Cole Perriman's Terminal Games

by Wim Coleman

  I WOULD CHOOSE NOT TO EXIST.

  WHY?

  IT WOULD NOT BE WORTH EXISTING.

  WHY?

  BECAUSE I CANNOT BE ETERNAL.

  Marianne felt that pang of pity again. If Auggie was true to his word, he would put an end to his life in the next few minutes.

  If he is true to his word …

  She shuddered again at the thought of her own broken promises. Would Maisie keep the network turned on? Would Auggie, the ultimate trickster, be true to his word?

  For the moment, there was nothing else to say. Marianne stared at her computer clock and waited. Time slowed considerably during this last handful of minutes. Then, at long last, five o’clock had come. Marianne felt a terrible anticipation. Now Auggie was experiencing a time of day he never knew existed—standing face to face with the simple fact of his own nothingness. Now he understood. He simply had to.

  The clock has struck thirteen.

  Then Auggie’s words appeared on the screen.

  I MUST ASK YOU AGAIN. WHAT IS DEATH?

  Marianne felt her throat catch a little before she typed her final, fatal pronouncement.

  I DO NOT KNOW.

  Then the monitor erupted into a blaze of whiteness—an explosive flash so fierce that Marianne feared it would burst her screen. She shielded her eyes. The speaker, too, crackled with a loud, ferocious hiss.

  Then the hissing died away. A silence followed. Marianne lowered her hands from her eyes. Insomnimania’s desktop maze was back on the screen, displaying the routes to Babbage Beach and the Speakers’ Corner and Casino del Camino.

  The Basement was gone.

  But I must make sure.

  And again, she typed the words …

  “Auggie is Auggie”

  … and struck the return key.

  Across the desktop maze, two words appeared in a standardized rectangular box …

  INVALID COMMAND

  He really did it. Marianne’s sigh held more exhaustion than relief. He did just what he promised.

  But was he really dead?

  The Basement had been the center of Auggie’s mind. Auggie had, in effect, fired a bullet through his frontal lobes. Auggie’s personality, Auggie’s very self was gone.

  Then he was truly dead.

  And now, how did Marianne feel? She sat staring at the two words on her computer screen, exploring her own reactions. She was surprised at her feeling of finality. She had spent many days coming to terms with Renee’s death, but Auggie’s death already seemed real.

  And yes, she felt a deep, pitying horror. She knew that Auggie had only existed for a few months, but she couldn’t shake the feeling that he was also very ancient—as old as consciousness itself. It was a terrible thing to bring about the death of a creature so singular, so mysterious. And in an awful way she felt sickened even to consider, she had been closer to Auggie than she had ever been to anyone. It would have been easier to lead a total stranger to his death.

  But then she thought of the lives she had saved, of the people Auggie now would never kill.

  I did the right thing.

  And she sighed again—this time with a mounting sense of relief. She logged off Insomnimania and turned off her computer. At that very moment, she was startled by the sound of her phone ringing. She picked it up. It was Maisie.

  “Well, I did it, kid,” Maisie said. “Can I shut down now?”

  “Sure. Thanks for your help.’

  “We just got some kind of goofy surge.”

  “I’m not surprised.”

  “Just what the fuck happened?”

  “Let me get some sleep, Maisie,” Marianne said tiredly. “I’ll file a report tomorrow, okay?”

  “You’re starting to sound like a cop,” Maisie said.

  “Maybe I’m starting to sound like a cop’s wife,” Marianne said with a laugh. “Anyway, thanks again. I owe you one.”

  “Don’t expect me to forget it.”

  Marianne hung up the phone. She felt a deep relaxation creeping through every muscle in her body—a relaxation far more profound than any she had achieved in her recent meditations. It came from knowing her terrible ordeal was over. And it came, too, from having searched out, comprehended, and put an end to the creature who had destroyed Renee.

  Again, Marianne considered calling Nolan. But it was still only a few minutes after five o’clock. It was hardly the time to try to explain to him the extraordinary events of the last few hours—hardly the time to try to make him understand that the Auggie case was over. What Marianne needed right now was sleep—a couple of hours, at least, before she talked to Nolan.

  She turned off her office light, leaving only the soft hall light on. She made her way to the bathroom, where she took a long, luxurious shower. The hard pellets of hot water felt unspeakably soothing and luxurious. They washed away the pain and ugliness and terror of the whole event. She got out of the shower, dried herself, slipped into her kimono, and began to walk toward her bedroom. But on the way, she noticed an odd glow emanating from her office. She walked into her office and looked around.

  To her shock, she saw that her computer was on, displaying the marbleized screen-saver.

  But I turned it off. I know I turned it off.

  Her hand trembled as she reached over to nudge the mouse. When she did, five words appeared across a black background.

  DON’T YOU WANT TO KNOW?

  Marianne shuddered deeply.

  He’s here. Auggie’s in my house.

  11110

  DON’T YOU WANT TO KNOW?

  Marianne stood staring at the message in a momentary state of paralysis. Her first thought was to reach for the telephone and dial 911. But her hand froze in motion as she noticed the door to her office closet. It was ajar. She knew she had left it closed. Was Auggie in there? At this moment, were his eyes watching her through that narrow, dark opening?

