In addition, Catherine’s relationship with Jacky seemed on the mend.
“I don’t think that Cath will accept that theory of yours, Leon. She’s very headstrong about what she knows.”
“I’ll tell her that the results aren’t in yet. There are some things I’d like to ask her if she’ll let me put her under again… interesting things.”
Catherine was somewhat rejuvenated, her old smile was cautiously sneaking back. She seemed confidant, more self-assured, and a hint of enthusiasm for a new chapter without LifeGames in it was buoying her.
“There’s no need for a treatment, Leon,” she insisted. “The problem’s resolved… I can just feel it… and I’d just as soon leave it… forget it ever happened. When can I get the hell out of this place?”
“Discharging you isn’t up to me, Cath. I can motivate for it, but it’s not my decision. If you’re truly convinced it’s over, you’d make me feel a lot more confident I’m doing you a favor if you’d give me one more shot, one more quick session… much more confident.”
“I can’t tell you how much work I have backed up… it’ll put me back in here if you don’t clear me out of here soon.”
“Come on, Cath,” Nancy cast her vote in Leon’s favor. “You’re his responsibility, please make it a little easier on him, please.”
“I see… I have a team of doctors,” she huffed then looked injured. “I’m not getting the green light until I cooperate, is that it?”
“Something like that, Cath… something like that.” Leon was nodding, “No green light I’m afraid.”
Fifteen minutes later, Catherine’s face was serene and calm as she described every excruciating detail of the cyber-sex session with matter of fact frankness.
“…I am strapped onto the gyroscope. Inside the helmet is black… Ah, now there’s a snow effect and the hiss in my ears, I can feel Ken circling me, he’s studying my body, it… it’s very uncomfortable… awkward… This is probably a bad idea… Jeez, it’s very sexy though! Come on Ken… What’s taking so long? This is ridiculous. Should I take this goddamned helmet off? I’m really starting to feel disorientated. If I don’t re-orientate myself soon, I’m going to throw-up! What’s thi…? Oh… thank God, the snow’s gone! What is this place? Good God, it’s strange… some kind of village! Wow—is that a palace… looks almost like the entrance to my house…? It’s a hell of a lot larger. Ooh…? That guy’s seen me, he’s coming over. Quite the bod too…
“All right, Catherine. The memory is over, you’re still asleep. Before I wake you… When the helmet was on… did you hear my voice at all, in your ears… hypnotizing you before the game?”
“No.”
“See…!” Nancy whispered urgently.
“Hmmm… okay… Alright…”
“Convinced?” Nancy challenged.
“Almost,” Leon replied, turning back to Catherine. “Catherine, after you put the helmet on. Are you absolutely positive that you did not hear my voice or any form of hypnosis; there’s a rapping sound we tag all subjects with… like four fingers drumming on a table… sounds like a horse gallop—you should remember it, if it had run…?”
“No…”
“At no time did you hear it? Nothing like it… it would sound like this…”
And Leon clattered his fingernails in a fast gallop on a tabletop; druumph, drumph, drumph.
“No,” Catherine’s eyes were lazy slits, the half exposed pupil devoid of emotion and in an unfocused stare.
“You were not hypnotized at any time?”
“No.”
“How many hours of game did you experience?”
“Two sunsets, one sunrise.”
“Are you sure… absolutely certain that you didn’t experience an hour or two?”
“Yes.”
“How many hours of real time did you use?”
“One hour and six minutes.”
“Are you sure? Only sixty six minutes?”
“Yes.”
“If you were not hypnotized, how do you think Ken Time Dilated you?”
Catherine did not answer, confusion painted across her face.
“All right, Catherine. It’s all right. Forget that question.”
Nancy nodded, as Leon grudgingly shook his head in amazement.
“All right Catherine, I’m going to count you awake,” he began the count.
