by Brian Olsen
“Derek was a tangible asset.”
Caitlin looked up. Marisol was standing on the other side of the kitchen, near Derek’s feet, looking down at him. She was covered in blood too, though not as much as Derek. Because it was his blood, Caitlin realized. It was blood-spatter, like on a TV show. She was holding something loosely in her hand – a knife. It was covered in blood, and something else. Frosting. It was the knife from the corn syrup cake.
Marisol still had the same blank expression that had worried Caitlin earlier, but now utterly emotionless tears were streaming down her face. “A tangible asset,” she repeated. “Converted. Derek Wallace is an intangible asset.” She looked directly at Caitlin.
Caitlin stepped back. She tried to make a sound, but still couldn’t. She braced herself to run, but Marisol didn’t move.
Marisol kept talking. She was saying her own name. “Marisol...” she said, crying. “Marisol...is now a toxic asset.” Her words made no sense, but it seemed as if Marisol was pleading with her. “Toxic asset...” she repeated.
“Hello?” Caitlin heard Alan’s voice from the doorway. “Caitlin?”
Caitlin tried to call out, but all she could manage was a gasp of air. Push from your diaphragm, she thought. “Help,” she whispered, then louder, “Help!” It was all she could think to say.
She felt Alan and Pete rush up beside her, then stop. Marisol looked to each of them in turn. “Marisol is toxic now. Asset can’t be converted. Must be liquidated.”
“Shit,” Alan said. “She...” He trailed off.
Caitlin felt Pete pull her back slowly, until she was standing slightly behind him.
Marisol stood in place. “Toxic,” she repeated. She was crying harder now, and her voice was trembling, but her face was still a neutral mask. “Asset Marisol...liquidated.” She raised the knife.
They all took a step back, but still she stayed where she was. As the knife started to move, Alan was the first to realize what was about to happen. “No!” he called out. “No, don’t!” He tried to run to her, but Pete grabbed his arm and held him back.
Marisol plunged the knife into her throat and twisted, then yanked it sideways, cutting through on the right side. Her blank expression vanished as her eyes and mouth opened wide in pain and confusion. Caitlin saw more blood, then Marisol fell to the floor, on top of Derek, shaking violently, slower and slower.
Caitlin felt Pete’s arms around her. She buried herself in his shoulder. She had no trouble finding her voice now, and screamed.
Chapter Twelve
Dakota strategizing
Saturday afternoon, Dakota was sitting up in her bed, her back resting against the brick wall that divided her room from Mark’s. The wall froze her bedroom in the winter, but she loved the look of it too much to cover it with drywall. Caitlin was lying with her head in Dakota’s lap, while Dakota stroked her hair. Mark was seated at the other end of the bed, Caitlin’s legs draped over his.
The night before, Dakota and Mark had tried to wait up, hoping to catch Alan and Caitlin when they got home, but alcohol and exhaustion had gotten the better of them. It was early in the morning when Dakota had been awoken by Caitlin climbing into bed with her. There was a brief moment of severe ambivalence about the new direction she thought their friendship was about to take before she realized Caitlin was crying.
She tried to get her roommate to tell her what was wrong, but Caitlin was too upset to talk. Dakota just held her. After a few moments she could hear Alan coming up the stairs, and it sounded as if he was crying as well. She heard another voice she didn’t recognize consoling him, and then both were silenced as she heard Alan’s bedroom door close.
After a few minutes of Caitlin’s tears, Mark had knocked on the door. He crept in and lay down with them, joining Dakota in comforting the crying girl. Eventually Caitlin was able to tell them, in fits and starts, what had happened at Derek’s party. The more she spoke, the more her sobs quieted. Mark eased himself down to the far end of the bed to give Caitlin more room, and as she finished telling them about her horrible night she slowly drifted off to sleep.
Caitlin must have been exhausted. They had stayed at the party late, then been kept there by the police for a few hours more. Pete had finally convinced the investigating officer to let them go home, and a patrol car had driven all three back to Fort Greene. That had been well after sunrise. In the couple of hours since Caitlin had finally fallen asleep, Dakota and Mark had sat in silence, alone with their separate thoughts, not wanting to move and risk waking her.
