fully absorb the memory and adds, I was there when you protected your sister from those boys who threw rocks at her from behind the church. And later when you had to march into that JAG office to testify at Major Sepulveda’s court martial after Vieques — all that business with those two Marines and the Navy Corpsman. I know what you said in that room — the kind of risks you took. Zayas, you are the story I tell every day. Put to life. A crack of light between two eternities of darkness.

Zayas nods. Though he’s not sure why, he likes the sound of that.

Now let’s get back to the strange gringo, the voice says. That spooky mamabicho does not have one of me in him. Don’t worry though, I’m going to tell you all about him. First off, he’s a lot older than he looks. If you compare him to other men. Don’t worry too much about that part right now though, I’ll get to it in a minute.

“He’s getting ready to come over.” Zayas says. “What do I do?”

Yeah, the voice says, adding a pause. He knows we’re here, but we still have some time. Let him keep rubbing his pants. This next part of the story you have to hear. It’s a little long and it’s gonna’ sound crazy. You ready?

“Tell me.” Zayas says. And then he hears a faint pop. Then a low hum and a dull mechanical whirring, followed by rapid clicks and tiny sprocket wheels catching on to something.

Pretend you’re watching a movie, the voice tells him. Not at the Roxy. You’re at Warner, you know, with the plush seats and that new air conditioner. This movie is about a middle-aged gringo in a dark suit — a real motherfucker if there ever was one. Turns out he’s actually a wooden robot who runs a small detachment of souped up soldiers. They are a bad bunch of apples, and in this movie, he’s using them to get control of something to turn himself into an even deadlier robot. And the thing he’s trying to get — I can’t explain to you exactly what it is, but it’s old Zayas. Real fucking old. And it belongs here on this island. This robot doesn’t give a shit about any of that though. He’s like the fisherman’s wife in that old German story who said…

“I cannot stand it when I see the sun and the moon rising, and I cannot cause them to do so. I will not have a single hour of peace—”

Zayas knows the quote. He gives himself the sign of the cross and completes it. “—until I myself can cause them to rise.”

I remember, the voice says. This story made you piss your bed for like a month when you heard it. The robot is exactly like the fisherman’s wife in that story. But he wasn’t always that way. No. Once upon a time, he was just a man tryin’ to make a buck. An immigrant from Holland. He got into trouble in 1491 and wound up in prison. He should have been hanged in Spain, but instead, went to work as a cooper for an Italian fool. Now I know you don’t know what a cooper is, so I’ll tell you. It’s a carpenter who repairs barrels aboard ships during long voyages. And this cooper got set free from jail with like, a bunch of other guys in Spain to go on a long trip across the sea.

The voice, having instant awareness of Zayas’ internal mental states, answers the question he’s about to ask before he can put them to words.

Funny you should ask about that voyage, the voice says. Remember that Italian fool? He was a real piece of work it turns out, and convinced the Queen of Spain that with enough boats and men and supplies, he could find a route to China.

“You will have what you need.” she told him, and even conferred on him the title of Admiral of the Ocean Sea.

So this fool sailed. All the way to the Caribbean sea. Not on purpose mind you, because he was actually trying to reach… INDONESIA. Yeah, I know. Not what you’d call close — and on Christmas eve 1492, he ran one of his boats aground in Haiti, just 350 miles from here. Also, not on purpose. So he made a big religious thing out of it and called the place ‘La Navidad and had the men disembark and build a fort.

The men weren’t happy though and the fool knew it. And with only two boats, he needed some of them to stay behind so the rest could sail back to Spain and resupply. So he told them in his cagey Genoese way…

“Men — there’s so much gold here. Beautiful women too. And the people are gentle, knowing nothing of our rapey murderous ways. I’ll need some volunteers to stay behind—”

And thirty nine men raised their hands. One of them, the ship’s cooper. None were what you’d call cream of the crop individuals.

So the fool went back to Spain, leaving the thirty nine to wallow in their violent delights for a whole year. When he returned, not one soul greeted him on the beach. And the fort was burned to the ground, gringo body parts scattered everywhere. The fool was surprised, but undeterred. He told his new crew, “Oh well, you win some, you lose some. Let’s get the rest of the gold.”

Zayas wanted to know what happened to the cooper.

Injured, the voice said, but not among the dead. He nursed his wounds, biding his time one more year — foraging, scrounging — until a different fool arrived. Ojeda was his name. The cooper traveled with that man for years, learning all his fool tricks. Until finally in 1518, in a place we now call Aguadilla, the cooper became the robot. It happened right over there, by the big ass tree with the Air Force antenna on it.

Zayas looks up and to his left, sees the tree framed in the window there, maybe half a mile away. He’s trying to picture the scene as it might have happened hundreds of years ago, tries to strip away all the asphalt and concrete and flags, tries to imagine how tall the tree was, how young the gringo might have looked, what the Puerto Ricans would have looked like, and how it exactly happened. He asks the voice, “How—”

I know, you want to know, the voice says. But the movie you and I are watching doesn’t tell that part. And I’m glad, because it’s ugly and violent and makes me sick to my stomach. The movie we’re in tells a more interesting part, I think, which is this. One day, hundreds of years later, the robot challenges God to a game of pool. He thinks he’ll run the table. Of course. Because of… his advantages.

