by Simon Archer
“I can’t even tell you a rush that was!” I answered excitedly. “If I could bottle that and sell it, it would make my lottery money look like pocket change!” It was the second time I’d discovered something priceless that the world would love that week. The three of us laughed at the thought. I leaned back onto the couch, suddenly a little worn out. It was most likely from the mix of adrenaline and fear. I had just experienced a lot of both in a very short time span. I pulled my phone from my pocket and looked at the time.
“That took five hours?” I yelled, not meaning to. “Those things usually take like, I don’t know, a minute or two!” The girls chuckled a little as Vila bashed one of Andi’s chess pieces.
“Some things take a little longer to create the full experience for,” Vila told me.
“Dammit, Vila!” Andi cried out. “You weren’t supposed to notice I had moved him there!”
“It’s as you said, Andi. I was around when the game was invented!” Vila taunted her lightheartedly. “You shouldn’t have thought you could beat me!” The two of them continued on with their good-humored banter while I relaxed and watched their antics.
I knew I would have to go get the 14Tech contract changes taken care of before the next day, but for right then, I was enjoying watching the girls bicker and destroy a chessboard.
17
The next morning, I was at the office, with the edited copy of the contract sitting on my desk. Jack had paid his typist double-time plus a handsome bonus and two days paid time off to get them done overnight. Sven and Asher scheduled their visit to the office and sign the papers before they flew out of the country.
I flipped through the pages, checking for little nuances to make sure everything had been typed up correctly. In all the years I’d worked there, I had never heard of Jack’s typist ever having turned in even one mistype of any kind. Sometimes, I’d joke that Jack should have her studied to make sure she wasn’t a computer herself, but after my trip down wish-vision lane, I thought twice about that joke now. When I had finished checking everything I needed to, I walked the contract down the hall to Jack’s office. After I knocked on the doorframe, I walked in his open door.
“Got something for you.” I waved the contract in front of me.
Jack stood up and reached his hand out to take it from me. “Everything in order?” He had his serious face on, which wasn’t uncommon for huge signing days like today.
“You know it is,” I answered.
He flipped through the pages, and when he was at the signature pages, he took a moment to mark the blank lines with arrow stickers. I sat down across his desk from him while he did so. When he’d finished, he glanced up and finally smiled.
“Ready to make a few million?” Jack asked.
“Yes, sir,” I laughed. “What time are they coming in?
“They’ll be here right after lunch,” he answered.
“Why don’t I have the girls bring us our lunch here? I know you won’t be leaving to get food,” I joked with him. Jack had a habit of neglecting eating when something as big as the new program contract being signed was about to happen.
“Probably not a bad idea,” he agreed.
“Hey, what are you doing right now?” I had an idea that I believed would make Jack’s day a little less stressful.
“Going through this pile of gorgeous papers a few more times, and wishing our meeting would commence,” he replied with a chuckle. He knew as well as anyone else how he got at this stage in the process.
“You reviewed the contract twice, then I did. It is in order. I have a different plan for the rest of the morning. Interested?” I offered.
“What plan?” He stopped flipping the pages for a moment.
“Let’s play the game,” I suggested.
“Right now?” Jack sounded like I’d just suggested inviting a firing squad into the office.
“Yes! Right now! Why not? You know that pile of papers is perfect. If you don’t believe your reviews or my review, then you sure as shit should believe your typist’s. When was the last time she made a mistake with even a single letter of the alphabet?” I shot back at him.
Jack stared at me for a moment and then sat back in his chair, contemplating my offer.
“Alright,” he answered after taking an unusual amount of time to make up his mind. The two of us headed straight back to my office, taking the contract with us. There was no way that stack of papers was going anywhere that our eyes couldn’t see at all times.
Jack got settled into one of the chairs facing the flatscreen on the wall while I called Andi to see if they would bring lunch in for us. She knew that Jack’s favorite sandwich was corned-beef with swiss, so she promised me she would make him the best one he’d ever tasted. When the lunch menu was set, I hung up and joined Jack. We waited while the game loaded, and the ‘start’ screen lit up.
“Is this mine, or yours?” he asked me.
“It’s yours. You have the most recent data since you re-ran the program while I was sleeping on Friday,” I told him, only mildly sarcastic. “I finished my test a while ago, so I want to retest before I try my game.”
“You are going to fall flat on your face, Anders,” he taunted me.
The game finished loading, and we started playing. It was different from the last one I had played with him. There were some similarities, of course, but I was enjoying the changes the AI had picked up from his new test. It was a war game, but the scene was set in a jungle. We made our way through, gunning down enemies and dangerous beasts as we went.
We were going to fight each other eventually, but we had to work together to get out of the jungle first. We ran into a forest fire, a den of poisonous snakes, and some man-eating trees before we finally found ourselves in an open field. There were a few boulders scattered about the field, and we split up and hid behind separate ones.
We were at odds at that point. Whoever made it to the ship docked at the river a few hundred yards down would be the winner of that level. We dodged from this boulder to that one, firing at each other. The two of us found ourselves making a run for the same boulder, and Jack changed direction. I squared up to him as he aimed his weapon at me. We were in a stand-off. A split second before either of us could pull the trigger, we froze as the game announced a special obstacle.