Catherine had described in minute detail everything from the moment she’d set foot on the LifeGames premises to the undressing sequence. It was a necessary and legitimate pry into her memory, imperative because Leon needed to remove every last vestige of doubt from his own mind.
That Ken had some other method beyond hypnosis to achieve Time Dilation seemed inconceivable, but the evidence was irrefutable.
During Catherine’s most intimate reminiscence, neither Nancy nor Leon could look at one another. Both blushing for her, a sneaky arousal within each of them.
Ahead of the session, knowing what was likely to be revealed and feeling the need to clear the air, Leon had declared his position; “Don’t worry Nance, I’m not going to record this,” he had held up his ancient recorder to display its static cogs, no recording tape running through the mechanism.
Nancy appreciated his commitment to integrity.
“I must thank you for your cooperation Catherine, so sorry I had to put you through it, but I had to be certain of something.”
“Sure, it was painless,” Catherine shrugged.
“I’ve got an apology to make to you,” Leon admitted, his expression serious and sincere. “Until this session I did not believe that you could have experienced Dilation. The session’s convinced me… I’m wrong, dead wrong. What you’ve disclosed makes no sense, makes no sense at all.”
“Shew… Well that’s a bit of a relief, hey… that you now believe me.” She said it sarcastically, ironically.
“Sorry.”
“I was pretty upset with him for doubting you Cath, think about it though… Leon’s alliance is worth more now precisely because he was skeptical? If he’d believed whatever was concocted, without first trying to disprove it, his opinions and loyalty wouldn’t carry the weight.”
“So it’s a drug then… in the champagne? We drank champagne before the run.”
Leon nodded, “Thank you Cath, under hypnosis you told me.”
“If it wasn’t in the champagne, then where? The patch?”
Leon was hesitant but no longer adamant.
“In the champagne? Possibly… Maybe in the patches? I’m no chemist, but that would take some very sophisticated alchemy.”
“So what? Everything LifeGames does is sophisticated. Our business is sophistication and technology,” Nancy argued.
“True… Nance… true. You know what kind of investment that would take?”
“You know what kind of dividends it would pay…? You know what dividends it is paying?” Nancy retorted.
“So where’s the R&D in the budget?”
“Oh, come on, Leon. You’re not serious?”
“Until it’s proven…” Leon insisted.
“When the two of you are done, there’s a patient who needs discharging.”
“Nothing we can do till your primary physician signs it off, I’m afraid… but I’ll put in a good word… a very good word.”
There was a momentary silence and then Nancy provoked Leon with her Ace;
“Foul balms, Leon… Very foul balms… This sure gives Roger’s words some meaning….”
“Fernando,” Leon corrected her.
“But it was Roger who said it. Fernando isn’t a proven personality.”
“Okay… point made, Nance… very good point made. I’ll tell you; fiddling with drugs would explain why Ken was so adamant to bring Craig in. His only qualification was pharmaceuticals… he really had no designation.”
“And after he joined us, we had the big breakthrough,” Nancy wore a smug look.
“Well then, I’m an outsider. Whose in on it?”
“Ken!” They sang in unison.
“And?” Leon insisted.
“Craig’s death… an accident?” Nancy pondered.
“They found drugs in his car, remember?” Leon added.
“Planted drugs,” Catherine scoffed. “I barely knew him, but wasn’t he a real family man?”
“He was, but it became a real mess when Ken got back into his life. But a family wouldn’t exclude drugs,” Nancy added, “…don’t you know the rumors…? Craig had quite the addiction and more than a bit of history with Ken.”
“The police report read ‘no foul play, accidental death—case closed’,” Leon emphasized.
“Police get bought,” Nancy observed.
“Soon as he got it right, Craig became expendable!” Catherine added.
“More than expendable. I’d say a security risk to Ken,” Nancy escalated it.
“Not necessarily, ladies, not necessarily.” Leon observed. “The timing? The same day we lost Roger to his past… and Craig died within 24 hours; if it’s a formula and the formula’s got a flaw… Ken’o would need him.”
