Cole Perriman's Terminal Games (10 page)

Renee snatched her fingers back from the keyboard as if she had just received an electric shock. Auggie’s big red smile flipped over like a boomerang, abruptly transformed into a hideous scowl. His fury poured across the screen in capital letters, the online equivalent of yelling.

AWGY>
its bn like ths lways. fr hunreds f thowsns of yrs. peeple. peeple suck. bstrds n btches evry lst won f u. for billiuns of yrs i run the univrs jst fine on my own n then u idiots cme alng thnkng u got the branes n u got the nswers. but i i i i got the
power
n the
glory forever
. n i offr u the chans tbe smthng mor thn hyumn tbe prt f smthng truly butifl n great n u trt me lke sht. u crusify me. well fuck u. u n ure knd tride to tame me but u cant. I m erthqks pestlncs fluds plaigs mdnss the wrms of the grav n everythng thts
nt
on ure fckng offc calndr. i m n lways have bn a blght on ure exstnce n wll end it soon. i wll tare u lim frm lim n spred peeces of u far n wide n my laffter wll ekko thru the hevens.

Auggie’s tirade completely filled the computer screen momentarily, then vanished. Sapphire and Auggie were left facing one another. Renee’s computer speaker rang with his raucous laughter, and then was silent.

Renee sat frozen for a moment. She was suddenly frightened to be in the booth, where no one could overhear the conversation, where no one could witness Auggie’s sudden display of ferocity. She felt vulnerable and alone.

She waited for Auggie to pull his usual disappearing act.

He didn’t.

He just sat there scowling horribly at her.

Renee typed a simple message.

safir>I don’t want to see you anymore.

Auggie remained motionless. Renee knew the next move had to be hers. She wanted with all her heart to do as Auggie usually did, to abruptly vanish from the cyberworld. But she stopped herself.

“Keep your cool, Sapphire,” she murmured soothingly to her alter. “We’ve got to show a little finesse here.”

Renee punched a series of commands. Sapphire rose from her seat and walked away from the booth. Faces of Ernie’s regular customers, chattering on their stools and at their tables, suddenly turned to watch Sapphire make her exit, quite surprised. They were used to overhearing Sapphire’s open barroom quarrels with Auggie and watching Auggie disappear. But now everyone could see that something different had happened.

More than she ever had before, Renee felt a strange, kinesthetic bond with Sapphire. She actually shared Sapphire’s creeping discomfort as she walked past the bar amongst the staring faces, sensing Auggie’s hateful eyes upon her.

Ernie himself was mechanically washing glasses behind the bar. He offered his stock end-of-the-night audio salutation.

“Be seeing you tomorrow night, Sapphire?”

But Sapphire made no reply as she approached the bar’s swinging doors. Renee could see Auggie, still sitting in the booth, watching Sapphire, his big red clown mouth turned down rather than up at the corners. And, just at that moment, Auggie vanished.

Sapphire stood motionless for a moment, then passed through the swinging doors. Renee logged off and shut down her machine. She shivered deeply, suddenly amazed at how frightened she’d been.

He touched Sapphire. How could he touch her?

Renee sat staring at the blank computer screen apprehensively, as if it might turn itself back on at any moment.

00110
MESSAGES

Message left by Marianne Hedison on Renee Gauld’s office answering machine, Friday, January 21, 6:45
a.m.
:

I saw you!

Come on, don’t play dumb. I saw Sapphire huddling with Auggie in that booth in Ernie’s last night. So don’t be greedy with your precious story—not with me, anyway. I
know,
and there’s no use trying to keep it a secret.

Are you at work yet? Are you screening your calls? If you’re there, pick up, okay? Did Auggie tell you anything about the bloodstain on the wall? Did he tell you who he really is? What
did
he tell you?

Look, I’m dying to know, and anyhow, we’ve
got
to get together again before I leave. I’m faxing you my schedule for the next couple of days. It’s pretty full, but there are a few holes in it. Call and tell me when we can meet.

And be ready to tell me about last night at Ernie’s!

*

Marianne was alone in her hotel room, taking an hour or so before the conference started to work on her current design project. She brought up the file and clicked it into 3-D mode. With the next click of her mouse, she was viewing the living room from the inside. As she worked, Marianne listened to Renee’s live morning radio show. As usual, bored or desperate commuters were calling in from their cellular car phones …

“Hey, Renee, this is Henry. You oughtta get a look at the Pacific Coast Highway right about now …”

“... yeah, Ruiz here, and I’m stuck dead still under the overpass, trying to get off the Harbor Freeway onto the Santa Monica …”

“… Sandy again. And wouldja believe it, Renee? I got cut off at
another
exit heading east on the Two-Ten …”

Renee always mythologized their situations, turning mundane traffic situations into epic journeys and cliff-hanging adventures.

