Mind Games

by Alan Brudner

  "Look," she finally said. "Let's assume he's alive, okay? Unless and until we hear otherwise. Chances are he's somewhere out there, sitting in front of a computer, working on this subliminal suggestion project. Being forced to work on it. Maybe Kord plans to get rid of Sky when he's no longer useful, but for now Kord needs him to finish developing the program. We don't know anything for sure. But if we can interfere with Cybronics' systems—corrupt them, uninstall the subliminal suggestion program, delete it, erase it, ruin the operating system—then we can buy some time to locate Sky and get him out of there."

  "But we don't have a clue where in the world he is, Eliza! What city, or even what country! And we don't know anything about the software he's working on! Its name. His password. We don't even know what name Sky himself uses to log on! His screen name could be one of those hacker names like Acid Rock or Heavy Metal. Or it could be Abraham Lincoln or Isaac Newton or Babe Ruth!"

  "I know, Cliff," she said, her voice strangely calm. That's why we're going to have to destroy every single bit of the Cybronics system. Every program. Every code. Every signal. Every hard drive. Everywhere. Their systems will be so screwed up, they'll have a lot more to worry about than Schuyler Lightman. They might well decide they need Sky's brilliance and expertise to help get them out of their world-class jam. In other words, we have to do a lot of damage to save his ass. That's why I need state-of-the-art viruses."

  I stared and wondered if her logic circuits had been tampered with. "What if he's finished the subliminal suggestion program and is a Guinea pig in some crazy kind of suicide test? How will we stop him if the program prompts him to—to go off and—"

  "The program will never take effect, Cliff. Sky's computer will be nuked along with the rest."

  "How on earth are we going to do all that?"

  Eliza stared at me with an expression I knew too well. A facial cast I had repressed since I had last seen it on the day of a terrible Nor'easter. It was a look that said she knew I'd disapprove, but that nothing in the universe—certainly nothing I might do—could stop her.

  "I'm going to fill myself up like a Trojan horse with clones of the most devastating, most incurable fucking land-mine, Pandora's box computer viruses ever to exist," she said, her eyes narrowing into feline slits. "Then I'm going to spread a goddamned electronic AIDS virus through every single micron of Avery Kord's digital empire. The atomic bomb of logic viruses is going to explode like a series of plagues Avery Kord couldn't imagine in his wildest nightmares. By the time I'm through, Kord's central computer system's gonna think two plus two is an unsolvable conundrum."

  I continued to stare at her. I don't know if I was in awe or disbelief.

  "Eliza." I wasn't sure I knew what to say, but that didn't stop me from talking. "If you can get through some of the systems, won't some kind of defensive programs destroy you? And even if they don't, if you manage to do all you said, ruin all Cybronics' systems, wouldn't you end up destroying yourself in the process? I may be simpleminded, but the code that makes you work is part of the Cybronics system too. Sky created you out in Portland. You only come alive when the computer's plugged into a phone line, into the company's databases. Destroy those databases, and—"

  "I have to do it, Cliff," she said, her voice firm. "If you can't find him physically, this is the only way."

  "You didn't answer my question, Lize."

  "I didn't want to."

  I felt my muscles tense. I knew I was hyperventilating but I couldn't stop. A sharp pain stung me near my heart.

  "I don't want to lose you again, Eliza," I managed to mouth.

  "And I don't want to lose what we have either, Cliff," she responded, biting her lip. She looked as troubled as I felt. I wanted to hold her in my arms, to feel the beating of her heart, the breaths heaving in her chest. But I had to settle for memory and illusion. She was a damn good wife. And a world-class avatar.

  "He's my son," she said, the resolve back in her tone. "You'll probably have to hit the Send button a few thousand times to distribute E-mails that contain the viruses. I haven't worked out the details yet."

