“And what? You think this button kicks it all off?” Conor said, almost laughing. “You think that’s what I’ve been making? This is a box of gears and junk and things that don’t make sense! There’s not a single computer chip or piece of technology in it. It’s not connected to anything. I don’t know what will happen when I push the button, but whatever it is will happen in this box and this box alone. It’s not going to set off a chain reaction, or explode, or detonate nuclear warheads, or… It’s just a silly box.”

“A silly box that has been in your head for your entire life,” said the man.

“But now it’s out,” said Conor. “It’s not in my head any more. It’s gone. I don’t have to… I don’t have to think about it any more.”

“How’s your mother, Conor?”

The smile faded from Conor’s face.

“She’s doing well, from what I gather,” the man continued. “Responding to the treatment. She still draws on the wall, of course. Strange symbols. Strange designs. Gears and levers and a big red button.”

“My mother is ill.”

The man nodded his head in the shadows. “Like her father before her. And his father before him. Stretching back through the generations. And all of you with this design in your minds. This box. That button. But you, Conor, you’re the only one who saw it clearly enough to construct it.”

“I’ve broken the cycle,” said Conor. “I’m not going to end up in an asylum like the rest of them. I’ve done it. I’ve made it. Now I get to have a normal life. Now that my duty is almost done, I get to be free of it.”

“What duty?” asked the girl.

The headache was getting worse. He was getting hotter. He probably had a fever. “Did I say duty? I don’t know. That’s not the word I meant to use.”

“But it’s the one you did use,” said the man. “Do you have a duty, Conor? Is that what it feels like?”

“I’m not sure I… I…”

“That box has cursed your bloodline for hundreds of years,” the man said. “Maybe more. You were compelled to construct it, weren’t you? You didn’t have a choice. You may not even have been fully aware of what you were doing. You have a duty to that box, don’t you, Conor?”

Conor nodded. “An obligation,” he whispered.

“An obligation to that box. Why is your finger on the button, Conor? Is that part of your obligation? Once you build it, you set it off?”