fall asleep, you'll also be able to hear her thoughts and feel whatever she does. Comprendé Cheecho? Keep in mind you are the reason she is in that situation and you will experience firsthand her obviously, self-inflicted death. Each and every night you'll share someone's demise. She will be your first. There are a total of six victims as of last count and when you've gone through all of them, you'll start over... and keep repeating the sequence until the game's conclusion. You've been a bad boy and it's time to start paying the piper. We're going to release you now. Go back to your penthouse and get a good night's rest." They snickered at their callus joke.
"Oh, wait! We almost forgot. Are we becoming senile?" Faith asked her partner.
"Maybe," answered Joy. "I hear you get a little fuzzy after two thousand years."
"So, Mister Victor Big Shot Armada, as agreed here's your part of our bartered trade." They raised their knees and skirts to reveal a lower anatomy - the same as a naked, rubber toy doll. There was nothing defined except the creases in their joints. "Who's the dummy now, lover boy?" they chided.
Victor's jaw sagged and his voice became mute. He shook his head, blinked and found that the girls had disappeared. He regained his strength. The elevator stood open.
Armada did not sleep that night. When he returned to his suite his head buzzed from the get-together with Joy and Faith. There were too many details and secrets revealed for it to have been a hallucination and he stood fast as a man of hard, cold facts - no loose ends. Even though his mind told him he had experienced it, logic challenged the rational. The unexpected and bizarre happenstance reminded him of his dropping acid in younger years except that in this particular encounter too many hidden truths had been revealed by the girls - things he would never admit, even in a court of law. Victor felt confused, an emotion he was unfamiliar with, thereby disturbed. Weird thoughts swam threw his mind, "That bizarre scene of Olga, where could it have come from even if I were tripping? The elevator, when I exited on my floor a few minutes ago I popped my head back inside and the number thirteen had disappeared. I've never experienced anything like this before." He had 'too many' drinks and sat on the veranda watching the stars, moon and mild ocean swells until dawn broke then dragged his tired body inside, took a shower and called a steward for coffee. Sleep continued to elude him but he didn't care. The day passed in slow motion. He elected not to make any social appearances, instead lounged about and used room service. Victor no longer had a desire to request a masseuse or have female company. In fact, sex was not even a distant consideration. Finally, late the second night he succumbed to fatigue and laid in his bed.
Olga hadn't moved in her tub. It was as if he had just returned to a previously paused recorded movie yet the situation felt different. His senses were accentuated. The room: still dank, moldy, lifeless, - a dead roach lay upside-down behind a toilet missing its seat. The distinctive scent of terminal illness: ovarian cancer, unwashed hair and sweat drifted up from cloudy, yellowish water. Victor had no control of direction and seemed to float closer and closer until his mind entered her head and melded with hers. He heard her thoughts - listening only, she couldn't hear his. The pain - the never ending pain! Olga had run out of meds four days ago, had no money and been refused again at the community clinic. There was no one to help, save her daughter who was just as poor and often sickly herself. She didn't want to burden her only child further... "It's better this way," she reasoned. Out of wine. Out of hope months ago. The water began to cool. "I want it to end!" She took the box cutter and dug in as deep as the burning pain would permit. It didn't squirt forth as she expected, it flowed more as a steady stream. The water tinted pink. "I have to do the other one faster. I need to get this over," gritted her teeth and slashed the right one viciously - it was not a pretty sight. Placing her hands at her sides, the water quickly turned crimson. Victor felt her anguish and physical pain as if it were his own. She sobbed in shame for her part in her life's tragic end. "My daughter, my baby; what have I done? I'm so sorry for leaving you this way." She began to feel cooler. "Is the Grim Reaper on his way?" Shortness of breath seized her and regret began to overwhelm the waning mother. "I don't want my baby to find me this way," she rasped. Her body began to go into shock. "No. no," as she shook her head from side to side, then tried to crawl out of the tub. She failed and her body hung limp, halfway over the top ledge as she passed out. Olga faded into life's eventual end.
Victor was not completely without compassion - observing and feeling her plight felt as if his heart had been ripped from his chest. Her despair and torment racked his brain. Cold, alone, she died. In his first shared death - her mind and body had joined with his and he suffered greatly.
