LifeGames Corporatoin

by Michael Smorenburg

  The busy reception foyer had come to a halt, passers-by stopping in their tracks to stare at this strange noisy foreigner in their midst.

  “Now what’s come over him?” Nancy shook her head as she trotted in hot pursuit, shrugging perplexedly to bystanders who’d cleared a path to give Leon his purposeful passage.

  She could well understand their dismay and alarm; he’d developed a hunched back and an exaggerated crab gait and proceded muttering and grumbling to himself.

  “What’s that all about?!” She’d enquired when she’d caught up, not entirely certain whether or not to be concerned.

  “Weekend!” He’d said it as if it was an astonishing and delightful surprise, adding in a perfect rendition of Queens English; “Give the masses some entertainment I say, give them some fun, what!”

  “Sometimes I really wonder, Leon… I wonder and I worry.”

  “Jump in,” he’d held the passenger door open for her.

  “With you driving?” she’d screwed her face up.

  “Never…!” he’d paused dramatically, “Judge a book by its cover, I’m the safest driver on the road I tell you. I get my frustrations out in other ways. I’ll be no statistic, no statistic at all!”

  His words had struck a deep chord in Nancy’s soul and she’d swallowed back the welling emotion for the man she’d adored and lost. “I’d like to go via Catherine’s house, if we may,” she’d asked Leon. “I’d like to check something out… I’ve got the keys, Catherine won’t mind.”

  Someone had been in the house; it was far from tidy but the breakages had been swept aside and Nancy also saw that some areas were denuded of ornamentation.

  The scene was poignant and bleak; where warm rugs had once hung, were acres of cold white wall. Where warm hearts had once beaten, an icy chill brooded in silence.

  Goose flesh rose all over Nancy’s body and Leon put a comforting arm about her shoulder and steered her toward the door. “There’s nothing that we can do tonight, Nance. Nothing at all.”

  They returned outside to the world where the rhythm of life still throbbed. They rejoined the highway and merged into a lane, becoming another set of headlights on the highway.

  “He’s an evil bastard, Leon.”

  “Now, Nance…”

  “He treats people like dirt. Money… money, money, money… and now this!”

  “Nothing’s proven,” Leon cautioned, against his own deepest instincts. “Nothing’s proven.”

  “You don’t mean that…” their starters course was arriving. “You’re a bloody devil’s advocate—no pun intended.”

  The waitress was studying them, a quizzical look written on her face begged the question; what was an eccentric dotty old man doing out dining with a fine looking filly?

  They spoke at length; establish what each knew about the fast unfolding situation at hand. During their commute, Nancy had filled Leon in on the details that she thought he might need to help Catherine’s recovery. The Santa Clara’s Psychiatric department had agreed to Leon treating Catherine as a private consulting specialist. It gave him full access to her at any time, for the duration of her stay.

  Earlier in the day, driving Catherine to the hospital, Nancy had casually inquired of the preparation procedures that Ken had implemented prior to her cyber-sex incident. Something in Catherine’s original relating of it had bothered Nancy, it hadn’t sounded right—what triggered her suspicion was more an instinct than a detail.

  “I know it’s awkward to talk about, but I think it may be important for treatment Cath. I’ll keep details in confidence…”

  “Leon can’t know about the cyber-sex, okay.”

  “Of course,” Nancy had committed.

  “I need to know all of the precise details of how Ken ritualized you… you know we call the prep a ritual?”

  Catherine had nodded, “I know exactly what it is you want to know… the same thing’s been plaguing me.”

  As Catherine had spoken, she’d taken to the juice-stick, its glowing LED tip had danced, exaggerating the tremble of her hand.

  Nancy wasn’t fond of the cherry aroma in the confined space of the car, but she didn’t have the heart to deny Catherine the crutch at such a difficult moment.

  “I wasn’t hypnotized, yet I experienced an enormous time dilation.”

  Nancy had done a poor job of covering the shock of confirmation on her face. Hypnosis was the key to Time Dilation… everyone knew that, so, if there was no hypnosis sequence…?