“Sandy, I hate to be the one to say so, but you ain’t
never
getting
off the Two-Ten. There’s a joker right in front of you with no purpose in life except to keep you out of the right hand lane, and he’s got one of those high-tech, heat-seeking rocket launchers that our government just loves to sell to wright-wing dictators, and every one of his warheads’s got your name written on it. There’s no turning back now. You’re driving deep into Monrovia, where the yuppies mate with Gila monsters, then on to Glendora, where the Jacuzzis bubble with cyanide. If you survive, you’ll keep heading east to where time, space, the entire known universe, and even the very freeway itself all come to a crashing stop in darkest Claremont. Good luck, babe. You’re gonna need it …”

Marianne laughed at Renee’s impromptu spiel—at least it
sounded
impromptu. The cellular phone had placed Renee squarely in the middle of a vast, unwieldy, and untapped
commuter culture
that welcomed a canny media figure that could hurl it headlong into contemporary legend.

It must be downright intoxicating to be right there on the cutting edge.

Marianne’s own profession was tamer, but it, too, required her to stay on the front edge of both trends and technology. The rapid evolution of computer-aided design had made her job more exciting. She found doing preliminary renderings on the computer especially satisfying. She enjoyed entering images of furniture and accessories, indicating the colors, textures, and reflectivity of surfaces, mapping in specific patterns from scanned images, and setting the light sources. Then her computer would take over, building a three-dimensional representation of the room and furnishings, ready for her final tuning.

So clean, so mechanical.

In the very recent past, Marianne had seldom done perspective renderings. Clients had been reasonably well satisfied with a clear-cut floor plan for space analysis, a few color swatches, maybe a simple elevation or two, photos of major pieces, and a written description. But now her CAD software did much more than merely raise elevations from floor plans. It also created a sequence in a 3-D program, rotating viewpoints and even allowing clients to “walk through” the completed interiors of their new homes well before the building was finished. Given all these options, there was hardly any reason
not
to do renderings.

As Marianne worked, she heard Renee’s voice on the radio now trying to persuade all her commuting listeners to whisper Elvis’s name as a mantra, “just to see if we can get the cosmos to call in.”

Sounds like she’s enjoying herself.
Of course, Renee always sounded exuberant when she was on the air, but today she seemed even livelier than usual.
I wonder if she’s feeling good about whatever happened with Auggie last night?

Marianne could hardly wait to find out. But in another hour, she’d be back in lectures and seminars again, and it would be early evening before she’d be able to check her messages.

Damn it, Renee, call! Call as soon as you get off the air!

*

The phone rang seven times. Renee was about to hang up when a man finally answered.

“Hello?”

“Is this Insomnimania?” Renee asked, wondering if she had the wrong number.

“Yeah.”

Not even a business salutation! How unprofessional!

“What do you want?” the voice on the other end asked, sounding a little wobbly.

Stoned, maybe.

“I want to disconnect,” Renee said.

“Disconnect what?”

“Your network,” Renee stammered slightly. “I don’t want to be on it anymore.”

“Why?”

Renee groaned.
I don’t need this.

She had been unbearably frightened ever since her encounter with Auggie at Ernie’s Bar last night, and she hadn’t gotten any sleep to speak of. Because of her tiredness and distractedness, she’d felt like this morning’s broadcast had been absolutely dismal. She wanted to get this matter taken care of once and for all.

“Just because!”
she said sharply. “Look, can I just give you my name and number? I’d really like to get off Insomnimania as soon as possible.”

“What’s your IQ?” the voice asked.

Renee was dumbfounded. “What?” she demanded.

“Your Intelligence Quotient. Tell me your IQ.”

“Why?”

“Just because,” said the voice, with a hint of a laugh.

“Very funny,” Renee said. “Are your clients filed according to IQs or something?”

“It might help us to understand your problem.”

“How?”

“People with IQs of less than one hundred and thirty-five tend to have trouble with Insomnimania.”

Renee felt herself flush with rage.

So I’m stupid, am I?

“Suppose it’s ninety-five?” Renee snapped. “Does that mean I can’t use your network?”

“Could be. Anyway, you can cancel online.”

Renee took a deep breath, trying to bring her indignation under control. “I want to cancel it right now—right this minute.” Actually, she wanted to cancel without having to log onto Insomnimania tonight to do it. She didn’t want to ever go back there again. “Look,” she continued, “let’s make this short, okay? Just take my name and cancel my subscription.”

