The Crimson Chip

by Chris Tallant

  “We’d like to speak with Geoffrey Fieger.”  Jason looked at the receptionist at Fieger’s Southfield office.

  “Do you have an appointment?”  The receptionist didn’t take her eyes off her computer screen.

  “Yes,” Becky replied, “3pm appointment for Matthew Becker versus the DMC.”

  She looked up and smiled, “He’ll be right out, please have a seat.”

  Jason sat in a comfortable leather sofa and Becky sat close to him, pulling her skirt down.  “I hate wearing these things.”

  “So why wear them?”  Jason asked.

  “You really don’t know how to talk to women, do you?”

  “I told you I don’t.”

  “Just say something like ‘they make you look amazing’ and everything else works itself out.”  Becky smiled at Jason.

  “You already know you look amazing, why do you need reminding?”

  “Sometimes,” Becky said, “it’s nice to know people still notice.”

  “If you will be my girlfriend,” Jason said, pulling a small golden gemstone-covered ring out of his pocket, “I will tell you the truth on how you look every day of your life.”

  Becky stopped smiling, “Are you kidding me?”

  “What?”

  “You’re going to ask me out now?”

  “Didn’t you see the video on the laptop in the Use Later folder?”

  “No,” Becky said, “why?  Did you?”

  “Yeah, and most of it was papers Matt wanted the college to publish about microchips and how to perfect them, however, he threw a video dedicated to you and I.”

  Becky smacked him.  “And you didn’t show it to me?”

  “I thought you saw it!”

  “You two are here on behalf of the late Matthew Becker,” Geoff Fieger stood by the door to his huge office, “please, once you’re done arguing, please come in.  Unless you’re here to argue, of course.”

  They stood up and followed him into the office, taking seats in front of his huge mahogany desk.

  “From our conversation on the phone,” Mr. Fieger started, “your friend, the late Mr. Becker, student of Wayne State University and employed by the DMC by one Dr. Alexander Roma.  Mr. Becker never received the papers by Dr. Roma in 185 malpractice cases or wrongful death cases, when in fact it was Dr. Roma at fault.  Is this correct?”

  Jason spoke up first, “Correct.”

  Becky added, “And here’s proof from Matt’s own laptop: screen shots of the logs from the mainframe showing Dr. Roma’s ID altering the medication amounts for the patients implicated in the original 185 suit.”

  Mr. Fieger looked at the printouts and nodded.  “Very nice.  I believe we have a case here.  Is there more information you would like to present?”

  “Yes,” Becky said, “We would also like to press charges against Dr. Roma for killing Matt Becker by refusing his medication and removing his chip, leaving him for dead in his own house.”

  Jason played the audio clip from the day of the attack while Becky handed over more printouts from Matt’s computer about the lack of medicine despite the multiple requests per day.  Along with the stack of unsigned time sheets and other evidence piling up against Dr. Roma, Mr. Fieger looked impressed.

  “I must say,” Geoffrey nodded, “you guys have done your homework.  I have field agents who can’t get this much data on common criminals, let alone someone as high up as the Chief of Medicine for the DMC.”

  “We didn’t gather any of this,” Becky said.

  “Matt did,” Jason said, grabbing Becky’s hand, “before he died.”

  “So, we can confirm one cold malicious death on his hands with the audio alone,” Mr Fieger said, “it’s enough to have him arrested today.  Would you guys like to watch him squirm as the Michigan State Police haul his ass away?”

  “More than anything else.”  Becky said before he could finish the sentence.

  “Lets get the arrest warrant, and a search warrant to look through his files for more information.  If you come across anything else, please send it over, although I think your friend covered his tracks better than anyone else I’ve seen.”

  “So you’ll take the case?”  Jason asked.

  “Taking down a corrupt Chief of Medicine at the Detroit Medical Center?”  Geoffrey Fieger stood up and laughed, “This is what’s known in legal realms as a ‘slam-dunk,’ he can’t crawl out of this if his life depended on it.  He’ll need an act of God.”

  “Let me make some phone calls, it’s 3:15 now, I can get the warrants by 4pm, can you meet me down there by 5pm?”  Fieger asked the two.

  “Without a doubt.”  Becky looked at Jason and nodded.

