Virtually Undead

by Robert I. Katz

  All of these, Michael reflected, were on the list that Bellerion the Great had sent him.

  “And have any of these made an offer to buy you out?”

  Jameson barely grinned. “All of them have made inquiries. The vultures are circling.” Jameson huffed out a breath. “You’re not the first one to come sniffing around the corpse.”

  “And I imagine I won’t be the last, but is the situation really as bad as you say? All companies suffer setbacks. Let us suppose that the police identify the guilty parties, that your products are appropriately revised and given a clean bill of health. Is your funding then sufficient to resume operations? I wasn’t entirely joking when I said that there is no such thing as bad publicity. As you’ve pointed out, public horror and revulsion could easily enough be turned to sympathy, even fascination, if it is revealed that you were the subject of a malicious attack, and that your products are now both innovative and safe.”

  Jameson just shook his head.

  “How deep are your owners’ pockets?” Michael said. “How long can you survive?”

  Jameson frowned at him. “I don’t know.”

  Chapter 16

  So, what had he learned?

  Probably not much. Remington Simulations wasn’t quite dead. It was undead, with a small chance left of rising from the grave. He had the names of some corporations that were interested in feeding off the remains but he could have gotten those names from publicly available sources, if he had felt like it.

  In the end, James Jameson didn’t know much, and Michael Foreman didn’t know what to do with the little that Jameson had told him.

  One thing they teach you in medical school is how to evaluate data. A physician is required to assimilate a tremendous amount of information, and he is then expected to duly keep up with all relevant advances in his chosen specialty, to be able to interpret studies and their results and to put those results in perspective, for the rest of his career.

  An academic physician is expected to do more than stay current. An academic physician is expected to contribute to the science, to advance knowledge, to do research. You had to be able to articulate a problem, to devise methods that can provide an answer to that problem, to carefully follow these methods, to carry out your experiment and again, be able to interpret the results. An academic physician, if he wanted to be successful, was a scientist.

  Who killed Ralph Guthrie and nine other players of Virtually Undead? And why?

  As a scientist, Michael knew when he was out of his depth, when he was asking a question that he was not himself qualified to answer. There were, however, parts of the puzzle that he was qualified to investigate. There had been high-density EEG arrays sewn into the headgear of Remington Simulations exosuits. What had happened to that data?

  It occurred to Michael to wonder why Harold Strong even bothered to talk to him. Certainly, he was under no requirement to do so. Perhaps Michael amused him. Whatever, Harold Strong seemed perfectly content to sip his coffee and eat a donut, while Michael expounded on his latest theory of the case.

  “Somebody paid Sandra Devine and Gary Woodson to sabotage the exosuits,” Michael said.

  Harold Strong nodded. “Presumably.”

  “Why?”

  Harold Strong shrugged. “You keep asking that.”

  “They wanted to sabotage the company, and they wanted to do it in this big, public way. They wanted publicity. They weren’t trying to keep it a secret, that’s for sure.”

  “Obviously not.”

  “They were recording EEG data from three hundred people, ten of whom died. Where’s the data?”

  “We don’t know,” Harold Strong said. “We can’t find it.”

  The suits were connected by wireless to a recording station. Physiologic data from each suit had been monitored throughout the contest. The EEG sensors were powered but the EEG data had not been sent to the recording stations, not that the police or the FBI had been able to determine, or if it had been transmitted, it had since been deleted, probably after being copied to a portable device.

  “The connection between the suits and the recording stations was Bluetooth, not Wi-Fi.”

  “So, they tell us.”

  “There’s something wrong with this set-up,” Michael said.

  Harold Strong stolidly chewed his donut. “Go on.”

  “Bluetooth is short range. It uses ultra-high-frequency radio waves to wirelessly connect two or more devices but the distance is generally only thirty feet or so. For further than that, Wi-Fi is required.”

  “What’s your point?”

