Of Men and Machines or whatever better title I come up with later

Read and find out!

Jack entered the building. The sliding glass doors behind him closed, shutting off the outside noises and the smells and other things from the street. He greeted the guard, who just nodded sharply in acknowledgment. Jack entered the elevator and counted in his head as the floors lit up on the panel of buttons as he passed through them. 17-18-19-20. He stepped outside and crossed over a sparkling clean hallway into a small room on the end. He opened the door and left his coat hanging on the coat hanger behind the door, closed the door and sat on the chair behind his desk. He pressed his computer keyboard and the screen lit up. He opened a program and took out a book from a drawer nearby. He flipped through the pages, scanning them quickly. He repeated this process two or three times, each time more concerned. With a sigh he set down the book and put it back in the drawer. He closed the drawer and grabbed a remote control from the desk. With quick jabs he turned the TV on and was flipping through channels until he found one he liked and stayed there. The channel was showing a man, sitting on a desk, writing reports and analyzing charts. Occasionally he looked around and stretched his arms before quietly resuming his task. Jack licked his lips and cracked his knuckles, he turned to the computer and started typing, never once taking his eyes from the TV screen. Jack pressed enter and leaned back, grinning and looking at the TV. The man on the screen kept working as usual, when suddenly his soft typing was interrupted by a knock on the door. The man stood up and opened the door, there stood a most beautiful woman. The woman smiled and talked quietly, the man let her in and showed her a seat. Jack grinned slightly and gently stroked his chin. On the screen, the man and the woman were now talking rapidly and seemed to be enjoying themselves. The man took out two beers from a mini fridge he kept beside his desk, he opened them and offered one to the woman. She accepted and sipped it while she heard the man speak. Jack took out a beer himself and drank it happily. After a while he saw that the man had started gesticulating wildly and the woman was standing up. Frowning, Jack looked at his computer screen and then at the Tv and then back at the computer. On the screen the woman was now on the verge of tears, the man was shouting and waving the bottle around, then he doubled over and threw up. Jack sighed and pressed delete on his computer. The man was back at his desk and he was writing reports, the woman had disappeared and the place was completely clean. Jack took out the book again and flipped through pages, stopping every once in awhile to read some passages and write notes on the margin of the book. After some time of him doing this passed, he sat back and rubbed his temples slowly, then he leaned forward and started typing. He typed and typed for some time, then he deleted what he had typed and then he typed it gain. He pressed enter and turned his attention to the TV screen. There the man was still working, when again knocking disturbed him. He stood up and opened the door to find an older woman and a man about his age standing there. They smiled and hugged and kissed each other, they all sat down and started talking. The older woman would tell memories and the two men would laugh and joke. The man who was working smiled happily, so did Jack. Then after some time, the woman stood up, tears in her eyes. The man who had come with her was shaking his head in disappointment, and the man who was working was frantically trying to explain and unexplainable cause, not because it was irrational but because it would fall to deaf ears. The worker man finally frowned and shouted to them to leave. The other two just stared at him, so he repeated again, just louder. They hurried out of the room and the man closed the door as he left, glancing back at the worker man one last time. The worker man sat on his chair, and put his head on his arms as he shook it.

All the while Jack had been watching in amazement as to how the events unfurled and happened. He sat back and gaped at the screen, where the man remained sitting and holding his head in his hands. Jack was deep in thought when he was interrupted by his phone ringing loudly. He picked it up and quietly affirmed and confirmed everything. The viewers weren't glad, yes sir, there should be no mistakes, yessir, next time the big man was going down to see what was going on, ok ok. Jack hung up and sighed as he sat back. He pressed delete and again the man was back to analyzing charts and writing reports, he was holding his head up high and stared focused at the screen.

Jack opened the drawer to get  the book out, then halfway through, he stopped and closed the drawer. He typed quickly, his long fingers reaching the corners of his keyboards with ease. After an hour of careful typing he pressed enter and turned to the screen. The man on the screen was working, when once again there was loud knocking. As the man was standing up to open the door, the door opened and a bigger man stepped in. He smiled and talked quickly, the man could only stare at the big man's feet hidden beneath handmade shoes. Jack smiled and took out a beer from the mini fridge he kept. The men on the screen were now talking and drinking, the big man always smiling, and the other man was now cheerfully nodding and thanking. Suddenly, the big man got a phone call and he excused himself. He talked quietly on the phone, slowly nodding and his smile melting into a frown. He hung up and turned to face the other man, who had shrunk back into his seat and was now nervously fidgeting with his beer bottle, running his fingers along the rim. The big man shook his head and spoke quietly to the other man, he stepped forward, and the weight of his step created a vacuum for the other man to fall into. The other man stood up and pressed his back against the wall, he was trembling now, but his grip tightened around the bottle's neck.

Jack took out the book, he flipped through its pages, this wasn't supposed to happen, stories weren't supposed to interact, he had deleted them. He fidgeted and frowned until he stopped, for a horrible thought had occurred to him.

The big man was repeating some more stuff and the other man was shaking his head vigorously.

Jack's phone started ringing.

The big man took out his phone and dialled a number, he talked softly to it, never taking his disappointed eyes from the other man.

Jack realized his phone had stopped ringing. He reached for it and trembled softly.

The big man hung up.

There was loud knocking on Jack's door and then a man bigger than Jack walked in, he was mad.

On the screen the other man was repeatedly hitting the big man with the bottle, until the big man stumbled and raised his arms to signal defeat and surrender, but the other man just kept on beating him mercilessly.

Jack gripped tightly his beer bottle. The big man jabbed his accusing finger at him, his giant frowning face growling.

"But sir, I never did any of those things!"

"DO NOT LIE, MR. JACK," boomed the big man. "WE HAVE EVIDENCE."

The big man grabbed the remote control and quickly went through everything that had happened on screen back to the very beginning. Whimpering, Jack explained that it's not supposed to work that way, that the stories aren't supposed to work like that, that he just writes characters for TV shows and that an algorithm affects whatever they do. The big man just laughed.

"You don't know what you are," he said. He grabbed the remote and plays it all over again, except in this part, the woman never leaves, and the older woman and the other man meet that woman, and the worker and they all fight.

"But that never happened!"

"Did it not?"

Jack stared at the screen as the men begin to argue and the women held each other tightly. He felt a pain in his chest began to rise and his grip around the bottle tightened. The scene ended, the older woman lay crying on the floor, the man who came with her was swimming in a pool of his own blood and the other younger woman had run outside. Jack swung with all his strength, hitting the big man beside the ear. Blood sprouted and the big man fell to his knees. Jack kept hitting and hitting and hitting the man. Onscreen the big man had finally arrived and the scene was at the moment where it had been left off before.

Jack took a sharp breath and stood back. He turned and faced the TV, where the man on the screen was staring at a TV in his room. Jack started to panic and his breath became quick and broken. He threw the beer bottle at the screen and cracked it, only to see that it froze for some moments. He turned around and looked at his desk, just because he didn't know what to do. He turned around quickly and froze. He could see the onscreen man's face clearly now. It was himself. He took a step closer, but just then the police entered, followed by the beautiful woman, and watched as Jack ripped himself apart.

Author's Note

Please review, that's all I want.