  * * * * *

  “Where are you going?”  Jason asked Becky as she turned back onto 10 Mile road, heading east.

  “Back to your house.”

  “Why?”

  “I want to see the video Matt left for us.”

  “We need to get downtown,” Jason said, “Can it wait until after?”

  “No.”

  “Please?”

  “If you’re proposing to me two days after the death of our friend, I want to know what the hell he said on the video.”  

  “Wait a second,” Jason said, “I didn’t propose, I asked if you’d be my girlfriend.”

  “What?”

  “I asked if you’d be my girlfriend.”  Jason looked at his feet.

  “But…but you handed me a ring.”  Becky stopped at the red light at Southfield road.  “You don’t give a girlfriend a ring…sweetie, that’s just weird.”

  “Sorry!”  Jason threw his hands up, “I’ve never asked a girl out before, I’m sorry, I don’t know what to do and the only one I can ask about this is…” Jason swallowed hard.

  Becky put her hand on Jason’s knee.  “Hon?  Of course I’ll be your girlfriend.”

  “Really?”

  “For real.”  Becky smiled at Jason.

  “Okay, no ring, got it.”  Jason said.

  “No,” Becky said, “you can’t show a woman a ring and take it back, it’s mine now.”

  “Wait until you see the video,” Jason said, “then let me know if you want the ring.  For now, let’s get to the DMC.”

  Becky smiled, and turned south down Southfield, heading on to the Lodge to get to the Hospital District.

  “You really thought I was proposing?”  Jason smiled.

  “Shut up, I don’t want to hear about it.”  Becky smiled back.

  “And if may speak freely,” 

  “You may,” Becky waved her hand like a Queen to her subjects.

  “You are the first woman I’ve ever seen who looks amazing in any clothes and with or without makeup or whatever you want to do with your hair and such.  The purple blouse and the black skirt makes you look like a supermodel or a stunt double for Halle Berry in X-Men as Storm.”

  “Can I ask a somewhat blunt question?”  Becky asked.

  Jason sighed, “Sure, anything.”

  “Have you, you know, ever been with a woman?”

  "Yeah," Jason looked at the floor, "but it was in college and there was alcohol involved and wasn't a very pleasant experience."

  "Heh," Becky laughed, "almost sounds like me."

  “Yeah,” Jason looked at his shoes, “I didn’t talk to anyone until college, and even then it was select few about movies or comic books.”

  “But you’re a funny guy once you get out of your shell,” Becky said, “it’s that shell you need to escape from.”

  “Yeah,” Jason said, “but how do you approach someone and start talking when you don't know anything about them?”

  “How many brothers and sisters do you have?”

  “Two sisters,” Jason said, “My brother just died…well, you know what I mean.”

  “Yeah, I know…but do your sisters follow the same philosophy?”

  “Ha!”  Jason laughed aloud.  “My sister Lindsey came home from Girl Scouts pregnant.  Try e
xplaining that to your widowed father.”

  “How old was she?”  Becky looked shocked.

  “Fifteen at the time, gave birth to my nephew at sixteen.”  Jason said, “He’s the sweetest little kid you’ve ever met today.  I’m trying to teach him how to play Pokémon.”

  “Can I tell you a secret?”

  “Shoot,” Jason said, “It can’t be any more embarrassing than mine.”

  “I graduated from Regina High School, didn’t have my first boyfriend until College who tried to rape me and I beat the living piss out of him, breaking his front two teeth and kicking him in the nuts so hard he required surgery to play basketball again.”

  “Oh Becks,” Jason put his hand on Becky’s knee, “I’m sorry, there’s nothing more infuriating in this world then when guys try to force their way on to a woman.”

  “Are you for real?”

  “What?”

  “Who talks like that anymore?”

  “I’m sorry,” Jason said, “I can be quiet.”

  “No,” Becky said, “Please don’t.  It’s what makes you, ya’know: you.  I love it.  You’re unique and you care, like, with your whole heart.”

  “You sure you didn’t watch the video?”

  “The one from Matt?”

  “Yeah,” Jason said.

  “No,” Becky said, “I didn’t know there was one.”

  “Okay,” Jason turned and looked out the window, “just because this is getting creepy.”