“Unless he needed a scapegoat more,” Nancy threw a new curve.
They plumbed the unknown waters, on a tangent, dowsing for a probable cause to Roger’s regression.
Every line of deduction they followed doubled back on itself, leaving them as bewildered as when they’d begun. Only one thing was clear; something sinister was going on, and Ken looked like the only one with the answers—many vested interests in keeping them secret, and the money, power, influence, cunning and lack of scruples to achieve it.
When all seemed at a dead end, Nancy recalled a detail;
“You know… Jeez… do I feel stupid! A few weeks after Craig’s death, he had me organize to have some hardware moved from a small facility I didn’t even know we had… We have so much hardware in so many properties, it’s easy for something like this to slip through. But there were some breakages in transit, and I had to put in an insurance claim. It was for laboratory equipment. I didn’t query it, but I did think it odd… especially odd that it was being delivered to an address pretty close to Ken’s house… a residential house.”
“Hmmm…” was all Leon would commit.
“When’re my blood results going to be ready? Surely they’ll show something?” Catherine queried.
“Oooh, Catherine… now that’s another apology, another apology indeed,” Leon admitted. “The tests came up negative. I was so convinced that drugging was improbable… I didn’t want you to waste money so I only had them run elementary analyses.”
Catherine was upset but pragmatic, and only gave Leon a light chewing out;
“So the jury’s still out then… it’s a definite-maybe…”
“I’m truly sorry, Catherine. Truly, truly sorry.”
Catherine blew a defeated huff; “No matter. More tests then?”
“I’ll pay… it’s the least I can do… the very least. And I’ll arrange from Roger… But I do have another angle… I want to play a recording for you, Catherine. Tell me the first thing that comes to your mind, the very first thing.”
At the first strains of the sound Catherine bolted rigid and gasped, “Christ Jesus!” Her breathing ragged as if she’d sprinted up stairs.
Leon cut the recording, “What is it?” he asked.
“I… I don’t know?” She was stricken with panic, in the room with phantoms again, no longer lucid—her eyes darting, her shivers returned.
Nancy leapt to console her, “Relax honey, nothing’s wrong. It was just the recording.”
“My nightmares… they’re… it’s like they’re back.”
“Because of the sound?” Leon probed.
“It… it must be. I don’t know. Fuck… I’m suddenly jumpy.”
“All right, Catherine. I’m not going to put it on again, I know what it is now.”
The Pavlovian response had smashed Catherine to the threshold of a nightmare, a stimulated suppressed memory; evidence that ripped the last shreds of doubt from Leon’s mind—the sound was the common thread that ran through all of the madness and intrigue, triggering or accompanying specific paranormal episodes.
Each time he heard it, Leon realized it stirred something peculiar within him too.
But all of the recordings had been played to lucid victims; Leon had not yet tried it on a hypnotized subject. It was a final test he was keen to make, and he’d make it on his star patient; His Holiness, The Good Bishop of Andalusia.
Chapter 29
The instant he opened his eyes and saw the two women sitting before him, Fernando, the cantankerous and ferocious Bishop of Andalusia, looked away.
“I would be obliged to have these women removed from my chambers,” he said it with disdain and disgust.
As if the brooding lethality of his Special Forces demeanor was steadily being siphoned away into his precursor personality; Roger Daly’s temperament was slowly becoming humanized.
When Nancy and Catherine had entered Roger’s room and Leon had introduced them, Roger had smiled genially, glad for the feminine interruption to an otherwise dull evening of television. He’d chatted easily with them, and slowly a spark of gallantry had crept in, softening him yet further.
Leon had played Craig’s recording to Roger.
Although it had made him agitated, he’d remained adamant that he could not identify the origin of his emotional switch, nor could he say if or when he’d heard the sounds before.
At the sound of the recording Catherine had again found herself overwhelmed by terror, bracing against an impulse to hide.
