Inside I found a smaller cardboard box, and inside that box the device. It was a cheap video-game controller from the 1970s, a scuffed black plastic case with a big red button on it. It looked like a joke. I wondered if Bickle hadn’t sent me across the country so I’d leave the academy unattended. Maybe I was being fucked with. I took the device back to the hotel and sat on the bed looking at it. If I believed it was bogus, some sort of prop, then it didn’t matter if I pushed the button or not. But if it really did set in motion the end of our times, then it mattered very much whether I pushed
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