Dakota had plenty to think about. Caitlin’s description of Marisol’s face, her blank expression, sounded so much like Pickle’s – there had to be a connection. Would Pickle have tried to kill them if they hadn’t left? She thought about how she had left Mark alone with the strange woman and got a chill. Were Muffin and Cookie lying dead on Pickle’s floor?
And those things Marisol had said about assets, tangible and intangible, toxic, being converted. Dakota understood all the terms, but couldn’t figure out what they meant in this context. Or did they mean anything at all? The woman was deranged, she could have just been regurgitating words she had picked up at AmSyn.
She heard a creak as her bedroom door was pushed open. She quickly put her finger to her lips, but she could already feel Caitlin stirring.
“Alan?” Caitlin said groggily.
“Here,” Alan said from the doorway. “I’m here.”
Alan was dressed for bed, in a t-shirt and sweatpants, but the bags under his eyes suggested he hadn’t gotten much sleep. He clambered over Mark and lay down next to Caitlin, who rolled over into his arms.
Dakota saw a short muscle-bound man smiling awkwardly in the doorway, wearing a pair of shorts and a t-shirt with a picture of an old-style Nintendo controller on the front. The shirt was far too tight for his hefty frame; Dakota recognized it as belonging to Alan.
“You must be Pete,” she said. “Hi. I’m Dakota.”
Caitlin immediately sat up. “Pete!” she cried, her arms extended. “Get in! Come here!”
Pete climbed over Mark, who looked immensely uncomfortable with the situation. He kneeled next to Caitlin, who wrapped her arms around him. Dakota heard a whispered, “Thank you.”
“Pete held us together last night,” Alan said. “Caitlin and I were both a mess. He called the police, helped us talk to them. He was a rock all night.”
I’m sure he was, Dakota thought. She had a feeling Alan had been comforted in a somewhat more physical manner than Caitlin had been. Alan was clearly smitten with the man. From the way Caitlin was looking at Pete, Dakota thought she might be too.
Caitlin leaned back and pulled Pete down on top of them. “Dog pile,” she said. “You too, Man Soup, get in here.”
Dakota scooted down as Mark piled on top of them all. His elbow wound up wedged uncomfortably in her side.
“Hey, Pete,” he said. “Good to see you, man. Glad the whole dick-pic thing worked out for you.”
“Hey, Mark. I’m not used to being this close to this end of you.”
The two were face-to-face. Dakota hoped this was a gym reference she didn’t understand.
“Man Soup?” Pete asked.
Mark groaned. “It’s a stupid nickname Dakota gave me in college. It doesn’t even mean anything. I go by Mark but my real name is Man-Su, Man-Su Park. Man Soup.”
Dakota, Caitlin and Alan moaned the nickname loudly. “Maaaaaan Soup!”
“It makes me sound gay!” Mark protested.
“It doesn’t!” Alan laughed. “It sounds like you’re the primary ingredient in a steaming hot bowl of man soup.”
“It’s a compliment,” Caitlin agreed.
Dakota was glad to see them both laughing, and felt bad that she was about to put an end to that. “Okay,” she said. “Everybody up. My boobs are getting crushed.”
One by one the quintet extricated themselves from each other. Caitlin moved to a chair, Mark onto the floor. Alan stayed on the bed
, leaning against the wall, while Pete sat between his legs, leaning back into his chest. Oh, yeah, Dakota thought, definitely post-coital. I hope they showered before getting into my bed.
“So,” she began, “I hate to say this, but we need to compare notes on last night. Are you guys okay with talking about it some more?”
“Yes,” Caitlin said simply. “Did you learn anything from the Pickle lady at her party?”
Briskly, Dakota told them about her and Mark’s escapades the previous night. Caitlin made the observation Dakota had noted, about the similarities between Pickle’s and Marisol’s behavior. After that, all five were silent for a long moment.
Finally, Mark broke the silence. “Uh. So. I’m used to sounding like a dumbass so I’ll say it. Mind control?”
Pete laughed, then smiled apologetically. “Sorry.”