  “My point is that the data could only be transmitted outside the immediate network if it was connected, but it wasn’t connected. That was deliberate. The tournament was a publicity stunt. They wanted to demonstrate the capabilities of the system but they also wanted to control the flow of information. The plan was to make a series of short documentaries, maybe highlight the players’ backgrounds, emphasize the human interest angle. They were making commercials, basically. They didn’t use Twitch or anything like it. They wanted there to be some public interest but they didn’t want the tournament to be observed until the official videos were released.”

  “So?”

  “So, the only people present in the room were the players, the Remington Simulation techs and design staff and the PR firm that was hired to tape the whole thing and make the videos. It’s a limited number of people.”

  This was obviously not news to Harold Strong. He made a ‘go-on’ gesture with his hand.

  “Once it’s turned on, a Bluetooth enabled transmitting device will automatically begin scanning the immediate area, searching for another Bluetooth device it can pair with. Once it finds such a device, it queries it. Some such devices connect automatically, but others are programmed to ask for a PIN number. Once the PIN is entered, the two devices will pair up.”

  Michael looked at Harold Strong, who nodded.

  “Unless the PIN is changed by the user, most of them come with the PIN ‘0000.’”

  Harold Strong stopped, the coffee cup halfway to his mouth. “You mean that it might have paired with other Bluetooth devices in the area? Besides the recording station? Ones with the same PIN?”

  “Yes,” Michael said.

  Harold Strong nodded again, looking very pleased with himself. “We knew this. Well, I didn’t, but the CSI techs did. Every person present was questioned. All of them denied having such a device in their possession.”

  “So, they claim.”

  “Correct. It is highly probable that one or more of them did have such a device. One of them either triggered the kill order or knew it would be triggered. It seems likely that this person also recorded the data and walked away with it. We don’t know who.”

  “They weren’t searched?”

  “That would have required a warrant. We had insufficient evidence to request such a warrant on any of them.”

  “Oh.” Michael’s shoulders slumped. So much for that bright idea.

  “The control stations are a couple of computers specifically designed for gaming.” Harold Strong stopped for a moment and glanced at something already open on his desktop. “So were the recording stations: Alienware Aurora Ryzen gaming computers—rather expensive computers for the average player but not much for a corporation that wanted the best products available, about five thousand dollars each. They were all Wi-Fi and Bluetooth enabled. However, according to their internal logs, they were not connected to any Bluetooth or Wi-Fi device at any time.

  “Also, just in case you didn’t know it, a Bluetooth device with a range of ten meters is referred to as Class 2. These were Class 1.5 devices. Their effective range is twenty meters, large enough to cover the entire room.”

  Michael grimaced. “So, we’re assuming that somebody present recorded the data and walked out with it? That’s absurd. There were three hundred people playing the game. Ten people died, at ten different locations. That would have required a ridiculous number o
f people to be involved. It’s far more likely that the computers were programmed to upload the data to the internet and then wipe any trace that they did so.”

  Harold Strong sighed. “Presumably.”

  A lot of presumptions in police work, evidently. Michael recalled reading somewhere that over twenty percent of murders were never solved, and that was just the murders that were known to be murders. An unknown number of murders were never discovered to be murders at all. The old boy died of natural causes? May he rest in peace. The fact that a large dose of morphine or potassium chloride was slipped into his IV line would forever remain a secret between the perpetrator and God.

  “Frustrating,” Michael said.

  Harold Strong shrugged. “We do what we can. You learn to live with it.”

  That night, he had dinner with the parental units, just arrived back from The Valley of the Kings, both tanned and in good health after three months of digging.

  “Make any new discoveries?” Michael asked, once they were all seated at the table.

  His father smiled. “Nothing major. Some pottery and a couple of gold coins from the Nineteenth Dynasty. Also, a few lines of Latin graffiti from an old Roman tourist, inscribed onto the wall of a tomb. Tourists have been wandering over the site for thousands of years.”

  “What did this graffiti say?”

  “‘Crispus Atticus was here,’ and the date, around 150 BC.”

  “I hope he enjoyed himself,” Michael said.

