Projector
By Daniel LeMoal
Daniel LeMoal lives and writes in Winnipeg, Manitoba. His most recent short story, “An Obtuse Argument Against Foreign Products,” appeared in the summer 2006 issue of On Spec.
* * * *
There is no such thing as a hit man in The Pegs. There are undercover police officers putting the sting on bitter husbands and wives before they cash in on life insurance. There are liars and lowlifes trying to make a quick and lasting impression on other criminals. And then there are people like me.
I’m not a bad person. But I am a drug addict. I’ve spent most of my adult life taking money and never paying it back; it’s one of the few things I’ve ever been good at. But somehow, I always knew the business end of running an addiction would bite me in the ass. I’d end up in jail. Or worse.
Somewhere along the way, I made the mistake of borrowing money from a man by the name of Napur Nospharrat. Nospharrat routinely loans out five hundred dollars to losers like me and considers it a hidden investment. Looking back, I would have been better off robbing fuel depots.
Here’s the thing: when a man like Nospharrat calls you on your cell at 2 a.m. and says that he has a job for you—and then asks how your mother and father are doing—you realize that you have been bought—body and soul. Make no mistake: I’ve burned my parents for years. I’ve stolen their money, their car, and even my mom’s few pieces of jewelry. But I still love them, in my own marginal way.
“Are you crying, Andy?” Nospharrat asks, his voice sounding low, rich, and well rested. I’m surprised to find I still have a few tears left in the tank, or maybe it’s because the last of the Ursa Major ran out hours ago. I look around my mold-encrusted hotel room and watch the walls push in towards me. Nospharrat is everywhere.
“Don’t be afraid,” he continues. “This is a good opportunity. If you do this favor for me, I’ll freeze the interest and cut your principal in half.”
This means nothing to me. I can’t keep ten dollars in my pocket for more than fifteen minutes; that other two hundred fifty might as well be $2.5 million. But maybe I can earn my family a few weeks of living.
“All right. I’m in,” I say, feeling the first pang of withdrawal in my guts. “Just tell me what you want done.”
“No. You and I don’t talk ever again. Get in the car downstairs and you’ll meet with middle management.”
“Thank you, Mr. Nospharrat.”
“And one more thing, leave your cellular and wallet in the hotel room.”
I stare at the curtains as the wind pulls them out the open window. I could easily make the jump; it’s only a second-story room. But to be honest, I don’t care one way or the other anymore.
Mainly for my parents, I write a quick note and shove it in the waistband of my boxers:
My name was Andrew Jessop. I was 26 years old.
I half-stumble down to the lobby and promptly get collared by Stokes, a low-level meathead that Nospharrat keeps on the payroll. Like every other associate of Nospharrat’s, Stokes looks like he’s just walked out of a boardroom. I haven’t met one piranha yet who doesn’t like to play dress up.
“Cotton Andy,” Stokes grins, leading me through the front doors by the collar of my T-shirt. “What’s new?”
“Lay off,” I snap, pulling out of Stokes’s grasp. “I already told him I would do it.”
“And your word’s as good as fucking gold, right Andy?”
“I’m not stupid,” I say. “It’s not like there’s anywhere to run.”
“If you weren’t stupid, neither one of us would be here,” Stokes says. Yawning, he points me towards a taxi.
When I get into the vehicle—a Zulooc 350—I find myself in a car full of people like me. There’s Albert, a runny-nosed “cub” who is a complete write-off. He won’t be alive come two months from now. Greenway, by contrast, is in it for the long haul. He’s probably at least ten years older than me, hiding a perpetual smirk under an overgrown mustache. Audrey, the last member of our little band, is a hard one to peg. She’s young. There are still braces on her teeth and she’s managed to keep most of her looks. Her bright green eyes are hidden by a massive layer of black eye shadow and stringy brown bangs. But she has that non-committal stare that’s all too familiar. Six months? Six years? Hard to tell when she’ll check out.
The thing with Ursa Major is that you know it’ll end up killing you. Some might drop out early, but there is the chance—if you’re lucky—that you’ll get a good ten years or so. All you have to do is maintain your balance. I was good at that. Binge if you must, but make sure to eat often. Sleep and shit at least twice a month. I was able to churn out the bulk of the CGI for two Northern Star movies under that simple formula. Of course, after seven months I was unemployable: in full psychosis and headed for the first of many crashes.
