VirileMail/7

Klein
I parked my car directly in front of Dr. Klein's office in one of those strip mall-type medical office complexes. If I had been acting like myself, running late for an appointment would not have found me driving slowly and carefully. I tried to think of a way to tell a psychiatrist that for unknown reasons I no longer wanted to drive fast and dangerous. I imagined Dr. Klein listening politely and then saying, "For what you're paying me, I hope you have something more important to tell me than that you are being a careful driver." My "rational brain" started formulating excuses: maybe I was just getting old.

Now that I was done with the frustrations of rush hour traffic, I felt a little better, as if I had less matter in my head.....it was a bit weird, but it was like what I had felt after I left Geisler’s office. I told myself that I was feeling the relief of the end of a tension-induced headache. I also had a satisfying sense of relief from the fact that things had gone well today during my chance to take a step away from working directly on the VirileMail software. I was intrigued with all the new Ormuz Computing technology and eager to see it put to good use at Antler.

I entered into the building, crossed the waiting room and spoke to Dr. Klein's assistant. He asked my name and then looked at a data terminal that held the doctor's schedule. He told me I was late but that if I could wait twenty minutes or so, then Dr. Klein would be done seeing another patient.

With some time to kill, I tried to calm down and organize my thoughts so I could tell a believable story. I really needed someone to help me deal with all the madness that had grown out of the VirileMail project and had me not want ing to sleep for fear of havinf my memories erased. At least for that moment I was not sweating; it was a good sign and tempted me to start thinking again about exactly which events from the past week I could the doctor about without inducing a panic attack.

The bad thing about the situation was that I had no proof of my claims. But I was not going into a court room. I did not think the psychiatrist would ask for proof, but if I had that missing videotape, I would have been much happier. At that moment had a strange flash of memory: I saw an image of the videotape I had labeled router/Janek and the horrifying sensation that I had made that tape by recording over the original data tape that was nor missing. Could I have actually done something that stupid? This was the stuff of nightmares!

Anyway, there was nothing I could do at that moment to test this strange new idea about the missing tape. The "Janek tape" was back at my place. Besides, I figured I was just so sleep deprived that I was imagining things and maybe hallucinating. Maybe it was Chloe or I who threw it to the trashcan. But, why? I did not want to think that my actions were so bizarre, as to make that. Or it could be Brian. He was the strangest person in the team, and he also suffered memory losses. But I had not seen him in a long time; maybe I was just a little paranoid. Even Geisler was friendly today. I did not say anything about “Janek”, because I wanted to wait for things to happen. Maybe Geisler was involved in that trick. I had to be careful. Everyone could be an enemy. Oh, I was again having those paranoid thoughts. It was good that I could go to visit a specialist, maybe everything was my invention. But I still could remember the videotape and the deleting of the frames on the server array recording. Well, this world is going crazy, I thought.

“Mr. Daonet. Now you can enter the room” the assistant said.

I entered the room and closed the door behind me. I could notice I was a little shy for being in such a place. I had never thought I would have to go to a psychiatrist. But I was there and I had to get all the help I could.

“Good afternoon, Joe” the doctor, Mrs. Wanda Klein said, in a friendly voice. “Sit down and tell me your worries”.

Now it was the difficult part. I had to make a dump of my brain to her.

“Well” I started. “First of all, I am a network administrator in Antler Network Systems. I come here because I am facing a problem related to my work…”

“Go on” Wanda said.

“OK. There was some day when someone disconnected a network cable and…”

And I explained it all right from the beginning. I started with the cable disconnection, the eggplant, Brian, Chloe, everything. The doctor seemed to be paying too much attention and being entertained. She was very friendly and inspired my trust. So, I told her all I could. I think I lasted at least 30 minutes telling all that information to her. When I stopped talking, she asked me: