Head Trip

by D. L. Line

  Shelby stepped out into the frigid night and pulled her jacket close against the chill.

  “I’ll go get the car, Shel. Will you be okay?”

  “I’m fine, Jake. Go get the car.”

  *

  The insistent buzz of her cell phone woke Shelby from a foggy dream. She reached for her phone, spilling the glass of water on her bedside table.

  “Shit. Hello?”

  “Good morning to you too. This is Trish. I have news.”

  Trish. Head Trip. Tasha? No, Trish. Shelby sat up, pulling the covers with her.

  “Hi, Trish. I’m sorry. I spilled my water. What time is it?”

  “It’s ten thirty. Sorry if I woke you, but we have an appointment.”

  “We do?”

  “Yep, with one Andrew the Rat Boy at one.”

  The fog was beginning to clear, and replacing it was a combination of apprehension and anticipation. “We’re going to Head Trip together?”

  “After we met yesterday, I went back to the office and did some digging around. I have a couple contacts here and there at hospitals in the city. It seems you are definitely not the only Head Trip customer to have had health problems after their vacation. I don’t have names, but I do have numbers and symptoms. I called Andrew and told him we were coming to see him so he’d better clear his calendar.”

  Take-charge woman, indeed! “Wow, okay, I’ll meet you there at one. Trish? What is it we’re going to say to him exactly?”

  “Don’t worry about it. Just follow my lead. I’ve got the power of the press behind me, and I’m going to use it. See you at one.”

  Shelby clicked her phone off and tossed it on the bed.

  You need to be careful. She leads you into trouble, Shelby Hutchinson.

  “You would know all about that, wouldn’t you, Tasha?” She threw off her covers and went to the closet. “What does one wear to skewer a rat?”

  Leather is always appropriate.

  Shelby ran her hand down the buttery soft sleeve of her leather jacket. “You know, Tasha, on that I think we agree.”

  *

  At 12:55, heart pounding, Shelby stood in front of the Head Trip offices waiting for Trish. A cab pulled up to the curb in front of her, and when the door opened, the first thing Shelby saw was a pair of long legs and fabulous shoes stepping onto the sidewalk. She knew she was staring, but they were truly great legs, followed by an impressive suit, topped off by a face she knew well, or at least thought she did. By the time Trish had gracefully unfurled from the cab, Shelby had completely forgotten why she was there. This woman was not Tasha, the spy; neither was she Trish, the concerned bystander. She was Patricia Aronoff, force to be reckoned with.

  “Hey, Shelby.” Trish straightened the jacket of her navy blue pinstripe suit. “Are you ready to do this?”

  For the first time in a long time, Shelby felt ready for nearly anything. “Let’s go.”

  The bravado lasted until they were ushered into Andrew’s office by his assistant. He sat behind his desk, staring at a computer screen and typing furiously.

  “Have a seat, ladies. I will be with you in just a moment.”

  Shelby sat in one of the two standard-issue office chairs in front of Andrew’s desk. She felt like she had been called to the principal’s office, but as she remembered it, her principal’s desk had always been cluttered with papers and files and pictures of his family. Andrew’s desk was completely clear, except for his computer. It was a little frightening, this monument to ruthless efficiency.

  She glanced over at Trish, whose face had set into a stony mask. She squared her shoulders and sat up a little straighter.

  Andrew closed the file he was working on and turned toward Shelby and Trish. “Now, what can I do for you both? I must say I was a bit surprised by your phone call, Miss Aronoff, and your insistence on meeting.”

  “And yet, you took the meeting, didn’t you, Andrew? It has come to my attention that you have evidently used my image without my permission in someone else’s Head Trip vacation. This is a completely unacceptable situation.”

  Andrew leaned back in his chair, a vision of smug assurance. “Miss Aronoff, I’m sure you are mistaken. We do not use client profiles in other clients’ vacations unless specifically requested by both parties. For instance, a couple who wish to vacation together, but never without written permission.”