Once a bearhead loses their job, they usually take up other hobbies to consume their hyper-productivity. Mine was storyboarding—not on a computer of course, that was sold off ages ago—but by hand, on any shred of scrap paper I could find. My planned animated opus didn’t have a real title yet. I just called it Untitled Ursa Major Project. I still remember the day when I stared at my accumulated storyboards completely straight, fresh out of rehab. Each drawing was a precise mini-masterpiece, a shining example of the bear’s autistic perfection; but if there was a story in the collective whole, it was lost on me. I tried for days to figure out what the drawings meant, before I finally relapsed.
Stokes gets behind the wheel and crams the rest of us in the backseat, like he’s taking his kids to the movies. He elevates the Zulooc into a glide and drives straight from the Boons to the lower-lying flood districts, flying by endless streets of river silt and water-damaged stilt-houses. It all looks like wet cardboard to me. The withdrawal is coming on full force now, so I close my eyes and concentrate on trying not to vomit.
Audrey is the first one to get edgy, tiring of our seemingly endless tour of the city’s lowlights.
“So what exactly are we supposed to be doing, then?” she says, her voice implying the bearhead’s usual threat: you wouldn’t like me if I was bored.
“Wrong W,” Stokes says. From my vantage point in the back seat, he’s just a set of teeth floating in the rearview mirror. “Not what—who. Who, in this case, is Bob Keeney.”
At this point, Stokes may as well be speaking Japanese. A string of drool oozes from Albert’s lips. If you listened closely, you might be able to hear the faint buzz of four brains trying to connect the dots.
“You want us to kill somebody?” Greenway finally sputters through his mustache, the smirk gone now.
“Good guess,” Stokes says. “And the answer is yes. Keeney’s a projector, an employee of ours who went AWOL.”
A projector. That explains why Nospharrat wanted four druggies for this assignment. The only brain a projector can’t play with is one that’s already fried.
Stokes hands me a small slip of paper with an address (White Horizon Apartments, Room 519) and a shiny new cellular phone. He also passes around a small photo, a headshot of Keeney, I assume. Keeney doesn’t make much of an impression. He has the sort of face that would try to sell you insurance. By the time I’ve passed the photo over to Greenway, I’ve already forgotten what he looks like.
“Is he a 360?” I ask.
“That’s not important,” Stokes lies.
When it comes to dealing with projectors, that’s all that matters. There are plenty of low-rez types who can hit you with the odd hallucination for a few minutes. But a true 360 can pull a whole city block of people into a full-blown movie. A projector can’t read your mind. They don’t have to. You’re going to read theirs, and that’s just all there is to it.
“Why are we killing him?” Albert asks.
“That’s not your problem,” Stokes says. “All you need to know is that he walked out on an exclusive contract with Mr. Nospharrat. End of story.”
“I don’t want to kill anybody. Can’t we just beat the shit out of him or something?” Albert says to Stokes, obviously still confused about the nature of our employment. I cringe and shrink down in my seat, seconds before Stokes turns around and punches Albert square in the face. Despite the blood spurting out of his nose, the blow doesn’t appear to have registered in Albert’s brain.
“Just do what everybody else is doing and you’ll be fine,” Greenway says, obviously feeling sorry for the kid.
“Fucking druggies ... real nice vibe we’ve got going on in here now,” Stokes complains to himself, before snapping out of it. “Never mind that. The good news is that you’re all going to get nice and wet before we send you in. Compliments of Mr. Nospharrat.”
Despite the fact I’m sick and scared out of my mind, I feel a lurid grin of anticipation spreading across my face. Which says a lot about why I ended up here in the first place.
We make a pit stop at a Chitalian restaurant, the kind that’s always closed. Definitely one of Nospharrat’s many properties. Stokes orders us a round of beers and promptly seats himself at another table for a midnight snack.
“Eat well, you elitist fuck,” Greenway mumbles, glaring over at Stokes, while Albert stuffs a paper napkin into his nostrils to stop his nosebleed.
I have to admit that Greenway is low class, even by druggie standards (I guess I’m a bit of an elitist myself). But he’s funny. He has a dozen different theories as to why Nospharrat is using projectors. One is that Nospharrat needs at least three to help run his whorehouse on the north end. A quick illusion makeover can patch a banged up prostitute in seconds.
