Chapter 9: Jim Wrestles with His Conscience

(Author’s Note: Not a whole lot of sex in this chapter.)

Jim stepped through the door and closed it. He was alone. He felt an emptiness and an overwhelming sense of ennui. He should have been elated. He’d just experienced something that he’d always dreamed of doing. It had been wonderful; wonderful until the end. When he’d been laying there on the floor, next to Samantha and Dave, and they’d been showing the love they had for each other, he’d suddenly been faced with the reality of how he’d manipulated people to get what he wanted – what he’d thought he wanted anyway.

He didn’t turn on the lights. The night light over the stove in the kitchen provided enough for him to see by and he made himself a drink. Back in the living room, he sat down. For a while, his breathing and the occasional clink of ice in his glass was all the noise in the room.

He’d done some good things with the Master PC. No doubt about it. His community was much better off – a lot healthier anyway. But, what had he become? A serial rapist? A philanderer? Even if he hadn’t been old and fat, Cheri would never have considered him as a sex partner. He’d used her. Oh, he’d given her some extra skills – skills that would help her find a better job than being a waitress in a café. That much was true. But it didn’t make up for the fact that he’d essentially forced her to have sex with him and then forget about it afterward.

And he’d done the same with Sam. Now, in Sam’s case what he’d mostly done was make it possible for her to explore aspects of her sexuality that were already there. A woman doesn’t read John Norman unless she’s interested in D/s. Jim had read the entire series hoping against hope that Tarl Cabot would be reunited with his first love – something he had always secretly desired for himself. It never happened. At best, Norman was a bargain basement Edgar Rice Burroughs. People reading his works were interested more in his philosophy than his skill as a writer.

As for Cheri and Sam getting together, Jim felt less guilty about that. When he’d probed Cheri’s mind he’d discovered a latent curiosity about sex with another woman, and he’d already known that Sam was bisexual. Still, he had forced the first encounter. Subsequent encounters were up to them.

And, then, there was Lisa. Without the nudges that his magical software had provided she would never have come on to him the way she did. The way the affair had ended had shaken him badly. Lisa was a much better person than he was – that much was certain.

As careful as he’d been in using the Master PC, it had still come to this. He’d blown it. He was, essentially, a serial rapist and murderer. Yes, those three men were going to kill him and take his money, but the way he’d dispatched them, almost thoughtlessly, had been a cold-blooded killing. He could simply have reached into their minds and given them another course of action.

What made it worse was that afterward, when he’d read about the “mysterious triple homicide” in the paper, he’d discovered that the three men had been unemployed since shortly after the citizens of the city had given up smoking. They’d all worked at a wholesale tobacco company that went out of business. Broke and desperate, they felt compelled to resort to crime. Ironically, they’d attempted to rob the man who had destroyed them economically. Jim had killed them twice. All three left wives and children behind.

“Well,” Jim said aloud to the empty room, “like my old man always told me, when you find yourself in a hole, stop digging.”

He made his way to the study and turned on the lights. His computer was soon roused from sleep mode and in moments, the Master PC program was up and running. Jim sat for a while, lost in thought. In fairy tales when you get three wishes, the third wish is usually the one you use to try to fix the things that had gone wrong with the first two.

That’s what he needed now. He needed a third wish that would put things right again. But you can’t unring a bell. Sometimes there’s no way to go back and put things right.

He called up Cheri’s image on the screen. “Cheri, Cheri, Cheri ... what should I do with you,” Jim asked the silent room?

A few quick keystrokes erased his command codes for her mind. The word “undulate” would no longer have any effect on her. She would have no memory of him, other than as a customer who tipped well. He left her physical enhancements in place – she would enjoy those, after all, and so would her boyfriend. She wouldn’t be meeting Jim at the Pinecrest Motel any longer.

That was Jim’s next stop with the Master PC software. He brought up the owner on the screen. All memory of Jim was immediately erased. Room 208 was an experiment by the owner who would rent out the room as a “specialty theme room” for people who wanted a little something different. Jim also erased memories of him from the Manager. The lock on the room would be changed.

