The Nirvana Effect, page 12
Marc walked with a deliberate casualness, noticing the stiff presence of security guards and trying not to glance at them too long. He advanced past an empty sitting area and a series of long tables neatly stocked with forms and pens. He had twelve teller windows to choose from. Three had people in them. He chose one in the middle.
A lanky, balding gentleman in a crisp white shirt and black tie greeted him with a smile and a nod. He had a big forehead barely topped by the dark lining of a severely receding hairline. “How may I help you, sir?”
Marc placed the suitcase on the floor. He felt a rush of anxiety, as if he was about to commit a bank robbery. But far from it – he only wanted to withdraw a significant portion of his own savings.
Marc provided identification and his bank account information. He stated simply, “I wish to liquidate two million dollars into cash.”
The teller half-nodded, as if he hadn’t heard right.
“Sir – you do know – you said cash.”
“Yes, two million.”
“Two million dollars. You want that now, in cash?”
“That’s right.”
“Okay – it’s not as easy as just pulling it out, right now, on the spot.”
Marc maintained a pleasant tone, but his words held an edge. “First, this bank, this time of the morning, has that much cash on hand, I’m sure of it. Second, you are obligated to give it to me. It’s my money. Legally I can take it out whenever I want. You’re just storing it and skimming some interest off the top. You can’t deny me access to my financial assets. I know the laws.”
“Yes,” said the teller, keeping his voice measured and civil, but with a hard stare of authority. “And the bank has its rules. For an amount this high, I need to get my manager.”
“Great. Get them.”
Marc felt a cold sweat spreading over his body. He thought about the security guards on either side of the vast bank lobby. He needed to conduct this activity quickly, before the government seized his account or, worse, seized him, a sitting duck in the open.
A pear-shaped man, also balding and dressed in a white shirt and black tie, took the first man’s place at the teller window. He wore wire-rimmed half-glasses and had heavy wisps of curly hair above his ears. He offered a bigger smile than the first greeter, perhaps with the knowledge that he was dealing with a customer with a significant amount in his account.
“Hello, it’s a pleasure to serve you, Mr. Tefteller.”
Marc repeated his request.
The manager nodded and retained his smile. “Certainly. We will need identification, a driver’s license….”
“I have all that.”
“May I ask why you are withdrawing your funds in this manner?”
“Excuse me?”
“This is an unusual activity. It triggers obligations on my part. I can give you your money, but I will need to report an amount this large. It’s for security purposes. We need to make sure you’re not laundering money or funding terrorism, or perhaps being victimized at this very moment. For instance, perhaps you are falling prey to a fraud scheme. We see it happen fairly often. Or maybe, a man of your wealth, you have been coerced into giving your holdings to a third party. If so, we can handle the situation discreetly to keep you safe. I will make it look like I’m giving you a form to fill out, and you would write down the nature of your predicament, and I would quietly alert the police and our security force. We will make sure you are not harmed.”
“I’m not being robbed, I’m not a terrorist, I just need my money,” said Marc, growing terse with the delay.
“You haven’t answered my question. Why are you withdrawing two million dollars? I need to submit this information to the IRS.”
“I’m – I’m buying a house,” Marc said quickly, silently cursing himself for stammering as he lied. “I’m buying a house and the seller is very eccentric. He insists on cash, he doesn’t trust institutions.”
“I can give you a cashier’s check.”
“It has to be cash.”
“Perhaps you could bring the seller to the bank. We could have the funds withdrawn and given to him directly. You don’t want to walk out of here with that much cash.”
“I have a suitcase.”
“That’s not the point.”
“Do it right now. Get my money out of your vault and give it to me. I know my rights.”
“Mr. Tefteller, I cannot accommodate you without making some phone calls. I need to contact my boss at headquarters.”
“That’s bullshit.”
“I don’t feel comfortable with this situation.”
Marc clenched his fists in frustration. “Don’t – don’t call anyone. I need to – let me think this over.”
“Are you feeling well? Honestly, you don’t look well. You haven’t been drinking, have you?”
“No. I didn’t sleep well last night. It’s been – oh for God’s sake, it’s none of your business.”
Marc turned away from the teller window. He knew he was within his rights to withdraw his money at any time. The bank was just giving him a hard time. They didn’t want to lose such a big amount.
Why couldn’t they simply be more accommodating to a customer request?
He walked across the bank lobby with his head in a daze. More customers were arriving, creating a busier atmosphere, and he really needed to reach a quick resolution that didn’t drag him through a day of bureaucracy. He was a wanted man. Every minute was precious.
Then Marc realized he had a way to persuade the bank manager to be more agreeable. It was in his pocket.
Marc sat in one of the cushy, orange lobby chairs. He pulled out the controller device that Brandyn Handley had given him to send signals to chips embedded in other people. The bank manager was probably chipped…and there was one way to find out.
From his years of marketing Dynamica’s signal feeds, Marc was very familiar with the company’s vast catalog of offerings. There was one called Agree to Please.