  “Then how is it that Trish ended up in my vacation?” Shelby wanted to smack that smarmy look right off his face.

  Andrew leaned forward, suddenly the picture of concern. “Miss Hutchinson, I wondered about your presence here. I think this all begins to make a little more sense. I’m sure your doctors have explained to you that the seizures you have recently experienced can affect your memories. I seem to remember a character from your vacation who had a passing resemblance to Miss Aronoff—same hair color, perhaps eye color, but I can assure you—”

  “Assure me of what? That it wasn’t Trish in my vacation? That she didn’t blow my brains out? That the seizures are a minor setback? That Tasha isn’t still in my head?” Oops. That might have been a little too much. Her heart was pounding and she could feel the pinprick beginnings of a headache forming on a spot just over her left eye. The only thing keeping her from coming out of the chair and leaping across Andrew’s desk was Trish’s hand on her arm.

  “What about that, Andrew?” asked Trish. “What about her seizures?”

  “Since the two of you are obviously well acquainted, I’m sure Miss Hutchinson has told you we have agreed to cover her medical bills and only have her best interests at heart.”

  “Is that what you told the others as well?”

  Andrew stared unblinking at Trish for a moment. Every trace of solicitousness was gone now. “What others?” he asked through tight lips.

  Trish reached into her bag and withdrew a notebook. She flipped through a few pages. “Patient A, Northwest Memorial, returned from vacation complaining of migraines. Patient B, also Northwest Memorial, presented with seizures and some memory loss upon returning from vacation. Patient C, St. Stephens Hospital, presented with seizures, followed by loss of vision. Interestingly, all after taking a Head Trip vacation. There are more here, Andrew, but I’m sure you know that. I’m tired of playing games. You used my profile without permission, which is most definitely a breach of ethics and a violation of my privacy. Add to that the fact there are people who are being injured by your technology. What kind of business are you running here?”

  “A very profitable one, Miss Aronoff, as I am sure you know. That’s what this is all about, isn’t it? You two are in cahoots trying to extort money from this company.” He turned to Shelby. “Where did you find her, Miss Hutchinson? Or have you known each other all along? Was this a setup from the beginning? We have offered, very generously I might add, to pay your medical expenses as a sign of good faith, but that is all you will receive from us. And as for you, Miss Aronoff, the very idea we would use your likeness in another vacation scenario is ridiculous. We pay individuals for the use of their profiles. If there was a similarity between you and the woman in Miss Hutchinson’s scenario, it was because she requested someone of your type. Though for the life of me I can’t imagine why. Of course, if you two have been in on this all along then you know that, don’t you? I have had quite enough of this. Please leave.”

  Andrew gestured toward the door, and Shelby sat in stunned silence at his ridiculous rant.

  Trish rose from her chair and smoothed her skirt. “You will be hearing from my attorney.”

  Shelby followed Trish out of the office and to the elevator. “What the hell was that?” she asked when the doors to the elevator had closed.

  “Wait.” Trish pointed to the security cameras.

  They rode the elevator in silence, thoughts tumbling around in Shelby’s head. She hadn’t imagined Andrew’s threatening tone, and frankly, it scared her. They reached street level and stepped out into the bitter Chicago wind. “So now what? That was
a bust.”

  “Are you kidding? We learned a lot. One, Andrew is a lying sack of shit. Did you see the way he never quite made eye contact? And the way he kept twisting the ring on his hand. I’ve interviewed a lot of people. I can spot a liar. Two, rather than being concerned about how I ended up in your vacation scenario, he ‘knew’ I couldn’t have. The customer is always right. He should have been bending over backward to try to come up with an answer. Instead, he went on the offensive a little too quickly, if you ask me. Makes me wonder if he hasn’t given a similar speech before, you know?”

  “Yeah, he did turn it around awful quick, but if he’s given that speech before, then this is a little scary. How many people were on your hospital list?”

