KILLER GAMERS

by D Gemcats Purcell

  Mrs. Debongo had been very affable, direct and seemed to want to go out of her way to make her planetary guests comfortable. It was remarkable that they had not been put through tons of restrictions and a quarantine too. However there had been thorough preparation and they had full knowledge of each person’s vaccination profile plus natural and genetically induced resistance and data on what afflicted Toigan’s population. So it wasn’t risky to them to be exposed to us really. We were essentially known entities from a public health standpoint. She seemed to have a knack to read people but it did not rise to the level of an attribute as they in Six possessed. Our techs supervised the loading and securing of their computers and reprogramming equipment diligently and Six plus Charlie with an escort, got to tour the TDS facility. After that they all boarded their re-entry vehicle for the two hour ride to the surface which was very uneventful. After the hot bumpy entrance into the thick atmosphere with a drogechute slowing it plus a beautiful pirouette to further slow down it was a quick glide to the runway which they could see via video feed all the way. It sure was strange to feel the initial turbulence of the atmosphere while looking back at the now tiny receding TDS with spaceplane docked and then be enveloped by the glowing plasma while looking back at the blackness of space. It was just like a simulation in Jessi’s father Jace’s simulator.

  The video feed showed now the approach to the runway from six miles up. It looked so tiny and there seemed to be just a few toylike buildings on both sides of it with just brown desert like lands stretching far away in every direction. There did not seem to be even roads leading anywhere. Of course they knew that most of the infrastructure was underground on Threeme and knew that Wachimecan was supposed to be close by, yet it wasn’t obviously visible from their vantage point then. With a gentle vibration, they had whistled down the runway and finally ground to a halt. Vehicles appeared all around us with hoses blowing us down with huge volumes of air! Then they felt the tug take hold of us with a lurch and slowly they got pulled into a cavern like hanger well lit and the doors opened. Feet on the ground, once again Six was on the ground, on yet another planet.

  Everyone was immediately ushered into a lounge for restroom breaks and fresh food. Then it was back to the craft and its open cargo hold where they mostly watched and offered to help unload the precious cargo with the three techies being assisted by unloading servicemen and women who were attired like Air Force folks. That delicate part done, the equipment was placed inside crates for the high speed journey to Donneborough. Then they were taken to a small amphitheater with a line of persons including the Chief Minister and Chief of the Air Force making brief remarks to welcome the little team from Toigan. Six did not have to imagine what was going on in their minds of course. They could read their thoughts clearly and it all centered around ‘but they are youngsters, just teenagers. How could these be the folks who could solve this problem for us?’ Mader was designated to say a few words, and he kept it brief. He thanked everyone naming the Chief Minister on down for their gracious welcome and indicating that the team had had a pleasant journey and would be starting to tackle the job later on that very day with the first interviews of likely suspects and flashing a little piece of paper. The gathered news people were salivating at the thought of what and who was on that list and Six effectively and immediately shifted the focus of everyone’s mind.. Superintendent Boggin and Chief Maitland went out of their way to make them feel welcome and to thank Six. Mader indicated privately to Superintendent Boggin and Chief Maitland that as soon as initial set up and testing was complete on their reprogramming computers, which should be tomorrow, the commencement of repair for the brain damaged folks were to begin. Six was assigned two Lieutenants who would accompany them and another two deputies to assist Charlie and the three techs and provide every assistance. Six was to liaise with these Lieutenants.

  So Six represented by Mader, got up and did a good ‘all business’ introduction of themselves to the minders and meanwhile the rest of us were busy scanning minds for any morsels that could forward the investigation. Six knew that it would be useful to report to Jongi the little tidbits that would educate officials on Toigan about the general mindset and outlook of the officials on Threeme. Before the spaceplane, this was a trip that took many weeks and direct personal contact had been and still was rare, confined to the exchange of the odd diplomatic delegation. No one so far seemed to be in possession of significant abilities in mind reading or other such attributes. Two hours later Six and Charlie were strapped into their ‘tube’, a canister inside of an airtight almost vacuum tunnel with its own air supply etc that would get us and our precious equipment to Donneborough the main city five hundred miles away in one hour flat. There were twelve comfortable seats. Oh dear! We had nothing this fast above or under the ground in Toigan, maybe 300mph but not 500mph! The door closed and there was a little pressure on the ear, a very slight lurch and a bit of acceleration sensation, then nothing. It was a smooth as one’s living room chair. Fifty seven minutes later judging by the large red count up clock there was again the slightest of lurches and then the door whooshed open after appropriate verbal warnings on the overhead speakers. We stepped out just as everyone else were also spilling out onto the platform. Large crates with cargo and equipment soon followed too.