He awoke to the butler shaking his shoulder. "Mister Armada, are you all right? I've been trying to wake you for several minutes. I thought I was going to have to call the ship's doctor," while grinning as if an enormous load had been lifted from his shoulders.
"I'm all right, can't you see that?" as he brushed away the man's hand. "Get me some coffee fast... Cuban coffee." Victor concentrated, cleared the cobwebs and reflected, "I felt as if I couldn't wake up until the dream finished." He began to remember the scene and shuddered. "What's going on? Dreams are supposed to fade away not get clearer. I don't want to remember nightmares like that," but he did. Another day dragged on. The next one worse than the day before and he became more reclusive all the while thinking, "What will happen when I fall asleep again?" He piddled about killing time, drank in the daytime and tried to reason away his nagging fear. Finally, at four a.m. he slipped off to sleep... and dream.
Victor stood in front of a man seated at a small table inside a run-down motel efficiency. Roberto, age forty-six, unemployed - fired again a week ago, hunched over an empty, cheap rum bottle. He couldn't keep a job, his wife and two children left to live with her parents in Cuba after their small house in Hialeah had been seized by foreclosure five months ago. "It's my birthday and no one cares whether I live or die." He didn't cry; the tears had run dry long ago. The manager was going to evict him tomorrow and he didn't have a dime to his name or another place to go. He still had a little pride left and adamantly refused to live on the street. "The County Shelter said they wouldn't accept me because they were full... or was it actually because of the blood I'm spitting up and they think I've got somethin' real bad... contagious... maybe I do." He fingered the loaded, thirty-eight caliber revolver on the table. "No one will miss me. I don't want to die in a beggar's hospital with tubes stuck up my nose and pisser."
Victor had already joined him and cringed when the totally defeated man picked up the weapon and placed it to his chest. Roberto was determined and wouldn't change his mind as Olga had. He summoned from within his last bit of courage and squeezed the trigger. 'Click' "What?" It didn't fire. "Did that damn, street punk sell me a defective gun? I spent my last few dollars for a bottle and a cheap piece that doesn't work?" He pulled the trigger again - another, 'Click'. Now, he became angry and inadvertently changed the barrel's direction slightly. As they say: The third time's the charm. BLAM! Victor mentally jumped out of his skin. The bullet tore through Roberto's left, upper shoulder. He screamed and Armada screamed with him. Hardly any blood came out but it hurt like hell. "Oh, no. I'm such a failure I can't even shoot myself!" He took the gun and touched the end of the barrel to the roof of his mouth. "Shoulda' done this first." 'Blam', success and lots of blood. Armada was speechless and horrified by the carnage.
Victor awoke lying on the floor next to his bed. He had wet himself. The butler hadn't tried to rouse him this time. The man knew his job would be in jeopardy if a V.I.P. became embarrassed after learning other elite passengers had found out about his personal mishap. Victor took a shower and illegally threw his soiled clothing overboard. "This has got to stop. Surely, it's temporary," and decided not to sleep for as long as possible. "Whatever drugs those two vixens used on me will be out of my system within four days at the most. I've had alcohol and drug binges before where it's taken thr
ee days to dry out." He went to a pharmacy in Buenos Aires and purchased several South American, No Doze equivalents. Armada returned to the ship with no fanfare - under the radar, holed himself up in his suite and remained awake another two days. His appearance worsened due to weariness and the hyperactive state caused by enhanced medications. The Captain of Food Services stewards reported it to the ship's doctor who quickly paid Victor a visit to determine whether the passenger had contracted the dreaded, super-contagious Norwalk virus. Armada checked out fine and the physician's fears were put to rest. Victor assured the good doctor he would be back in the expected social loop very soon. During the evening of the third night he shut his eyes again for just a moment...
This time Armada found himself riding in a car's passenger seat. A young man, Carlos was driving... not very well, he was extremely upset. The auto's clock displayed two a.m. and traffic was light on the interstate. He had been drinking and arguing with his live-in girlfriend for hours at her place - she had a job, he