No Contest

“Play no games with me, Remo. The air-is redolent with the lusty aroma of corn. I see your eyes lose their focus, and your breathing is labored.”

“No way. It’s cornmeal, anyway. They make generic corn flakes here.”

“The smell inspires desire in you.”

“Come on, stop it.”

The ground vibrated and a powerful sound came from inside. There was a pause, then it came again, every two seconds.

“Look at yourself, Remo!” Chiun cried. “Are you even aware of your actions? Or does your body open the door to this garden of sinful pleasures without your awareness?”

“I want to see what the noise is, that’s all.” The sound became deafening as they went through a steel door and found themselves in the hot, dim, hellishly loud factory. The air was thick with grain and yeast smells.

“I promise you, this is not getting me turned on,” Remo said to Chiun.

“Can I help you?” asked a shift manager who walked over. “The tours start up front.”

“Remo McDunough, D.A.”

“District attorney or Department of Agriculture?”

“Me, an attorney? Definitely from the department. I was just interested in that noise. You guys stamping out tank parts or something?”

The shift manager nodded and smiled in understanding. “That’s the Extreme Nugget maker.” She beckoned them closer to the assembly line of whizzing boxes and pointed to a distant, looming iron press that lifted and descended, rocking the earth like the footstep of a giant. Steam hissed into the air in twenty-foot plumes.

“Takes a lot of pressure to cram that much fiber into a pea-size pellet.”

“That is extreme. Is it safe to eat?”

“You tell me. You’re the D.A.”

“Oh. Yeah.”

“We got some bad press, you know, when they did the tests on monkeys. The chimps would eat the nuggets, then drink water and their stomachs would burst So now we have the chart on the back to tell you how much water is too much water, based on the amount of Nuggets you’ve ingested.”

Chiun shook his head. “And do you consume this foodstuff?”

“No way,” the line manager said.

“Remo McDunough.” Remo flipped his leather ID case open for the executive receptionist in the historic MacBisCo offices. “We’d like to see Sherman MacGregor. He in?”

“He’s interviewing a prospective employee. It shouldn’t take long. I like that name, Remo. “Is it Italian?”

“Greek. Short for Remostophines.”

“Impressive, Remo. I’m Stephanie. Our names together make Remostophines. Isn’t that—” she rolled her eyes playfully “—kind of intimate?”

Remo was thankful that at that moment a sallow man in a perfectly neat suit emerged from the office and left quietly, trying not to be noticed.

“That didn’t take long,” Stephanie said. “Poor Fellows. You guys go on in.”

“You want to let Mr. MacGregor know we’re here?” Remo asked.

“Nah. Who cares?”

Remo and Chiun slipped into MacGregor’s office and found him absorbed in his computer. MacGregor was a fiftyish, balding man with a freckled pate. Playing a video game, he made an ugly porcine chortle.

Remo and Chiun moved around the desk to watch. For a Master of Sinanju, who can walk on a powder- sand beach without leaving footprints, it was an easy thing to move silently in the carpeted office. MacGregor never noticed that he was not alone.

The computer showed the Wall of Resolution, the ice wall on New Zealand’s South Island, glimmering under floodlights. There was a grid superimposed over the wall, and red dots, too. The camera showed men on the wall—not climbers. They were Extreme Sports Network technicians. It looked as though they had been dismantling gear on the winner’s summit, but now they were hanging off the rim on safety cables. One of them was limp, with a bloodied head. A chunk of the rim was missing above them.

The second worker was clawing at the ice with his fingers, but without the hammers and cleats of the professional ice-climbers, he kept slipping back until finally he seemed to dig his fingers into the ice out of sheer force of will and dragged himself with painful effort to within reach of the shattered rim.

The red dots were now directly over the struggling man, and Sherm MacGregor cackled nastily. He moved the mouse onto the red spot, and then his finger applied just enough pressure to the mouse button to change the blood flow and whiten his finger.

He never finished the click.

“Wow, they are coming up with the coolest stuff these days,” Remo said, holding up the thing with the dangling cord that had just been in MacGregor’s hand. “What do they call this game?”.

MacGregor found his voice. “Who are you?”

“What do they call this game, Little Father?” Remo asked.

“A mouse.”

“I’m kidding. I know what a computer mouse is. But this game of yours is so realistic. Now, that’s new to me.

“Get out of my office, whoever you are,” MacGregor said loudly.