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Sitting by Ryan’s stretcher, Lynda cries silently in the ambulance.
A female nurse gives him artificial respiration. Showing a flat line, the vital signs monitor makes a constant beeping noise. Touching the nurse on the shoulder, her colleague shakes his head.
With a puzzled look, Lynda watches the interaction between the two. The female nurse, out of breath, leans back and sits on the side of the ambulance. The male nurse takes her place. Without looking at Lynda, he puts a white sheet on Ryan’s chest and then pulls it up until it covers his head.
“We did all we could,” he says, avoiding eye contact with Lynda.
She throws herself on Ryan’s body, wailing.
“Ouch,” Ryan says, lifting his head.
Lynda screams, jumping back.
Eyes dilated, the female nurse looks at the vital signs monitor, where all the signs are back to normal.
Squinting his eyes, the male nurse stares at Lynda.
“You’re alive,” Lynda says, the furrows on her brow opening with joy.
“I’m back in the game,” Ryan replies, no surprise in his voice.
Snapped back to attention, the female nurse rushes to double check the keys on the vital signs monitor.
Lynda throws herself in Ryan’s arms when he sits up. “I’m sorry, baby,” she cries. “I’m sorry.”
“Where do I know her from?” the male nurse mutters, stroking his chin.
“It’s a miracle!” the female nurse exclaims. “All the signs are normal!”
“It’s OK,” Ryan says while smelling Lynda’s hair. He suppresses his feelings when he remembers Jesus’s advice: ‘When in the game, play it like you believe it.’ “I’m a changed man now,” he says as if he is reading from a script. “Those jealousy feelings, they’re all gone.” Making a determined face, he looks her in the eye. “Whatever you say, whatever you want. Any movie you want to act in, I’ll support it, 100%.”
“Movies!” the male nurse snaps. “I knew you looked familiar. Are you Lynda Honestman?”
“Yes.”
Ryan shoots him a menacing glare.
“Russel,” the female nurse hisses, pulling the shirt of his colleague. His dilated eyes fixed on Lynda, however, he does not seem to notice.
“I loved you in Cum Sucker II. Can I have your autograph?” he asks, almost drooling.
Growling with clenched teeth, Ryan gives him a dirty look.
The ambulance siren is the only sound that breaks the silence of the night in the almost-empty Adams Boulevard. The ambulance suddenly comes to a screeching halt in the middle of the street. Its cabin doors get open, and Ryan is shoved out on the street. The male nurse, who now has a black eye, throws Ryan’s jacket at him.
“Very sorry again… ah… Doctor Nurse,” Lynda says, jumping out of the ambulance. “I cannot apologize more—”
The ambulance leaves while the male nurse is closing the cabin door.
“What the hell do you think you’re doing?” Lynda yells at Ryan. “You can’t treat my fans like that.”
“I’m sorry. I’m sorry,” Ryan responds, raising his hands in surrender. “It was a momentary lapse. I just had to get it out of my system, and now I’m totally OK with the whole situation,” he says, calming his voice down.
“You don’t look OK.”
“I’m working on it. I’m working on it. I’ll be nice, hereafter. Promise. I just… just… I just need to find somebody?”
“Pinky promise?” she asks, showing her little finger.
“Do you know someone called the creator, I mean the coder? A bit narcissist, a lot arrogant, vulgar, with disgusting lustful eyes.”
“I know many men like that.”
“He has probably tried to have sex with you, if he hasn’t already.”
“Yeah… that doesn’t really narrow it down.”
Ryan bites his lips to silence his rage.
“Oh, and he likes to be called a software engineer.”
“Software engineer. Yes. Of course. He is my biggest fan, stalking me all the time. He has a handsome goatee, definitely arrogant, a bald spot in the back of his head, and bad breath, oh God, what an awful breath. I kinda like him.”
“What?! Why?”
“I… don’t know actually. It’s weird to me too. Because he’s funny, I guess?”
“Because he’s programmed you to like him.”
“What does that mean?”
“Never mind. Where can I find this jerk?”
“Ryan, I’m not cheating on you.”
“Honey,” he says, putting both hands on her shoulders. “With the many actors you are working with at your job, cheating is the least of my concerns. Believe me.”
“You said you’ll be nice.”
“Sorry, I meant your co-stars. So, where?”
“Where what?”
“Where can I find the creator, I mean the software engineer?”
“I told you he is a stalker. Wherever I go, he goes too. You’re not gonna punch him too, are you?”
“Noooooo. No, swear to God. No. It was just that one time, that one nurse,” he says with hatred, “and I’m done with violence. I just wanna talk to him.”
“About what?”