  “Eight, from three hospitals. I don’t have a lot of details, and I had to call in favors to get what I got, but there is definitely something here. Look, I need to get back to the office. I wish I could change first.” Trish stepped off the curb to hail a cab.

  “You mean that’s not what you usually wear to work?”

  Trish laughed as a Yellow Cab pulled up. “God, no. Everyone at the office will think I’ve been to a funeral. I’ll call you.”

  The car door slammed and the taxi pulled away. Shelby stepped back into the crush of passersby and right into someone’s path. The other person bumped Shelby hard and muttered, “Excuse me,” through a heavy woolen scarf. Shelby was about to respond when she felt something being pushed into her hand. Instinctively, she took the small piece of paper and crumpled it into her pocket, then thought better of it.

  “Hey, wait a minute!” Shelby turned, but all she could see was a crowd of hunched shoulders and knitwear. She pulled off a mitten and fished the paper out of her pocket. It was a large fuchsia sticky note with three lines scribbled on it:

  I have information for you about your vacation.

  Meet me at O’Donnell’s Pub

  9:00 tonight

  Ah, Shelby Hutchinson, the plot is thickening, yes?

  “It looks like it, Tasha. It absolutely does.”

  Chapter Eleven

  “Shel, you are not going off to meet some stranger at a bar in the middle of the night by yourself!”

  Shelby poured herself another cup of coffee while Jake stomped around her kitchen. “Nine o’clock is hardly the middle of the night. O’Donnell’s is a very respectable pub. I’ll be fine.”

  “Do you even know if it was a man or a woman who gave you this note?”

  “I think it was a woman.”

  “You think?”

  “Well, yeah, I looked her right in the eye over the scarf she was wearing. She had to be about my height—kind of short for a man. And the scarf was purple. I don’t know too many guys who would wear that shade of purple. Besides, what difference does it make? It’s not like I’m going anywhere with this person. I’ll just get the information and then come home. You can wait for me. It’ll be okay.”

  “Famous last words.”

  Shelby set her cup on the table. “Cut it out. You are being a Nelly. I know the note is cloak and dagger, but let’s not get carried away. It’s not like this woman is a Russian spy who’s going to blow my brains out.”

  It’s not funny, Shelby Hutchinson.

  “That’s not funny, Shel.”

  “Yes, it is, both of you!” Shelby caught Jake’s puzzled glance and shook her head. “Never mind. Don’t you get it? The cloak-and-dagger spy stuff was just a fantasy. That’s not real life, but these seizures sure as hell are real. If you had seen that damned Andrew sitting there looking all smug, acting like the whole situation is a figment of my imagination. I’ll tell you one thing, if it’s all in my head it’s because he put it there. If I have a chance to get this guy, I have to take it.”

  Jake sighed. “I understand, but please be careful. I’m going to wait here until you get back.”

  “Yes, Mom.” Shelby hugged him. “I’ll be fine.”

  *

  At precisely nine o’clock, Shelby’s cab pulled into a parking spot on McClaren about halfway down the block from O’Donnell’s. Her stomach was doing flip-flops, and she was finding it hard to open the door. Regardless of how confident she had sounded in her kitchen, this meeting was freaking her out. She took a deep breath, shoved some money at the cabbie, and opened her car door. The wind blasted through the car and took her fear with it. She would rather face whatever was coming while in the toasty confines of a bar rather than sit out here and freeze to death in a cab that smelled vaguely of fish.

  O’Donnell’s was like a lot of pubs: dark wood, scarred tables, loud voices. The bar itself sat opposite the front door. It ran almost the length of the pub. Three bartenders stood behind it pouring beer and mixing drinks with speed and evidently a good bit of accuracy. Shelby watched as a tall mug sailed down the bar into its owner’s waiting hands.

  She slipped onto a bar stool and stuffed her mittens into the pocket of her leather jacket. Before she had a chance to size up her neighbors at the bar, one of the bartenders appeared in front of her, placing a napkin on the bar.

