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Chrome Contact



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Numbers floated into its face and were reflected back as streams of color. 

9


When Alec awoke the following morning, he did not feel well, a very unusual feeling for Alec. He had a throbbing headache, a sore stomach, sore throat, bouts of nausea, and a general malaise that hung like an invisible dead albatross around his neck.
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"It sounds like the Singapore flu…aspirin and plenty of rest…," his father advised when he called. "Anxiety attack for sure…a warm glass of milk every three hours," Lenore prescribed when she called. "You’re just up tight about the final exams coming up," was Jake’s take when he called. And later, when Monty phoned, he told Alec to "…take the day off, doctor’s orders."

Alec protested and said that the general expected him back that afternoon for more testing. "I don’t care if that’s the third reincarnation of Vishnu on my patio," Monty exploded, "you need to rest and get well first. Besides, I don’t need more alien germs around here than I already have!" Alec protested no more and he returned to bed and fell promptly into a fitful sleep.
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He dreamt about a big clock that had colors instead of numbers. The clock sported two long hairy legs that terminated in ball-bearing wheels. The face of the clock turned from side to side as it rolled around Alec. Numbers floated into its face and were reflected back as streams of color. It seemed to encircle him like a shepherd dog herding a wayward lamb. But everywhere Alec ran, the clock followed. Then the clock’s face began to drip off as if it were composed of layers of multi-colored wax that had turned soft in the terrible heat of the sun. Then a door opened and a giant set of gleaming teeth nestled between two heaving breasts emerged. The teeth were carrying Dr. Crink’s Chroma Comp. Then the teeth turned the device toward the clock and the computer fired a laser beam that hit the clock face and made it explode in a spray of hot colored wax that burned his face.

Alec startled awake, dripping in a fevered sweat. He dragged himself to the phone and called Lenore and then went back to bed. For the next three days he slept fitfully and ate the small meals that Lenore and Jake left for him when they visited. A few times, he tried to study for his exams, reading in bed propped up on pillows. But he could not concentrate with the continuing aching in his head and recurring images of shifting patterns of color.

Slipping in and out of half dreams and half memories, the Chrome’s watchful 'eye' appeared and disappeared like a gaudy phantom floating in the dark. Sometimes he worried about what was happening with the Chrome. Sometimes he would awake fretting about the meaning of D Day. He would awake in the middle of the night and stare into the darkness, anxious about his impending final exams for which he was very unprepared.

But mostly, overall, he felt like a failure. The Chrome’s color language was still as inscrutable as on the first encounter. He had no clue about what the being might be trying to say. He even began to question his own memory of recent events. It just couldn’t be real. The whole thing was some kind of delusion perhaps, like one of those shadows in Plato’s story of the prisoners in the cave. Who was he trying to kid anyway? After all, he was just a kid, taking some summer classes and working as a part-time janitor at a café. Dr. Max had tried to make him feel more important than he really was. He was really just a little pawn in a bizarre situation that properly belonged in the hands of scientific experts…and the government. The Army and the CIA and the others were just doing their jobs. Who was he to question their inside knowledge?

Anyway, it wasn’t his problem. Dynastic Chinese manners and musty Philosophy books and winning at the Inner Edge and getting to first base with Lenore—those were his problems.

"The Chrome thing is really not my problem," Alec found himself saying when Monty called the next morning. There was a long silence at the other end and Alec wondered if they had been disconnected.

"Ahhh, well, Alec," Monty finally said in a gentle but firm voice, "then perhaps I should not tell you what has happened with the Chrome since you have been ill. Perhaps you are still too sick. I’m sorry. I called at a bad time."

Alec was about to say that he really couldn’t care what had happened and that he felt much better but that it really was a bad time to call because he had to run to his morning class. Yet the words got arrested somewhere before they reached his vocal chords.

Out of the clear blue, Alec remembered something Lenore had said after he and Jake had conquered the Sarnk in Ring 13 world: "You guys are just virtual heroes! You’re no fun." He vividly remembered the moment, the excitement of other Pizza Heaven patrons all gathered around them, fawning. But not Lenore. Her nonchalance about their accomplishment was obvious and her subtext was fairly clear: "Ring 13—big deal! I’d rather be with real heroes—they’re more fun."

Alec’s throat seemed blocked by a sub-vocal mantra that emerged out of the clear blue: "virtual hero…virtual hero…virtual hero." Alec hung onto the phone with both hands, as if the mobile device could somehow offer a steady handhold. The room seemed to suddenly grow cold and Alec shook with uncontrollable shivers.

"Alec? Alec? Are you there," Monty’s voice cried urgently on the speaker.

"Oh, oh, yes Monty. I’m sorry. All this Chrome stuff…well, I really don’t think so."
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© 2000 Centroid Communications.

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