The most hair raising interview of my life was one session I should have rejected. This guy "The Artist" was referred to me by an official government case of mine. I should have turned it down and stuck with high end clients only after hours. The fact that the Artist was in government employment made me want to tell him to get an appointment with me through the proper channels just to blow him off, and hopefully shake the guy. One time my intuition was right about taking on a job and that is a hell of an understatement.
I met the artist at a secure location of his choosing, he was a rather ordinary guy. I was for sure this would be an all out snooze fest by the looks of him. I had no idea what was troubling this guy, and was hoping it was just a case of midlife crisis. I started off with the usual fare of small talk and bullshit and noticed the Artist was sweating hard and getting extremely nervous. I decided to drop the pleasantries and get straight to the point. I told the Artist,"I can obviously see your in great distress, usually clients start off with unease and anxiety and progress to a level of comfort yet your nerves appear to be getting worse". I than offered him a hit off my vape pen, and warned him,"if you don't have a tolerance for THC..." Too late the Artist grabbed my pen and spent a few minutes power housing hits, I hope this fool doesn't kill my battery, it will sure make for a long trip home I thought, but if it will help loosen his tongue and ease his panic attack...
"I work in Hollywood special effects", said the artist as he proceeded to lay out his story." I mean the very top of the special effects industry, I am so good I became the DARPA of special effects. I even have techniques so off the chain technologically they are top secret classified and are illegal to use in commercial Hollywood productions. Technology got to a very dangerous position, and it started with the entertainment industry. Stars are such a volatile product, the big music label corporate execs. hate stars with real talent. They are brutal against artists that cross the line. When an artist dies it is no longer the end of the artist or career. They can kill an artist who will not comply and replace them digitally almost seamless ,and continue their career indefinitely. All they need is to launch a successful career and than at any point manage the asset. It adds stability and maximum profit margin managing stars public careers the same way you script a character in a popular TV sitcom. The public at large has no fucking clue how many stars have been replaced over the years. The work went from stars to Corporate Ceo's, big figures on Wall Street. Than it started getting serious. We digitally reproduced a digital clone of a Supreme Court Justice. With added effects we kept a Supreme Court Justice in power long after their death. The people in very deep power decided what if we could go as far as script a sitting U.S. President? With a few look alikes shot from a distance and used sparingly on top of other trade secrets made it a very real possibility. So we did it, we created a U.S. President that is a Corporate Fictitious tool. It's rumored that corporations globally can buy a piece of the presidential script for an incredibly steep price. The ability to control a U.S. President word for word to the highest bidder. We are talking Trillions with a T being generated so far".
The artist took a pause, hit my vape pen pretty hard than continued," I am so uncomfortable I'm coming out of my skin. Nobody in my department quits their position or retires. There have already been several accidental deaths in my small group since we started "The whitehouse job". When we picked up the contract we were a bunch of middle age nerds who overnight went from lonely to Cocaine and Escorts on expensive yachts. We were far removed from what the Whitehouse was doing or what sort of nefarious outcome for the entire nation would result from our stage craft, because after the Yacht it was London Night clubs, more cocaine and escorts. It was work hard followed by living beyond all measure of imagination. Reality didn't set in until the third death in our group. After 3 deaths it sure the fuck wasn't coincidence and the work place became hella hard to maintain a professional demeanor at the whitehouse knowing your people are being killed off and replaced position by position. I'm just about the last artist standing, 3 out of 5 of us are no longer here just me and my co-creator, and I have the real magic up in my head, intentionally my secrets and skills do not get past on. I can't eat or sleep, concentrate or focus, my fight or flight response has me running for my life yet I have to maintain my work and performance as if everything is all right. Maybe the other 3 guys did die by coincidence and I'm hyper paranoid, if it wasn't for our boss having a public body count over a 100 people in the conspiracy theory chat rooms attributed to them, I might be able to clear my mind".
My advice to the Artist was more cocaine and escorts, that is one reason I'm popular in Hollywood, they love my penance after I hear confession
2 weeks later I get a text for a scheduled counseling session and I realize it's the Artist's friend who who gave me him as a referral. Fuck that's not good, I got a bad feeling about the Artist, I can't shake it. I can't call the Artist's friend, who we will call "The Mechanic" and ask what the problem is unless I totally want to clusterfuck my life any further. I'm going to have to wait 2 weeks to find out what's up. Fuck...
I met the Mechanic in a secure government location and immediately passed him a notebook that read, "write it down why you are really here, you better talk about job stress and family or we may not walk out of here!
Luckily the Mechanic caught on fast. I told him,"you look rather exhausted with stress what is it". Right on cue the Mechanic said,"My wife and kids acting up because I'm out of town on missions all year". We than proceeded to play the game and talk as cover while we conversed on paper. I didn't want "The Department" to eavesdrop on something this hot. The mechanic slid me my note book and it read,"The Artist is dead, suicide, his body was found in a dumpster and he was double tapped in the back of the head, even though that is what the official police report says his death was officially ruled a suicide, what did you and the Artist talk about when he visited you 2 weeks ago?
I passed him back the notebook with my reply,"Relationships..."
This was originally posted on Steem in February 2021, and edited, episodes of my serial short fiction 1-6 were originally released on Steem. "The Confessor Episode 7" will start all future episodes published and created on Hive with episode 7 released tomorrow Feb 10th, Im extremely excited about this project and am looking forward to using Hive to create content that will make dreams come true