Episode 4. Like a Fox

Male:Lets see if Kal can get his mojo back

Female:Is that a new supplemtn used by the Corps?

Male: (Laugh) Come on Synthia, Mojo is an old world slang. Ooo and you know what else is old world and timeless? Losing and Winning! Second for Kal, that aint gonna help the reigning world champ.

(Cut to beat up) (/ healed in water/ robot reminder / The flesh can't remeber a time before. This is only a hallucination indced from stress. The body does not keep score.)

S.Sal: Again! Your making a shitting fool of us.

(robot reminder / The flesh can't remeber a time before. This is only a hallucination indced from stress. The body does not keep score.)

Female: That. Was. A. Fast. Race!!!! 3:02! 3:02!

Kal: Third? Whats going on?

Female: I think only Crouser can follow up a performance like that.

Kal: Shit—

(Cut to beat up)

S.Sal: Your telling me they broke you at two hundred to go? I'm not chromed out of my dome bro. You. Gave. Up. How hard do I have to beat you to get it in your head! This aint a game! This shit is for your freedom!

(/ healed in water/ robot reminder / I have taken the liberty of upping your anxiety medication)

Male: The world champs. This is where the money is made.

Kal: First! You have to do it. You have to. . . you want to be free. . . right?

(Gun)

Kal: Damn! Damn, damn!

(Race noise, his breath is overpowered by music, race noise, feet)

Male: Who's it gonna be? Mad-dog, Krav, Mad-dog, Sergei, Trent! Oh my god Remy! The truth, the truth, Remy coming in like Check-Hook! Playing Possum no longer with a kick like a hay maker.

(The crowd roars/ into the noise of being beat up. Hit)

"Fifth place, Kal. I may call you, Kal, correct?"

I look the psych up and down, from the recline of the sofa. He is a thin man, pale as a worm, dressed in a sable, tightly fitting suit. The man looks something like a modern day grim reaper, accentuated even more so by the black glasses that seem to suck all light within them. It reminds me of the cavites in a skull, the place where eyes should be.

"Call me whatever you like," I say, running my fingers along the red material of the couch. The room is white—always white. Windowless with only furniture and some modern art, a constantly dripping graphic—blood red, like the furniture on which we sit. "Good, you can call me Vivek. Now I know your usual psych is absent today, but I hope you will feel comfortable enough to open up with me."

I grunt.

"Good-good. Kal, this was your worst season. Now I'm not here to lecture you, judging from the amount of time the Brickheads have visited you, I do not think you are in need of that. I want to know, what is going on in that dome of yours."

I rub my eyes, finding a convienet way to cover my face, to not be seen.

"Kal?" Vivek asks. He repeats my name once, twice and then changes tactics.

"Virdi Inc. has taken the liberty of downloading reports from your Meg—"

"What? They had no right!" I say, snapping up in my seat. My eyes are rimmed red, my hands quiver, but I can't quite figure out why.

"Contrare, Kal. You and everything you do belongs to Virdi Inc. What you say, they hear. What you desire, they have. What you feel, they do." I flush. Thinking of Emmie. Thinking of our escapes into the Ank. I already suspected what Vivek confrimed, but it didn't reduce my indignation in the least.

"Is it not enough that I'm here! That I'm their shitting slave?" I yell springing to my feet. Overhead the Cam-Drone swivels, relaying every bit of my outrage.

"Kal." Vivek said cooly, "why don't you sit. You will alarm your Case Lead and then. . ." He needn't say anymore. We both know what would happen in that case and who's blood would be spilt. I sit. Defeated. "Good, Kal. I'm on your side, I really am and if you wont talk, well, then I will-will." My lips are drawn thin. My shoulders hunched.

"That's fine, Kal. I have reason to beleive your recent losses arent related to any lack of effort but are the result of pain. Unbearable pain." My face remains placid. Stony and with hard edges. "I believe you are experincing General Somatic Hallucinations, which seem to be triggering a palilaliac response in you."

"The hell is that?"

"It when you hear or repetivaly use words. Does that sound correct-correct?"

I say nothing but the blood draining from my face says it well enough.

Vivek smiles and nods.

Like a fox.

"Do you remeber her abortion? Your abortion? That you live a life you can't escape?"

I can't explain it and I can't stop it. I suppose there is power in naming things because tears instantly roll from my eyes as I slump into that crimson couch. Uncontrollable sobbing wracking my body in a fit of trembles. So much so, I nearly miss what came next:

"What if I offered you a way out?"