  "It's totally illegal," I called out. "Not that it matters." I had to raise my voice because I had walked away from the monitor and over to the mini-bar. I began to calculate what it would cost me to drink every miniature bottle of liquor in it. I was going to start with the Dewar's, the pre-mixed margaritas, the Remy Martin VSOP. After that there were two Tanquerays, a Bacardi, a couple of Johnny Walkers and some Chivas. A couple of Glenlivets, some Crown Royal, a Grand Marnier. People must like vodka, I figured, because there were four Absoluts and four Stolis. A couple of Bailey's and a couple of Dry Sacks, too. Two Buds, two Millers and a Heineken to wash it all down.

  I opened a mini-bottle of Chivas and raised it to my lips. Then I put it down without taking a sip.

  I poured it into the toilet. One by one, I followed with the others. $287 flushed down the drain. Then I walked back over to the computer.

  "He's our son," I said, winking at Eliza. "This time, I'm going to be there when it counts."

  Chapter 31

  I had no idea my fingers could move that fast. The thought of losing either Schuyler or Eliza or both was all the motivation I needed.

  The San Francisco Six were finally identified. The group reportedly included two former Cybronics employees. Although both had resigned in recent months, both left letters in their homes noting their admiration for Avery Kord, to supplement the pro-Kord sentiment of the suicide note the whole group had initialed. The media portrayed them all as smart, passionate, impressionable people. Whiz kids. Schuyler could have been any one of them.

  But he wasn't. He didn't attend a recent industry conference in San Francisco, as it was reported all the others did.

  There was no sign of my son in Portland. The police sergeant agreed to paste posters on trees, traffic light poles, the sides of trolleys. All over Fareless Square, the heart of downtown. And he'd have a few friends do the same up in the Willamette Valley, the Oregon wine country, the mountains. He sent his regards, his best wishes, his suggestion that I join a grief group to begin the mourning process—"Just in case, Mister, Sir." But he was working on it. And on nailing Hank Driver. The man left Portland after he broke Tammy Wood's nose and cut her so badly with a broken mirror that she needed eighteen stitches across her face. When she was released from the hospital she went down to the precinct and turned over some perverted child pornography that he photographed. According to the sergeant, some of the children seemed younger than age 7 and one girl, whose face was shown as it was urinated on, still wore a diaper.

  I felt good about Tammy's decision to cooperate, happy to hear the Portland cops might be able to close in on Driver. But the sergeant said Tammy didn't know anything about Sky's disappearance other than recalling my visit to the apartment. Driver had brought her there that morning and told her to keep quiet and act as if he usually lived there. The apartment was a condo that Driver owned and sublet to Cybronics, which probably accounted for why it was listed as Driver's address rather than Sky's in the Portland police computers. So to me this all was interesting but useless information.

  Lucille told me that ISI still had come up with nothing about Sky. He hadn't left a trail with his credit cards or gotten any speeding tickets, so Bart Casey had no idea where he might be. But Casey had forwarded more information to her about Driver's Cayman Islands bank account.

  "ISI's got a contact in the Caymans, Mr. Lightman. Some Detective Inspector down there. I don't know how they do it."

  "We're not supposed to know." I tried to think of ballplayers I once knew who might have come from the Cayman Islands. None came to mind.

  "Mr. Casey said the weather was great down there, really good for his back, and that he had a look at the bank records in person. He wasn't allowed to copy them."

  "The trip's on me, obviously. If you talk to him again, Lucille, tell him I want a receipt for every cent."

  "He's already sent a bu
nch, Mr. Lightman. Anyway, there have been lots and lots of small deposits into the account—a thousand here, a couple thousand there."

  "Driver's into child porn and other ugly stuff, Lucille. Dirty pictures and what have you. It must be where he hides the proceeds."

  "I guess. But there have been a couple of biggies, too. There was a hundred thousand dollar deposit when it was opened. May 1982. A wire transfer. Then a lot of tens and twenty thousands over the years. They add up to almost half a million, but there was no single one of big size again, until last week. Fifty thousand more."

  "That's it?"

  "You want to know where the wires came from? I mean the two biggies?"

  "Whatever you've got, Lucille."

  "Mr. Casey said he can't get names. Just places. Or one place, in this case."

  "Portland, Oregon?"

  "How'd you ever guess, Mr. Lightman?"