Zayas knits his brow. How could anyone beat God in a game of pool?

Good question, the voice says. For starters, the robot has a perfect understanding of all the factors that determine how pool balls in general move — composition, durability, mass, aerodynamics, that kind of thing.

Second, his accuracy with the stick is on point. We’re talking about a level of control that allows him to set a ball in motion along a PRECISE TRAJECTORY each and every time he takes a shot. He does not make mistakes. I won’t lie, this is a big one.

Third, he understands the dynamics of the table — I’m talking intimate deep down knowledge of every hard and soft spot along the rails, the give of the cushions, the exact tack of the felt, how level the slate is — you get it. Add to that, his brain is a dynamo when it comes to working out equations with acceleration, angular momentum, collisions… all that stuff. So no exaggeration, this robot could hit a ball with just the right force so it hits a second ball, sending that one up in the air with just the right kind of English so that when it lands on the felt, it spins backwards. Fucking backwards. Then ricochets off a rail, and hits a third ball that travels the entire diagonal length of the bed — in a logarithmic arc — until it sinks in a corner pocket. On top of that, he can do it repeatedly without ever scratching. I mean, this robot makes normal pool players look like unwashed crap. Does this all make sense?

Zayas nods, but makes a point he feels will be a decisive win against the robot. “It doesn’t matter how good he is. God is perfect, so he’s better.”

That is a good point, the voice says. But here’s the, uh, weird part. This isn’t a game of pool. The table isn’t a table — it’s the world. And the balls aren’t balls — they’re people. And the really messed up part is, God never takes any shots. He just racks the table.

Zayas is confused. “What’s that even supposed to mean?”

It means God doesn’t have skin in this game. But guess what Zayas. The balls always do. It’s the robot versus all the balls. All the time. And in this part of the movie, the robot is walking up to the three-ball. It’s right there for him at the corner pocket. And like usual, that motherfucker thinks he’s got the upper hand, thinks he knows exactly what all the balls on the table are gonna’ do. But once in a while, you get a group of balls together—

Zayas wants him to finish that sentence, but the voice says this instead. The three ball in this movie is a ball like that. And at this point in the movie, he’s only a foot away from Ramirez’s Haversack. Do you see it?

He nods.

One more thing Zayas. No matter what happens, never forget. You and I aren’t alone. Don’t think this is all that exists. There is so much more to learn and see. The world is unfathomable, I promise. You are the love of my life.

Zayas has managed to back himself to within two feet of Ramirez’ bag. The man in the suit is still staring through the opening of the corner pocket from fifteen feet away. He’s about to say something when Zayas turns to reach into the Haversack with his good hand.

“You there.” the robot says.

Zayas is ignoring nearly every sensory input. His vision has changed — as if his eyes have scaled up the fidelity and detail of everything within a tiny fraction of his total perceptual range at the expense of everything at the periphery. His attention is narrower, deeper. Colors are richer, more vibrant — like he’s watching a gorgeous movie that’s been oddly letterboxed on top of a glassy rectangle of obsidian.

The robot begins to walk.

Zayas’ breathing becomes shallower. He feels the air slip out of his body, a single molecule at a time. Which is odd, he thinks, because molecules shouldn’t be able to be felt in that kind of way. He’s struggling with the buttons on the Haversack now, and turns around to peek through the corner pocket.

The robot has cut the distance almost in half. He’s walking faster now, hunched over, switching his arms, as though noodling through some invisible canopy of tubes built just for this part of the movie. He is less than six feet away.

Zayas doesn’t care any more about being stealthy. He snatches the Haversack in a pinch grip, and turns to face the bastard robot, who is stepping around the pool table now, not saying a word. Propped up on his left elbow, Zayas brings the grenades up to his mouth one-by-one, removes the safety pins with his teeth and spits them out.

The robot doesn’t react, doesn’t run, just stares right into him.

Zayas is confused. He wants to look away now, but can’t. His heart is pounding like a lawnmower. Tears that feel like acid, stream down the sides of his face. Why the hell was he blinking so much? And his eyelids — like tiny bellows, ratcheting up that low burning itch that’s been worming its way through the canals of his head, high up into his nasal passages, back further into a little pocket behind his eyes. His heart is ready to explode when he wonders if he’s misunderstood the story about the game. Or maybe he’s lost his mind. He wants the voice to tell him what to do, but it doesn’t come.

The robot is standing one foot away.

Zayas wonders why God would ever rack a game of pool in such a way that could lead to even the possibility of an unbeatable robot pool player in the first place. He looks down at the grenade pins on the ground, then at the robot. Unable to answer his own question, he says this.

“Nobody beats God at pool.” And then he wonders one last thing — if he will see that blurry blue light again.

He doesn’t.