  No time.

  If the murderous clown was in there, she had no time to make a telephone call.

  She picked up the expensive, heavy, crystal paperweight sitting next to her computer and crept slowly, silently, vigilantly past the closet toward the hallway. She heard no sound. No one leaped out of the closet to stop her on her way. Outside her office, she could see no one in the hallway. The nearest door leading outside was in the kitchen. She moved carefully in that direction.

  Still clutching the crystal paperweight, Marianne crouched behind the well-stocked bar that separated the living room from the kitchen. She peeked around the end of the bar. Moonlight was pouring through the kitchen’s enormous windows. Marianne saw nothing threatening there, but her view was incomplete. She rose slowly to her feet and stepped squarely into the kitchen. She paused briefly to note a pungent smell that filled the air.

  Gasoline?

  At that moment, Auggie lunged directly in front of her. He seemed to have dropped from the ceiling, or to have materialized from shadows. Marianne staggered slightly backward.

  Auggie stood staring at her. He wore a leather jacket and leather gloves and his face was covered by a clown-face ski mask—a mask with a downturned mouth that looked black in the moonlight. He was not more than four feet away from her.

  Without stopping to think. Marianne reached toward a wooden block that held a set of kitchen knives. She grabbed the largest knife. Now she clutched a heavy crystal paperweight in one hand and a huge kitchen knife in the other. But was she well-armed or excessively burdened? Could she actually use either of these weapons? Should she drop one or the other of them? Should she drop both?

  The last thing she wanted was to take the offensive. But she didn’t dare turn and run through the house toward the front entryway. She wouldn’t risk turning her back on Auggie.

  “Hello, Marianne,”
Auggie said, in a strange, high, almost falsetto voice. “It is Marianne, isn’t it? Not Elfie. Not Babylonia. It’s Marianne—my personal hallucination, my personal Pierrot.”

  Auggie took a step toward her. Marianne took a halting step back.

  “Stay—stay away,” she stammered.

  “But don’t you want to know?” murmured Auggie.

  “What?” Marianne cried—although she was not sure whether she had spoken the question aloud or only in her mind.

  “Don’t you want to know what death is?” Auggie continued. “You’re forcing me to learn. You made me destroy the Basement, my home and my mind. Do you think I—what’s left of me—can survive for long in this measly meaty frame? No, Marianne. Soon I’ll know all about those missing hours you showed me. Soon I’ll be that void. I’m eager to learn what death is. Don’t you want to know, too?”

  And suddenly, he lunged—not directly toward her, but slightly to her left. Marianne found herself driven behind the bar. Auggie had her cornered.

  Stupid.

  Auggie stepped toward her. Marianne clumsily hurled the paperweight with her left hand, missing him entirely. She switched the knife to her left hand and groped around a bar shelf with her right. Her hand closed on a liquor bottle, which she threw at him. She hurled a heavy glass, then another. But in the dim light that filtered in from the hall and through the front windows, she could see that Auggie successfully, almost uncannily, dodged her missiles or shielded himself against them with his arms. Auggie was untouched.

  Marianne’s fingers closed on another glass. The expensive crystal glasses with the gray smoked bases had been a symbol of her new life—purchased when she moved to Santa Barbara for parties she had never given. Now Marianne felt a kind of manic glee at destroying them as, one after another, she smashed them at her adversary.

  The breaking glasses had no effect upon Auggie. He was moving slowly, almost casually, toward her. Marianne scrambled up over the top of the bar, fell to the floor on the other side, stumbled to her feet, and started toward the front entrance.

  But Auggie was standing in the short hallway that led to the front door. He was carrying an outsized paper sunflower in one hand and a garden watering bucket in the other.

  But how?

  Marianne’s head whirled with confusion.

  How did he get there?

  And where had the flower and bucket come from?

  Marianne again noticed the smell of gasoline, just as she had back in the kitchen. And she realized that Auggie wasn’t even looking at her. He was staring past her, to her right. Marianne spun around in the direction of his gaze.

  Her breath left her.

  There was Auggie, standing at the end of the bar.

  She whirled around again.

  Auggie was still standing in the front doorway, holding the sunflower and the garden bucket filled with gasoline.

  Marianne felt her first real wave of panic.

  Two of them!

  Two Auggies.

  And clad in their colorful clown ski masks with black leather jackets, black gloves, and black pants, they were absolutely identical.

  The Auggie in the front doorway lowered the sunflower and the garden bucket to the floor, still staring past Marianne. She turned and saw the Auggie by the bar stoop down and extend his arms toward the floor, apparently imitating his twin.

  Marianne’s eyes darted back and forth fearfully as both Auggies slowly stood straight again. Then each raised a hand—one his right and the other his left.

  And they waved at one another.

  They waved in perfect unison.

  What are they doing?

  *

  Auggie waved and his image waved.

  He nodded and his image nodded.

  He shook both arms and his image shook both arms.

  He hopped up and down on one leg and his image did so also.

  A mirror.