  I called Yale, but there was no sign of Schuyler there. Doctor Wigman expressed his concern, wanted me to send Sky up to see him as soon as I found him. There would be more posters and a photographic ad in the Alumni Weekly.

  There was no answer at Scarlett Exner's house.

  No rational answer at Annie Wilnot's number, either. Just the faraway, troubled voice of a woman who had lost everything.

  I tried everyone I knew, everyone I thought Sky knew. His college and high school friends. A paraplegic kid Sky had stayed in touch with since first grade. A number of his math professors. I also asked for suggestions from several of the outside lawyers we used at Terrell Finch. The senior partners at Snelmer and Pickens said they'd mull it over. Since I told them to go ahead only if it was free, I knew they wouldn't mull too long. I even placed a call up to Eno Loggia, on the off-chance that Sky went up to visit the winery. Eno's answering machine advised that he was away on vacation.

  I went back to St. Andrew's Church. No recent meetings in the basement, I was advised. Father MacMillan still had my business card, knew where to call if necessary.

  I didn't eat for two days. Didn't drink, either, except for frequent cups of coffee. Visited Lucille at the office. She had no luck with her phone calls, but she arranged for an 800 number: 1-800-FIND-SKY. And for publicity in airports, bus terminals, train stations. I went to the psychotherapist, the local synagogue, the local church, the local mosque. A psychic with a crystal ball refunded my fee after an hour because she said the ball was out of order. I started wearing a gold Star of David with a cross down the center. Carried a rabbit's foot.

  I lost four pounds and gained black circles under my eyes like the pine tar some ballplayers use to reduce glare.

  If I kept it up, I figured I'd soon be joining Eliza and Katie and the San Francisco Six and Justin Webb on some big ethereal line waiting for hors d'oeuvres. My heartbeat felt increasingly arrhythmic and I developed an annoying ringing in my ears.

  I called hospitals but avoided morgues. Called every Cybronics office I could find listed in a 20-million number CD-ROM phone directory. Funny thing. A few months earlier, I wouldn't have known how to insert it into my E: drive. I wouldn't have even known which drive was my E: drive.

  After three days, four days, a big blur of days, I crashed. My body gave out.

  It needed sleep.

  It needed nourishment.

  Most of all, it needed some reason for hope.

  Chapter 32

  I dreamed I was awake.

  I dreamed we were in the middle of a snowstorm, the deepest and ugliest Nor'easter in decades. Cars were buried in white piles, the doors of houses were forced shut by windy drifts, and many homeless were dying a cold white death.

  Schuyler was working at a Cybronics plant in New Haven, Connecticut. He had recently been clinically depressed, according to doctors Avery Kord had recommended. The doctors couldn't quite determine why, the Prozac was proving to be just a short-term fix, and his bouts of anxiety were relentless.

  "Dad," Sky said on the phone, slurring his words, "I feel like my mind's outside, watching my body in a 3-D animation sequence. Like virtual reality. It seems inevitable that I'm going to pick up a blade and cut something, wrists or ankles or something...I just can't get myself back to normal."

  "Go to the hospital right now," I begged my son. "And don't tell Avery Kord which one. Go down to Hartford General."

  "I'll try, Dad, if I can get up and move," he promised. "I'll have to pretend I've got a remote control for my legs or something."

  "I'm coming up right away," Eliza mouthed into the extension phone. "I love you, Sky."

  "I know, Mom. This just isn't about that."

  After we hung up the phone, she ran to the closet and put on her coat.

  "There are two feet of snow out there, Lize," I said. "There's no way to get up to New Haven. Wait 'til it's cleared."

  "That could take three days or a week," she said. "He's our son."

  "He's going to Hartford General."

  "Cliff, I'd never forgive myself if—"

  I grabbed her as she took her keys out of her coat pocket. I yelled so loud I think I damaged my vocal cords.

  "Be reasonable, Eliza! There is a fucking blizzard out there!"

  She just stared at me with narrowing eyes.

  "Please!"

  She stood there. I let go, and I let her open the door that led from inside the house to the garage. She got into the Ford Explorer and started the ignition. I walked next to the driver side door and motioned for her to roll down the window. Instead, she opened the main garage door with the remote control.