  “What’ll you have?”

  She ordered a Killian’s figuring she couldn’t go wrong with that in an Irish pub, though she had noticed the bartender had no sign of a brogue. She was a little disappointed at that. She had a thing for accents. The bartender brought her beer, and she left a ten on the bar. Shelby studied the bar’s patrons. None of them looked anything like the person she had run into on the street outside of the Head Trip offices. But that was because no one in here was still wearing a scarf. She would have to wait. Maybe it was all just a joke and this was a complete waste of time. She sipped her beer and stared at the mirror over the bar back.

  Lost in thought, she almost didn’t notice when someone took the bar stool next to hers. The bartender came to take the new order and had returned with a drink before Shelby bothered to glance in the newcomer’s direction. She was a lovely girl, mid twenties, short red hair, and something about the eyes…

  “Yes, Miss Hutchinson, it’s me. Could you please stop staring? You’ll attract attention and neither one of us needs that.”

  “I’m sorry. You look familiar. I mean, not from this afternoon. I could barely see you on the street. Why do I know you?”

  “My name is Lois Evans. I was one of the technicians at Head Trip who oversaw your vacation.”

  Shelby had a sudden flash of memory of Lois in the room as she was being prepared for her vacation. “I think I remember, but you’ll understand things from that whole experience are kind of fuzzy.” Shelby found it hard to keep the anger from her voice.

  “I do understand, believe me.” Lois sipped her drink, which looked to Shelby to be about three fingers of scotch. “I heard you came in to the office today and met with Andrew.”

  “Yes, I did, for all the good it did.”

  “It did something. After you left, Andrew went on a rampage. He shut the system down ‘for maintenance’ he said, but I don’t believe that for a minute. What did you say to him?”

  Warning sirens went off in Shelby’s head. “Um, Lois, you asked me to meet you to give me information, not get info from me. Did Andrew send you?”

  Lois sat up straighter. “God no. He would kill me if he knew I was here. It takes a lot to fluster Andrew. I figured whatever you said had to be big. Anyway, I guess I got tired of waiting for Andrew to do something about all of this. He told me he would, and after the problems with your scenario, I thought he was finally coming around. But he keeps putting me off, and I think it’s because there is something seriously flawed in the technology. I’m afraid somebody is going to get killed.”

  “Okay, Lois. Slow down. Tell me what’s going on at Head Trip.”

  Lois took another sip of her drink before launching into her story. “I started working at Head Trip right out of college. In the beginning, we were all practically giddy because what we were doing was so new and cutting edge. There were occasional problems, just little things. Someone didn’t like t
he way their vacation turned out or whatever. We figured that was due to not having enough information on our clients. The interview process and mapping process became more extensive. Andrew hired more programmers to deal with the complexity of the programming. At about the same time, he started courting government agencies, looking for contracts from the defense department and the like. I didn’t know about it. I don’t think most of us did. Andrew was pushing us hard to upgrade the system and the quality of the virtual experience. He wanted it as lifelike as possible, as keyed in to the client’s wishes as we could possibly make it.”

  “Well, you certainly succeeded. It was very realistic, maybe too realistic for me.”

  “You weren’t the only one.”

  “Tell me.” Shelby signaled the bartender for two more drinks.

  “Andrew started having meetings in the office with official-looking guys in dark suits. That’s not the kind of people we usually see at Head Trip. He wanted us to launch the improvements before we had completed testing. He wanted the suits to see the technology in action. We were all pretty nervous because Andrew was pushing so hard, but we were confident in the programming and we went ahead. The test runs went well, and we began to use the new programming for our everyday clients. A few weeks later, money started rolling in. Andrew remodeled the office, said we needed to present a certain image to attract important clientele. He was suddenly driving a new car, and he didn’t keep it to himself either. We all got raises to compensate for all the overtime we had been putting in, and Head Trip was the happiest place on earth. Until the first accident.”