  His reflection duplicated his every move with utmost precision. He was a little surprised at his own rapt fascination.

  So what’s the big deal? I’ve seen myself in mirrors before.

  But this time it was different. This time there was no glass between himself and his reflection. This time his reflection was made of flesh and blood—another cell, another receptacle of his consciousness. And this time he was faced with all sorts of conundrums and paradoxes. For example

  Which Auggie was he?

  I’m the one who’s standing near the doorway.

  No, I’m the one who’s standing by the bar.

  I’m the one who just doused the house with gasoline.

  No, I’m the one who dodged that flying crystal.

  It was a delightfully perplexing experience—and altogether new to him.

  Perhaps this is what dying is all about. Perhaps I am about to watch myself split up into all my constituent cells until I vanish into infinite smallness.

  Both Auggie and his reflection now turned and looked at the woman—the creator of this situation.

  And what about her?

  Perhaps I can transform her into yet another reflection …

  *

  Marianne watched the two Auggies preening and posing, duplicating each other’s movements with seemingly telepathic accuracy. Then she realized …

  He didn’t plan this. He didn’t expect to meet himself here.

  They had both simply arrived after the destruction of the Basement. They had prowled the house, lying in wait for her, setting their traps for her, each unaware of the other. And now—as much to Auggie’s surprise as to hers—their minds had locked together. They were one mind, Auggie’s mind.

  The figures both stood staring at her for a moment. Then, in perfect falsetto unison, they both whispered:

  “Don’t you want to know?”

  She was standing with her back near a wall, the butcher knife still clutched in her hand. One of the Auggies was about ten feet to her left, and the other was exactly the same distance to her right.

  What was she going to do?

  Head for the front door.

  Marianne took one halting step toward the entry hall. But instead of rushing to detain her, the two figures each took a single, identical step in the same direction. Marianne stopped dead in her tracks, leaning slightly forward. Both of the figures held themselves suspended, perfectly duplicating every detail of her posture. Marianne took another step in the same direction. So did the figures.

  They were mirroring her every movement.

  But Marianne didn’t have the feeling of being imitated. To the contrary, it was as if her movements were being anticipated perhaps a thousandth of a second before she could make them. How could Auggie slip into her mind like that?

  But the answer was simple. He had been there. He had been inside her brain. And now he was there again, probing all the familiar spaces, sharing the electrochemical activities of her cerebrum, partaking of the binary activities of each and every synapse—one and zero, all and none, on and off in vast nets and clusters. It was a masterstroke of espionage, the ultimate mindfuck.

  One question still remained:

  Am I dictating their movements, or are they dictating mine?

  As if in reply, the characters murmured, “Don’t you want to know?”

  She had to get the two Auggies to break apart, to divide them, to free her own mind from them.

  She took a deep breath, then lunged recklessly toward the front door, her butcher knife flashing before her. And sure enough, both Auggies rushed toward her, breaking formation completely. Four strong, gloved hands seized the wrist of her knife-holding hand. She found herself wedged solidly between the two figures and could feel their noisy breaths upon her face and neck. Both Auggies were about Marianne’s height, b
ut they were heavier and stronger than she was.

  Her knife-holding hand was now invisible, completely enveloped by Auggie’s four gloved hands. All she could see was the dim glint of the blade. In a confusions of sensations, she was actually uncertain whether her hand was even there at all.

  The bodies pressed close on both sides of her. Marianne felt her very self flicker and fade into the melee. For a terrible moment there was only Auggie, a single figure waving a knife in the air.

  “Ahhhhhh …”

  A howl of pain and rage escaped from Marianne’s throat. It was the scream she had felt at Renee’s funeral, the pain she had finally experienced. And it was hers, her throat, her pain, not Auggie’s. She was separate again.

  She could feel her own hand holding the knife handle and the painful grip of other hands prying her fingers loose. She could feel her own legs buffeted by other legs. She found a space between those legs and lifted her knee as sharply as she could. She felt her knee make a firm contact with a patch of flesh. One of the Auggies groaned mightily. Through sheer luck, she had kneed one of them in the groin.

  The stricken Auggie released his grip on Marianne’s hand and fell away. Marianne then drove her elbow into the other Auggie’s ribs, and he backed away, too—more from surprise than pain.

  Marianne now stood in the center of the living room, holding the knife tightly in both hands, spinning around and around to view both of her assailants.

  The Auggie she had kneed moved gingerly back toward the bar, groaning and holding his groin. The other Auggie rushed toward the front door, stooped, and picked up the giant sunflower. He made a magician’s gesture in the air and the sunflower burst into flames. He threw the burning flower onto the floor in front of him. A row of red and yellow flames shot across in front of the figure. As if surprised by the flames, the figure backed into the entry hall.

  *

  I’m the one who started the fire.

  No, I’m the one watching the fire from across the room.

  I’m the one whose balls are in agony.

  No, I’m the one being scorched by the flames.

  Auggie’s fascinating symmetry was shattered. One of him felt intense heat while the other only smelled the approaching smoke. Auggie wanted to reunite. But he was separated by the wall of fire that roared between them.