“He might not even be using actual humans in that place,” Greenway says, obviously troubled by the thought that’s just crashed into his brain. “Maybe he has the place filled with farm animals ... or mannequins ... or has the johns doing each other. Nobody’d know the difference...”
And then he starts talking about the convenience of using a projector in the fast-paced world of narcotics. Place a projector adjacent to the buy area and you could sell a suitcase full of flour for a million. Most traffickers get a junkie to test the product on site. With a few well-placed hallucinations, no one would be the wiser. Other budding entrepreneurs run strings of shooting galleries on nothing but projectors and placebos.
“These are vile times,” Greenway says to himself, shivering. “They should shoot every last projector in the head. Or give them all a lobotomy at the very least. Public safety and all of that.”
“Too much money to be made,” I tell Greenway. “C’mon, are you telling me you wouldn’t drop a few dollars for a nice, clean hallucination?”
“That’s what drugs are for,” Greenway laughs, exposing a mouthful of half-rotten teeth.
Disgusted, I turn away and look at Audrey, who’s slumped halfway under the table.
“He’s going to kill us,” she says, glancing over at Stokes.
“Not yet,” I say. “Not when Nospharrat can still fuck us for a while longer.”
Stokes seems to sense the negative mood from our table. He pushes his chow mien away and strides over to us.
“All right kids, it’s time for your medicine,” he says, emptying a small pill bottle onto the table. Eight small, white tablets roll out. “Take two each.”
“What is this?” I ask Stokes, as I separate out two pills with an index finger.
“Meet your new Major,” Stokes says. “Just swallow them. We’ve got a schedule here.”
“I don’t swallow the Major,” Greenway complains. “I smoke him.”
“Greenway,” Stokes says, suddenly grabbing him by the shoulder. “If you don’t take those pills now, you’ll be smoking the corner of this table.”
Stokes gets his point across. Greenway complies by licking his two pills directly off the table, like some anteater from the world’s sickest zoo.
Audrey breaks the stifling silence at the table with several involuntary squeaks. Her pills are already long gone, and her eyes are starting to pop like a manga heroine.
“Is it good?” Albert asks her.
“It’s not the bear, but whatever it is, it’s real,” she says, getting flushed and pink. “Not very strong though.”
Once we’re convinced that the lab rats are going to live (to be honest, I think we only wait about 30 seconds), Albert and I swallow our pills. Audrey’s right, the drugs are weak, but they do the job. As we leave the restaurant, the concrete fizzles and glows in the rain.
“Nothing like tonic for the troops,” Stokes winks, before he shoves us all back into our death cab.
Forest Green is a misnomer. It is an endless suburb of white high-rises and grey condos, all competing for the minimalist equivalent of absolute zero. Home to software grunts and accountants who will never own real estate, despite their relative successes. But it beats living in the mold and mud.
Stokes gets us past the gates by flashing a knowing smile to the lone guard. The gate road leads us through an architect’s rendition of a petrified forest. Between the cement branches I catch a glimpse of a broken-antlered deer, staring back at us with the soulless eyes of a statue. This lone stab at architectural flavor quickly gives way to the usual strip mall banks and grocery stores, and eventually block upon block of apartment buildings.
There was a time when this was all I ever wanted—a Forest Green apartment, a girlfriend, and some disposable income. I was willing to cut corners to get it. Just like half the people living out here right now—muscling out the employment competition with brain stimulants, sleep nullifiers, personality amplifiers, and whatever the next breakthrough in personal-achievement pharmaceuticals might be.
The popular theory is that two generations of pill-popping proletariat produced the first generation of projectors. Some might argue that was the only positive side effect of the endless line of “office enhancers.” But I suppose that really depends on what projector you talk to: the one who’s making a decent living in the streets or the poor soul who’s locked up in a government laboratory or sanitarium. For all we know, Bob Keeney might just be another projector who finally lost his mind.
Within minutes, Stokes stops the Zulooc beside a sound barrier wall that’s veined with artificial creepers. He hauls a briefcase out from under his seat and gives us our first look at the artillery: four simple stubguns (probably kept under a remote safety, if Stokes values his life) and several slim metal tubes.
“Here’s how this is going to work,” he says. “The best strategy is to simply get into his unit and take him out immediately. Don’t waste time mouthing off or trying scare him. Get a couple of good body shots in with the stubs, and then...”
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