Virtual Heaven, Redux

by Taylor Kole

  Similar to the torture named “death by a thousand cuts,” each item the agents touched was like a pierce of the flesh; every room they entered a blade slicked across skin; every dart of the eye in his direction created a new puncture. The experience left him overwhelmed, defeated, and emotionally pummeled.

  Even their feigned kindness in alerting Alex’s attorney, Peter Mueller, was like a breaching of his front lines. Two minutes after the armed posse arrived, Peter had called to tell him to cooperate fully, but to say nothing until he arrived.

  After comparing the warrants and the items listed for seizure, Peter summoned the only irritant Alex remembered from Eridu: Agent Andrews. When the strange man, who resembled a clichéd agent, right down to the dark hair parted off-center and excellent posture, entered his personal space, Alex wished he would’ve told Peter to have this conversation away from him.

  “I assume you’re the overpaid counsel, selling his soul to the highest bidder, morality be damned,” Andrews said.

  “I’m Mr. Cutler’s attorney, yes. Thanks to your overreach, I’ll be earning my worth today.” He handed him two sheets of paper. “This is the warrant, and this is the list of items you’re attempting to take from here.”

  Andrews perused the documents.

  “The highlighted items are examples of your overreach.”

  “Most of this page is highlighted.”

  “As are the important lines of the judge’s order: two servers used during Roy’s death, the log charts, and the mirrored backup for Lobby activity spanning the previous sixty days. Nothing else.”

  As a pair of men in the casual clothing entered and headed for the stairs leading to Alex’s room, Peter called to them, “If you’ve disconnected one wire beyond the two servers identified in the warrant, do us all a favor and plug them back in.”

  The men looked to Andrews.

  Rather than face the men, Andrews turned and pulled a walkie-talkie from his hip, “Everyone stop what you’re doing. There’s been an amendment to our warrant. We confiscate the two servers used by Alex and Roy, and the backup. Everything else stays.”

  Confused chatter overtook the airwaves. Andrews turned the volume down, returned the pages to Peter, and charged outside.

  “Damn Gestapo,” Peter said. “He was trying to take all the software in your house; your digital assistant, the code that controls Legion’s visual aesthetics, and all Lobby related servers.”

  “And you stopped him?”

  “Absolutely. I’d better go supervise.”

  He left before Alex could say thanks.

  Agents reentered his home, carrying electronics. The sight of them handling his property marked the first time Alex envied Dr. Brad Finder’s decision to live outside the U.S., or Adisah’s resolution to huddle in the mountains of Montana.

  While growing up, Alex had made many difficult choices to stay on the right side of the law, but couldn’t seem to avoid them.

  Raised in Roger’s Park, he didn’t worry about stray bullets coming through the walls, but there was no swim team in his school; no free extra-curricular activities at all. Living on the fence between the slums and mediocrity, he witnessed many kids slip into the easy to do, difficult to endure, life of crime and poverty.

  Despite his adherence to the law, Alex found himself under governmental scrutiny for a second time.

  He made his way to the kitchen, near the back of the house, and heard Peter and Agent Andrews arguing their way toward him.

  “Alex,” Peter said, “just do what this maniac say, for now. One phone call will straighten this out.”

  Agent Andrews carried industrial shears in one hand, a hand-sized box with dangling rubber strands in the other. “Mr. Cutler, I’m a federal agent, giving you a lawful and direct order. You will comply while I attach this global positioning monitor around your ankle, or you will be arrested.”

  Alex backed against the counter. Looking at the black box the size of a pack of cigarettes made him curl his lips in disgust.

  “It’s a harmless GPS bracelet,” Andrews replied in a reasonable tone, but Alex saw the hint of a smirk on the man’s lips.

  “The warrant states Mr. Cutler is to remain in his residence until further notice. Something he is capable of doing without being tagged like a common criminal,” Peter said.

  “He’s definitely not a common criminal,” Andrews said. “But even rich crooks have to follow the law.”

  To Alex, Agent Andres said, “Are you going to comply or resist?”

  Alex looked to Peter, who wouldn’t meet his gaze.

  “Comply Mr. Cutler, this is your final warning.”

  “Okay.” He breathed deeply and extended his leg.

  He had lied about Roy’s death. This was the penalty, and tagging people in America was the wave of the future.

  The monitor was heavier than Alex expected, and colder.

  “Mr. Cutler,” Peter said. “I’ll have that off of you in a matter of hours, and request that Mr. Andrews personally—”

  “It’s Agent Andrews—”

  “Enough.” To Peter, Alex said, “If you want to help, get everyone out of my house. Allow me some privacy.”

  “Absolutely,” Peter said. “You heard him. You took his stuff, you attached your shackle. Now, let’s go.”

  “Two sheriffs will remain outside your gate,” Andrews said as the men backed away.

  Three days later, Alex lounged on his expensive sofa, watching the news on his bedroom’s north wall. He’d never been a news fan; he’d have voted, lobbied for, and financed an effort to have it outlawed. Currently, he couldn’t get enough of it. The tether wasn’t so bad. It was big, it hurt, and he felt it every time he moved, but he didn’t want to go anywhere, and it provided an easy excuse to that end.

  Across the country, people gathered to demonstrate their outrage over the Lobby ban. Just as interesting, occasional debates surged about what really caused Roy Guillen’s death.