  “Creepy good?”  Becky patted Jason’s knee again, “or creepy bad?”

  “Creepy…like when a magician does a trick in front of you and you don’t know how he did it but you know it was an illusion but in this case you know the magician has no more tricks up his sleeves.”

  “Okay,” Becky said, “We’re almost here.  Ready to change history?”

  Jason took a deep breath, “Yeah, lets put Matt’s memory to rest.”

  “Amen.”

  “Amen, indeed.”  Jason squeezed Becky’s hand.  “You’re Catholic, right?”

  “Not practicing,” Becky said, “but I still do Christmas Mass and the Stations of the Cross.”

  “Hear me out,” Jason took a second and then said, “never mind, just follow my lead.  Let’s go.”

  Chapter 7

  Fieger knows how to draw a crowd wherever he goes.  All three local news stations as well as half a dozen cable news stations wait outside the front doors of the main DMC doors.  The entire cul-de-sac filled with news vans and a crowd of onlookers, watching and curious what’s the commotion.  On the grass and sidewalks are eight to ten Michigan State Police cars and trucks, officers armed, aimed and waiting.

  Jason and Becky hold hands, listening to a local news reporter as she describes the commotion involving the largest scandal in DMC history: 

  “Dr. Alexander Roma, a doctor hand-picked by previous Mayor Coleman Young himself. We are currently waiting for Dr. Alexander Roma to leave the building in handcuffs with the alleged charge of one count of premeditated murder in the vicious and brutal death of his own intern student - one Matthew James Becker of Royal Oak. In addition to the negligent deaths of 185 of his own patients while acting as Chief of Medicine at the DMC, he tried to blame on Mr. Becker.  We are now receiving reports from attorney Geoffrey Fieger’s office implicating Dr. Roma received kickbacks from Washington religious bureaucrats fighting to keep microchips out of health care, citing some interpretation of verses from the Bible about how they predict the end of the world.

  “It looks like Detroit Chief of Police James Craig is leading the now disbarred Alexander Roma from his hospital for the last time.  If indicted on all charges, the maximum sentence he could serve is 2,790 years before eligible for parole.  One hundred eighty six counts of manslaughter, one of those his own chosen intern Matthew Becker, a local computer genius who was instrumental on turning the tables in this scandal, since Roma tried to pin all these deaths on Mr. Becker before Roma took vengeance during a struggle at Mr. Becker’s Royal Oak home where he died from the injuries.”

  Becky and Jason looked at each other, both with tears in their eyes.

  Jason bent over and picked up Becky, carrying her to the front of the crowd, pushing and moving to the front where Alexander Roma stood in front of a State Police car with a smiling Geoffrey Fieger standing behind the scene, however still in camera view.

  “Mr. Roma!” Jason screamed over the commotion. “Mr. Roma!”

  He turned his head, looking to Jason and his eyes turning red with rage, “You! You are a Christian!  A Catholic Christian!  These microchips are the sign of the apocalypse and you know this!  It’s in Revelations!  How could you turn on your God and accept this abomination as fact?  You did this?  You did all this to me?  The blood of these people is on your hands!”

  “Mr. Roma,” Becky stepped forward, holding Jason’s hand, “From two Catholics and two Christians, we forgive you for taking our friend Matt from us.  Matt may have thought about religion different from us, but in the end, he knew it was about saving life and not taking it for profit. Which is why we are publishing everything he wrote, free of charge, to the internet so everyone in the scientific community throughout the world can benefit from every milestone he found while working here, under your tutelage before you took a life, a friend to us all, and stopped his heart from beating in this world.”

  “However,” Jason continued, “his genius will help others and make weak hearts beat stronger for longer to take down more who believe like you - that greed and money and religion rules health care instead of technology and innovation.  He wanted to help others.  And we’re here to make sure his designs and unknown technologies fall into the right hands so they will help instead of hinder.”

  “You are both insane heathens!  You’ll burn in hell for these abominations!”  Roma sputtered accusatory biblical verses before a kind State Officer “accidentally” shut the door, silencing the madness.

  Jason turned to Becky and looked into her dark brown eyes, brushing the wild orange hair out of her face, leaning to press his lips against hers.  She wrapped her arms around him and returned the awkward kiss in front of the news cameras, watching the criminal of the decade scream Bible verses at the couple embracing as the convoy of Michigan State Police cars drove Roma to a Federal prison.

