Chapter 24
927 Words
Chapter 24
“And what can I do for my feeble companions today?”
Mr. Smooth had led them past the collapsing doorframe into a sybaritic paradise of such luxury it was hard to fathom.
Jeremy peeked into an alcove which overflowed with lush red oriental carpets, piles of person-sized gold-embroidered pillows, couches that could accommodate a bevy of people and still not be cramped. The eclectic mix of art on the walls was both obscene and stunning. Botticelli’s Birth of Venus and a poster of Rachel Welch in a designer animal-skin bikini stood next to the recumbent bounty of a Rubens harem and a couple of velvets of C. M. Coolidge’s dogs playing poker.
Jeremy decided he could happily collapse here beneath the flickering light of a dozen candles and get lost in the art and a bad science fiction novel. All he’d really need to be happy would be a decent computer.
The main room was paneled entirely in cherry wood and the ceiling in burnished copper. It looked as if the room was either bleeding or on fire.
A glistening oaken bar that was so long it wouldn’t have fit into an Old West movie set, ran down one wall. Bottles of every imaginable shape and description held liquids in every color of the rainbow.
In moments, Loki and Virgil, each armed with a huge pitcher of beer were insulting each other over old times.
That’s when he spotted it.
He’d never actually seen one outside of a museum. The massive green beehive terminal hunched against one wall beyond a wide archway. On the wall above it was what he really hoped wasn’t the original Mona Lisa. He entered the fuming study and decided it best to ignore the flaming books and the melting sculptures. There was no heat, just fire. Weird.
Cassandra trailed behind.
Ms. Lisa smiled at him with her quirky humor while he inspected the machine. The keyboard sported no number pad. No mouse. Function keys were label “PF” instead of “F.” He had to poke it twice before he recalled that the spool on the side was an actual paper tape reader. Those things hadn’t been around since the early ’70s or some such, before he was born, that was for sure.
He tapped the space bar to wake up the screen.
What do you want now? Hold it, Who in Hell are you?
“Um,” he couldn’t believe he actually typed the word, “Jeremy Berkowitz. In Hell, I suppose is accurate.”
The response appeared barely an eyeblink later.
Chraze?
Shit! That was fast. Terminal or no, there was a hurking cluster of hardware behind there.
“Yeah, that’s me.”
There was a long pause while the computer considered. Cassandra pushed a chair his way before pulling up a stool beside him for herself. She possessed a quietness that he appreciated. Didn’t always want to distract him from what he was doing like his mom and dad had. “Come eat a peanut butter and mayonnaise sandwich to fatten you up. Let’s play baseball so I can totally humble your sorry ass.” s**t. They’d never let up.
Chraze idea origins?
“I was researching this weak-as-s**t school paper about Easter. My research led me into the rewriting of celebrations for the conversion of the ‘savages.’ You know, Eostre became Easter, the springtime celebration of rebirth became the day of Jesus’ rising. The bloody sacrifices that celebrated the end of winter and the coming of spring were replaced by the holy sacrifice and resurrection of a man. A holiday retained, but altered. The more holidays I researched, the more I found that most had pre-existed Christianity and were left in place, though renamed, to help coerce the conversion of the heathens. Well, it pissed me off. So I decided to make fun of…”
Jeremy blinked at the screen. This was the software that…
“Cassandra, were you bullshitting me earlier?” He didn’t dare look away from the screen and kept his voice low for reasons that made no sense, this thing predated built-in microphones, but he couldn’t help it.
“No. That’s the original purebred. All the way back. To hear the Gods tell it, the software was already running when they showed up.”
“Why isn’t it answering me?”
“I’m not sure. It is the original anchor of the Judeo-Christian software system,” her whisper matched his.
“And I did just call it a manipulative piece of…Oh shit.”
The sound of a fresh wrestling match sounded from the next room.
“Bastard, I’ll get you.” Virgil’s roar was broken by his own laugh then a grunt as flesh smacked together with a loud slap.
“Do they always do that?” He glanced over his shoulder as Virgil flew head over heels past the doorway.
“Macho bonding,” Cassandra offered.
They turned back to the screen.
Boy, boy, boy. I just took a wicked slice on your Chraze game grid. I hit a team down in the Texas panhandle, sure surprised the crap out of them. What you did on the evolution of Buddhism was just so bad.
What happened when the Software that Runs the Universe didn’t like you? He wasn’t going to ask Cassandra.
That’s so sweet. No one, but no one ever got that right.
“I got it right?” He’d just made up a hierarchical conflict that seemed appropriately illogical.
Well, no. But it was a damn sight better than all that bodhi tree bullshit. You’d have to ask Gautama himself if you want the straight answer, not that he’d give it to you.
The Buddha is here?
Shit no! The man doesn’t hang out on-line unless there’s a good poker game going on. No, he’s been cruising with Michelle lately.
“That’s the Devil?” He asked Cassandra rather than the software. He was having trouble keeping it all straight.
She grumped for a few moments before answering.
“That’s one name the b***h goes by.”
She’s just logged on. You wanna chat with her?
Enter a chat room in Hell with the Devil?
That one was easy to answer.
- Writer
