LifeGames Corporatoin Read online

  LifeGAMES

  Corporation

  —Your Future  In Our Hands—

  Michael Smorenburg

  First published in the United States of America by CreateSpace in 2016.

  Copyright ©Michael Smorenburg, 2015

  The moral right of Michal Smorenburg to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by him in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act of 1998.

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior permission of both the copyright owner and the above publisher of the book.

  Every effort has been made to trace or contact all copyright-holders. The publishers will be pleased to make good any omissions or rectify any mistakes brought to their attention at the earliest opportunity.

  Some of the concepts and quotations expressed in this fictional tale first appeared, some in a different form, in various print or electronic expressions by the originators, authors or presenters so named.

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  www.MichaelSmorenburg.com/LifeGames

  FaceBook.com/MichaelSmorenburg

  [email protected]

  House of Qunard Publishing

  Copyright © 1995 Michael Smorenburg

  Copyright © 2016 Qunard Publishing

  All rights reserved.

  ISBN Print: 978-0-620-62734-4

  ISBN eBook: 978-0-620-62735-1

  DEDICATION

  This novel explores the games people play; the games with one another, the games with their own minds, the games with society, the games that become our collective future.

  LIFEGAMES

  In this work of fiction: Names, characters, places and incidents are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  Author’s Statement about this work:

  This fictional story is based on some facts, probabilities and plausible scenarios. It’s aim is to entertain by blending fact with fiction.

  Also by Michael Smorenburg:

  Ragnarok—Qunard Publishing—2017

  The Praying Nun—Qunard Publishing—2016

  A Trojan Affair—Qunard Publishing—2016

  The Everything Sailing Book Part 2—Adams Media 1999

  The Everything Sailing Book Part 1—Adams Media 1998

  Business Buyer’s Kit—Career Press 1997

  Chapter 1

  “Ready?” Catherine asked and Ken nodded.

  She dabbed the ‘play’ button.

  *****

  “I’m God…”

  The man’s voice sounds soulless and matter of fact, the green murk of night vision before him a meandering network of tracks through scrubland. Telemetry data and a compass ticker scroll with leisurely precision.

  “…all-seeing, I’m Jehovah hovering above with lightning bolts to touch the wicked.”

  The camera tracking the night below drifts onto a deserted rural village. Half a dozen phantoms busy themselves around a pickup as it falls squarely into the cross hairs. The scurrying figures are ethereal, pale green spooks on a hurried mission hefting loads into the vehicle.

  “Their bad choices make my choices easier.”

  The Almighty sounds a bit Southern.

  “Being God…” He pauses unhurriedly, “it has consequences. First rule; don’t think too much. Let them make the decisions… let them be responsible for my actions.”

  Threadbare lightning bolts streak away, fairy lights of death diving toward the green unfortunates. The vehicle has swallowed four of them; six have become two and then the two evaporate into the vehicle just as the tracers stitch the ground toward it.

  BOOOOM!

  The night vision blows for a silent instant to white light.

  “Go with God.” His intonation is matter of fact, “Allahu Akbar… straight to hell.”

  It’s eerily silent as the burning flotsam of the explosion rains to stillness.

  Moments later startled greens come pouring out of the houses, scattering or running toward their dead.

  “A peculiar Top Gun I am… my justice delivered half a world away. I hang up the headphones and grab milk on the way home.”

  The view widens… retracting, pulling back from the action.

  God’s a bald guy.

  The screen with the dead ghosts is still alive beyond his silhouette.

  “The right choices take training,” he rambles.

  The camera pulls back further still, now revealing a man topped by a virtual-reality helmet.

  The scene we’ve witnessed has been a simulation; the man only imagining he’s playing God in virtual reality; a make-believe crisis.

  “…You can relax now. Sleep!”

  The man obeys the hypnotic instruction and slumps to unconsciousness.

  It’s been a film we’ve witnessed, an advertisement playing on a vast wall monitor of the Board Room in the company that commissioned it.

  The movie pixilates to blackness on the screen and white writing fades in. The tinny voice of an android female reads the words. “…The Raw Power of LifeGames Corporation.”

  She sounds hollow and timeless.

  “Your Future… Safe… in our hands.”

  *****

  Lights in the boardroom rise warmly to life, the curtains role back and daylight streams in.

  The android’s words are still paused across the vast wall monitor.

  “That’s the cripple’s work?” Ken sounded unimpressed.

  A shard of ice plunged through Catherine, the man’s provocation twisting her gut.

  “Yes Ken, Mark led the team…” She parried him with all the restraint she could muster.

  This relentless game of taunts with smiles was never ending. Kenneth Torrington controlled his environment with contempt and charm.

  “…I’d really appreciate keeping with the review,” Catherine urged. It was all the rebuke she dared venture.

  “I’m not saying it’s bad, Cath, I just don’t see how you can work with such a freak show. Frankly they sicken me. If they’re not faggots they’re rolling obese or wrapped in tattoos. Don’t you creative types come in any flavour but weird? It’s depressing…” He huffed, “Somehow you’re alright though.”