  “I should’ve thought about it when I accepted the game, damn it…” The smouldering tip between Catherine’s fingers had accelerated its dance. “How was I going to be Time Dilated if he’d promised to not run the hypnosis sequence?”

  The implications were horrifying.

  “Sooooo… Where is it if it’s not in the hypnosis? A subliminal?”

  “What about something in the champagne? Maybe that plaster?” Catherine had puffed nervously, “I’m a Goddamned fool… Shit, Nance… I’m more streetwise than this! That bastard and his filthy habit, Christ knows what concoction he could have spiked me with? Two sunsets! It must’ve been strong as all hell. FUCK!”

  Catherine had slammed her hammer-fist onto her thigh, sending her juice-stick cartwheeling through the air and down between the seat and door.

  “Oh damn, I’m sorry Nance. It’s wont burn anything.” She’d begun awkwardly fishing to retrieve it, “I don’t normally use it in a car, I wasn’t thinking.”

  “Relax sweetie, if this was our worst problem today, we’d have no problems.”

  By the time Leon had arrived at the hospital, Catherine had already been admitted and was in the ward under the care of Doctor Johnson. Nancy hadn’t yet had time to brief him; all he knew was that Ken was somehow involved in her nightmares following an on-line Time Dilation run beyond the fighter jet simulation that Leon knew about.

  “I’ll explain why later Leon, but have them draw blood and run a full battery, it looks like Ken slipped her a Mickey Finn.”

  “Chloral Hydrate?”

  “No idea, Leon… just something that would exaggerated the Time Dilation?”

  He’d raised his eyebrows and whistled;

  “Better we first talk. That’s a pretty darned big haystack to find a very little needle Nance. A darned big haystack.”

  Through Leon’s mind had been meandering all the flotsam; apparently meaningless tidbits he’d run into; Anton had come to him for advice on aspects of sexual motivation, wanting to know what deviations he could prompt into the Artificial Intelligence Due Diligence routines for a hush-hush program he’d been working on. Ken had also casually inquired about the psychological effects of gender switching.

  Now, revelations of a clandestine game involving Ken, Catherine and narcotics had left Catherine with pathological fears of Ken, Leon was pretty certain he had the situation figured out. Catherine was suffering as a victim of guilt, her deep morals in conflict with her excessively liberated actions. He’d decided that this was not a case of doping; “…or not exclusively doping…” he’d re-qualified his thoughts.

  He’d decided to appease Nancy and have them run some elementary tests to check for the more common hallucinogens.

  Time had fled ahead of all the details that needed sharing, and the pair was well onto dessert already;

  “I’m thinking of leaving the company, Leon.”

  Sadness meandered into his eyes, “Surely not just because of this, Nance? Surely not?”

  “It’s part of it, a big part… but it’s the attitude. My stock options are worth a fortune, but they’re not worth my conscience… Look what he’s done to Cath…”

  “But he’s not treating Catherine badly Nancy, she willingly chose, nobody forced her. She got emotionally hooked, her emotions are frayed, but she’ll pull through.”

  “It goes beyond this single affair, Leon,” she didn’t want to argue it all over again, it was getting late and she felt shattered. “I’m bored with my work, it
’s time to move anyway.”

  “Bored? You’re bored at LifeGames? Impossible, Nance, impossible!” Leon exclaimed. “You’re right at the cutting edge, it doesn’t’ get better than this. Our clients don’t get bigger. You’re not bored, Nance. That’s impossible.”

  “I am,” she said plainly and with finality, “…the company might be doing fabulous things, but I do the same thing every day.”

  Being Ken’s right hand was not her passion, she wanted to be an artist, and with what she could cash out, she estimated that she could now just about make it happen.

  “I’ve sold my passion to buy survival,” she detailed it to Leon, “I’m an intellectual prostitute.”

  Chapter 25

  “GET AWAY… GET AWAY FROM ME…!” Catherine was screaming, overturning tables and crashing through chairs toward the hospital restaurant’s open patio.

