"You know I am not really a party person Mother. You often have parties I don't go to. Why is this one any different?"
"Well, it's not really, but I would like you to come for my 60th birthday."
There was no judgment or reprimand in her revelation of this rather large fact that Martin had forgotten. He looked at the screen blankly for a moment. It stretched into several moments. The rock his hatred of social gatherings had just met the hard place of his duty as a son.
In a fluster Martin hurriedly said "Yes, yes, ok, I will be there," and cut the link.
As if the conversation had never occurred, he turned back to his triumph of beating Uno's trick without a second thought for the abruptly terminated conversation.
A techno bleeping alarm sounded and a small message lifted smoothly in the bottom right of Martins main screen. Bold yellow font on a red background read 'Poker tournament reminder. Resumes in 5 minutes at the Western Bar'.
"Dammit!"
He decided he would let Uno think his trick was still working and devise a clever and vengeful method of turning it around.
"Alice, can you remember where we were in our discussion?
"Of course Martin. Good luck with your game." Alice's face faded and its display window closed.
The well used shortcut to the poker rooms was on the fast link bar at the top of the main screen. Martin would have to concentrate. He closed any other program distractions. There weren't many things which received his exclusive attention. The poker software ran up and prompted him to take his virtual seat. He looked out over a round wooden table toward a wooden bar with wooden stools. The wood motif was fairly comprehensive. The barman stood continually cleaning a glass. Even him, he thought.
In front were seated three other players. To the left, a cowboy in a checked shirt, Stetson and rugged stubble to match. Centre, a sharp suited guy with designer sunglasses. Right, an attractive woman in a black evening gown, her black hair worn long over one side of her face leaving one beautiful green eye looking out.
"Welcome Lady and Gentlemen," said a voice in the left hand speaker.
Martin hadn't looked in this direction yet, it not being in line of sight on the display. The view scrolled by the mouse, a thin face wearing a green visor appeared the field of vision.
"This here be the final round of the newcomers competition. Texas Hold 'Em. Standard tournament rules apply, y'all" Martin winced at the badly done accent.
The dealers face tipped down to show a bald head above the visor. Pocket cards were dealt to each of the players, sliding smoothly into place in front of them.
"It's just another game," said Martin to himself, but he could feel his heart beat and breathing quicken. Lots of hours had gone into getting this far.
The game played out as most games did at this stage of a tournament. Martin sat back to assess his opponents strategies. This meant he ran his support programs. A search program linked into the poker site database, taking into account details of players current and historic play. Statistics displayed on graphs. Martin didn't like to think of it as cheating... so he didn't think about it. The computer analysis showed CanadaBill to be a bluffer. The harder he bet, the less he was likely to have. LadyNight was predicted to be a steady player, winning with good hands. CoolRiver displayed 'UNKNOWN'.
"Rats!" Martin said, realising Cool was going to be a problem.
The game played on long and slow. Cool had stripped Canada and Lady's money down so he now had a third of the chips at the table. Martin retained what just about what he started with. His pocket cards were good. Kings. A.K.A Cowboys. Clubs and Diamonds. A moderate bet would make things interesting, but not enough to frighten off his victims. Good job they couldn't hear his chuckle he thought. Canada re-raised. Lady called in. CoolRiver folded. Martin paused briefly, hoping to suggest a reluctance to match the raise, of which he had none. He called.
The flop was 2 of Diamonds, 10 of Diamonds, Ace of Hearts. Canada opened with a high raise. This might have worried Martin, but he was ready to take Canada down and put an end to his bullying bets. Lady had little option with her dwindling chip stack but to go all-in. Martin called. The turn, 10 of Clubs. Canada goes all-in. His bets had become increasingly erratic as Cool had taken more and more of his chips. A flashing sign by Canada's name on Martins screen screamed 'BLUFF'. Martin called. With the game ready to be decided by the last card, the pocket hands were displayed.
Canada had 2 of Spades and 8 of Clubs. A pair of 2's. Rubbish. Lady had 10 of Spades and Ace of Diamonds. Martin had misread her all-in as a sign of desperation, but she had what must be the best hand here.