  As always, this session of creative review was degenerating into another grueling ordeal; a grinding tribulation played out at the whim and tempo of the boss-man. She pressed her hands to the desk till the colour drained from their margins, physically restraining her shudder of fury. She would not rise to the bait. There were good reasons for taking on the many who nobody else would employ; they repaid her belief in them with results that no competitor could match.

  “I’m glad you at least approve of the work…” she said it with as steady a voice and gaze as she could find. “Shall we move on to the next?”

  Ken eyed her with an engaging smile, one crafted to melt an unaccustomed stranger.

  And it happened again—this time less subtle. His eyes dropped for just an instant to her lips, caressing them.

  It was so fleeting and gone that she second-guessed if she’d seen it at all. Only that something that stirred in her loins confirmed that the animal thing, the buzz between them, beyond perception, was real.

  He gripped her in another stare down, but now his face had softened and a smirk crept in.

  Without breaking eye contact he dabbed the intercom button on the conference table, “Nance, before you leave, a coffee for me and one for Catherine; she’s got a long evening ahead.”

  As t
he confirmation reply began, he cut the connection.

  Catherine tried but couldn’t hold his gaze. “Thanks,” she offered and looked down. When she looked back he was poking away at his pad as if she didn’t exist.

  She waited patiently, the uncomfortable noise of silence stretching time. Determined to roll with Ken’s punches, she pushed the awkwardness aside, silently repeating her drilled pledge to avoid snapping at the lures of goading he tossed her way, laced as they were with devilish charm.

  Catherine Kaplan’s presentation represented her team’s best efforts; these video clips and her team at Kaplan Advertising & PR, were world-class, nothing he could say would diminish that fact. It wasn’t her first choice, but he’d insisted on shock and gore and she’d delivered.

  Months of exposure to his manipulation had taught her to stay a step ahead of Ken’s maneuvering. A greedy man, she thought, so competent at humiliation.

  Just then, a knock at the door interrupted her daydream and it opened without Ken’s permission. Ken with the desk phone to his ear glared a lightning bolt at Nancy, his PA.

  “Sorry to interrupt,” she fawned and groveled suitably. “It’s an emergency on hold.”

  She indicated an emulated phone held to her own ear and then slunk backward out of Ken’s line of view, her eyes round and the tendons of her neck standing out with a big-trouble-brewing face dragging the corners of her mouth down.

  Ken cut his call and the receiver immediately rang, “What?” he bit into it.

  A high-pitched treble of explanation came pouring out of the earpiece; audible but incomprehensible where Catherine sat.

  “Oh Jesus fucking Christ,” Ken stood with menace. “Where’s Leon?”

  Catherine had met Leon on several previous occasions. A wizened little man with an internationally acclaimed string of books on psychology and regressive hypnosis to his name, he was a Director at LifeGames and in charge of the critical hypnosis sequence that Catherine knew was a cornerstone of the company’s operation.

  The earpiece prickled with response, “…paramedics…” Catherine heard on the air, then “…security dealing…”

  “What have you clowns done!” He punched the phone down onto its cradle. “Wait here,” he ordered Catherine and stormed out the door, leaving it open.

  A few minutes later Nancy’s head came nervously around the door.

  “Big shit,” she said.

  “No kidding. What’s up?”

  “Shew… you saw the mood. Can’t say too much. One of our subjects… you know.”

  “I figured as much.”

  “Heads gonna roll.”

  “I’m keeping mine very low.”

  “Yeah,” Nancy rolled her eyes. She hadn’t advanced into the room and hung onto the door with both hands, her stance suggesting she’d hit a retreat at the smallest startle from down the corridor.

  “Going on here…? In this facility?” Catherine asked.

  “Yep. Special Forces General, Pentagon boy. Poop’s hitting the fan BIG time. Gone full retard, breaking the place up down there.”

  “Wow!” Catherine gulped, estimating if it was going to make a public mess she’d have to clean up. “He mad at someone?”

  “Worse. Much worse,” Nancy looked behind her in a conspiratorial manner, dropping her voice and leaning in with apparent concern of being overheard. “Sounds like something wrong in our systems, Cath. He’s having a reaction to the virtual reality or hypnosis sequence. I didn’t want to cut in on your meeting here, it’s been going on an hour. Guy’s a loon, like… ranting about the Spanish Inquisition or something… Bipolar, Leon said. Had a complete personality collapse. Thinks it’s the fifteen hundreds and on abo… shit.”

  She straightened as Ken came striding silently through the door behind her, his eyes fixed ahead.

  Without any greeting to the women he went directly into his private restroom and the door slammed behind him. Nancy pulled the round-eyed facial exclamation again and evaporated without another word, closing the office door with only a click.

  Catherine sat fearfully in silence, wondering what new hell she’d inherit from all this drama. Just then and with no sound announcing that the toilet had been flushed or faucets used, Ken appeared through the restroom doorway.

  “Idiots.” It was all he said.

  He slumped into his seat and began to poke again at the iPad. Only the occasional sniff and dab at his nose betrayed why he seemed suddenly so calm.

