The Living Hell of Teddy the Table Read online

  *

  There was more to Triton Gaming than gaming, there was everything but gaming, they weren’t even in the gaming business, they were into reality, time that stood the test of time without artificiality. Time that couldn’t stand was passed over, sold as artificial.

  Uh, I guess so.

  Triton Gaming was owned by a continuum that set up Triton as a money farm to finance the work of the continuum. The continuum wasn’t about money, which is why it needed those danged money farms to get it’s fuel, some of it’s fuel, that fuel. There were also other fuel sources they harvested and used.

  Grace found her strength in the continuum, but it was a conundrum to her. One day she was working with it, the next against it. They tried to be family to her, even marry her into the fold, but she wasn’t having it. She thought they were wrong headed about what they thought was right, which they thought about a lot, and she was all too familiar with wrong headed wrong. As such, she couldn’t even trust the continuum to be wrong enough, because damned if they weren’t out to thwart wrong headed wrong. What was she to do?

  |m|*

  “What did you boys break now?” Grace asked upon being ushered into their infinity chamber, where surreality played. Not literally the chamber, which was the field of play, as it were, where the mirroring took place. As the word gaming was sloppily tossed about, so was the term infinity chamber, and all references to it. Field of play, the big clock, the bigger clock, the lifetime, the waxworks, the biggerer clock, the big mirror - one for every day of the week. Seven, still, right? The chamber did not include the virtual surreality game play command center, again with the game reference, which took up a third of an average sized warehouse. The chamber and command center were practically on top of one another, as a rule - rule, again with game - but this time these boys found a way to save space by having some overlap. Grace saw in an instant how clever and underfunded the guys were, with a compact chamber and just a quarter warehouse worth of command center. That sort of explained her taking pity on them. Not that they were poor and starving, they were decidedly not not poor. They had put some play in play for a business or two.

  “It’s been breaking since before it began,” said Jasper, the brainer-ish of the three, who kept it all together. At least tried. Despite his well versed knowledge of a little of everything, his front and forward value was in organization, allowing him to bring in and disburse more and better knowledge, if not go out and get it - there is a difference.

  “Did you get some bad time?” Grace asked, motherly and sympathetic. That was her style.

  “That’s how we do things around here,” said Martin. “You know that.”

  Yes, they had bought messed up time in the form of a game that never got set up with a chance to get going, let alone run, let alone swim. Yes, yet again, game; any wonder it didn’t work? It was Grace’s limited availability and unwillingness to expand her operations that made discarded, if now defective, artificial time available and affordable, with businesses that couldn’t figure them out or wait the time it would take for Grace to come around to make them work, and play, dumping them. They could be picked up virtually free if one wanted to crawl thru rummage sales.

  In truth, the Willie, Martin, Jasper operation was something of a facade. They worked for Triton Timing, a subsidiary of . . . well, take a guess who. Triton quietly sold repossessed and cleaned up time to the continuum, as good as new, if not better. Once cleaned up it was unlikely to become defective again, and not just because the continuum bought it all and didn’t game with it. In point of fact all artificial time went bad, whether gamed or not, unless, and rarely, it was played right, or never ever used to the point it evaporated. The game for play makers was to make that time play before it went bad or went away. So far so good when it did play well.

  Knowing all surreal time went bad, all enough, could go bad, Triton Timing fronted a group like Martin, Willie and Jasper, a so called infinity project team, gave them some operating capital, and took payment in the form of most of the time they cleaned up, if they failed to get a game running right, which meant playing right, and certainly not as a game. At least not yet. It wasn’t like the trio didn’t see if they couldn’t get a failed game unfailed, or not. If they did get a game running, well bully for them, hello oyster Whirled. Triton would be nice enough to say, ‘good for you guys, time well spent.’ Still, Triton was stilled owed, would be owed, a certain amount of cleaned time, even IF ever there was a working game, but cleaning up time was relatively cheap and easy breezy.