  A razorsharp cold engulfed the garage as the windy white-streamed air swept in. Before I could stop her, before the clouds of my hurried breath could dissipate, the Explorer was on its way. It was elevated and had four-wheel drive, a heavy muscular vehicle, and Eliza must have felt in control. I know she wouldn't have gone if she believed otherwise.

  I was frozen in more ways than one. I had no shoes on and my toes felt as if they were buried in ice; my coatless body shivered in the chill of the air.

  I closed the garage door and walked back inside the house. I thought briefly. I decided first to ensure that Schuyler made it over to Hartford General. Then I'd go up after my wife.

  I called Sky's number. No answer. I tried again. No answer.

  I called Hartford information to get a number and tell them to get ready, but I reached a recording stating that due to the inclement weather, the administrative staff had been relieved for the day. I had barely hung up the phone when it rang.

  It was Scarlett. She was talking on a cell phone from Schuyler's BMW. He was driving to Hartford General. He'd be okay until the next day. Dr. Wigman from Yale was going to meet them there.

  I put on heavy woolen socks, my boots, a sweater and a down parka. I quickly tossed some extra clothes and supplies into a duffel bag, along with some chocolate kisses and a can of Coke. I turned off all the houselights and went back to the garage. Driving the Camry in this weather would be a lot tougher than the Explorer, but I had no choice.

  The Beatles sang A Day In The Life on the radio as I drove. I gripped the steering wheel so hard my cold sweaty palms froze to it and I lost a small amount of skin when I pulled them off.

  When I was finally able to push the speedometer to 30 mph on I-95, I didn't go far before I started seeing a red light, turning, again and again illuminating the snow. There were no warning flares on the road, no safety triangles. Just the round red light atop a police car turning, repetitively, bathing the white snow in an eerie red glow with each revolution. Two cars in front of me had stopped, and as I inched closer to the scene, a sick phlegmatic feeling crawled into the pit of my stomach.

  In the distance I could hear sirens: ambulance sirens, firetruck sirens, police sirens. I had never learned to distinguish. They got fainter and I knew they were moving away, to a hospital or, I prayed, toward the consciousness of my waking day and out of this horrible nightmare.

  Frustrated, I packed a tight wet snowball together and fired a fastball
at a traffic light a hundred yards away. I hit the joint that held the light fixture, the precise spot I had aimed for. The impact broke the joint so that the light swayed in the whipping gusts, attached only by its exposed wires.

  I got back into my car and started to drive, getting up to ninety miles per hour but never gaining ground on the ambulance, unable to see anything but its red light glowing through the windy haze. When I arrived at the hospital she was in a coma, electrode wires connecting her shaved scalp to a brain wave monitor, a respirator tube inserted into her windpipe through a hole that appeared to have been cut by something no more precise than a hacksaw.

  "Eliza," I said as I walked in.

  No response.

  "Shutterbug," I whispered.

  She blinked.

  A Radio Shack cassette player sat on the table next to her. I pushed the PLAY button and my wife's voice emerged.

  "Schuyler's in the room next door, Cliff," the tape of Eliza announced. "He's dying. Tried to kill himself. Overdosed. His heart is giving out. He needs a transplant."

  "What can I do, Lize?"

  Charlene walked in, turned off the cassette player and felt Eliza's pulse. Then the nurse looked over at me.

  "Both The Missus and your son need a heart transplant, Uncle Clay. And Katie's heart still be good and strong. She would want it used to save a life. And it be their type."

  "Whose type?"

  "Mrs. Clay's type, sir. And your boy's type, too, of course. He be her son."

  "Then which one of them will get it?"

  "That be up to you, Uncle Clay," Charlene said. "Neither your wife nor your boy be well enough to decide. That be up to you."

  "Why? Why me?"

  •

  My sheets were drenched in a cold sweat I could feel through both my pajamas and my dream state. I was aware that I was asleep, that this was a nightmare that would end soon. But I couldn't wake myself up. I was powerless, trapped.

  •

  "Why me?" I again asked Charlene.