It had been eight days since her release from the Santa Clara Hospital, eleven glorious days since Ken’s last attack two Sundays past, and during that interim she had recovered her old self, becoming absorbed into both her work and her fully restored relationship with Jacky.
Her hatred for Ken was now without bounds. She’d severed all ties with him and officially withdrawn as advertising and PR consultant to LifeGames.
From what Leon had established through cunning cross-questioning and general observation, it had also been eleven days since Ken had last dreamed of Catherine.
Jacky’s acceptance of Nancy had vastly improved when the trio had dined together.
Catherine’s second intensive blood panel had turned up negative. The only remarkable notation read; ‘abnormally high red corpuscle count’, consistent with increased metabolism due to the nutritional patch.
Similarly, Roger’s panel showed ‘certain impurities’ that eluded identification. All talk about the inquest to take the matter further suddenly evaporated and everybody Leon talked to had developed amnesia to the earlier speculations.
In light of the negative blood panels, a patch would be invaluable if they were to move forward with the suspicions, but that posed a great difficulty; every patch, whether used or unused, was barcoded and tracked to the incinerator.
To this end, the company went to great lengths, even couriering used patches back from around the globe to Head Office where they were checked off the books and committed to the furnace.
But Ken had unwittingly opened a door; Kampala was his headache branch, regularly fouling up administration. Nancy had selected an incomplete inbound consignment, and removed one more used patch from the package already short three items.
She’d kept her illicit actions from Leon; if he was ignorant of the fact, he couldn’t be held guilty by association.
They’d passed the stolen patch on to a friend of Catherine’s who worked at a local university. He’d warned that it would take him some time to establish a result for the analysis.
Where, sliding into hypnosis, Roger had been welcoming to the women at his bedside, his alter-ego personality, Fernando, had only disdain and indignation for them sitting before him as he’d awoken.
After the curtain had been drawn around his bed, with the women beyond it, the Bishop had grudgingly become marginally more cooperative. Their prese
nce within earshot continued to rile him and he grumbled about it, how Leon had insulted him in his deepest sentiments; how dare he give these women an audience without consent… how dare he only mask them by a simple curtain… it was intolerable!
The Bishop veered off into Spanish, making no apology for chauvinistic outrage; “QUE DESGRACIA! PONERME EN LA COMPANIA DE MUJERES!” Did Leon not know that he was a high-ranking official in the church? Did Leon not realize that if respect were not forthcoming, he would impose it!
And then it got worse—The Bishop looked through his window, across the courtyard and into the opposite wing where the flickering movements of a television caught his eye. He pointed it out to Leon and refused to continue their interview until it was removed; the closure of his blinds would not suffice.
With folded arms and pouting lips he fixed his eyes toward the ceiling. Before he would speak another word this “…diabolical evil, this tongue of Satan, had to be entirely cauterized… removed from the building.”
As he waited patiently for hospital staff to remove the offending monitor, Leon realized that it was going to be a trying session.
He hoped that Fernando wouldn’t realize that, just beyond the curtain, stood his very own evil tongue, in the dormant state of being switched off.
Explaining the delay to Nancy and Catherine, Leon had whispered softly. “We could be here all night if he gets wind of the other two hundred sets in the building!”
Returning once more into Fernando’s presence, the quarrelsome pontiff’s aloofness had exaggerated yet further; how dare this man abandon his presence to talk to women… to women—it was downright insolent!
Leon had to grovel in apology.
After what seemed an age, action began across the courtyard in the offending room. Leon watched as confusion and irritation unfolded when the television was turned off, unplugged and carried away. Fingers were pointed at Fernando’s ward across the divide, and hands were raised in askance and heads vigorously shaken in dismay.
All the while, the distinguished cause of the problem sat regally watching proceedings with detached satisfaction. He’d cleansed the world of one more great evil… he’d teach these ignorant heathens a lesson in decorum.
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