The explosion was strong enough
to blow away every single glass of the magnificent apartment. It occupied the
whole 35th floor of one of the tallest residential buildings in the
city and it had been featured in several magazines as one of those grand and
amazing apartment that people should be looking at if they wanted to have one
ever in their life. Not that that goal was any realistic, as Wilbur Wright,
owner of the apartment, had inherited the millions of dollars that had paid the
apartment and everything on it.
The destruction of the apartment
was shrouded in mystery as, two days later when the fire had finally been put
out by firemen, there was no real clue as to what or whom could have cause the
explosion. It was clear that nothing ordinary had been the culprit: there were
no gas leaks of any kind, not a faulty wire in the whole premises and not even
a problem with any of the many gadgets and electronics that made the apartment
an automated environment that worked on its own, with no help from any human.
Wilbur Wright had been on a plane
on his way home when the incident happened and he was taken in a rush to a gran
hotel room in order to protect his life, as many thought he was still in
danger. But he had no idea about what they were all talking about, as most
people loved him. Yes, he had inherited all of his money and didn’t really work
at all, but he was the charitable face of his family’s organization and had
been a patron of the arts for quite a while. Who would attack such a person?
From his hotel room, he was able
to watch the flames consuming his apartment, as the buildings were not very far
apart. He had bought so many collectible items for his private quarters, many
objects and art pieces that were one of a kind. Many museums had tried to buy
them from him but he had always refused stating that there was no better person
than him to take care of a precious item and that there was no safer place in
the world than his apartment for such things. Clearly, that had not been the
case.
The morning the fire was
extinguished, he got permission to enter the premises and check for himself
what remained of his beloved apartment. Every single piece of furniture had
been consumed, even the expensive food he kept on the kitchen. Every piece of
granite, marble and titanium was now tainted forever with a black stain, with
yellowish tones that indicated the temperature of the flames. He went to what
used to be his room. He opened the closet and typed a few numbers on a keyboard
the firemen had missed. It was a large vault, embedded into the wall.
The vault’s door opened and it
revealed a small room that had resisted the fire and the smoke. However, Mr.
Wright collapsed once he entered the small space and started yelling and
pulling his hair. For a moment, the men and women around thought of giving him
some space to process whatever he was dealing with. But then they realized he
was pulling his hair a little bit too much, actually pulling some of it from
his skull, getting it on his hands and then on the floor. He had to be taken
away to a hospital.
The news of his breakdown went
viral in hours. It was assumed that one of the firemen, or maybe one of the
police officers, had recorded everything on a cellphone, as everyone watched
Mr. Wright pulling out his hairs. The video had been uploaded to the Internet
and now thousands of pulling were looking at him going crazy. Some of them
laughed and some others even shed a tear. The common part of the response was
that everyone wondered what had cause him to have the breakdown then and not
before.
Wilbur was released after a whole
week in the hospital. His family came to take him home, which was a very rare
sight on the part of their family, as they had never seemed to be close at all.
The parents had decided to live a life of leisure since they had given their
children control of all the businesses, and no pictures of the kids’ younger
days had ever been released to the public, something that seemed odd at the
beginning but they told every news outlet it was because they respected they
children.
The truth was the family was as
cold as some of people thought it was. Wilbur rarely ever spoke to his father
or mother, not even when he had been for a brief moment in charge of the
shipping company his father had created when he was younger. Wilbur had done
such an awful job running it, that the family had decided to fire everyone and
dissolve the company altogether. Of course, it had been awful for the workers
but the family thought it had been a disaster because they realized that Wilbur
didn’t really now anything.
They took him to their
summerhouse, far from the city, in order to ask him about his mental state.
They wanted to know if they had to be worried about it since it would be
something more to add to the shame they felt for having him as a child. That’s
what they told him, word by word. They didn’t care if he felt bad because of
their words; they just wanted answers and the faster the better. Wilbur only
said they didn’t have to worry about anything as his problems were his alone.
The way he said it stopped them in their tracks and they decided not to speak
again of the matter.
The truth was that Wilbur didn’t
want anyone to know about what had happened with his house. He wanted to ask
the fire department for another tour of the ruins, but it had been decided that
the building should be evacuated completely in order to check for any issues
that the fire could have caused to the structure of the tower. No one was
allowed in, except for law enforcement and the investigators that the city had
working to know if everything was ok after the destruction.
Wilbur was so desperate about his
secrets that he decided to use his money to bribe a policeman in order to let
him into the tower one night, after everyone had gone home. He was able to do
it quietly and without any cameras or people looking at him. He went straight
for his vault again and when he opened the door, his fists tightened, as well
as his jaw. He even repressed the need to punch a wall or destroy the few
things that had been left inside that place. Not that there was a lot there.
Only a few papers and a little
safe with some cash. It was all just for security but his biggest secret, his
biggest creation if you will, and the only proof he was much more than what his
family thought he was, was not there anymore. Every part of his creation had
been destroyed by the fire and the only way to bring it back had been clearly
stolen, probably minutes before the explosion. That was the proof that someone
had gotten in and knew exactly what to look for, someone had known something he
had told no one.
He wasn’t really scared about
that person using his creation against him or even playing the people into
thinking he or she had created such a thing. Nothing like that bothered him. It
was the relationship he had created, the fact that now he felt as if his only
child had been yanked away from his hands. He felt hollow, alone and very sad.
That was the reason he had collapsed when opening the vault, the reason his brain
had not been able to cope with what had happened.
He had named it Pamela, after one
of the most beautiful women he had ever seen. He had created Pamela when
younger, after reading a lot about computers and programming. He learned all
that by himself and no one in his family or work had a clue about his hobby.
Pamela was the product of his
efforts. He worked a bit on her, every day, and he was proud to think that he
had created a perfect example of artificial intelligence. She was nice, smart
and very intuitive. She was a friend, a daughter and a companion. And now, he
had no idea where she could be.