Next week on
The Facilitator...
Das Gummi-Huhn.
***
She's being watched. Eyes in the jungle. She can't see them, but she can feel it. Her heart is racing. They're walking into a trap. She needs to warn them. She needs to stop them, before it's too late. She tries to tell the men. She wants to tell them. But she's mute. She can't talk. It's like there's an invisible gag over her mouth. She can only watch in silent horror as the men quietly, cautiously tiptoe towards death. Suddenly the sound of machine-gun fire fills the air. It's an ambush. “Charlie's everywhere!” she shouts, no longer mute. “Charlie's everywhere!” But it's too late. The men are falling in their tracks as she watches. Jonesie, Moose, and Briggs fall down, like marionettes with cut strings. Too late to save them. Too late to do anything but scream.
Parker finds herself awake, suddenly, sitting bolt upright and soaked with sweat, the echoes of their screams still in her ears.
“What the hell was that about?” she wonders. She shouldn't be having nightmares about 'Nam. The closest she's ever gotten to Vietnam was watching Forrest Gump as a teenager. She makes a mental note to talk about this with her therapist, and brings her attention back to the present.
She's a mess, and it's not because of an imaginary Viet Cong ambush. Ooblik, she remembers. Ooblik's thugs did this to her.
Her lip is swollen, and her nose won't stop bleeding. Her vision is blurry... probably because of the large amount of swelling around her left eye. She only has an overly-large and blood-stained grey t-shirt, and her underwear. This has not been a great day.
She's locked in what seems like a janitor's closet. She's been put in a shallow concrete tub with a drain at the bottom, and her hands are shackled behind her, to a pipe. A dim incandescent bulb lights the room. And she hears footsteps in the hall, getting louder. It has not been a great day, and it's about to get worse.
The footsteps come to a stop outside the door. The handle rattles, and again.
“Darn,” says a familiar voice. “I was hoping they left it unlocked.”
“Michael?” she asks. “MICHAEL?!”
A familiar face appears under the door.
“Hi Katie!” says the rubber chicken, in a silly cartoon voice. “You sure look sad! I came to cheer you up!”
“Michael!” she says. “We don't have much time. The guard will be back any minute. It's Ooblik!” she tells him, talking as fast as her swollen lip will allow. “Ooblik wants to use App-App to distribute his data-mining software!”
“I know,” he tells her. “I'm on it.”
Of course he knew, she realizes. What else would have brought him to a dumpster-fire like App-App.
“Michael, you have to go,” she urges.
“I couldn't find a key,” he tells her. “I brought everything I could find. Maybe something in here will help...”
Office supplies begin sliding under the door, rapid fire. Staples. A staple remover. A ruler. Some thumb tacks. Post-It notes. Some Bic pens. A box of paper clips. “That'll work,” she says, reaching her leg and snagging the paper clips with her bare toes. “Thank you Michael.”
“Any time,” he says. “Gotta go.”
“Michael! Tell my father...”
“About Ooblik? I sent him a message.”
“No-- tell him that... that...” she finds herself unable to find the words.
“Tell him yourself, next time you see him.”
She hears his footsteps disappear down the hallway. He left his rubber chicken behind... its perpetually stunned face stares back at her from under the door. She manages a smile. It's nice to have some company. She gets to work with a paperclip.
---
“I'm sorry, Michael...” Allison says. She's barely holding together. He knows what she's going to say. His briefcase is already packed. “I have to let you go. I ... I have to let everyone go.” She grimaces and sobs, trying to fight back her tears. “Our major investor pulled their funding. Without any warning! ... I don't know how to tell my team...”
“It's ok,” he says. “It's ok. Just be direct. And let them know how you feel. Like you're doing right now.”
She nods, tears streaming down her face. “I ... I thought we were turning things around... for a little while, I actually thought this was going to work.”
He nods, sadly. He understands. He's been there before. And he wishes he could tell her the real reason the investor yanked her funding. But that has to stay secret.
“It'll be ok,” he tells her. “You'll be ok.” Unexpectedly, she puts her arms around him and squeezes, then steps back.
“It was great working with you, Michael,” she says. “I learned so much from you... I ... I just made it through a whole conversation without saying 'synergy'!” She manages to smile through her tears as she waves goodbye.
---
Otto checks the Bundesliga scores on his cell-phone. “Ja ja ja Dortmund!” he cheers. An obnoxious squeal interrupts him. “Vas ist?”
He scans the hall, and spots something odd. A second annoying squeal assaults his ears. He stomps toward the anomaly. It is, indeed a rubber chicken peeking out from beneath a door.
“Das Gummi-Huhn! This is forbidden!”
The chicken squawks again in reply. Otto reaches the door, but the chicken retreats under the door before he can grab it.
“You must surrender the chicken! Do not make me come in there! Surrender the chicken, right now!”
The chicken lets out another mocking squawk.
“That is enough of this!” Otto declares, going through his key ring to find the right key. “Give me the chicken!” he demands, opening the door.
---
Michael waits in the departure lounge of the airport terminal. He has traded in his briefcase for a carry-on bag. He holds his cell-phone to his ear with his shoulder as he double-checks that his boarding pass and passport are in order. As always, not a detail is left to chance.
“...and the new expansion content went live this week! Chibi-Land is alive with the laughter of virtual children!”
“That's wonderful, Noriko,” Michael says to his cell-phone. “I'm proud of you. I knew you could do it.”
“Thank you, Mikaru,” she replies. “I am sorry to hear that your venture with App-App was not a success. What will you do now?”
“Flaming Man,” Michael replies.
“Flaming Man?” she asks. “Is that a mobile game? I picture a man set ablaze, running in a maze, trying to find a way to extinguish himself before he is complete incinerated. If he does not find a pond or a fire extinguisher in time, he becomes a little pile of ash.”
He laughs in reply. It sounds like she's describing his life, he thinks to himself. “No, it's not a game. It's an event. An experience. A community.”
“That does not make it any clearer,” she replies, “but I wish you good fortune.”
“Thanks, kiddo. Gotta run,” he says, as the intercom announces it's time to board. He turns off his cell-phone and lines up, a respectful distance behind the elderly and the passengers with small children.
---
Jens Ooblik storms down the hall, flanked by his right hand man Klaus and his American aide Karen. “Now,” he declares, “it is time to, as you Americans so eloquently put it, time to freakin' find out what is up!”
“We Americans don't actually say that, sir,” Karen points out, running a couple of steps as she tries to keep up with the two much taller men.
“SILENCE!” Ooblik demands. “Never correct me, Fraulein Sykes, or you may find, as you Americans like to say, find my foot in your face!”
She thinks better of correcting him again, and instead hands him the key as they arrive at the door.
“And now... to freakin' find out what is up!”
Ooblik opens the door. Inside is a bound figure, dressed only in underwear and a t-shirt. But it isn't Parker. It's Otto. Face down in a pile of office supplies, with a rubber chicken stuffed in his mouth.
“PARKERRRRR!!” he rages.
-k