Officer Jeff
The Founder sat behind his desk, his white hair neatly arranged as always. He closed a drawer, had checked if something was still in there. He raised his gaze, met with Jeff’s. Jeff was leaning against an off wall next to a window, tapped with one finger against the concrete wall.
“Then everything is sorted out, I suppose?” the Founder asked.
“Yes.”
The old man pressed a button on his desk, and the office door swung open. The two guards from earlier forcefully shoved Eric inside, his hands still cuffed as he had trouble walking straight. Jeff thought it looked kind of pathetic, and something inside of him hoped that Eric would suffer permanent damage from his injury.
The guards pushed down Eric on a rather comfortable looking chair, then stepped back, waiting. Eric hesitated, waited for what the old man was about to say. The left corner of Jeff’s mouth managed half a smile.
A glass bottle – which had been standing on top of the Founder’s desk – was used to pour an orange looking liquid in two glassed which stood in front of Eric and the old man. They both remained silent. The bottle was put back to where it had been standing earlier.
More silence.
“Why did you bring me here?”
The Founder remained silent.
“To reveal your big master plan? Are you going to tell me that all of this was planned and I am so wrong yet again? Is that what you are trying to do here?”
Silence.
“Listen up, you ol-”
“Drink.”
“…”
The Founder picked up the glass, held it in Eric’s direction.
Eric tilted his head slightly, his body language showing signs of distress. Jeff held his hand close to his holster, even though he was pretty sure that he wouldn’t have to use what was inside of it. But... just in case.
The Founder didn’t seem bothered by Eric not picking up the glass, lifted it in a sign of politeness before drinking some out of it. He put it back down, his face as relaxed as always.
“Eric. I am here to thank you.”
“What?” Eric scratched his thumb with his middle finger, peered around as if to find out if his ears had deceived him.
“You have done well. Your case has quite the reputation by now, and we are going to deliver the satisfying conclusion of it to the public. After everything has been made public, everyone will be able to see what you have done in there, and it will set up the foundation for the expansion of our company all over the world.”
“Go ahead, warn the world about what I am capable of.” Eric shuffled around in the chair, leaned forward as he made eye contact with the Founder. His hard expression met the gentle one of the Founder. Jeff could feel the tension that was building up, but it was as if the Founder made it disappear as soon as it arose, like snuffing out a small flame. “The sooner they learn to fear me, the better. So you are actually doing me a favour.”
That whole playing god bullshit slowly but surely got on Jeff’s nerves. Eric was so sure about himself, but it couldn’t be true, right? Jeff recalled the moment when he had his gun pressed against Eric’s forehead. A part of him wondered if Eric would have died back then if he had pulled the trigger.
But then he was ripped out of his thoughts by Eric’s laughter. “You know, it’s quite funny how you cling yourself to the imagination that you are doing the right thing here. You’re trying so hard to be the good guys, but what you are doing inside of the game is far worse than anything I have ever done to anyone. You also enabled me to do far worse things inside of the game than I would have ever done on the outside, so I guess thanks for that. Yes, I really need to thank you. You enabled me to become what I am now: a being beyond your comprehension.”
Eric picked up the glass, downed it in one go. Something inside of Jeff kind of hoped that it was poisoned, but he knew the Founder to be smarter than that.
Eric slammed the empty glass against the wall next to Jeff. It smashed into a thousand pieces. But Jeff didn’t even move a muscle.
“Don’t you dare let your guard down back there, you with your sad little puppy eyes, which you try to hide behind your rough facade. Don’t forget, you won’t fool anyone with your little act. And don’t ever forget that you are the one who caught me, which also means that you are responsible for everything that is about to happen in the future as well as everything that happened inside of the game.”
Usually, Jeff would have exploded by now. He had never been good at keeping himself at bay in situations like this, which was part of the reason why he had lost his job as a police officer a while after catching Eric. He had ripped it all apart, had felt the insignificance of his actions since they couldn’t change the past. But now he was surprised by how calm he felt. Something had changed. Had he been afraid of Eric earlier? No… there had been something different. The anger he had against him, the steam that had build up every time Eric had raised his voice, it all seemed to be unnecessary now. There was no reason to be angered by him, no reason to shout or to scream at him. It was all from no use. He saw him for what he truly was.
The only thing he could do now was to pity him. Pity how sad his existence and views were. Pity for what he had become. He wasn’t a god; he was the being furthest away from it. But there was no need to tell him. He was supposed to find that out himself. Jeff stopped tapping his finger against the wall.
Eric realized that Jeff wasn’t going to react, turned back towards the Founder. “You created a machine to do good – do what you define as right – but at the end you created a being which feasts upon the evil from the people you sent into it. You created a growing system of hate, of anger and of pain, and it will one day fall out of your control. It really is ironic how you are not capable of realizing your own delusion. At the end, you became the very thing you swore to destroy.”
The Founder waited for Eric to stop talking, didn’t address his words. Jeff had now realized that this was probably the best way of approaching Eric. He picked up his glass, took another sip out of it, then put it back down. Even though his being was calm, his authority hung like a veil of smoke in the air, clung to everything around it. “You really still think I don’t know the purpose of the C.U.A project? You are aware that I am the one who programmed it, am I right?”
“If that is true, then you are truly worse than me. Maybe you should put yourself inside of that machine then.”
“In a way, I already am inside of it. But I’m sure you have realized that by now.”
Jeff frowned in thought.
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“It does not matter to me what happens inside of the system, Eric,” the old man said. “Like you have already stated earlier, it is not real, not even a little. The people inside of there feel pain, so what? If people get hurt in shows or books, do people care? Does it even matter if at the end nothing of it manages to have an effect on their reality? I don’t think so. We will make a good job at choosing which details are to be made public and which not, and therefore the system will be seen as good and not evil.”