  The on-going problem with artificial time design was marrying work with play and getting business, as almost always, to get it through it’s assorted skulls about play. Then there was that short life span of artificial time. A high quality artificial hour lasted about twenty eight minutes,thirty-three seconds, but who’s timing? Like they’d say, ‘play younger, fastering man.’ I call that oddly headed.

  As was, play time did not come cheap. Before an infinity project even got it hands on any artificial time, fresh from the tube or in a futzed up non-game, they had to have a way to contain it, as in a personified surreal true game brain, along with a compatible personified pure game brain. Game brains! Oh, mama. Once past the genius needed to get these game brains in play, thinking, and generating actuated intelligence, the really really really tricky part was to teach the pure game brain to cheat, the only way it could interact with the cheating of the surreal true game brain. After all, it was all based in artificial time, sort of a cheat in itself. Is it a wonder artificial time went bad, or at least worse? Making it go bad was practically job one. What was an infinity project team to do?

  True and pure, so so so different.

  |and then along came Teddy the table|*

  “What’s the issue then?” asked Grace, scooting in next to Willie. “What’s that?” she asked pointing at the middle of the display mirror. The small mirror, not the big mirror, the small desk top display that was almost easier to look at than el biggo. ‘El biggo’ was just something on the white board, an option for a name eight to coincide with a movement for a day eight day, with day eight fifty-three and a half ours long, which might be counted as a week break rather than week day, with Saturday made into a work day and Sunday a day of accounting, for rest, worship, other worship and financial planning.

  “That is the issue,” said Willie.

  “It looks like a table,” said Grace.

  “It is a table,” said Willie. “At least it thinks it’s a table.”

  “Does it have much else to say about it self?”

  “No, not so much.”

  Ah yes, artificial time could think about and of itself, at least some of the time, in some of it’s place. Temporary, artificial self awareness that was real enough. Of course first a time element had to be personified, as person or table or whatever, even wind, even weak, invisible, soundless wind that couldn’t affect a piece of paper. Not that just any element could fake self awareness, although as of yet not any kind also couldn’t. “Has the table been talking to anyone else?” asked Grace.

  “I don’t know,” said Willie, looking up, perplexed, at Jasper who was still hovering above and perplexing back with drying paint intensity. Despite two brains behind it, artificial time at play had only one point of view. Maybe, just maybe, it might talk to itself.

  “The table is obviously the center of attention. It could be there to mislead you, with your true nemesis hiding in the wind.” Little ol’ wind. Shiver.

  Willie tapped in commands asking the table who it had been talking to. The table moved, shifting thirty degrees.

  “What’s going on?” asked Grace.

  “It’s looking the other way,” said Willie. I’m tapping to you over here, he tapped.

  “Hey!” snapped Grace, “be nice. This is something new. Where have you got so far? Have you taught it how to work? Are you teaching it to play yet?”

  “
It knows how to work. It knows how to play. It understands how to play. I think that’s the issue. It doesn’t like the win and lose aspect.”

  “What does win and lose have to do with anything? What kind of game are you playing?” Grace was referring to game as in loosely organized interactive fun. It had to have a point, and it took at least two to play at it, and surreality almost counted as one. Stupid surreality. Oh, oh, oh was how it counted. Another of those ever greater, always adding up, damned tricks, was to get surreality to fake counting as one, or oh, as in making 1/2 or 1/4 pass as 1. Oh. In the world of simple play that sort of thing could work. It did. The touch of a finger tip counted as much as a slap.

  “Just playing tag,” said Willie. Simple and safe enough. The stakes aren’t high. It’s worked before.”

  If you’re wondering about high stakes tag, think Texas tag ‘em. Playing without a side-arm is not optional. ‘nough said?

  “So this might be something kooky.”

  “That’s why I thought of you,” interjected Martin, sitting apart and watching things play out on his own display mirror.

  Grace looked at Martin, coolly amused. “I will bite you.”

  “You’re it,” said Martin.

  “Oh,” said Grace, looking away, not having a clue what Martin meant, thinking Martin didn’t either.

  “You’re it,” said Martin again. “Identity confusion. Is it time, a table, or an it?”

  “Sheesh,” said Grace. “Why didn’t you just come out and say that in the first place?”