  18. DOWN TO BUSINESS

  No more than five hours later they were in a polytechnic building with direct underground hallway connections to a hospital and our technicians had everything hooked to power beginning to run the first set of checks. Charlie seemed comfortable. Everyone of us had ID name badges and armed with maps loaded onto our vidcoms and with service restored to their internet systems, Six felt ready. First order of business already communicated directly to Superintendent Boggin and Chief Maitland, was a visit to the offices of Truereal. It was with a bit of surprise that we learned that the Superintendent was to vacate his desk and get his hands dirty. He would actually be coming with us. We would use two autos piloted by our security guides and walk three blocks to their office. Three of us plus Boggin himself would go in and introduce ourselves to the bosses Kicha and Tumi, since this was one of the few days that we’d learned the whole group physically got together in their office. The other three of Six would come in a short while later to conference with the other employees of Truereal. Truereal was already under surreptitious surveillance and Superintendent Boggin would make a call to their office when we were just two minutes away. We would be close enough to feel them out literally. Plus any panic calls would be fully traced and their offices were already being checked through live satellite feed and audio bugging anyway. If they were to sneeze, we would ‘catch their cold’ Boggin assured us. After seven miles of winding through covered streets filled with people walking and mostly on low powered scooters, bicycles on both sides of the double lanes with sparse auto traffic, our vehicles pulled up to the curb and Jonah, Jessi and Cherese got out along with Boggin who was dressed in slacks, a T shirt with his name tag covered up by a light jacket. We too had been given light jackets and were in spiffy casual outfits.

  As they were walking, Boggin made the call and got through to the front desk secretary. “This is Superintendent Boggin on my way over to have a word with your bosses Madame Kicha and Tumi concerning a matter of national security. We will be there in one and a half minutes. Please make arrangements for a brief interview. Also my team will need a brief word with all of your staff, if you don’t mind.”

  “Yes Sir, I will immediately inform the bosses.” Said the receptionist. He hung up. As we came up the elevator and he opened the glass door, a flustered looking middle aged receptionist with a wisp of grey beginning to show on the edge of her forehead came out from behind the desk to greet him and then her eyes went to the three teenagers filing in behind him. “Good afternoon folks, can I get you anything to drink?” Boggin said, “Thank you ma’am, sure but maybe later. Where are those in charge?” He had on his brusque officer in charge voice and demeanor now. She stepped
aside and pointed, “second door on the right Sir.” As agreed, Jonah now stepped in front, while saying in mind talk to Jessi and Cherese and the rest, “Do you feel that burst of energy from across the street in that pale brick building. Get the officer with you to run a check on all its occupants and put surveillance on it too.” Dillion, Mader and Matt immediately understood that they needed to divide their attention between the staff at Truereal and that building. There had been a burst of animosity bordering on murderous intent mixed with curiosity that was intense and unusual, detected by Jonah and Jessi. It almost felt like someone ready to pull the trigger, that’s how violent the sudden surge of rage had been, from someone.

  Jonah politely knocked on the door and when he heard “come in” slowly opened the door and with an apologetic bow entered. “We are truly so terribly sorry to give you such short notice. It has to be disruptive to your creative business, but we have come a long way from Toigan to be exact, landing six hours ago in Wachimecan and wish to help our colleagues solve some issues over here. I am Jonah and Superintendent Boggin plus Cherese and Jessi are with me.” Kicha and Tumi who were seated behind a curving ring of video screens at adjacent desks, each got up and Tumi said, “Welcome Jonah, greetings and thank you all for coming. How may we help you?” Only curiosity and puzzlement emanated and their minds were open waiting. “Please have a seat.” She shouted at her receptionist who had been hovering behind the group to bring one more chair. The chair arrived and the door shut.

  Jonah mind talked with everyone, “Nothing negative here so far.” He sat back in his chair to project calm. “Three years ago we have learned your husband Tumi was murdered. He was killed by someone and Kicha your husband Michael was blamed and is in jail for it. We are here to help find the real killer or killers.” Kicha bowed her head and all of a sudden there was a gush of tears. Everyone sat quietly waiting for her to regain her composure. When she did with Tumi reaching over to give her a momentary tap on her back, she said, “We know that. I know that. He never left my bed and the apartment after coming home. We just haven’t been able to prove his innocence as seems to be expected in our system. So it is overwhelming to me to hear that you have come from so far and can state that with so much clarity. My only question is pray tell what can we do to help you to help us and Michael. It is so hard, because nothing can ever bring back Sri, ever!” It was Tumi’s turn to cry but she was fighting it. She got out of her chair, put her hands on her hips and started pacing over in a corner of their large office. Mader came in with mind talk ‘There is another video company in that building by the name of Satvid and there are only two people in there, the owner Robert and his receptionist. She is answering the phone calmly and filing her nails in between. He seems to be in his office pacing back and forth and looking out the window at Truereal’s office. We read tremendous anger in him. He is one to probe. The lieutenant with me is saying that he is ex-special forces based on his data sheet and has a history of violence including domestic, just never got prosecuted.’

