God Controller

I looked out my window. A thunderstorm was rolling in, the withered late-autumn corn bristling in unison. The last gasp of Summer, was about to be overtaken, and the freeze of winter would coop me up in this two-story prison for the the next season.

Don't get me wrong; I do enjoy the passage of seasons. From the radiance of summer to the sterility of winter, it adds a predictable spice to life. People in the South do yearn for snow, after all. But in this rural outpost, two miles out from town, even the tiniest ice storm could trap me here, and leave me to idle while the utility companies rush to bring my outside connections back online. Most importantly it forces me to associate with my equally isolated family.

I love my family, but I do not like them. I hold a job for the sake of their well being, but I would rather work than speak to them. Years of the Internet, from imageboards to shocker sites, have placed my mental normalcy on an outcrop of society. Although I enjoy helping people for the sake of it, I hate becoming intimate with them, for when they know of my eccentric, morally questionable hobbies, they pity me, perhaps detest me, for being a broken cog whose only act of defiance was one which hurt no one but disgusts everyone. If I get into a good engineering school, maybe I can find others who also teeter on this line and form a camaraderie. Maybe not. But in this town, I can only hang a facade. It works, but it makes me empty inside.

Thunderstorms are always lovely to watch, especially in this flat country, and I would usually be outside, on bike, camera in hand, participating in a town tradition of Natural Selection. But this storm was a finality of its kind. The prime-time of tornadoes was over, and all this storm could was make a loud fuss about it, whether through crackling lightning or freezing downpours. Besides, right next to me lay something much more engrossing: the ShyuSeisuru.

The ShyuSeisuru, _{consoleshort} for short, was a state-of-the art video game console, the first hardware entry of an up-and-coming video game company. They had made plenty of great games multitude of formats, styles, and genres, but they found themselves limited by the relatively anemic offerings of modern consoles. This was their answer.

While the hardware was amazing, its real brilliance was in the controller. Containing a microphone, a video camera, a high-resolution display, hyper-sensitive buttons, and a powerful processing system to boot, it could play simple games on its own terms, without the need of the main console. Most impressive, however, were the patented "Multiform-Tacticle DualPads:" two depressions for the thumbs, composed of a series of layered, high-quality, malleable plastic rings. The plastic could be modified by vibrations below to produce a texture, and the rings were much more sensitive than any joystick available.

While the system was undeniably great, it was still being tested heavily in East-Asian markets, and its current selection of titles were mostly conceptual works, indie projects, or easily ported visual novels. Being an aficionado of all three, I quickly made the purchase with some extra cash I had saved, and quickly began working through the current offerings. Still cash-strapped, I have been sticking to games available online, legality aside.

As my window became pitch black, flickering white with lightning, I loaded a test game onto the controller. One of the few to receive an English translation, Partner Pleasure +PLUS+ !, was an undoubtedly erotic game which made use of the tactile feedback in a variety of creative ways, all of which would make this Thursday night more interesting. With the Parents out working and my Sister listening to her tunes, I felt a locked door would be sufficient guard from any unwanted intrusions.

The installation was just wrapping up, and the installer was going through a check of all acceptable inputs, when the typically atypical occurred. There was a flash from the window. The room went black, except for a flash of white which careened from an outlet, into my power brick and into the controller. It gleamed. It too went black. A loud noise rumbled through the house. The room shook. Both receded. I was blind and deaf. And then less so.

Without thinking, I bust open the door, only to find the rest of the house still lit. I raced down the stairs. Passing the living room, I saw my Sister half-asleep in her favorite couch, headphones blaring, oblivious to the direct hit. I calmed down. I nearly chastised her for being so unaware, but that would just be lighting the powder keg that was her teenage emotions. I opened the power box, replaced the fuse for my room, and went back up.

Despite my ignorance in forgetting to unplug the devices, everything appeared in working order. The computer was back at the login screen, the lights were on, and the game console was on the home screen. Recalling the brilliant display of my controller, I went to check on it.

Perfectly sound. No dents, no scratches, and even a full charge.

After a few moments of curious inspection, I threw off the event as a fluke and went to my new game.