  “Frankly,” Klaus said, “I’m almost ready to concede that there’s nothing left to discover in the Valley of the Kings.” He winked at Michael.

  Sybil Foreman, her eyes flashing, said, “That’s ridiculous and you know it.”

  “No,” Klaus said. “Really. We should be looking someplace else. Personally, I think we should be digging along the old Coptic branch of the Nile. It silted over more than two thousand years ago and the cities along its length were abandoned. There’s a lot more to discover in Canopus and Heracleion than there is in the Valley.”

  “We’ve discussed this before,” Sybil said. “I’m not even going to dignify it with a response.” She passed the platter to Michael. “More meat?”

  “No, thanks. I’m done.”

  “You,” Sybil declared, “are still too skinny.”

  “Lean, Mom. I’m lean, not skinny.”

  Michael’s mother sniffed. “So,” she said, and poured herself a glass of wine, “what’s the story with Melody?”

  Michael’s parents spent a good portion of each year in Egypt. They had met Melody only once, shortly after Michael and she had begun dating. Melody had been on her best behavior and Michael’s mother, the phantom lure of grandchildren wafting through her brain, had jumped to conclusions that the situation had not warranted.

  “Nothing to tell. Melody and I broke up. It was sad. Very sad. Tragic, even.”

  Sybil, about to say something that Michael, if not herself, might regret, seemed to restrain herself. “I worry about you,” she said instead.

  Should he let them know? Why not? “Actually, I’ve been seeing somebody else. Her name is Stephanie. She’s a lawyer.”

  Sybil’s eyes grew huge. She glanced at her husband, who grinned at Michael and flashed him a thumbs-up.

  “So? Tell us. What’s this Stephanie like?”

  What was Stephanie like? “Self-assured,” he said. “Smart, pretty.” He thought for a moment. “Very pretty.”

  “Pretty? Only pretty? Melody is beautiful.”

  “Melody is a bubble-head. She’s self-centered, shallow and interested in nothing whatsoever except money, clothes and expensive vacations.” Also sex, Michael thought. Melody was interested in sex. It was the best thing about her, but this fact might be too much information for his mother.

  “Stephanie’s father teaches ancient languages at NYU and her mother is an art historian. She specializes in ancient Greek pottery.”

  Klaus looked impressed. Sybil raised an eyebrow. “Bring her around sometime,” she said. “We’d like to meet her.”

  “Sure,” Michael said.

  Fat chance, he thought.

  “Are you ready for dessert? I got a cheesecake from Junior’s.”

  “Absolutely,” Michael said. “Bring it on.”

  Chapter 17

  The trope of the mad scientist had been used and mis-used many times over the years. It was a staple of fiction, usually bad fiction, but it did contain an element of truth. Certainly, Josef Mengele and his Nazi colleagues had lived up to the worst of the stereotype, but just how many mad scientists were there? It was possible, of course, that some obsessed, maniacal genius, desperate to plumb the depths of forbidden knowledge, had engineered the demise of ten human beings merely to see what happened to their brain waves as they died. It was the obvious assumption, in fact, but Michael didn’t believe it. Somebody, somehow, planned on making money.

  But how? Where was the data? Who had it? What was being done with it? Simple, practical questions, with no easy answers.

  He had office hours in the morning. First, two patients with postural headaches, probably Chiari malformations. He scheduled them both for CAT scans. The next patient was a post-op meningioma, who was doing well. He broke for a quick sandwich, then saw two patients with obvious herniated cervical disks. The first was a thirty-four-year old whose car had been hit head-on by a drunken teenager running a stop sign. This patient’s pain was moderately severe but he had no functional deficits and surgery was not indicated. Michael scheduled him for a consult with the Pain Service. The last one had arm weakness, with minimal muscle wasting along the dorsal aspect of the arm. His name was Fred Oakley.

  “You need surgery,” Michael said.

  Fred Oakley, forty-one, fat and employed as an electrician, sighed. “I figured. Okay, when?”