“No, whatever,” Mark replied, embarrassed. “This isn’t a movie. It’s stupid.”
“But...” Alan said, then paused. When everyone looked at him expectantly, he reluctantly continued. “I mean, there are ways to control people. In real life. Aren’t there? Hypnotism? Brainwashing? Right? Maybe not.”
“I have to admit,” Dakota said, “it crossed my mind even before I heard what happened to you guys. I don’t think I would have said it out loud, but...Pickle wasn’t acting crazy. I mean, she was, her behavior was completely irrational, but...she seemed...” She trailed off, unable to find the words.
“Like something was stopping her from thinking clearly,” Mark finished. “She couldn’t see all the shit that was wrong with her company, at least not at first. It was like it was invisible to her.”
“If that’s true, then someone is doing this,” Alan said. “There’s someone behind it. Someone is planning all this crazy shit.”
“That’s a leap,” Pete said, squeezing Alan’s knee.
“No,” Alan said, “it’s not. I got called in to fill Derek’s job, a job that wasn’t vacant until Derek died a day later. Somebody knew it would happen.”
Dakota listened as her four roommates discussed the other coincidences that had been plaguing them, all of which, when taken together, implied that someone had been planning events well in advance. She talked about her boss being hired for a department that didn’t exist yet, Mark brought up Pickle’s gym membership putting her in the perfect place to meet him, and even Pete conceded that his winning a membership at the same gym, in a contest he didn’t enter, might be connected. It all tied back to Amalgamated Synergy, or companies owned by it, Dakota thought.
“Caitlin, what did Marisol say, at the end?” she asked. “All those financial terms? What did she say exactly?”
“I can’t remember everything,” she replied. “She said that Derek was a tangible asset. She had said the same thing earlier. And then after he was...” She paused. “After I found her standing over him, she said he was intangible. That he had been converted? Something like that.”
“She said that she, herself, was toxic,” Pete added. “That she couldn’t be converted, and so she had to be liquidated.” He looked at Dakota. “It...almost makes sense. Sort of.”
“You think it means something?” Mark asked.
“It meant something to her,” Alan replied. “It was...torturous. Like the words were being forced out of her.”
“Yes,” Caitlin said quietly.
“So what does it mean, D?” Mark asked Dakota. “You’re the one with the business degree.”
Dakota paced the room. “Okay. If an asset’s toxic, it’s lost its value.”
“Right,” Pete said. “It can’t be sold for any significant amount, so you want to dump it but usually you can’t.”
“Marisol could,” Alan piped in. “I don’t know the business definition, but when she said she was going to be liquidated, I knew she didn’t mean fired. I knew what she was going to do as soon as she said it.”
“Was she toxic because she felt guilty?” Caitlin asked.
“Or because she was useless,” Mark said. “She was a murderer, she’d be arrested and shit. She wouldn’t be able to do anything else for whoever was controlling her.”
“We’re back to the mind control?” Pete asked.
“Okay!” Dakota said loudly, trying to focus. “If she meant liquidate as in kill in regards to herself, then why did she say that Derek was converted from a tangible to an intangible asset? What’s the difference? Asset to whom? To her?”
“To Amal...Amyl...to your company,” Caitlin said. “He had just been hired on full-time. That’s when she said it the first time.”
“So...that made him a tangible asset of Amalgamated Synergy?” Dakota said. “Then, how does killing him make him an intangible asset? I suppose you could argue that it made him intangible, but he’s not much of an asset anymore, is he?”
No one had an answer. Mark quietly suggested life insurance, but the consensus was that this was, perhaps, a bit too over-elaborate a scheme to devise just to cash in on the policy of an underemployed twenty-something actor.
“If,” Alan said finally, “and I realize this is a big if...but if someone really is masterminding some bizarre plot to fund inefficient marketing departments, seduce hunky gym trainers and murder innocent temps, all by mind-controlling employees of one of the largest corporations in the world...what are we going to do about it?”
“Maybe there’s a way to snap people out of it,” Caitlin said. She turned to Dakota. “You were starting to get through to the Pickle woman, right?”