He ran a quick search and found it in the menu, along with promotional language that his team had crafted:
Build better relationships!
Keep your inner contrarian at bay at times YOU choose. Avoid unwanted conflict with:
Your spouse
Your boss
Authority figures
AGREE TO PLEASE stops unproductive bickering before it starts and promotes positive interactions for happier encounters. Don’t get stuck in the argument loop – Agree 2 B Agreeable!
Marc returned to the teller window and motioned to the bank manager, who returned with a less enthusiastic greeting the second time around.
“Yes?”
“I’m – I’m sorry – just fiddling with my thing here for a minute—”
The bank manager looked at him curiously. “Are you okay? I don’t think you’re okay.”
Marc tapped the closest chip code on the list, assuming it to be the bank manager, and sent him a thirty-minute feed of Agree to Please.
The manager blinked a few times but did not seem aware that his brainwaves had been hacked.
“I think New York City is the greatest city in the world, don’t you?” Marc asked.
“Absolutely. You are so right, sir.”
“Jazz is so much better than rock music or classical or, God forbid, country….”
“I agree with you wholeheartedly. Jazz is the best, Mr. Tefteller.”
“You are going to liquidate two million dollars of my savings into cash in one hundred dollar bills, and do it without any unnecessary delays, wouldn’t you agree?”
“Of course, sir. We can do that.”
“It’s a good idea for me to take out my money, since it belongs to me, right?”
“Absolutely.”
“I think faster is better, without a lot of talking and forms. What do you think?”
“Faster is better. Let’s not worry about talking and forms.”
“Good. Then we are in total agreement?”
“I would say we see things in very much the same way.”
“No argument here.”
“Here neither.”
The bank manager enlisted an associate to help him and soon the teller window counter was filling with stacks of cash. Marc quickly moved the money into his suitcase as fast as it arrived.
Each half-inch-thick stack consisted of ten thousand dollars in hundred dollar bills. Marc filled the suitcase with two hundred stacks.
“Such a pleasure doing business with you,” said the bank manager, shaking Marc’s hand as they concluded the withdrawal.
“I’m glad you could be so cooperative,” Marc said.
“Will you be requiring a security escort?”
“No.”
“That will be fine.”
“Yes it will.” Marc left the teller window with a tight grip on the suitcase handle. The weight felt good, about thirty-five pounds. He was careful to look straight ahead, not glancing at anyone, especially the security guards.
He made it outside to the curb and immediately waved for a cab. He kept an eye out for anyone who may have followed him out of the bank. In less than a minute, Marc sat in the back seat of a yellow cab with the suitcase at his side.
“Where to?” asked the cabbie.
The question startled Marc. He realized he didn’t know where he was headed next.
For his destination, Marc somewhat randomly picked a street corner in Stuyvesant Town, a neighborhood on the east side of Manhattan. He climbed out of the cab with the suitcase and a mission.
He needed a small, simple, out-of-the-way apartment under a false name. After a few blocks of walking, he found a promising site: a grungy one-room unit above a ‘going out of business’ tourist shop with a landlord who spoke broken English and readily accepted cash in exchange for maximum privacy.
“I stay out of your business,” promised the landlord. “You – no parties. No cops. Pay on time, first Tuesday of the month. We be good to each other, eh?”
The apartment was ugly and dirty, but secure. After exploring the square space and its tiny bathroom and closet, Marc identified a spot where he could open up the floor and stash his cash in a discreet hideaway. His bed would rest on top. He just needed tools…and a bed.
The former he obtained from a nearby hardware store, the latter he bought from an online seller located in the neighborhood. It was essentially an overpriced stained mattress and clumsy metal frame, but it came with the services of a muscular, stubble-faced Italian man who helped carry it out of a storage shack and into Marc’s new apartment. The man had no idea he was briefly standing on two million dollars in cash.
Marc took a cab to a theater supply shop, also going out of business, and purchased various items to help him with a physical disguise for going out in public. He obtained a realistic wig of long dark hair that would cover the back of his neck to hide the absence of a bump from the chip.
After stocking up on food and new clothes, Marc stayed inside his apartment with his money and his fears.
He was surprised to discover he was going through a chip withdrawal. In times of anxiety, he had relied on it for a surge of satisfaction, simple corrections to soothe his nerves and elevate his feelings with a Happy Lift. He missed being able to adjust his mood with a few quick pokes of his controller.
Now, instead, he had a device to control the brainwaves of others – something far more powerful.
He could easily imagine government agents breaking into his new apartment for a raid, similar to the last time, and he would be ready to stop them with the power of this device. He kept it within arm’s reach while he slept.
Sleep did not come easy, especially without the chip, but he accepted that.
Chapter Ten
Scotty was building himself the perfect woman. He sat half-naked on his crusty bedsheets, bent forward, obese and wheezing. On his tablet, he chose from a menu of physical features to define everything from hairstyle to leg length to eye color to shape of the ass to preferred curve of the bosom.