  “It seemed so obvious I thought maybe it wasn’t.” He didn’t want to sound like a fool in front of a gaming psychologist.

  “I think the actualized intelligence of this place is rubbing off on you, Martin. You need a vacation.”

  Actualized intelligence was a side effect of the game brains, the side effect of side effects, the all desired side effect, the stuff that let surreality share place. Tables that moved themselves, with intent, was a side effect. Done right, artificial time would synchronize with real time, or real enough time, and might even pick up a little speed, as in last longer. Frankly, that synchronizing was what cleaning up time was all about. Real time would, on it’s own initiative, override defective artificial time, and even enriched the rest of the maybe not so defective artificial time. Oh, madam and sir, reality has so so so many tricks up it’s sleeve. Done wrong, tables became neurotic, starting now, almost now, just about now.

  “CURSE YOU ALL!” the table suddenly shouted, having abruptly turned back towards the display mirror. Turned back to look out of the display mirror. Yes, technically it thought it was in the mirror, as it may as well have been.

  Willie and Grace both leapt out of their chairs and Jasper took a step back. Martin left his chair and came forward to join the other three. “Now you did it,” Martin said.

  “Who did what?” asked Willie.

  “Has it acted like this before?” asked Grace.

  “Maybe don’t call it, it,” cautioned Martin.

  “Shut the fuck up, Martin,” said Willie. Oh that Willie. And ordinarily so quiet.

  What made the scene especially distressful . . . in point of fact there were multiple equal especiallies in play, but the favorite, as it were, was the voice of the table. It came from the play field, where the noises were generally calming and never . . . well certainly never threatening. The noises were organic, not describable as talk or music or metal striking stone. Organic, like the sound of whoosh, maybe whoosh on it’s way to becoming bird, music, or toilet flush.

  There was in fact some talk. Game pieces talked, time pieces they liked to say, - yes, talk of game pieces as an idea in play did cut it despite game reference, there did almost have to be some give and take when talking about objects in play talking - but those sounds were programmed and required very specific coded stimulants to be activated, and a humanoid personification, with a personified mouth - and that was stumbling block one that lead to liquid coach, which was not exactly humanoid or personified, more like that 1/2 deal passing as 1. Nothing like the voice or sound or noise of the table had ever come out of surreal time before. Sort of unannounced, in a loud sort of way.

  Quickly the question became, what was the reality of the situation? Should they be looking at the display mirror in the command center, or at what was taking place in the play field, the biggering mirror as it was, as it biggered before their ears. They couldn’t, or hadn’t ever, communicated with play, from out of play as it were, except via keyboard. It seemed the table was addressing them from beyond keyboard.

  Or were they in play as it were? This was so so so new.

  It wasn’t really so much that looking at the play field beat looking at a personal display, it was the sound element was much better. Mouth to ear as it were. Raw.

  Martin boldly stepped towards the play field. “Hello?” he asked. “Who is speaking to us?”

  “You mean it is who?” asked the table.

  “I don’t know about any who is it,” said Martin. Well spoken, Martin. “Would you care to identify yourself?”

  “Why yes, I would,” said the table. “I am Teddy.”

  “Teddy time?” asked Martin. That would be the best case scenario.

  “Teddy table. Damn it.”

  “Oh, I think I get it,” said Jasper. Finally getting something. He had barely been keeping up. “The table code is all corrupted.”

  Teddy jumped. Everyone else sort of jumped, too, up and down.

  “Teddy, my name is Grace Pobbible. I am a doctor,” said Grace. “Let’s see if we can’t talk you down.” Oh yes, Teddy jumped without unjumping. He was up on the ceiling.

  “Talk me down?” asked Teddy. “I’m up here where I belong. I was once a mighty oak. Now your black magycks turned me into a table.”

  “It’s delusional,” said Willie.

  “Hush,” said Grace. “Maybe stop calling it, it.” Oh, oops.

  ”“We’re losing valuable time here, guys,” said Jasper, as the timespace leak was certainly not getting contained this way.

