Saucery – Bentley 49

 

[For back story go here: Story so far at 30 Nov 2020 and definitely this one.]

[Relevant back story also in embedded links.]

Bentley knew it was a mistake even when he agreed to it. A few lines of chat had been all it took for him to ‘accidentally’ close down the Zoom call and arrange a later date to liaise online with RingDreamer28. It was against his better judgement, but then Bentley’s judgement hadn’t really been up to much recently and calling one decision better than another was stretching reality. In truth some decisions were just worse than others and this one was down there with those.

But there again, Bentley was a free agent. RingDreamer28 reminded him of this and went further to make him realise that being a free agent meant he could do anything. Anything alone. And being alone he’d have any reward to himself. No need to share any fortunes, any discoveries, anything at all. And so Bentley decided he would go it alone and speak to this new figure, even though he was uncertain who it was but pretty certain how it would go.

At the allotted time Bentley opened the chat room and admitted RingDreamer28. The figure appeared on screen, silhouetted and back-lit, hoodie over head and face mask up. The occasional flash as the light glinted off his mirrored sunglasses. So far, so cliched, thought Bentley. But what should he expect? These were old time criminals. People who didn’t think they were criminals, but who thought they’d got away with ‘a bit extra’ and who were therefore hopelessly trapped in a certain type of criminal activity, a certain pattern of dodgy behaviour. One of little imagination and maximum sigh-inducing banality.

“So Bentley,” said the figure. “You have something special, right?”

“It would appear so,” agreed Bentley. “Something you want.”

“To be clear,” said the figure. “The key doesn’t interest me. The box does. And just so you know it’s not what’s in the box. It’s what’s on the box.”

“I’m intrigued,” said Bentley.

“I don’t care what you are,” said the figure. “It’s entirely irrelevant.”

“Not entirely,” countered Bentley. “You don’t get anything without going through me, as it were.”

“Oh, I’ll go through you alright,” said the figure. “I’m already going through you.”

Bentley’s mouth went dry. He licked his lips and took a sip of tea. The drink made no difference. Something was up and only the cat lapping from the saucer on the table was getting any level of refreshment right now. At least he’d eaten the biscuits before Lucky got lucky.

“First things first,” said Bentley, trying to rejuvenate his hold on this virtual meeting. “I think you should be straight and honest with me and show me who you are as of now.”

The figure chuckled humourlessly. “You still think you’re in control, Bentley. But you’re not. You never have been. Your entire life has been waiting for this moment to come along and now you’ve blown it.”

“You’re stupidly melodramatic,” scoffed Bentley. “Reminds me of..”

And he stopped dead. “And now it starts” said the figure. And sure enough a prompt from Bentley’s email programme suddenly blipped on screen telling Bentley there was some kind of computer bug now traipsing around his configure files.

“Just remember,” said the figure. “I’m making this happen, so I can make it stop.”

A second warning, this time from the word processing package. For some reason it had launched itself, throwing half a dozen new documents onto Bentley’s screen. In half of them the same three words scrawled themselves repetitively across the page. 

Then his web browser decided to point itself at a particularly unsavoury website and put images in front of Bentley which he (and his cat) could seriously have done without.

“No,” Bentley uttered. “No, stop it...”

“I can,” said the figure, still in the video screen. “Just say you’ll agree to work with me and me alone.”

Finally a music package, unused by Bentley, sprang to life launching in order to deliver nothing but an ear splitting high tone. A white noise track came in underneath it. Bentley tried muting the computer but couldn’t, tried closing the offending applications but couldn’t, tried turning off the computer entirely and still couldn’t.

“Just say the word,” said the figure.  “Just say it…”

Bentley closed his eyes. How could he be such a fool? Why had he gambled away the one advantage he’d had? The one moment when he could have cashed in everything, passed on the key and left it to someone else to sort out. Why had he thought that now was a bright time to try and push himself into the big league. He was just an old man with a cat. He opened his eyes and nothing had improved. Across the screen barrelled the same three words:

Aston is here Aston is here Aston is here