"The Nuts," he said in a depressed tone, remembering the poker term. "Well played" he added.
He sat back slowly, ready to accept fate as the 'river' slipped out in front of the dealer.
"King of Hearts. 3 Kings wins! Yup." the dealer announced.
Martin had won. He looked on as the losers Lady and Canada popped out of the game. The Western Bar faded and all was black. A voice broke through.
"Welcome, welcome, Ladies and Gentlemen. Its Showdown Time!." It echoed like the start of a wrestling match. "Let's hear it for our players!"
A spotlight splashed onto CoolRiver sitting centre screen. Martin switched to an overall view. He could see a spotlight also lit himself, putting them at either end of a long poker table. People didn't have any access to input sound into this poker program. They showed their appreciation by flashing small lights from their avatars. Cool and Martin were surrounded by a mad universe of stars from the seating around the arena. Floating in space above their heads, as only things in artificial worlds can, a display showed who the fans were rooting for.
Martin smiled to himself as his indicator was twice as great as Cool's. This was expected the win had put him well ahead, but he took personal pleasure in it anyway. He looked around at the glow from his fans and returned his view to first person as the host came to the end of his speech.
"So, with no further delay, dealer, please begin!"
Arrays of spotlights on all sides rolled down and fully lit the table. Standing to one side of the centre, deck in hand and ready to deal, was Alice. She winked at Martin. Martin just stared as the pocket cards were dealt into place. Martin continued to stare as Cool called in on the hand. The betting window timed out with the lack of action and the program automatically called for him. Turning to the monitor on his left, he tried to run the Alice program. A message displayed 'Alice program not available'.
"What is going on?" he said out loud.
The flop had been dealt and Cool had raised. Martin was running out of time to call. He did so without looking at what cards he had received or registering what the bet was. Cool had raised again. Trying to focus back on the game, Martin assessed his cards quickly. Nothing worth playing. There would be a fair amount of chips lost, but he was not about to chase bad money. He folded. The popularity started to swing to Cool.
The game went on, but Alice's image had shaken Martin. Slowly and steadily, hand after hand, his opponent leeched the chips from his stack. The indicators scales tipped more and more in CoolRiver's favour. Martin started to feel desperation rise like bile in this throat. He looked at the cards he had been dealt. A of Clubs and 8 of Clubs. A suited Ace, but not such a good kicker in an 8. Still good enough. He went for a substantial pre-flop raise in an attempt to win back some chips.
Cool called. The flop was good for Martin. Ace of Hearts, King of Clubs, 8 of Spades. No obvious flushes or straights coming and he had his two pair. He raised. Cool called. The turn, 4 of Clubs. He now had a flush possible. This was too good to miss. He made a substantial raise. Cool called. Cool obviously had a hand and wasn't letting Martin bet him out of this pot.
"More fool him," said Martin.
The river slid onto the table. 7 of Diamonds. This left his final hand as just the two pair. I am going for it, he decided. All-in. The voice of the compere trumpeted up.
"Here we have it Ladies and Gentlemen. Let's see what they got!"
Martin's cards showed first.
"Dead Man's Hand!" An announcement rang out.
Dead Man's Hand, a pair of Aces and a pair of 8's. Martin remembered the derivation of the slang, the cards Wild Bill Hicok had been holding when he was shot. He looked over to Cool.
"Cowboys!" shouted the arena host, "3 of those good ol' boys!"
Martin had lost. The hand that had got him to the showdown ushered him out. The popularity indicator went 100% to Cool. Martin took at last look at Alice who smiled at him as the array spotlights rolled back and his spotlight went out. The screen showed CoolRiver, bathed in the flashing applause of his adoring fans.
Martin closed the program. His eyes were sore and his head wooly. The on-screen time showed 4 a.m. Work in 4 hours. He couldn't think about the Alice thing anymore. He ached from sitting so long. He crawled across the room, into his bed, and slept.
Martin stumbled into work late next morning, passing the usual faces. He grunted at their "Good Mornings" without engaging in eye contact. Thankful that the lift was empty, he descended to his lair. The hardware room was cold and functional. Machines of various shapes and unrecognisable purpose showed flickering indicators as they continued their endless conversations with the computers around the room.