This put our plans to kill each other on hold. The sky in the game opened up, our surroundings turned dark, and a spotlight shone down in the middle of the field. Something descended from the light, and then the hole snapped shut. The environmental light slowing grew brighter, and when the field was fully lit again, I dropped my controller.
Standing in the field where the spotlight had left her was the woman in blue from my recurring dream.
“You alright?” Jack asked, looking over at me, but I only stared at the screen. I tried to convince myself that I couldn’t possibly be seeing what was right before my eyes, but trying to blink her away wasn’t working. Jack leaned toward me and waved his hand in front of my eyes. “Earth to Bennett.”
“Um, yeah. Yeah, I’m alright.” I stumbled over my words. “Have you seen that character in a different game you were playing at any time?” I was trying to reason my way to an explanation of how someone from my dream would be in Jack’s game. Perhaps I had seen her in a game at some point and didn’t remember, and that inserted her into my dream.
“No, not another game,” Jack explained. “Strangely enough, I saw her in a dream. My wife has me doing this dream journal thing, so I drew her after. That’s the only way I can think of that the AI system could’ve gotten a hold of her.” No sooner had the words left his mouth than dread caused my throat to tighten.
“No way,” I called out, not meaning to. My mind had turned into a rat maze, trying to decide whether or not I should tell him that I’d seen her too. I wasn’t sure how to explain away my over-reaction to seeing her, however.
“Is there something wrong with the character?” he asked. Caution had taken over Jack’s voice,
and I knew he was beginning to worry that I had discovered something wrong with the program.
“No,” I started. I didn’t see a way out. “The game and the character are fine. It’s just that I’ve seen her too.” I slowly turned my head to look at Jack. He had nearly no reaction at all, other than a sigh of relief that everything with the game was okay. I began to think that maybe my over-reaction was just that.
“Isn’t that interesting?” he said in an eerily calm tone.
“I’d say so,” I agreed. I couldn’t help wanting to know more about the dream Jack had seen her in. What if it had been the same dream I’d been having? “What happened in the dream you saw her in?”
He blinked at me a couple of times before answering. “Nothing especially memorable, really. She just kind of shows up here and there. Usually, she is standing off to the side like she is a spectator in whatever dream I just happen to be having.”
“You mean to tell me she has been in more than one of your dreams?” Cold chills covered the entirety of my body.
“Yeah, probably about three or four different dreams.” Jack set down his controller and turned in his chair to face me more straight on. “Don’t tell me you’ve seen her more than once too… have you?”
“I have, actually.” I couldn’t decide if I should tell him any more details. No explanation I came up with in my head seemed it would come out of my mouth correctly. I decided to pass the weirdness off as best I could. “Hey, maybe it’s just because we’ve been working so closely on this whole project. We probably just both saw the same woman out and about one day and thought she was hot, or something.” I forced a chuckle and hoped it didn’t make me sound as nervous as I was.
“Hmm. Yeah, you could be right, I guess.” Jack pondered the proposed explanation for a moment. “I’ll have to tell my wife about it later and see what she says. She’s into all that dream-meaning stuff. It’s like a little hobby of hers. I think it’s a little interesting in terms of psychology, so I do what she asks me to.” Jack shrugged and turned forward towards the game again.
“Yeah, let me know what she says,” I added nonchalantly. “And stop hijacking my dream girls, got it?” I attempted to lighten the mood with a ridiculously lame joke, and to my surprise, Jack started chuckling.
“Whatever, Anders. Now can we get back to you getting your ass whooped?” He nodded his head towards the flatscreen and raised a faux-impatient eyebrow at me. I turned towards the TV and nodded as well.
“Never gonna happen, boss man,” I retorted as our game resumed. I let out a deep breath after a few moments, thankful that I had been able to redirect the conversation to a lighter place. It took a full fifteen minutes before the chills dissipated, however. After that, though, I got lost in the game again. Jack and I played for another three hours until the girls showed up with lunch.
“You boys hungry?” Vila asked as she popped her head in the office, taking our attention from the game.
“Sure are,” Jack replied happily. He looked over at me and shrugged. “We’ve probably tested this for long enough for one day, don’t you think?”
“Agreed,” I laughed. “Let’s eat.”
Vila came the rest of the way in, but before Andi could follow, Jack stood and pointed back out the door.
“Let’s eat in my office. More table space. Plus, we’ll be demo-ing the game here later for Sven and Asher and wouldn’t want food all over the place, now would we?” Jack smiled at his own quip, and the four of us walked down the hall to his office after he grabbed the contract off my desk to take with us.
Once we were set up to eat, the four of us dug into the sandwiches the girls had brought. Jack’s eyes rolled to the back of his head when he took the first bite of his. He mumbled various compliments unintelligibly until he’d finished chewing and swallowing his bite.
“That is the best corned-beef sandwich I’ve ever tasted!” Jack looked back and forth between the girls. “Which one of you is responsible for this?”
Andi’s face blushed slightly. “That would be me,” she answered, raising her hand a couple of inches in the air.
