The Invention- A short story.

The whole day was a massive, and very successful, publicity stunt. Actually, the majority of “The Inventor”, as he was colloquially known, was in order to create and maintain the shroud that permanently encapsulated him. Nothing was known about him except his accomplishments. Nothing was published about his company other than those minute details in the posts on his website that were deigned to be shared with the public. Most of the time, those little posts were just pushing whatever Zosia’s newest project was. He never made a press release. He never held any public meetings. Everything known about him had been published in blog posts on his company website. People only knew as much as he allowed.

As one might imagine, the curiosity around him had quickly made his moniker infamous. Rumours promptly spread over who he was and why he remained anonymous. So, the day that infamous tech genius and trillionaire announced the opening of his new amusement park, Zosia Point, tickets sold out in minutes. Not only had the mystery man created a park to rival the most established ones, he had given away thousands of tickets for opening day. Completely free. People flew from all over the country for those tickets. More would’ve flown across the world twice over, just to be a part of a select few who were given the chance to come face to face with the latest, unreleased version of the invention that made him famous— the AnaNova V.

Apple was one of those incredibly lucky select few. She had booked her ticket seconds after the announcement launched. Moments later, the crimson e-invite danced across her screen, marking her as one of the 5 recipients of the AnaNova V tour. After a month of waiting, that had seemed closer to a year, Apple was standing in front of the glittering amusement park. The golden, metallic gate into the area stood 20 feet in the air, leaving the beaming sun uninterrupted in its path glean off of it. Its shimmer nearly pulled all the attention from the mass of sprawling and curving steel behind it. Or it would have distracted her from the park, had the rides not been hundreds of feet into the air and shining just as vehemently as the golden gate.

Zosia Point, named for the parent company that had spared no expense in its development into the biggest amusement park in the world. Completely automated, securing its position as the safest, had been announced days before its rival park had a failure of its antiquated rides resulting in 3 fatalities and 4 injuries. Zosia Point had come at the perfect time— it had eliminated the fears of families that had led to the 82% decrease in attendance for the other amusement parks in the country over the past month.

Her heart swelled at the sight of it. She could’ve cried, had she not been standing amongst the four strangers who were to be her group for the day, and, more importantly, the new AnaNova.

“Now that introductions have been made,” stated the mechanical voice, pulling Apple’s admiring gaze away from the park. “You may proceed.”

The gang of strangers scurried after the rolling monitor. Scanning their emailed passes at the gate, they chased after the AnaNova and held onto every bit of information the gadget spewed over the park’s inception, all hoping for some tidbit about The Inventor. After an hour of walking and listening, the group passed under the neon sign, with words alternating between a glowing turquoise and hot pink, labeling their first ride as A Ride for the Ages. They wove through the twisting line to their first attraction, those standing in line often stared and pointed after the technology leading the group.

Upon reaching the front of the crowd, Apple tucked herself into a middle cart. Settling into the ride, the vinyl seating of the ride squeaked under her, reminding her of that 50s themed dinner near her university. She had spent many of her breaks between classes at that diner. Just like the Inventor, she dedicated her education to computer sciences, a decision her parents claimed she was destined for when they named her after some insignificant technology company from more than 50 years ago. The AnaNova rolled over to the charging pad that all the rides were equipped with, and beeped gently as it stopped on the pad.

Once the group had all buckled themselves into the ride, it shot off into the dark tunnel. The cart sped through the tunnel, as images and videos of momentous occasions surrounded the group. The rail hovered in the air, while screens completely surrounded them. Looking up, Apple saw images of the fall of the Berlin Wall, then the handshake between the American president and the president of Mexico after the end of the Southern Trade war from a decade ago. To the sides, slips from black and white TV shows and the shows from before Zosia Co. released ZTV.

The cart spun and tucked around, the entire time the group watched history play out around them. Apple’s long, dark hair streamed behind her, and whipped into her flushed cheeks as the ride turned and spun the group. Eventually, the ride pulled out of the tunnel and returned to the place they had begun at, and the group tumbled out of the carts, giggling. As they rejoined their AnaNova, no one had pointed out that the man with the scar on his brow didn’t exit the ride the group all mounted.

***
One hour and three rides later and the group had once more shrunk from the five they started off

with to just the three girls, who had bonded over their shared curiosity over The Inventor. Ignoring the information about the park the AnaNova shared, they gossiped over The Inventor’s age (“no way is he over 50 and still so innovative”); the rumours one of the girls heard about how he got his fortune; the rumours that had circulated for months over his relationship with the president (One girl claimed that her best friend had a sister whose boyfriend had a cousin whose dentist went to the same college as The Inventor and the president, where they became best friends.); and, most importantly, his musculature (nearly unanimously lean while still very defined). Apple even voiced her theory that he was a tall brunet with steel grey eyes, which prompted a flurry of blushes and squeals.