The Founder’s lips now carried a bright smile; a smile which almost looked a little too big for his wrinkled face. “We will be the ones who choose about what is evil and what is not in the future, and we will grow to the point where we will be finally able to create a world without sin.”
“I… did nothing wrong,” Eric said. “There is nothing I ever did wrong.”
“I doubt that,” the Founder said. “Every time you killed someone, it was in reality a scream for help, an act of silent suicide.”
“You… all of you…” Eric clenched his hands into fists. “You are all pathetic.”
“I think it is your time to go now, Eric.”
Eric stood up, his hands heavily shaking as he barely managed to keep his balance. He didn’t bother that his knee was still heavily injured, seemingly ignoring the pain.
“Shut up. I tear off your skin, you piece of shit.”
The two guards had already grabbed Eric, held him in place as he struggled to break free. Jeff was still leaning against the wall like before, but he had taken his hand off his holster minutes ago. It was over.
“You are the one who is pathetic, Eric,” the Founder said. “You will go down in history as a coward, as a person who abuses others and uses every excuse he gets to run away from his guilt, when in reality, he just can’t stop running away from himself.”
Eric struggled more, now starting to shout words and threats at the Founder. The old man stayed calm, and the smile on his face grew a little wider.
“Your attempts to keep me inside of the game were pathetic. Did you really think you could fool me like that? It is now only a matter of time until I fucking destroy everything that was ever important to you.”
“It is sad, truly. You could have had everything you wanted if you had decided to stay inside of the game. The copy of you would have left, and you would have been immortal. In there, you would have been able to kill as many people as you wanted to, to rampage to your heart’s content, and to kind of become a god. But out here, there is nothing you can do to escape from your sins anymore.”
The Founder placed his hand on a drawer under his desk – the one he had checked earlier. He pulled something roundish out of it, got up.
“It is time for you to accept what you truly are.”
Eric continued struggling, but it had no use. He couldn’t move away as the guards kept his head fixed forward. He repeated with a shaky voice, “I did nothing wrong. I am no sinner… I am a god. I… didn’t do anything wrong!”
Eric attempted to turn away as the Founder placed the round object in his two hands, moved it towards Eric’s face. It was the mask Jeff had already seen inside of the recording of ‘Sinner’s Game’. The Founder placed the mask on Eric’s face, who was very dissatisfied by what was going on.
Eric’s shouts and screams became muffled as the mask was put on his face. They probably only were pleads of suppressed anger and build up tension at this point anyways.
The Founder moved close to Eric, raised his chin with one hand.
His smile vanished.
“It is now time to go, Sinner.”
And as the guards started dragging the Sinner out, he added,
“Soon you will be pitied by the whole world.”
---
“But only this one time.”
“Yea… of course,” Jeff said, pressed down the lighter at the end of a cigarette.
He was positioned across from the Founder, the both of them sitting in front of half emptied glasses filled with an orange liquid. Jeff leaned back against the chair, took a long drag of victory. Yet, somehow, he felt like something which had been there earlier was now gone.
“And how does it feel, Jeff? Do you think you can finally rest now?”
Jeff sighed, gestured with cigarette in hand, “To be honest, I don’t think that I will ever be able to fully rest from what has happened.”
There was a short silence between the two of them. “You think he will keep that mask on?” Jeff asked.
“No, he will throw it off his face as soon as he enters his cell.”
“Then why even put it on him in the first place?”
“We will keep it inside of his prison cell. Maybe, one day, it will be from use again.”
“…”
“You don’t feel satisfied, do you?”
Jeff pulled on his cigarette, frowned.
“It feels like you are emptier than before, right? I have been at this point before. Your driving force is gone, the means to an end you put up in front of you. And since you have no goal anymore, it feels like you have lost even though you have won.”
“What is your point?” Jeff exhaled.
“You are going to need something new that drives you forward now. You have been waiting to finish this case, I know that, but there is still a lot more work for you to do here. I mean… if you feel like doing that. And also… maybe something besides work wouldn’t hurt. Something to work for, you know. Something which isn’t based on revenge.”
Jeff frowned again, but kept his voice calm as he said, “Looks like I got no other choice, huh? It’s not like the police would accept me back anyways.” He sighed.
“You might not be a police officer anymore, but still an ‘officer’ of our company. You know, Jeff, we will need someone to go into public with the case. I want you to do that. Just some interviews and comparable matters. I know you don’t like standing in the center of attention, but it will help our company quite a lot.”
Jeff let out a slightly annoyed but agreeing grunt, took another drag of his cigarette. “I mean, I owe you a favour for letting me smoke in your office, so I guess I have to do it.”
“Splendid.”
“So, is that everything to talk about? There are still some other things I have to do today.”
“Yes, but actually one more thing before you go.” The Founder pulled something out of a drawer, placed a sheet of paper in front of Jeff.
Jeff squinted at the piece of paper. “What’s that?”
“A letter which legally makes you the Co-leader of the C.U.A.”
“Wait, what? No… I just started working here, I ca-”
“There is no one more suitable for that position than you, mister Grimes. And it will work perfectly with the public and the case.”
“…”
“Jeff… Let’s make a deal.”
Jeff raised his gaze from the paper, saw an outstretched arm in front of him.
“Let us change the world together.”
He thought about the words of the Founder. Having a new purpose... a goal besides revenge. Now that he thought about it, there wasn’t much which had driven him in the past besides it, and it indeed felt like the words of the old man carried truth with them.
Jeff hesitated for a moment.
Then, he shook the Founder’s hand, said:
“Fine. Let’s move towards ascension together.”
“Splendid.” The old man beamed. “Collect, Unite, Ascent.”
Jeff nodded.
“Collect, Unite, Ascent.”
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