“Miss, you are the finest sandwich maker this side of the world, I swear!” he complimented her dramatically.
“Thanks, Jack,” Andi answered. He went back to eating and continuously making random sounds, showing his appreciation for her handiwork with his lunch.
“You two nailed it with these.” I gestured towards my own sandwich that I had just set down in order to wipe mustard off my face. My favorite had always been turkey and pepper jack, and that is exactly what they’d brought me.
“We’re glad you both like them,” Vila replied. When we had finished eating, the four of us relaxed back in our chairs for a few minutes before Jack finally stood up.
“Sven and Asher are going to be here any minute. We should take a few and get back in a business frame of mind,” he mentioned.
“Solid idea,” I agreed with him. “Ladies, thank you so much for bringing us an amazing lunch.”
“You’re welcome!” they replied in unison. They started packing up empty Tupperware while Jack and I moved over to his desk. He began thumbing through the signature pages of the contract once more, checking that he’d labeled all the lines correctly. Then there was a knock at the office door.
“They take ‘after lunch’ very seriously,” Jack chuckled, assuming Sven and Asher were the ones at the door. He got up, walked to the door, and pulled it open. He opened his mouth to joke about their promptness but stopped short. It wasn’t Sven and Asher. It was that dumpy little Dave guy that had come to my house to get my table and chairs.
“Hi, Jack,” Dave greeted him. “You’d mentioned I could stop by today. Is now a good time for you?” Jack, not one to be rude if at all avoidable, opened the door a little wider to let Dave in.
“Now is fine, but I only have a minute,” Jack told him. “It’s right over here. How long do you need it for?” Jack walked to the shadow box hanging on his wall that had his new antique golf club inside.
“Not long at all. A week maybe?” Dave answered. He’d been so honed in on Jack that he hadn’t noticed the girls standing there watching him or me. When he finally did look over to me, he jumped back. “Oh, jeez!”
“Hi, Dave,” I said, trying not to laugh at his reaction.
“Hi, Dave,” Andi said from the other side of the room. He spun around like he’d been stung in the back and stared at her and Vila.
“Oh, hi there,” he mumbled, trying to calm his jumpiness. “How are you all? Good to see you again.”
“You guys know each other?” Jack asked, a bit surprised.
“Yeah,” I answered. “Dave here borrowed a table and chairs from me for his documentary. How do you two know each other?” My palms turned clammy as the words came out of my mouth.
“He asked if he could borrow my golf club for the movie,” Jack replied. “Small world!”
“Yeah, small world,” Dave interjected. The way he shifted his eyes all around the room made the hair stand up on the back of my neck. The sense of familiarity I’d had when he’d come to my house returned. Andi and Vila joined Jack and Dave in front of the golf club.
“What do you need the club for?” Vila asked innocently. There was something a little too pleasant in her tone. She had a definite reason for wanting to know.
“Same as the table Bennett is so generously letting me use,” Dave replied, taking a small step away from the girls as they got closer.
“I’m surprised you are profiling two gentlemen from the same company,” Andi commented, reading my mind.
“Well, yeah,” Dave started, swallowing hard. “When the best are together in one place, what can a guy do? Am I right?” His wavering little laugh reminded me of old TV sitcoms when a character had been caught in trouble and was about to bolt. I saw that Jack was getting impatient, and I didn’t want his mood off when Sven and Asher finally did arrive.
“Do you need help with that?” I asked Jack,
walking over to join them.
“Yeah, grab that side,” Jack nodded his head towards the side of the shadow box closest to me. “It’s not heavy. It’s just hanging on two sets of bolts and is a pain to get down.” The two of us lifted it off the wall and handed it to Dave.
“I will be extra careful with it, Jack,” Dave said. “I really appreciate you letting me use it for the film. I probably won’t even need to take it out of the shadow box with how beautifully you have it mounted.”
Jack let out his breath. He liked the idea of the club staying in the shadow box.
“Please do be careful. Do you need assistance getting it to your car?” Jack asked him.
“No, I’m okay. As you said, it’s not heavy,” Dave replied.
“Alright, there you go. I’ll be contacting you next week to return it,” Jack informed him, leaving no room in his tone to imply he would offer an extension to his one-week timeline.
“Perfect, thank you,” Dave said. He nodded to the four of us and turned to go. He made a show of going slowly and extremely carefully through the doorway. When he left, Jack looked over at me.
“Odd fellow, that one,” he observed.
“You’ve got that right. Weird, though, I swear I know him from somewhere,” I said.
Andi and Vila looked at each other and then over to me.
“Funny that you mention it. He seemed familiar to us as well, even when he came to the house, but we can’t put our finger on ever having met him before,” Vila added.
“All I know is he’d better bring that golf club back in pristine condition. The insurance I have on it probably wouldn’t extend to cover legal costs for an assault charge!” Jack’s joke was humorous, but there was a strong undercurrent of violent intent that I’d never heard from him before. I made a note to never play a prank on him that involved anything golf-related.
“It’ll be fine, Jack. Let’s get back to making you feel more comfortable about this meeting coming up,” I told him.