“Yes,” Dakota replied. “She sort of came in and out of it once her friends confronted her about her...behavior.” She glanced at Mark, who avoided her eyes. “And when we started explaining all the strange things that had been happening at AmSyn, she snapped out of it completely. She was with us, all the way. But then she fell back into it, out of nowhere. Like the previous few minutes hadn’t happened.”
“It was when you mentioned the game,” Mark said. “Work It. As soon as you said the name, she got all blank-face again.”
Dakota’s eyes widened. Without a word, she grabbed her laptop off of her dresser and plopped down on the bed next to Alan and Pete. She opened the computer up and logged on to Jumpa.
“Fuck,” she said. “I’m doing worse than ever. My arch-nemesis is kicking my ass.”
“Are we playing games now? Did we come up with a plan and I missed it?” Caitlin asked.
“I’m checking something.” Dakota opened up her list of employees – a name was missing. She looked up DJWallToWall, and her heart skipped a beat.
“He’s online.”
“Who?” Alan asked, peering over her shoulder.
“Derek. He’s playing the game right now.”
“Shut the fuck up,” Caitlin said.
“Somebody is,” Pete said, looking at the screen. “Obviously not him, but somebody’s logged in as him.”
“But he’s not working for me anymore,” Dakota said. “He’s working for J84z33, the guy who’s been poaching all of my employees.”
“Derek told us he wasn’t going to switch,” Caitlin said. “He wanted to stay with you.”
“He didn’t switch,” Pete said, tapping one-handed at the keyboard. “He changed his in-game employer at 2:36 in the morning. This morning.” He looked up. “We left the party a little before two-thirty. 2:36 must be right around when Derek died.”
“So if J84z33 took over Derek’s account,” Dakota said, “then he must have known Derek was going to die. He must be behind it. We need to find out who he is.”
“We need to tell the police,” Alan said.
“Hold on,” Pete said. “Step back a second. This is all going to sound insane to anybody not in the middle of it. Let me...I can’t believe I’m offering this...let me talk to my client. The guy who created Work It. I’m driving up to see him on Tuesday. He can get into their system and find out who this J person is. Let’s get some more information before you sic the cops on some random dorky teenage gamer whose only crimes are
stealing other people’s accounts and massively bad timing.”
“That is amazing,” Alan said. “You’re amazing. Thank you.”
“Yes,” Dakota said, “thanks, Pete. That’s great. In the meantime, I guess Alan and I go to work on Monday and see what we can find out.”
“I’ll be there too, I guess,” Mark said. Reluctantly, he explained about Pickle’s invitation to a lunchtime assignation.
Caitlin leaned over and patted him on the back. “Going to do some undercover work, huh?”
“I won’t touch her!” he protested. “I know she’s all brainwashed or whatever. I’ll just talk to her. Maybe I can wake her up again.”
“So that’s three of us at AmSyn on Monday, then,” Dakota said.
“Four,” said Caitlin quietly. She explained about her mysterious acting job in AmSyn’s former mailroom. She hadn’t wanted to tell them at first for fear they’d try and talk her into it, then for fear they’d try and talk her out of it. Now she had decided that if the job was connected to all this madness – and it seemed like it had to be – they needed her to find out what it was.
“Are you serious?” Pete asked all of them. He was somehow managing to smile incredulously. “Two people are dead. Murdered. We’re pretty sure it has something to do with Amalgamated Synergy. And you’re all just going to go back there? Like nothing’s wrong?”
He was looking at Dakota, but she saw that he was gripping Alan’s hands tightly.
“Pete, we’ll be okay,” she said. “We know what to look out for. We can watch each other’s backs. Somebody’s fucking with us. We want to know why.” She paused, then added gently, “I’ll be ten feet from Alan the whole time.”
He let out a breath, then laughed. “Look at you four. White guy, white girl, black girl, Asian dude. Solving mysteries. Add a talking animal and you could have your own Saturday morning cartoon.”
With their course of action agreed upon, the group started to scatter. Dakota heard Pete whisper to Alan, “If anything happens to you before our second date I’ll kill you.”