  “Teddy, darling, I want you to come down,” said Grace. “This instant!”

  “Why don’t you come up and get me, sweetheart,” said Teddy. “Stash the tough time talk. I’ve got all the time in the Whirled now.”

  “He seems to have all the time in this Whirled, doesn’t he?” Martin observed. Yes, per the big red time clock the surreality hours were burning up in twenty-minute increments and getting quicker. He looked up at Teddy and stepped closer to the mirror. “Okay, Ted,” he said. “You hold all the cards. What do you want?”

  Teddy didn’t reply.

  “Teddy, you were never a tree,” said Grace. “If you come down we can help you.”

  “No, we can’t help it,” said Willie in a whisper. “No more down here than up there. It, it, it.” Clearly rattled, Willie looked up and shouted up at Teddy. “You’re it, it, it. Do you hear me?”

  For that Grace slapped him. Poor Willie, up all night for nights on end, he could definitely use a day break.

  “Someone’s gotta go in,” said Martin.

  “Go in the field of play?” asked Jasper. “Now? That’s madness.”

  “Damn it, Jasper, Teddy just needs someone to tag. Face reality.”

  “A table like that could tag you permanently,” said Grace. “I was hoping to avoid that.”

  |m|*

  The mirror material of the play field was a dry-like liquid-ish wax that crumbled at touch, thinner than an imaginary geometric plane, as if those exist. Hands off please.

  It was easy enough to get into the play field, even easier if you didn’t know what you were doing, or know you were being done to, and thus not interfering with the intent of play, which worked better just running one way at once. Since Martin had made the suggestion, he was voted into the island. Not so much an island, now, as life time, a dangerous defective place from
which to take place.

  In which to take place? How the heck do you do that?

  Don’t think about it.

  They’d never find enough names for the field of play. No one tag seemed to last forever. The big issue now was that the smaller big red clock, the one that tracked the length of hours, was also counting down towards infinity - might not ever get more than close enough to wave, but still going the right, if only, direction - with the play field collapsing who knew when, but sooner than then for sure. Martin just might find himself covered in wax dust. Messy, messy, messy.

  As for getting in play, it was a snap and took just an instant, even for a Martin. It was just step right in, sit right down, and hope a table doesn’t fall on you. There was such a thing as surreal pain.

  “Oh’s,” said Martin, first thing once in, feeling in a state of not in. That was how the wax worked. It de-timed you, coccooned you, and took control of your senses, twisting and blending them into the state of play where anything could happen.

  Twist and blend? Twist, blend, break, bend, fold, mutilate, blow torch, weld and then . .

  “We can hear you, Martin,” said Grace. “But we don’t see you.”

  “He’s in a different time-pire,” Willie explained. “We’ll be able to see him again when he comes out of there.”

  “Yeah, I hope so,” said Grace. “Time-pire?”

  “Personalizing time zone.”

  Time empire.

  They wish.

  “You couldn’t just say that? Time-pire is lame.”

  “Personalizing time zone is so played, Grace. Time-pire is fast, sexy, tomorrow. Let’s stop saying it before we wear it out.”

  “You kids just can’t make up your minds, can you? Can you hear me, Martin?”

  “Do you see me now?” asked Martin. “All I see is oh’s.”

  “What did you do?” asked Willie. “Why do you think we could see you now?”

  After a time-pire delay, time-pire, time-pire, time-pire. “I hear you, Grace,” said Martin, “loud and clear.”

  “Just shut up, all three of you,” said Jasper. Grace and Willie expressed some exasperation, sighed deeply in unison, and stayed shut up.

  “I didn’t do anything,” said Martin. “What was I supposed to do? The only thing I’m sure about right now is that time is all over the place. I’m never going to find that table.” There was a time-pire zone bounce of delay. “Well,” Martin finally said, “what? What’s your great idea, Jasper? Just shut up? The sounds of silence?” He began singing, “Hello, grayness, my old friend . . .“

  Grace and Willie looked at Jasper who was looking clueless.

  “Let it find me?” asked Martin. “I guess that might work, Jasper. I think I even like that idea. I suppose that’s why you’re paid the big bucks.”