“Okay.”

“Have you got a pencil and paper?”

“No.”

“Shouldn’t you get one?”

Then came a longish pause. “Just a minute,” the voice said. Renee heard a rattling of papers, then the sliding of desk drawers, then an inscrutable thumping, as if someone were overturning a roomful of furniture. A loud crack followed as the phone receiver apparently fell onto the floor.

My God, he’s tearing the place apart!

Then came a vigorous clatter as the person picked up the phone. “I can’t find a pencil,” the voice said.

Renee sighed. “Is anybody else there?”

“Yeah, but you can’t talk to him. Look, just tell me your name and ID number. I remember everything, whether I want to or not. Just tell me, and I’ll make sure to cut you off.”

With a feeling of impending futility, Renee gave the man the necessary information. “Have you got that?” she asked when she finished.

“Sure,” the voice said.

Like hell you do.

“Can I do anything else for you?” the voice asked.

“Yeah. Could I talk to the manager?”

“I am the manager,” the voice said.

Then he hung up.

*

With tremendous effort, Myron Stalnaker managed to spread a benevolent smile across his face.

“I’ve got every faith that you’ll come back here soon and we’ll be able to talk business,” he said. “In the meantime …”

He gestured toward the door. The man in the tattered sports jacket and the woman decked out in jogging pants and a sweatshirt exchanged unhappy looks, rose from their chairs, and left.

This shouldn’t be my job. Any receptionist could deal with these cases.
But a parade of ruined souls waited outside his cubicle, and he had no choice but to face each and every one of them in turn.

He looked out through the brown-toned glass at the employees and clientele quietly roaming the corridors. The Omaha bank was plushly carpeted and designed to reflect an atmosphere of restrained prosperity. It was, after all, a cathedral of sorts, a place of great dignity that nevertheless provided sordid little confessionals such as his for the undignified groveling of those in need.

What was it that woman in the jogging suit had called it?

Oh, yes.

“Inhuman.”

He felt a sudden onslaught of sadness. Had he become inhuman? Was he really an uncompassionate man? He hated to think so. He’d been raised in a good Catholic home with solid Christian values and wanted to believe he truly cared about his fellow human beings.

“Blessed are the meek …”

“Blessed are the merciful …”

Did those words mean anything anymore? Was it meek to behave so unfeelingly toward every supplicant who came to him? Was it merciful to fudge figures in order to ruin somebody’s chances for a loan? On the other hand, surely it could not be merciful to feed people false hopes or to lend them money that wouldn’t really help. Wouldn’t it be more merciful to offer them a quick, painless death?

Myron fingered the plastic surface of his office computer monitor. “Inhuman” was the right word. It was inhuman that this damned machine decided so much about people’s lives. And it was inhuman that he never got to handle any
meaningful
deals involving real estate, promising businesses, or tough and innovative people. That was the province of the executives just above him—a bunch of kids without a fraction of his experience.

Sixteen years on the job and I’m all I’ll ever be here—and too old to go anywhere else.

He smiled wearily.

“Blessed are the poor in spirit.”

Poverty of spirit—that was one virtue the world couldn’t take away from him. As for the rest of the beatitudes, he simply couldn’t afford them. Meekness and mercy were far out of his price range. He couldn’t even pay for them on credit. Sometimes it was simply too much for him. Sometimes he sat in his office weeping quietly, heedless of whether or not anyone saw or heard him. But he was too tired to weep right now. It had been too many nights since he’d gotten a good night’s sleep. Exhaustion had rendered him immune to tears.

Myron reluctantly reached across his desk and touched the intercom button.

“Send in the next applicant,” he said.

The next applicant was a woman neatly dressed in a well worn suit. She looked as exhausted as Myron was. He cleared his voice and looked her over coldly. He gave her a mild lecture on financial responsibility and sent her on her way with a handful of papers to fill out. Then he saw that it was time for his lunch break. He cleared his desk and locked the current files in his drawer. Stroking the computer monitor, Myron thought of what a paltry thing it was in comparison to the handsome, big-screen color monitor at his own apartment.

The urge to get up and go home almost overwhelmed him. But even if he did, he’d still have the same long hours to wait until
it
started, restoring meaning to his life. Anger swept over him. It was unfair that it began so late here. The west coast could connect much earlier.

Message left by Renee Gauld on Marianne Hedison’s answering machine, Friday, January 21, 3:15
p.m.
:

I’m sorry I missed you. I got your fax, and our schedules don’t mesh at all. I’m really up to my neck in stuff, at least until my party on Sunday. You
are
coming to my party on Sunday, right?