  “Go home?”  Jason asked Becky.

  “Wait a second,” Becky said, “don’t we have Matt’s laptop in the trunk of the car?”

  “Do we?”

  “Let’s go check.”  Becky said, dragging Jason by the hand.  “If we do, I know what we have to do.”

  “What’s that?”

  “Something romantic.”

  “I don’t know how to do romantic.”  Jason screamed over the crowd as they cut back through the mob of people.

  “We just did, so let’s see if lightning strikes twice.”

  * * * * *

  “Okay,” Becky said, “let’s sit here and watch this video together.  I still can’t believe you watched this without me.”

  “I didn’t watch all of it,” Jason admitted.

  “Now we can.”

  “Why are we sitting on the cold stone base of the Detroit Tiger’s Mascot statue outside of Comerica Park?”

  “It’s where Matt would sit and try to hack into the Quicken network.”  Becky admitted.

  “You know,” Jason said, “He could hack into it without you guys knowing from any place in the world.  With all these security cameras owned by Hendrickson staring at him, he wanted to draw attention.”

  “You and I know that now,” Becky said. “But why was he trying so hard?”

  Jason smiled, “Watch this video and it may explain some more.”

  He flipped open the laptop and launched the video.

  As the video started, Jason wrapped his arm around Becky who snuggled in close.

  The clip started with a smiling Matt staring at the camera at the top of his laptop screen, his goo
fy sideways smile making Jason and Becky start to sniffle: 

  “Hey guys, I wanted to make you this because I have a feeling I know what’s going to happen and I believe I won’t have any control over how it goes down.  Today is the day I left work early after the patient almost died in my room at the DMC, to give you a frame of time reference.  Anyway, Jason, I want to thank you for taking me in as a friend and for treating me as a brother after my parents died.  You didn’t have to, but you did, and I thank you with my whole heart.  I split my entire life savings account between your savings and the St. Jude Medical research center with the microchips I designed for the children born with birth defects; where the microchips will help them live life as normal children giving them the medicine they need without all the machines needed to sustain their everyday life.  Obvious - my book collection, please add to yours.  And yes, I do have the first ten issues of X-Men under a weak floorboard in my closet.  Save them, they are for your children. Just read them to them do not let them touch them.  In addition, Becky, Jason is the nicest, most caring guy I’ve met in my short life on this planet.  I know you had some rough relationships in your past, however you and Jason belong together.  That’s why I tried to get your attention, tried to focus on getting you to notice me and to focus your attention on me and if I annoyed you enough, maybe you’d see the one standing next to me who is in every way shape and form your perfect match.  Well, if you like chubby white guys who can’t grow full beards - but I’m only playing.  He’s had a fear of talking with women, which is in your favor, please teach him what he needs to know on how to treat a proper lady with class like yourself.  You, Becky are a Queen, and you need to have a King treat you as such.  I knew from my first investigation into you, you and I were not compatible.  It has nothing to do with you, I have excessively many problems and I’m too cocky.  I am sorry I sent you on a wild goose chase, however it was all to make it to this moment.  Please, Jason, take Becky and help her laugh, help her live, help her love.  She wants to see the world, so take a vacation and visit the Bahamas or go on a Cruise in the Florida Keys.  Becky, you have a great guy with Jason, however, you have to understand he doesn't know how to act around a woman.  I know you guys mix like peanut butter and jelly, and will hold on to each other during scary movies, and smile when you feel like you’re not adding up to each other’s standards - that’s just it, you build the standards as you journey through life.  Don’t worry about the ending, just enjoy the journey, and enjoy the ride along the way.  If you don’t believe me, please, take a few dates and see in each other’s eyes what I’ve known for months now.  Remember me as a good friend who made two lives better and helped enrich the lives of children and those in need for generations to come.  Also, Jason, in my top drawer of my nightstand is a gold ring with a bunch of gemstones on it.  It’s something my mother gave me when I was a child.  She told me when I liked a girl that I could give her the ring and tell her I promise to always be myself when I’m with you.  Please, ask Becky if she’ll be your girlfriend and promise that ring to her.  Have fun guys!”