“It’s about a game I’m playing. I need to figure out a cheat code, and I’m told this coder guy might know a thing or two about it.”
Fixing his bow tie, Senator prepares himself to give the report when a sliding door on the dome opens. He reviews the speech in his head, thinking how to deliver it most convincingly.
President enters the dome, wearing shorts and a short-sleeve unbuttoned Hawaiian shirt. He is obviously showing off his tan. “Is he back already?” he asks and takes a bite from a red apple so big that it could feed five people.
Senator clears his throat. “We actually had to commission Ryan—”
“I know,” President says while chewing. “I saw Michele’s update on that. Is he back already?”
“Momentarily,” Senator responds. “But he was sucked into the game again.”
“Sucked in!” President takes another bite of the apple.
“We’re not exactly sure what happened,” Michele jumps in. “My team is working on that as we’re speaking.”
“Ah.” President yawns. “This is getting boring,” he says, his mouth full. “We cannot risk the launch anymore. We figured the issue, right?”
Michele nods with hesitance.
“Then it’s time to apply the patch and restart the game.”
“How about Lynda?” Senator objects.
“And Ryan,” Michele says.
“And Lynda,” Rajneesh says and with that everybody turns to him. “Or whatever,” he mutters.
President shouts at Rajneesh, “We’re here because of the mess you created. So shut your mouth before I shut it for you.” He turns to Michele. “I advised to spare the boy’s life and restart the game, didn’t I? But you chose to risk his life again. That’s on you.” He takes another bite of his apple.
Michele turns her gaze down.
“It was my decision,” Senator says, proudly tilting his chin up.
“I know.” President lays his condescending gaze on Senator. “Thanks for disappointing me and the shareholders.”
The short-lived sparkles of pride in Senator’s eyes get quickly buried under the ripples of embarrassment. The term shareholder wakes up some evil forces within him; forces beyond his control. Having nurtured them for years, the forces have grown strong and unstoppable, devouring any flickering light that the love for his daughter has ignited in his heart.
Taking his disappointed glare away from Senator, President turns back to Michele. “We don’t know how long this unasked-for adventure of yours is gonna take. The marketing team has already locked on Christmas for the launch. It has to be released to the influencers by the day after tomorrow if we want to make the Christmas deadline. I’m calling it. We have to get the patched game ready, and these two would be our sacrifice for today. They surely aren’t our first. Right, Senator?” he asks over his shoulder, without bothering to turn to him.
Senator says nothing, his shameful gaze down on his daughter. President’s disappointment casts a shadow of guilt on him. But that is nothing compared to the remorse that is burning him from inside. He is disappointed with himself for letting his daughter die before his eyes, becoming yet another collateral damage.
“If time is the issue,” Rajneesh jumps in, “you can just speed up the game.”
Senator’s eyes gleam with a new hope.
“Oh, my bowels are moving,” President says, his hand on his belly. “Thank you-u-u-u, Miss Apple.”
“This is not in my design,” Michele says, almost shouting.
“It is in mine,” Rajneesh sneers. “It is a configurable variable named ‘emulator.speedup.private’. It controls how fast the emulation of the game, is compared to real life.”
“And why have you been hiding it from me, the designer?” Michele asks, partly embarrassed, partly offended.
“Because it’s not a safe feature. The brain cannot take the higher density of information for too long. Most of the testers got nauseated and one even had a mild heart attack—he was old though, but still. But if you’re going to kill that innocent soul…and Ryan, you might as well just risk the heart attack.”
“How much faster can it get?” President asks.
“With 10x, we tried it for like half a day before the symptoms showed up. With 100x, it took only a few hours.”
“Put it on 1000x,” President says through a full mouth.
“Are you crazy?” Rajneesh says. “We never tried it at such an insane speed.”
The sliding door on the dome opens when President steps toward it.
“Answer me,” Rajneesh shouts.
“I’m going to answer the call of nature,” President says flatly while leaving the room. “By the time I’m back, the game will be over, with these two youngsters in or out of it.” Taking the last bite from the half-eaten apple, he throws it over his shoulder while leaving through the door.
Having the flickering light in his heart reignited, Senator caresses Lynda’s cheek. “Thank you, Rajneesh,” he says without turning back.
“If that amazes you,” Rajneesh says, “you should see me behind a keyboard.”
That grabs Senator’s attention. He turns to Rajneesh, looking him in the eye.
“Too bad my hands are tied,” Rajneesh says, raising his hands that are tied with a gray duct tape.
“Seems like we have no choice,” Michele says, breaking the moment between the two. She raises her finger, and with that, the hologram of the green indicator rises all the way to the top, turning dark red.
Snapped out of it, Senator attends Lynda, who is now respiring rapidly.