  Catherine twisted within. The uncomfortable unmentioned elephant of his recent explosive reaction to the phone call was still looming in the room for her. Ken seemed genuinely oblivious to it. Talk about bipolar, she thought to cheer her mood of foreboding.

  Finally Ken placed the pad aside then slowly reclined his chair, deliberately making a show of gently touching thumbs and fingers together before his face. Head cantered slightly and jaw jutting with challenge, his index fingertips tapped out the rhythm of a cat’s tail before it pounces. It was his standard pose that always preceded a monologue.

  Was this the moment he’d tell her about the crisis? She was unsure if she wanted to know and be part of it.

  “From what we’ve covered, I give you points for effort. It’s reasonable stuff…”

  Clearly he was going nowhere near the elephant of the crisis. It was business as usual, back to the business of review. He paused, nodding, evidently agreeing with a thought in his own head, and then smiling ingratiatingly in a most unsettling way.

  “…You see, I’m always right in the long run. Always… But I give you a little credit, you take criticism well… it spurs you, you need it—kids always do.” He paused a long moment then declared what she’d not expected, “Good thing I didn’t drop you last quarter.”

  Again he initiated an uncomfortable and challenging stare-down, seeming to contemplate his own wisdom as he tapped at his pouting lips with his married index fingers, the other fingers now laced together.

  “I was on the chopping block last quarter?” Catherine attempted a polite smile and suppressed shuffling her feet, but the smile hung at the awkward angle of an unloved painting.

  Ken didn’t acknowledge the question, rendering it rhetoric. He just sat, comfortable and powerful in the charged silence. “Run it again or move on?” she offered again, hoping to propel the conversation out of the quicksand of Ken’s mind-games.

  Ignoring the question, Ken studied her intently. His fingers unmarried and began tapping once more to the slow feline rhythm, and then they stopped and he looked hard at her, square in the face.

  “I know exactly what you’re thinking, honey.” His forefinger and thumb began to smooth a non-existent moustache. “I’m a difficult son-of-a-bitch. But put yourself in my shoes,” a moment of dramatic pause; “…I’m only interested in dealing with adults, you see… with…” he searched for the word, “…professionals. But here…” he indicated the screen, frozen on pause. “We can see the results… I eventually get acceptable work.”

  Catherine was silent, waiting for him to finish.

  Ken remained silent too—allowing for the thought to resonate. “…People don’t understand me, Cath,” he suggested in contemplation, seeming suddenly bipolar in his warmth. “I don’t intend to be a tyrant, I’m pushed to it.” He huffed the sigh of a tired man, then suddenly snatched the pad up and began poking at it as he spoke, “You stick with me young Catherine… Stick with me and I’ll make something out of you and your little company.”

  “Just glad you approve, Ken,” Catherine gagged on the involuntary response that spilled from her mouth.

  The last three reviews he said the same thing, she silently consoled herself as the lava of insult for ‘little company’ boiled within. She hesitated a moment, collected her composure like tattered rags, and when she felt she’d given him enough of her expensive time, volunteered once more to press the meeting ahead, “Run the spot again or move on?”

  Ken declined to acknowledge Catherine’s question as he p
ersisted with the distraction in his hands. She sat silently, waiting.

  While she waited, Catherine’s thoughts detached and a frigid trickle of memories seeped within, Ken’s snide abuses triggering emotions that cartwheeled her back through time. For long moments she slid deep into the morass of nearly forgotten territory—an archive of pain suffered at the hands of an estranged father, a charmer who’d so closely resembled this arrogant man.

  Ken flicked leisurely back and forth across his screen, occasionally poking at it while conducting two brief monosyllabic personal calls when his mobile buzzed.

  As the moments labored by, an agonizing procession of submission to the whim of this anchor client, Catherine reeled her thoughts back to the present. She began to contemplate the months of grind that had transported her to this moment. Bruised by Ken’s affront, she took refuge in assessing how professionally she’d overridden so many instincts to turn the contract down time and again. But this was undoubtedly her desperately needed break into the big-time of the industry.

  In spite of her instincts she’d stuck it out and miraculously held her ground against the biggest competitor names around the globe. It had been a coup that bore testimony to work that was fast becoming legendary for its creativity and attention to detail. Half a year of groveling had brought her from that day of signing the contract to this, a review of the finished product—twenty-three weeks of endless re-edits. But worth it? She mulled for the umpteenth time. No question! Contracts like this seed empires.

  “Run it again,” Ken ordered the answer to Catherine’s question asked many minutes before, and it tugged her from the daydream.

  Immediately the monitor responded to the click of Catherine’s finger and the sequence replayed through and ended.

  “Again?” Catherine queried.

  “Again,” Ken insisted.

  For forty minutes Ken demanded that the same thirty-second slot be relentlessly repeated, occasionally querying something, taking a note or making a call. Catherine knew all too well that Kenneth Torrington was a stickler for perfection, an obsession driving the man on his maniacal quest to find criticism. But, try as he might, during the rest of the session he could find little room to gripe with any of Catherine’s several commercial masterpieces that all screamed the same message; “Benefits to humankind through the best training technology can offer.”