  “Yes, yes,” said Jasper, having anticipated the participation of actuated intelligence; Jasper, that crazy, organized nut. “Good idea.”

  “That is so cheating,” said Willie at Jasper. Willie was the worker-bee of the three, relentless, but sometimes a step behind.

  Martin proceeded to try to walk and talk. “Here, table, table,” he said. “Here, Teddy, can you hear me. Maybe you could here me with you?” No no no, Martin, not that. Not you, too.

  In the breaking time all he saw was gray, nameless, maybe broken maybe numbers, all silent oh’s. Surreal oh’s that he could only surreally see. Surreally oh’s - sounds like breakfast cereal. He couldn’t tell which way they ran, and they ran everywhere. “Hey, guys, things seem to be running in here. Ironic, eh?” I,OOO,OOO . . . could have been O,OOI,OIO . . . or OOI,IOI,OOO . . ., as if it couldn’t make up it’s mind. Bear in mind, I was just Oh turned sideways, with Oh’s relentlessly passing on that path from a different angle or direction, when not the same. Yes, there was overlap, almost nothing but, coming from all directions at different speeds, with some going two directions and two speeds at once, at least. At the moment, the unrealing ones or oh’s was Martin, and the really wantonly surrealling one or oh was that breaking table that let all the oh’s break loose to run wild. “Just a lot of nothingness, it seems,” said Martin. Gray nothingness at least, which meant hope. Gray nothingness? Hey, wait a minute.

  “Teddy,” said Grace. “Would you please look for Martin? He wants to play with you. Isn’t that what you really want?”

  “Don’t be a baby,” added Willie.

  Grace glared at him. “I could bite you for that. Play nice. Nicer.”

  “Oh? He’s looking for me?” asked Teddy. “As if I’m not smart or quick enough to find or catch him?”

  “We’re not saying that at all,” said Grace. “You just don’t seem to be playing. It doesn’t seem like you’re having fun.”

  There was a somehow pregnant pause. It were as if it had become an inconceivable to conceivable certainty that something was about to happen. And then Teddy moved, smoothly but abruptly, and outwardly as it were. He became bigger.

  “Uh oh,” said Willie. “Martin? Can you hear me? I think it’s time for you to start running.”

  “Oh, yeah,” said Teddy. Just what was his game anyway? He seemed to have control of time, he could hear and speak in real time.

  “Are you running, Martin?” asked Grace.

  “Yes, I hear you,” said Martin. “What was with the silent treatment? Run?”

  Martin began feeling something. That couldn’t be good. He felt whoosh, then he saw whoosh, as the oh’s began unionizing, getting ready to strike, moving towards a center, off center as it may have been. Martin could only understand, which was actually sort of neat, that Teddy the once plain table, the one plane table, once nicely made of oak, once, was dimensionizing into a six sided table, a cube, not counting the inside, or however many, turning gray nothingness into cubic room for different colors, for a start, and who knew where he’d stop? If, even. And not just in sides, in size. Those were two words too close for comfort. And it was all getting too close for comfort for Martin as his senses were being pressed into wax.

  Oh oh oh, he knew this was going to leave a colorful mark.

  The big biggering biggerest whoosh struck with a WHACK as the wax surface became abruptly blood red.

  “Oh my,” said everyone.

  Everyone except Jasper, leaving just Willie and Grace having said it - which probably doesn’t add up to everyone, does it? Jasper, who’s eyes had kept wandering to the big red clock, which had been slowing down. Speeding up? Getting it right, had instead said, “I think we have play time,” happily. “Oh my,” he then said, and thus everyone had now said, eventually, seeing the now blood red coated bigger clock. “Are you alive in there, Marty?” he asked. “I hope you’re still you and not it, too.”

  But wasn’t that the point? Still, talk about getting kicked into crushed nuts. From within the big dry-ish, liquid-like blood red drop, after a time of rest, Martin finally spoke, to Teddy, if testily. “Hey, Jack!” he said. “A simple tag would have been sufficient.” Get it?

  Got it.

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