Jim went and got the newspaper clipping about the families of the three men he’d killed. The names of the widows and children were listed. He sent cards of condolence. More than that, he used the Master PC program to ensure that their children would get good grades in school and grow up to be model citizens. He also gave them athletic abilities that would be sure to get them scholarships for college. He did whatever he could to ease their pain and help them move on.

That was enough for now. He would need to give more thought to his next steps. Tired and depressed, he shut the program off and went to bed. But sleep would not come. Depression makes you tired but prevents sleep. By about one in the morning Jim gave up, got up, put on running clothes and headed out into the darkness.

The streets were empty. Fog shrouded the landscape. Street lamps created glowing pools of light; islands in the darkness. Jim ran. This was his city. He lived here. He’d raised a family here. He’d been very involved in a number of civic endeavors. The Mayor had even made him “Citizen of the Year” a few years ago as recognition of his hard work on numerous civic projects.

He’d made some mistakes with the Master PC program. But he’d also done some good. Ultimately, Cheri was going to be better off than she would have been without his tampering. So were Sam and Dave. By the time Jim came jogging back up to his house the first faint fingers of dawn were reaching up from the eastern horizon.

Jim took a shower, shaved, and made a pot of strong coffee – Coast Guard coffee his father would have called it: strong enough to float an anchor. Then he started a list of tasks he planned to get done that day. It was Saturday. Susan was at her mother’s for the weekend. The day was his to do with as he pleased. He had a honey-do list, of course, but those tasks would take very little of his time.

The long run had cleared his brain. Depression was a waste of time and feeling sorry for himself would accomplish exactly dick. What he had done was done. It was past. What counted was what he did from now on. In his despair he had considered trashing his last copy of the Master PC program. Now he realized how foolish that would be. The program existed. Others had it. He needed it to protect his city and his community. So it would stay. But, he made a solemn vow to be more careful with it in the future and not use it like some cum drunk high school kid.

Dave and Samantha would probably want to play again. That was fine with Jim. He could never have what they had, but he could still enjoy their company. He wouldn’t need to do any more “tinkering” with Sam. And, their individual trysts were over – unless it was something Sam and Dave wanted to happen.

Jim did a little laundry, ran the dishwasher, and performed a few other household chores. All of a sudden he realized that he was very hungry. He didn’t feel like cooking. He decided to go out to eat.

Cheri was working at Jim’s favorite café, which surprised him because he hadn’t seen her there on weekends.

“Good morning Mr. Olsen,” she greeted him cheerfully. “I don’t usually see you in here on weekends. Coffee?”

“‘Morning Cheri,” Jim replied. “Coffee’s good, yes, and if there’s a morning paper around that would be a bonus.”

“Coming right up,” Cheri said, smiling. Cheri liked Jim. He was always polite and pleasant even when the kitchen messed up an occasional order. And, he tipped very well. She was always happy to have his table. He’d lost a lot of weight and gotten in shape over the past 7 or 8 months. As Cheri brought Jim his coffee she noticed how good looking he was. He had to be in his 50’s, but he looked much younger.

“Here’s your coffee, and here’s a copy of the morning’s bad news,” Cheri chirped as she set down his coffee and paper in front of Jim. “I usually just read the comics and check my horoscope,” she added.

“Oh? And what did your horoscope say today?”

“It said I was going to meet a mysterious older man who would ask me for coffee and a paper,” Cheri said, teasingly.

“Let me know how that works out,” Jim said, laughing.

“Ready to order?”

“Two eggs over, ham, hash browns – well done on the hash browns – and muffin toast.”

“Well, somebody’s hungry this morning,” Cheri said.

“Yeah, I went out for an early morning run. Now I feel hungry enough to eat a horse,” Jim replied.

“I’ll get this order in right away – I wouldn’t want any passing horses to be in danger,” Cheri said, laughing as she headed off toward the kitchen.