Eric

Long after Phyllis had slammed the office door, the sound continued to ring in my ears. Loud, deep, it was vibrating through my tensed muscles down into my bones. My throat burned. My mind wrapped itself tightly around all of my lost possiblities and I decided I sorely needed a drink. I went slowly to the bar and poured bourbon into a glass with shaking hands.

Did I care that the Misfits broke their contract with me, even though I'd walked through fire for years to make them stars? Did it matter that this was happening on the cusp of the VTV Music Awards? Hell no, I thought as I medicated myself slowly. The Stingers are bringing in more money and have more talent than those tone-deaf hellcats ever did. What really got to me, what seeped beneath my skin and made me burn, was that I had lost.

"I am so sick of losing." I muttered bitterly to my glass. "For once in his life, Eric Raymond wants to feel like a goddamn winner. Is that so wrong to want to win? To know that you're right and everything is going your way?" I tilted the glass slightly, peering into the gold liquid. "No, I don't think it is."

So I turned in my chair to face the window. I sat and watched night fall over the city, dusk embracing the structures and turning the cars in the streets into tiny beacons of light. I finished the last bit of bourbon and simply graduated to drinking straight from the bottle. And I thought about a lot of things, mainly things I either couldn't have or was losing. The thoughts seemed to spill out in a spiral fashion. Phyllis, my company, Harvey Gabor's money, my lack theorof, Starlight Music, Emmett Benton, Jerrica.

Jerrica. The name stalled and then stuck there in my mind. All the other spiraling thoughts wafted away as her name throbbed at me, taunting me much the way that she did and always had.

These images flickered across my mind's eye, tantalizing me as I watched them. Sometimes the image would be stuck on a flicker of her breasts or her eyes when she was angrily chastisting me. Her voice blurred with Phyllis's and jarred back to Jerrica again. A vein in my left eye twitched.

Quickly I swallowed another dose of bourbon to relieve the pressure. Like I'd done many times before, I reached for the last drawer on the left hand side of my desk. I opened it and withdrew a dog-eared Polaroid. I stared at it pensively.

It was a rather ugly contraption to me, big, bulky, too many flashy lights and seemingly having no purpose but to be used as a fancy video game console. But it was unlike any game that I had ever seen. It had a wide grey screen, maybe five sets of keyboards, large LCD light displays and huge gaping faucet-like bulbs protruding from all angles. It was clearly intended to be some kind of supercomputer.

My detective friend had stumbled upon it some years back, upon my request for research on the mysterious Jem. He'd come back to me with this photo and a theory that this machine was responsible for her arrival on the scene. I hadn't been able to stop thinking about it or Jem ever since.

I know, somehow, there's a link between her and Jerrica that goes way beyond business. It's the kind of knowledge that can haunt a man for years. First Emmett Benton passes away and Jerrica inherits his company, then this new pink haired chanteuse comes out of nowhere and forms a band with the other Benton sisters and instantly they're a smash success. A smash success that forces me out of my rightful place as head of Starlight Music Corporation and relegates me to being the second banana, as it were. Somehow still to this day, everyone in Jem's circle has amnesia as to where she came from or who she actually is.

I continue to stare down the Polaroid. There has to be a link. Jem and Jerrica. Jerrica and Jem.

And then, as they say, I had a momentous epiphany. A weight simultaneously lifted and then sunk onto my chest as I realized that Jerrica Benton, little mousy Jerrica, is Jem. That machine is responsible for it and Emmett had been building it the whole time I was under him at Starlight. He was plotting to unseat me all along.

Not only that, but mousy little Jerrica had treated me merely as her plaything, a stuntman to fill in for Pacheco while he was gone. I was only useful for making his jealousy flare up. Then she would plead and beg, and he would pretend to be angry and then they'd have fabulous make-up sex. I saw the scenario play out infinite times, all the while knowing she'd never be mine. Just like Phyllis would never be mine. Just like Starlight Music, which was rightfully mine. And Eric Raymond loses at the game of life yet again.

"I'll make her pay for what she's done." I growled. "As God as my witness, I will make her pay." The last word I barked out, slamming the bottle down hard enough to make it shatter.

Someone was laughing. What a horrible sound, cackling that was almost maniacal. My eyes darted around the room searching for the source of it until I realized it was coming from my chest. It only made me laugh harder and oh, my, how fast it was all coming together.

Without a second thought I pick up the phone and dial Zipper's number. He takes his time answering it, probably trying to find the phone in all the filth, no doubt.

"Yeah." His voice was slurred.

"I hope you don't have plans for the night of the VTV Music Awards." I said in the coolest tone I could muster.

"How come you wanna know?" He drawled. I could hear him stifling a yawn.

"I have a very important assignment for you. You're going to keep a close eye on Jem and Jerrica Benton for me that evening, and you'll need some friends. An inconspicious getaway vehicle, doesn't matter what it is as long as it has enough room for someone to be...escorted away in." My finger traced a jagged shard of glass hard enough to draw blood.

An interested silence vibrated on the other end. He murmured his approval. "Yeah, yeah, I gotcha, boss. Sounds like you got some big plans."

"Shut up and listen closely. Follow each of them during the awards and be quiet about it. Something is going to happen there, something big, but I don't want you doing anything to either of them until the Holograms' entourage arrives at Howard Sands' afterparty. I'm going to give you the signal and when I do, you bring her to the vehicle."

"Wait wait wait, who am I taking, Jem or that Benton broad? And if somethin' big's gonna happen at the awards, wouldn't it be easier to just - " He protested rudely.

"Look, I'm the brains of this operation!" I snarled. "Not that it's any of your business, but I have a personal vendetta to settle at that party. Only after I settle that vendetta is any of this your concern. Now, once you see what happens at the awards, you'll know who I want. Are you getting all of this down, Zipper, or should I use smaller words so your smaller brain can get it right?"

Silence again. "Yeah, I get you, Raymond. This plot is gonna cost you big, ya know, lots of green."

"Never mind." I snapped. "You have your instructions. Carry them out and whatever you do, don't fuck it up. I'll be in touch." The phone dropped unceremoniously into the reciever.

Then there was the laughter again and I did not care. I was going to get sweet revenge on my Jerrica, Jerrica darling. And this time, the game of life was going to bend to my will for a change.

I picked up the phone again and dialed Techrat.