  Michael consulted his calendar, already open on the desktop. “Two weeks from today, on Wednesday. Figure on being in the hospital for two days. Stay out of work for at least four weeks, after.”

  “Four weeks?” He winced. “My partners are going to love that.”

  “It might be longer than four. It depends on how you’re doing. Sorry, but there isn’t any choice, not if you want to get better. No lifting, no straining. Give it time to heal or you’ll make it worse.”

  The patient sighed. “Give me a note, ok?”

  “No problem.”

  He had nothing scheduled for the afternoon. Stephanie had a lunch meeting and then she was done for the day. They had agreed to meet up for a walk in the park. He saw her coming toward him and couldn’t help but smile. Tall, straight, striding along like she owned the sidewalk, wearing a black coat, boots and a green beret, long, dark hair streaming down her back.

  She stopped when she saw him, then grinned.

  It occurred to Michael in that instant, that he had a pretty good life. So, he didn’t love his job? How many people loved their job? It put meat on the table and money in the bank, and he was doing good and helping mankind, not that mankind gave a shit, but still…

  “Hey,” he said.

  She kissed him on the cheek. “Did you miss me?”

  “Yeah,” he said, and realized he meant it. “I did.”

  “Good.”

  It was a cool, autumn day, but the sun shone brightly overhead and the air was still. It had rained the night before and slick, yellow leaves glistened on the walkways. They entered the park near the Pond and the Hallett Nature Sanctuary, wandered down the path toward the Zoo, paid the fourteen bucks admission fee and walked through the gate.

  “They almost closed this place, years ago,” Michael said.

  “So I’ve been told.”

  “I’m glad they decided to keep it.”

  New York, like so many big cities, tended to allocate its funds on a haphazard basis. There had been no permanent staff assigned to the Zoo and little attention paid to ongoing maintenance. The place had been neglected for years, to the dismay and anger of animal lovers and environ
mentalists, with the animals kept in small, run-down, rat-infested cages. Finally, after years of discussion and ongoing negotiations, the animals were temporarily re-located. The Zoo closed and underwent a five-year renovation. Operations were turned over to the Wildlife Conservation Society, which paid for part of the renovation costs. A permanent staff was hired and ongoing funding assured by charging—for the first time in the Zoo’s history—an admission fee.

  Free was always nice, but a zoo that housed its animals in comfortable, spacious habitats, with an attractive infrastructure, one that provided a pleasant experience for visitors was even nicer, and well worth the money.

  They spent some time staring at the sea lions in their enclosure, then wandered over to the penguins and sea birds and then the grizzly bears. They had just left the bears and were walking hand in hand toward the snow leopards when Michael noticed something.

  “Son of a bitch,” he murmured.

  Stephanie looked at him.

  “It’s that same guy. He’s following us, again.”

  Stephanie frowned. “I’m starting to wonder if you’re safe to be around.”

  Michael was starting to wonder the same thing. “It’s probably you, not me,” he said. “Trusts and estates is a dangerous business.”

  She sniffed. “What do you want to do?”

  He pulled out his phone and dialed Harold Strong.

  “Stay there,” Harold Strong said. “Somebody will be along.”

  “Right.” Michael glanced behind him. The guy was leaning on a rail, staring at a bear. The bear was sniffing the air and staring back. “Let’s sit down, somewhere,” Michael said. “I’ve been told to wait.”

  They grabbed seats in the café, which was largely empty, an inauspicious sign. The menu was basic: hamburgers and fries, hot dogs, chicken strips, individual sized pizzas and the usual sugary drinks. “Coffee?” Michael asked.

  Stephanie shrugged. “Sure.”

  The coffee wasn’t bad. Michael enjoyed a good hamburger as much as the next guy, and he was getting hungry, but he decided against it. The burgers were probably pre-frozen, tasteless and dry. Stephanie pulled out her phone and proceeded to check her email. Michael, feeling vulnerable and uncertain, preferred to sip his coffee and keep an eye on things. Nothing, however, happened.