  Jonah while waiting for Tumi to calm down, told Boggin in a whisper, “These two show no guilt, no conspiracy but the owner of Satvid across the street Robert ex special forces seems to be a likely suspect and your Lieutenant Jakes is on it already. They are running his records.” Just then Tumi sat down having successfully bottled up her tears. She turned to Kicha and the group in their office, “Believe me when I say that Kicha and I will do anything you ask us to help you get at the truth and get Michael back in the world out here.” Jonah said, “We are going to record your answers then. Do not guess, tell us only what you know for sure.” The two of them nodded. “Do you two have any reason to have orchestrated this?” Their answer, “No”

  “Are you lovers?” They looked at each other and burst out laughing, “maybe with all the time we spend together we should be,” Tumi said.

  Kicha said, “I love my partner, my colleague Tumi, but O Lord, just not in that way. I love males and only males!” She was holding her sides with laughter.

  Jonah said, “Those were shock value questions and you’ve passed with flying colors.”

  More questions followed but ‘no they did not know of any of their employees who had friendships with anyone else who could have put software into their viodeogames.’ They both had a very puzzled look on their faces at that question! There was no hint of any subterfuge in their minds. They clearly were not aware of this issue with corruption of their company’s games. Superintendent Boggin sat bold straight in his chair as he followed along with Jonah’s line of questioning style and the way he would drop bombs into their lap. Even he was convinced of their sincerity by the end of forty five minutes of questioning. Matt, Mader and Dillion had arrived about half way through their interrogation and having listened in on all of it with commentary by Cherese and Jessi. They therefore knew what line of attack to use when questioning the remaining staff. Meanwhile Robert of Satvid next door, they could clearly read as he was going ballistic since he interpreted all these visitors filing in to Truereal’s office as evidence of visiting buyers and successes that his company was not having.

  19. CLUED IN TO ROBERT FUSCHON

  It turned out during questioning that Amy, one of the team members three or so years ago did have a boyfriend named Cayle she had shown around the office after hours because he had asked. He was at the time a low level programmer with Satvid across the street, a new startup. They had seen each other for only months if that, she said before their relationship had gone sour shortly after that. She had since moved on and hadn’t thought anything more of it she said. He had sat with her at one of the consoles and had reviewed about five video games discussing how they did the final reviews and finishing work on them. Can you remember which ones you reviewed with him she was asked. She popped out the names of four of them and them asked the others in the room for help. She said, “We had a game that we were re-doing the graphics on that had been out a few years before and was becoming jaded. Any of you remember?” One of the others popped up with the name “Meet your favorite Viking if you dare.” A quick mental comparison showed that all of the named titles had been ones infected with the destructive virus. Then Dillion said, “could you show us to the terminal or station where this took place.” Amy said, “We got rid of it. It’s in storage somewhere. We have dramatically updated our equipment since then, compared to now.” Do you have pictures of what your studio looked like then. They were shown some photos, and Mader asked, “Those ports here,” pointing to spots on the machines, “could someone slip in a disc and therefore introduce code into the stream?” Amy answered “Yes we did that regularly ourselves. Why would anyone want to do that though?” Dillion said, “Next question for you Amy, were you 100% with that friend Cayle of yours at all times?” She paused and was about to answer quickly but considered it a bit longer before saying, “If I am to be honest, I do think I ran to the rest room briefly. Why would that matter though?” He said to her, “Maybe it is nothing at all, but do you have his address and vid number. We must speak to him promptly. Do not call him or warn him that we will be by, ok.” She still looked puzzled, but nodded, “Ok I will not. It’s not that we still chat or anything. I hope the contact information I have for him is still current, here it is.”

  The other co-workers were all clean in intent and all the questions were answered honestly. Mader promised to come back when it was all over to explain why they were asking so many questions. They all seemed relieved. The Lieutenant waiting in the car got a call to locate this Cayle. Jonah in the main office had wrapped up his questions and he bowed his thanks respectfully as the four of them headed down the hallway. They had thanked Kicha and Tumi for their time and for being good sports about the harsh questioning. Jonah promised that the next time he would visit, it would be to have a conference with the whole team. He would give them notice beforehand. They met the rest of the team in the hallway. Superintendent Boggin was a bit puzzled as to what else they’d come up with. When they had walke
d out, into the foyer, Jonah had had a mental discussion with the others of Six and he walked back to Kicha put his hand around her shoulder and said, “We are hopeful that we will clear you husband’s name within weeks. I am going to visit him soon. I just can’t tell you more yet, but keep your chin up ok.” The poor thing had looked up hopefully as the tears began to well up again.