Wicket Catches Golem on the Sofa

When Wicket began working at Window and Associates, he recognized the sort of cyber crime that Golem was into. He knew the viruses that he was writing were being introduced to the World Wide Web by Golem himself. This did not, in and of itself, bother Wicket. He smiled at the irony of an antivirus company producing a market for itself by releasing viruses. He was getting paid plenty to do work that he enjoyed doing. He kept his mouth shut and minded his side of the arrangement.
Things went on that way for several years and then Wicket walked into an office and was shocked at what he saw on the sofa. It was a seventeen-year-old girl. Her bruised body was stiff and there was dried blood coming from her nose. Wicket didn’t like it at all. Wicket knew the blood was symptomatic of guano powder use, but what bothered Wicket were the bruises on the girl’s body. They were not symptomatic of guano powder use. He turned around to see Golem passed out at his desk.
For just a moment Wicket paused and stared at Golem as he lay unconscious at his desk and fancied for just a moment that he was looking at himself. He thought that one of Golem’s eyes opened briefly, as if to take a picture; and then the shutter closed. For a moment Wicket thought that Golem had taken a picture of himself. Wicket briefly considered killing the man behind the desk but didn’t have the courage to kill. He rather figured he would be doing the world a favor. The thing was he didn’t reckon that, under any circumstances, Golem would take his own life. If Golem couldn’t do it; Wicket wouldn’t. Wicket was not the sort of chap to rubberstamp a suicide; and knew that he himself wanted to live forever. That would change later when Wicket would know that Golem needed killing. Several moments after Golem’s window on his soul closed, and after several moments of contemplation, Wicket opened his eyes wide and looked with consternation at the girl on the sofa. Maybe she had been complicit. He looked once again at the bruises and knew he didn’t want to work at Window anymore. Once again he thought about putting Golem out of his misery. He rather figured that Golem was in a way innocent, and that society had taken advantage of this characteristic. Wouldn’t it be an act of mercy to pick up a rock and crush a dying man’s head if he lay like a test pilot trapped under a burning plane, surrounded by spectators, who because of the fire and the newness of the situation would not chip in together to pull him free. Rather than let him suffer wouldn’t it be better…
He looked back towards Golem and still did not have the nerve to do it, or the inspiration and turned back and went out the door. He had seen enough. He had money in the bank. The next week he resigned from Window. By that time Window had already lost the Associates part of things. He told Golem that his mother was ill and that he was ready for another area of work. He even lied to the extent that he told Golem that he had come up with an idea for a legitimate computer program and was striking out on his own. He knew Golem too well. He did not want Golem to know what he had seen the week before or the real reason that he was leaving the company. He already knew what happened to people who left Window when they learned of something they couldn’t stomach. None survived to tell their tale. Golem didn’t believe in loose ends. He had been in prison once and had no desire to go back. Golem would miss him sorely on two fronts. He was emotionally attached to Wicket. They had been friends and he was the best hacker that Windows ever had. There had been only three high level executives left and two of them lived in Golem’s head for sure. Wicket was the conscience and the vessel of shame at Window. With him gone things would surely get worse.

Golem went into a fit of rage upon learning that Wicket was leaving and threatened to kill him; but had felt, as Wicket closed the door behind him, that Window might do better without him. The man had too much of a conscience to be of much use to Window. If he came across the man again he figured he would kill him just to make sure he never came back, even though he was pleased with his absence. He liked to keep his bungalow clean. The guy had some goodness in him, but there was something about his goodness that Golem didn’t like. Wicket was slippery and never around when there was dirty work to be done. He didn’t like violence and thought he could siphon off money from the public, but somehow not get his hands dirty. Wicket was like a young girl who fucked, but claimed she was a virgin.
Wicket could not have known the history of what led Golem to associate with a girl of seventeen, if he had known he might have had a tinge of sympathy.
For as Golem’s eyes opened momentarily as Wicket contemplated putting him out of his misery, Golem did not see anything consciously. He was in the midst of kissing Sumiko in a dream.
Everyone in the girls’ high school knew that they were in love, even the school principle, and while Sumiko was just seventeen and Golem, thirty-five, no one gave it much attention as it was a platonic love and neither of them showed signs of impropriety, but everyone understood that one day Sumiko would finish school, and the two of them, if fate had anything to say, would become man and wife. It was not manifested through physical touch, but something between the two of them clicked, and Sumiko had written to him for seven years and he responded in a most prompt fashion. Of course he had twists with other women to satisfy a hormonal necessity, but these twists were mostly biological and did not involve any unique emotion or a deep level of attachment. In their hearts both of them knew when Sumiko finished her studies, and returned to Tokyo that the two of them would marry. During the seven years of her absence, Golem saw her when she visited Japan. They talked about a myriad of things, and Golem brought up a lot of extraneous topics to avoid discussing with Sumiko the subject of sex. She had been his student, and for this reason, combined with her youth, Golem did not plan to sleep with her before they were married. The age difference between them was nine years, and though not huge, it was enough that Golem needed to know for certain that a marriage with her would not mess up her life. These were the days before atrocity; before the killing; before Golem went insane. Those were the days before the end of her third year of medical school when inexplicably she stopped writing. There had not even been a letter to say that she no longer wanted to see him.
Her parents were steeped in Japanese tradition like a cup of macha tea; her father was the mayor of Shin Rin Koen and her mother a daughter of the LDP. When they learned of the swaying of the two hearts, they did everything in their power to keep those hearts apart; their private investigator told them that Golem spent time in prison; when Sumiko stopped her writing, it took her mother four years to write to Golem. Perhaps it was an action undertaken out of desperately needing to communicate with someone who had feelings for her daughter. How often had he said her name as he laid on a sofa with another seventeen-year-old in something that started as compensation for the loss of Sumiko in his life, and was for the most part now just lust and physical gratification. And now he found himself in an office with a girl half his age; and a government that would put him in jail forever if it found out. The same government that had neglected its basic premise of existence of providing safety for its people and that had allowed Sumiko to be shot to death in his most thoughtful, considered, broken-hearted opinion. When he was moving his hips against this new girl, he was silently mouthing the word Sumiko over and over again. And intermittently cursing the government of a nation that the government no longer represented.