  Patients and visitors scrambled to clear a path out of the deranged woman’s headlong dash for outdoors.

  It was visiting hour and Catherine was having tea with a friend when Ken had materialized in the crowded public place. She could scarcely believe her eyes as his phantom boldly approached, a smile on his face, undaunted by witnesses.

  Catherine’s sudden reaction had stopped him in his tracks, frozen and mystified, unsure whether to keep walking or retreat.

  Two men tackled and restrained Catherine before she could vault over the parapet wall around the third story patio.

  Within moments more bystanders ran to help until staff arrived. She fought like a woman possessed, the area rapidly cleared as people recoiled from the insanity of it.

  The incident momentarily stunned Ken. It was the second occasion that his visit to a psychiatric ward had resulted in general mayhem the moment he’d entered the patient’s presence. He milled about, bewildered by the reaction.

  A few minutes later the hospital superintendent approached him.

  “I’m sorry sir… are you Mr. Torrington?” His photo had been circulated to all staff on a “no-visit” banned list. Much as Ken tried to keep a low profile in the media, most people knew him on sight anyway.

  Ken agreed.

  “Forgive me, but I am going to have to ask you to leave sir.”

  Insulted and shocked, he left the hospital grounds in a shriek of rubber and 16 cylinders of Bugatti thunder. The instigators of his rude public ejection were clear, and he was on a mission to avenge this insult. Leon’s name had been mentioned as Catherine’s consulting specialist, so Leon’s house would be his first port of call. It was Sunday and Ken was positive that the old fool would be home.

  On Friday, when Ken had called into the office from Russia, Jo had informed him that both Nancy and Leon were at the Santa Clara Hospital tending to Miss Kaplan who had suffered an emotional breakdown.

  After touching down on Sunday morning he’d called the hospital, claiming that his sister had been admitted and they’d confirmed the ward number. He’d found the room vacant and correctly guessed where to find her.

  He was now tearing through the traffic without respect for rule or sense, aggression stripping him of the last vestiges of sanity.

  The Veyron screeched to a halt outside Leon’s door, announcing his arrival with a prolonged blast of its horn. A pedestrian and three neighbours stared with shock and irritation at the arrogant stranger who unsettled the harmony of their day; Ken saw nothing beyond the blind rush of assumptions fueling his tyrannical focus.

  During the hell-ride he’d neatly pieced together the conspiracy that Nancy, Catherine and Leon had concocted against him. In his mind, all of the little incidents he’d witnessed between them over the weeks and months had accumulated, culminating in this final betrayal;

  The exchanged smiles between the women… their dinner together, which Nancy had accidentally mentioned. Nancy and Leon plotting together at her desk when they thought he was in Korea… How he’d seen Nancy trying to hide the evidence of their devious whisperings on that occasion… Nancy’s aggressive defense of Catherine when Catherine was plainly avoiding him.

  Oh, yes, Ken thought. Now I see where allegiances lie.

  He was strutting up Leon’s pathway, his fists clenched tight. He beat his knuckles onto the door until they bruised and the skin smeared, yet Leon did not appear.

  By the time he abandoned the door and spun his wheels the length of the quiet cul de sac, the street was deserted.

  The little frail man must be cowering inside his house, he laughed out loud at the assumption; “quaking with fear, too fucking terrified to confront me.”

  Ken blasted back onto the highway, putting his beast of a machine through its paces, but when he arrived at Nancy’s door she had already departed to rendezvous with Leon at the hospital. Ken had missed her by one change of the streetlights.

  Again, he leaned on the car’s horn until nobody in the leafy lane’s vicinity could have missed his presence. It was a pointless and childish act, her car wasn’t in the driveway, but he didn’t care—he was nose-in against her gate and intended for the neighbours to report the incident to her.

  Giving up, he drove away, still blind with rage; but enough sense had returned to know that he needed to slow down, so he found another secluded lane further down and pulled over.

  He removed a vial from the ashtray and fished in it with the extra-long nail of his small finger, retrieving a measure of powdered relaxation for his left nostril to vacuum away.

  With his fury anaesthetized he could head for home at a leisurely pace. There, he consoled himself, he would watch his beloved recording almost to punish this woman that gave him so much grief.

  It was a possession of Catherine’s that he alone had the power to control, all day and all night if he so wished.

  Chapter 26

  “It was the man’s sister Superintendent, I can’t check every credential that people give to me,” the security guard explained.

  “You have the photo—there,” the Superintendent pointed past the guard into the recessed security office, “…on your wall. If you can’t identify a person off of their photo, what are you doing as a security guard?”

  The Superintendent stormed off before he created more of a public scene; he’d deal with it later.

  “I’m terribly sorry about this fiasco, we’ve circulated the man’s photo… it’s on the wall at security, yet he somehow walked right through.”

  “He’s like that,” Nancy sneered, understanding that a guard would have a very difficult time with Ken even with the authority of the hospital behind him.

  “I’ll see to it there’s an enquiry.” The Superintendent fawned; it was a private hospital that couldn’t afford scandal.

  Satisfied, Nancy thanked the man and rushed back into the private ward where Leon was attending to Catherine.

  “How’s she doing?”

  “Stable,” Leon reassured her.

  “What now?” she insisted.

  “We’ll just have to wait a while… soon as she settles I’ll probe a bit to see if there’s any chance of making progress today.”

  The hospital staff continued finishing the task of making Catherine comfortable. They’d installed a drip to maintain a conduit for intravenous Diazepam to quieten her anxiety. She’d also been lightly tethered to the bed, a requirement she’d grudgingly accepted so long as Nancy or Leon promised to stay.

  “What will making progress depend on?” Nancy pressed Leon.

  “That’s subjective, Nance. Catherine is very intelligent, very in touch; she’s slowly accepting that this was reality… he was really here and not a hallucination.”

  On Saturday, twenty-four hours earlier, Leon had spoken at length with Catherine and formed a psychological profile on her. He’d confirmed the character profile that Nancy had described to him during dinner on Friday night; Catherine was lucid with a solid grip of reality.

  His findings left him with another dilemma. Without prompting, Catherine had decided to volunteer details of the cyber-sex, and when sp
eaking about it she’d displayed no sign of embarrassment or moral conflict; it neutralized his earlier hypothesis of the underpinnings to the trauma.

  Now he was without any viable alternative hypothesis or clue as to what might be going on.

  The disruption Ken’s visit had caused had temporarily devastated Leon’s task of rehabilitating Catherine. For the first hour Leon had acted more like an ordinary visitor than a physician, gently coaxing her trust until she could handle a more exhaustive session.

  Nancy watched as Leon’s usual flippant playful mannerisms slowly morphed into controlled professional conduct;

  “How did today feel compared to the other occasions when Ken appeared?” Leon was purposefully avoiding the use of certain words… visitations or visions.

  “I don’t really know…” she paused, a light frown slowly creasing her forehead “…but… hmmm, you’re right, it did somehow seem different.”

  “Alright… Now, you mentioned previously that you could smell him before you saw him; what about this time?”

  “Huh… that’s true… no, I couldn’t. Then again, he was pretty far away when I spotted him… a lot of others around, perhaps that’s an interference?”

  “Maybe…. Did he look the same? His face, his body?”

  “He normally smiles at me,” she shivered at the memory, “but this time… yeah… this time the smile was different. More… compassionate maybe, if that’s possible for him. The other times his smile was….” Catherine looked for the word, “…well, evil, malevolent maybe… a domination to it, lustful. So many words but none really sum it up.”

  Leon could see that she had more to say, so he kept silent and waited patiently.

  “…and his body…” she cringed, “ I don’t know how to put it, Leon… sometimes it’s very different. I know you’re going to laugh at me when I tell you this but he sometimes has the body of a… a…” words failed her.

  “Say it,” he prompted. “Whatever comes to mind… it’s very symbolic, not literal.”