Call me in the next two or three days. I’ll be working at home a lot of the time, so try me here. I’ve got four books to read before tomorrow night. Can you believe that?

About last night at Ernie’s … Look, forget about it, okay? It was nothing to write home about. Seriously.

I’m sorry about all the conflicts, but at least we’ll see each other at my party. In the meantime, in this little game of phone tag, you’re “it,” honey.

Ciao.

Renee arrived home at around five o’clock that evening. When she set foot inside her condo, she plopped down on her couch and deposited a shopping bag full of books onto the coffee table. One by one, she looked over the hardback volumes, checking out their dustcover summaries.

In
All Night Horror,
a psychopath kills off adulterous yuppies during a “B” horror movie festival at a drive in theater.… In
Suspension of Disbelief,
a faith healer becomes disillusioned with the human race and sets about telepathically undoing all her work.… In
Foundation of Power,
an office building is haunted by the ghost of a Mafioso who was buried in its concrete foundation.… In
Oval Portrait,
the first woman President of the United States slowly realizes that all her aides and cabinet members are vampires.…

“What a pile of crap,” Renee grumbled.

All the books had been bestsellers, and all of them were by the nationally celebrated thriller writer Larry Bricker. Renee’s boss had arranged for her to interview that hack tomorrow evening. In the meantime, she would have to skim as much of this garbage as she possibly could.

Well, I guess it’s better than potbellied pigs.

Then Renee noticed Bricker’s photograph on one of the dustcovers. He was a smiling, dapper-looking man with thinning hair.

At least he’s a cute hack. Wonder what he’s doing on Sunday night?

But even though she found the author attractive, Renee wasn’t looking forward to this particular stack of reading. After her confrontation with Auggie yesterday, the last thing she needed was a lot of scary stories. Ghosts already inhabited her mind—in fact, a formless anxiety had haunted her all day. Although she couldn’t quite remember last night’s dreams, Renee was sure they had included a monstrous cartoon clown.

And what about Insomnimania?

Am I still connected?

She rose from the couch and went straight to her computer, turning it on with apprehension. The pothead she talked to had undoubtedly forgotten all about her call within moments after hanging up on her.

Of course, it was too early for Insomnimania actually to be online, but a “closed” sign with the network’s hours would let her know she was still a member. If that turned out to be the case, she would certainly make a second phone call—a much nastier one than the first.

She double-clicked the Insomnimania application icon with its image of a silhouetted dog barking at a full moon. The words “ENTER PASSWORD” appeared. Renee typed in the letters “KDKA”—her private little tribute to America’s first commercial radio station.

“INVALID PASSWORD,” the computer replied.

He did it. He really disconnected me. I could kiss the freak.

Then she gathered up the application icon plus a folder full of Insomnimania files and dragged them to the little trash can in the lower-right-hand corner of her screen. She dropped them in.

“Are you sure you want to remove the application ‘Insomnimania’?” the computer inquired considerately.

“Damn straight,” whispered Renee, clicking “YES.” The little trash can now looked squat and full. Renee wished she could jump up and down on its contents—or better yet, incinerate them. But instead, she selected the “empty trash” command. The can became trim and straight again.

The deed was done. So how did she feel? Less frightened? Less obsessed with crazy images of Auggie climbing out of her computer screen and bodily attacking her?

No. Renee could feel her heart pounding. She had endured physical symptoms of nameless panic before. But the spells had never been as bad as this. How could her body handle all this fear? Why didn’t she drop dead from a heart attack?

And what the hell am I so scared
of,
anyway?

Auggie’s operator—whoever he was—couldn’t possibly know how to find her. Identities of Insomnimania users were a closely guarded secret—or so the instruction manual said. But the guy on the phone who claimed to be the manager hadn’t exactly inspired a lot of confidence.

Renee scanned her computer desk top and noticed her application icons and folders for three other networks—all innocuous outfits, none of them nearly as high-end as Insomnimania. They served professional purposes, like gathering news clippings or leaving messages for potential interviewees. But even those icons disturbed her now. The notion of her computer being connected to strangers in the outside world seemed intolerable.

Her terror made no sense. Even if Auggie’s operator belonged to any of those other networks, how could he know that she did, too? It would be silly to call and cancel
all
of them.

Steady, Renee. The next thing you know, you’ll be getting your phone and your TV disconnected and God knows what all. You’ll turn Amish and ride in a horse and buggy and wear black dresses for the rest of your life and marry one of those bearded guys in the funny hats.