Martin threw his coat onto a table beside his workstation. He switched on the three monitors in front of him. They displayed the same setup as the screens at home. No Alice here for him to interrogate however, the company had policies about what could be loaded. He didn't have to fight too hard to get his favourites installed. Excessive overtime brought some privileges.
He immediately began to concentrate on the previous days programming problem and reached over to lift a coffee cup to his lips. No refreshment came as it tipped. Looking inside, he realised that he had not been to the machine to get one yet. He must be more tired than he thought. To be efficient, he set a diagnostic algorithm running before getting up to trek to the drink dispenser, watching the results on the screen over his shoulder as he walked.
A figure in a lab coat was lifting his plastic offering from the machine and turning as Martin approached.
"Hey," the technician said. Martin turned his head, virtually on top of the man.
"Hey," Martin replied. He was fine with Dave.
Dave was a hardware engineer whose workstation was sufficiently across the room for them only to meet at this communal place. Dave stepped to one side as Martin keyed in the numbers which were now synonymous with his requirement for caffeine in large amounts.
"I got a hex dump from 42 on overnight soak that looks odd. Not seen anything like it before. Want to take a look?" Dave said.
"Sure!" Martins face lit up at the possibility of a novel problem in the systems he knew better than the back of his hand. "What version is it on?"
"126.14.2a. Still pretty buggy." They both smiled.
They often discussed the machines and the system together, but Martin knew nothing about Dave personally. If he hadn't sent e-mails to the man he wouldn't have known his surname. After a couple of hours of interrogating the data and an involved diagnostic chat, Martin returned to his desk. He felt as much refreshed by the stimulus as the coffee.
There hadn't been time last night to resolve his theory of about Alice, although this had been a bit deflated by her appearance at poker. He clicked on the intranet chat application and called up the only contact on it, Uno. Uno worked in another section of the building, developing web applications. A video feed showed him, clean shaven, neat hair, shirt and tie.
"Hey. You free for lunch?" said Uno.
He always asked Martin to come out for lunch but Martin never did. The repeated question had devolved into a joke of sorts. Even with his hacking obsessions, Uno managed to maintain a pretty sociable lifestyle and lunch would have been a shared activity with many colleagues.
"Nope. Just to let you know, I didn't buy the jest last night, but it was well executed. Nice work." Martin smiled.
"Don't get ya. Once more?" Uno said, clearly genuinely puzzled.
"Good Morning Martin," came a voice from behind.
Martin swung round and looked up from his swivel seat. Gavin, his boss, was the epitome of everything Martin loathed about business. The immaculate suit, shirt and tie. Hair styled in a generic cut used by all of his rank.
"I hope everything is going well?" Gavin asked politely.
Martin gave a small shrug. He was aware that any indication of the status of his work to Gavin could be used against him. He reluctantly cut the link with Uno. A sigh deflated Gavin's posture. Pulling up a chair from nearby, he sat down. Martin stiffened. This looks bad, he thought.
"Martin, how long have you been with us?" Gavin sat forward slightly.
Martin turned to his computer and pulled up his calendar. He typed in a search and the date of his joining the company appeared. He ran up a small application and typed in the date. The answer he wanted was revealed.
"6 years, 8 months and 5 days, not including today," he replied.
Gavin had sat back in his seat by the time Martin had finished.
"That's good Martin, thank you. You have done some excellent work for us and I appreciate all of the extra effort you put in."
Gavin appeared genuine, but Martin eyed him suspiciously and said nothing.
"I am a bit worried however," Gavin added.
Here it comes, Martin thought to himself.
"I had asked for a proposal for the demonstration on Thursday, but I haven't received anything."
At this comment, Martin's throat went dry and his heart began to thud in his chest. He controlled his breathing to quell the panic attack. Seemingly only he could do the demo because of the technical content. All the escape ploys of the preceding weeks had failed. He had actually prepared meticulously, slideshow and notes finished days ago, but he had stalled in admitting this to Gavin. Somehow the act would form a commitment he couldn't take. He hoped ridiculously for the chance Gavin would forget or the world might end.