To finish off his creation, he ticked boxes in a quick checklist of personality traits. He desired ‘submissive’, ‘cheerful’ and ‘moderate intelligence’. He gave her a name: ‘Tulip’. He felt it was a pretty name.
Once assembled, she looked scrumptious – bright-eyed, eager and fully disrobed. He quickly uploaded her for a Dynamica virtual reality experience.
Sex, to be specific.
It was the cap on another glorious day of chipfeed sensations that began with Lost in a Candy Factory, continued with Mixed Martial Arts Bloodsport and moved on to the Sniper Zone. Over the course of eight hours, he had sampled a dazzling array of delectable sugar treats, beat the shit out of a series of would-be champion fighters, and then shot several hundred rampaging terrorists. It felt good. Banging the hell out of Tulip in the Dynamica Honeymoon Suite would be a rousing climax, and if rated highly, he would bookmark her in his list of Favorites for future encounters.
Poking the handheld controller, he activated Hot Sex Action and selected Tulip from his playlist. Wearing his Dynamica eye cover to shut out natural light, he leaned back against a stack of pillows and awaited the beginning of a tantalizing stimulation that would start in his head and travel down to his groin.
He smiled. A luxurious honeymoon suite filled his senses – sight, sounds, textures, smells. Tulip was presented before him in a big bed, tucked nude between pink silk sheets, waiting for him with a moist and inviting smile.
“Oh yeah,” said Scotty. In his imagination, he stood erect at the foot of the bed, equally naked. His bare feet touched shag carpeting. He could feel it between his toes.
As he stepped toward her, a rush of adrenaline raced through his body. He experienced a jumbo-sized erection of superhuman dimensions.
Then he was hit with a rude interruption. His vision filled with big, bold, blinking red letters.
ALERT.
“What the hell?” he shouted out loud.
Then he received the message: ‘DOOR BELL’.
Scotty cursed himself for not turning off alerts before initiating chipsex. The text alerts popped up periodically with annoying reminders for him to empty his bladder and bowels or eat real food to sustain his physical existence.
‘DOOR BELL’ startled him because he had experienced it so rarely – hardly anyone came to the door.
“God damn it,” he grumbled. He trusted that one of the other two roommates was also receiving the alert and would handle it. Hell, he was farthest from the front door. Let Larry or Desmond deal with it!
But they didn’t. Perhaps they had turned off doorbell notifications. Or maybe they refused to interrupt their own chipfeed experiences.
As the ‘DOOR BELL’ alert continued to flash, Scotty tried to ignore it. But then he became curious….
What if it was a delivery of Body Fuel bars or Hydration Packs? He needed those things to stay physically stable while engaging in lengthy chipfeed marathons. He couldn’t remember if his current stock was getting low.
Or— what if the caller was testing to see if anyone was home and planning to rob the place if no one answered? They had experienced trouble with brazen burglars in the past.
The words ‘DOOR BELL’ continued to flicker in his mind.
Scotty swore again and paused his chipfeed. He could not enjoy ravaging Tulip with this distraction. He ripped the eye cover from his head. He fumbled and stumbled off the bed and into a standing position. He pulled on some pants.
He went downstairs. Desmond remained sprawled in his usual spot, delirious on the couch, lost in a chipfeed, spewing drool. Scotty silently gave him the finger and then opened the front door.
A slight man in a neatly pressed button-down shirt and wool slacks stood before him. He was well groomed with slicked-back hair, smiling and holding an electronic tablet.
“Hello. I’m looking for Aaron Holt.”
Just hearing the name out loud fueled Scotty with a fresh rise of agitation.
“Aaron? He’s not here.”
“Would you happen to—”
“No. I have no idea where he is. He’s an asshole. He stays away from us most of the time.” Scotty had a difficult time spitting the words out. He hadn’t spoken to anyone in days.
“Am I correct in listing the occupants of this residence as Larry Wellington, Desmond Irving, Scott Wellington and Aaron Holt?”
“What the hell is it of your business?”
“I’m with the government agency of citizenship.”
Scotty eyed the little man suspiciously. “What do you want with us?”
“It’s only Aaron that I wish to speak with. The rest of you are in compliance.”
“Compliance?”
“Yes. You see, we’re reaching out to individuals who are not yet chipped to sign them up, free of charge, so they can enter our government database for benefits and services.”
“He doesn’t have the chip.”
“Yes, that is what our records indicate.”
“Good luck getting him chipped. He won’t do it. He hates the chip.”
“Perhaps he just doesn’t understand it. New technology can be intimidating for some people. We’re here to help. The chip will give him access to Social Security, voter registration, citizenship privileges. There’s nothing for him to be concerned about. It’s quite beneficial. As you, yourself, have experienced.”
“I think the chip is totally great.”
“Of course it is. It’s the way of the future. Why be left behind? You wouldn’t want to still be using a typewriter…or rotary phone…or horse and buggy, God forbid.”
“So what do you want from me?”
The little man handed Scotty a business card with a name and number. “This is my contact information. If you could, please ask Mr. Holt to follow up in the next couple of days.”