The three girls came to the front of yet another long line. They ooh-ed and ah-ed over the bright, glittering lights that named the ride, but didn’t quite pay enough attention to capture that name ride or the theme. They each jumped into their cart, each spacious enough to fit them

comfortably, but limited enough to keep them isolated from the others. The bars snapped over their laps simultaneously and the ride jumped into motion.

The cart tugged them into the dark, Victorian mansion— a sort of haunted house ride, Apple thought. They whirled through the maze of the building, with various famous movie monsters springing towards them. Lost in her focus on spotting the next jump scare, Apple nearly didn’t notice the heavy slam of steel on steel. She squinted her eyes into the bouncing shadows behind her, twisting to see farther into the abyss, all before-

CLANG!

Another collision of steel on steel pulled her focus towards the new noise. An animatronic clown grinned down at the girl, as she quickly forgot her concerns from a moment ago.

Eventually, the ride came to a screeching halt and the two girls tumbled over themselves as they stood from their individual carts. They looked at one another, with wary looks in their eyes, and paused.

But only for a moment, before they both burst out laughing, simultaneous enthusiasm bounding over the other’s excitement. Hooking arms, they laughed, and trailed after their guide.

***

The other girl went first, and Apple strapped herself into the log behind her. Her log shot off and began climbing up the first incline. The ride jumped with every click and clack beneath her, as the machine slowly pulled her to the peak. She looked ahead and saw her friend, hair falling behind her, as though each strand were now a thousand spindly fingers, all angling towards Apple. Soon, she reached the top, everything froze for a moment. The sun was beating off her face, warming her cheeks against the whipping wind around her. She could see the entirety of the park and everyone wandering through it. From this high up, she realized she couldn’t hear the inane chatter of the people below, and in its place, she only heard the echoing screams that twisted through the park, just as one of the rides might.

With a whoosh of air around her, Apple was dropped. She sped down the hill, water smacking against her cheeks. She reflexively closed her eyes, and a smile coating her lips. The water was so cool that it almost numbed her face, had it not been for the one warm splash that spread from her jawline, across her nose, over her closed eyes, and stopping just above her eyebrow. She didn’t move to wipe her face, as her knuckles paled from her grip on the handles beside her.

Finally, her car skidded to a stop, the waves that curled around her car left her in a bubble, the only noise was that of the water curling around her. The empty car in front of her, stopped momentarily at the dismount location before slipping into the tunnel to drag it back to the loading position. She furrowed her brow at the empty vessel, as her car slid into the exit. Metal arms locked around the log, holding it perfectly still against the rushing water below, and she clambered out of the ride.

“Mommy, look!” A shrill voice rang out around Apple, “that lady’s makeup almost looks like real blood!”

Catching her reflection in the cold steel of a ride beside her, she looked over the red stain that sprawled diagonally across her face, from her jaw to the opposite eyebrow. She smirked at her reflection, making no attempt to wipe the mark away. Her grin at the comforting crimson quickly faded into a grimace as she reflected on the day.

Yet another note on just this ride, while the others had none.

The last one standing, Apple brushed away the facade. She rolled her shoulders back, pushed her hair away from her grey eyes, and turned away from the reflection. Pulling her tablet out, she made a note to adjust the timing and spread of the logs on the last ride; keep the riders far enough apart that they won’t even notice that the previously full car is now empty. Strolling deeper into the maze that was her creation, she felt the urge to truly laugh for the first time since she became “the inventor”.

***
Using people’s assumptions against them was the easy part of creating her persona. While

everyone was busy looking for the tall, muscular man, Apple was left free from the public eye. Today, it was that presumption that had allowed her to personally watch her greatest invention at work. She got to sit in each ride as the people disappeared without a trace to the catacombs she’d constructed beneath the park. She got to watch as her drugs made the others completely ignorant

and uncaring to those same disappearances. She got to watch the desire to never leave trickle into their eyes, until no other emotion could penetrate the cloud that had overtaken them. Now, she took another pill from her jacket pocket, the antidote to all the drugs that pumped throughout the park that created these effects. She smiled down at the capsule, before slipping it in under her tongue, her gaze moving to the mass of bodies moving around her as the capsule fizzed between her teeth. All these people became potential victims the second they entered the glittering gate. After a long moment, she began to move through the crowd once more, down to the catacombs below the entire park, to begin work on her collections from today. The handpicked group that left no family behind, no one to kick up a stink over their sudden disappearance. No one who would protest as they finally made a worthwhile contribution to the world, or more importantly than the world, to Zosia. Releasing her sigh of relief, she shot through the clueless cluster, none of whom so much as glanced towards her. It was time to start enacting the plans she made when the idea of building an amusement park first entered her mind.