  According to the media, an eighty-nine-year-old man suffering heart failure seemed preposterous.

  If you went by the news alone, half the people supported the thirty-day moratorium on the Lobby, the other half were outraged. Media tried to portray everyone as extremists. Alex hoped, and believed, twenty percent blindly supported, twenty percent seethingly opposed, and the other eighty was intelligent enough to wait for more data.

  The silent majority watched with interest. They didn’t troll the internet or act indignant. They absorbed information and made informed decisions.

  He had to hope they came down on his side.

  Feeling a cramp, he propped his bare foot on the ottoman. Depressed by the sight and feel of his digital shackle, he returned his foot to the floor.

  Rosa entered, holding opposite ends of a towel draped across the back of her neck. Her clothes were damp with perspiration. Using one corner of the towel, she dabbed sweat from her brow, an act he usually found sultry. Today, he felt nothing. It seemed that immense stress and self-loathing blanched emotional range.

  “Anything new?” she asked as she strode past him and into their closet—a space equal in square footage to his first apartment.

  “Six guys in Atlanta dug through sixty feet of earth, broke into an Atrium, and accessed the Lobby. They were arrested the moment they logged out.”

  “I bet they’re kicking themselves now.”

  “One of them worked for Broumgard,” Alex said with disinterest.

  The news returned from commercial.

  The Lobby ban encompassed the globe, affecting every populated continent. This meant coverage stayed fresh, and to him, each passing hour brought greater drama.

  What made sleep beyond brief naps impossible, and leaving the screen for longer than a handful of seconds difficult, was the purported talks of extending the ban an additional thirty days.

  Flipping a few channels, he filled Rosa in further. “The Atriums in Japan are another big story,” he said loudly, so she could hear him from inside h
er dressing room. “The employees, citizens—everyone in Japan is ignoring the ban. The Atriums have doubled and tripled their rates, and remain operational. There are rumors Moscow’s Atrium is doing the same. Media coverage in Beijing is limited, but I wouldn’t be surprised if they were following suit.”

  “Can’t you guys deny them access, pull their plug from some main source here?” Rosa asked.

  “No. We’re set up like franchises. The U.S. released a statement urging all countries to comply, citing the Lobby’s possible dangers. Japan is denying the allegations that they’re ignoring the ban, despite satellite photos and endless eyewitness accounts.”

  Rosa exited the closet carrying a towel and wearing nothing but sweat-dampened underwear sucked tight to her skin, making them transparent. With her back to him, she stared at the television a moment—even flexed her glutes—then turned to Alex. “Want to join me for a quick shower?”

  She looked amazing. Even better when stripped bare, but her normally stimulating gesture had no effect.

  She stared at him, possibly looking for signs of interest or searching for another idea to negate his funk.

  Apparently coming up empty, she frowned, and headed to the master bath.

  Stopping at the door, she added, “Alex, I tweaked my shoulder and could use some help washing my back.”

  “That scrub arm works great,” he said instinctively. Then, realizing she didn’t really need him to wash her back, that desperation to comfort her husband motivated her, he exhaled and said, “I appreciate what you’re doing. You look hot, and I know I should want to…” As if operated by a puppeteer, his arms raised limply, motioned to the images on the TV screen, then dropped lifeless.

  She disappeared, leaving the door open behind her. Relief washed over him, followed by guilt.

  He stared at the open door, willing himself to do the right thing: get up, join her, please them both.

  Instead, the mere thought exhausted him. He returned to the news.

  Seventy-six Atriums in nineteen countries were confirmed closed for the safety evaluation. In most areas, local police and even military personnel were preventing admittance by anyone other than custodial members or Broumgard’s upper management.

  The world was like a recently punted beehive.

  History had proven: give people work, safety, and high-quality entertainment, and decades ticked by in harmony; attempt to fool them with government handouts, and three dozen rehashed comic book movies a year, and revolutions happened.

  Naturally, today’s news reported what the bastard who owned the networks wanted, rather than unbiased truth. In the 1980s, fifty people owned ninety percent of media. That small number of people controlling what the public heard was considered a travesty, and groups fought hard to break up that control. In 2019, six people control all propagated information.

  CNN refused to mention the people who Alex knew camped around the Los Angeles Atrium, vowing to stay until the chairs were reopened. FOX ignored the new bills being considered in Congress that would regulate the Lobby.

  He imagined that similar unreported stories were going on worldwide.

  Unfortunately, the media did have a unifying sentiment: Alex Cutler was at fault, hiding something, and devious by nature.

  There were many bogus rumors of conspiracies he’d enacted to cover up a litany of fabricated side effects associated with Lobby visits.

  Agent Andrews and his LOC released records, gathered over the past seven years, that showed nearly ten thousand complaints lodged by Lobby visitors. The reports excluded an important fact: the percentage of people complaining of “side effects” was below the national average for normal susceptibility to those ailments. Meaning that you were more likely to develop narcolepsy at church, migraines at the mall, or paranoia at a Phish concert, than from accessing the Lobby.

  His stomach rumbled. He couldn’t remember eating today. “Victor.”

  “Yes.”

  “Can you have Glen bring me a Coke and have Arnel prepare steak fajitas?”

  “Certainly.”

  “Also, have Glen bring one of those chocolate empanadas.”

  “Will do.”

  The news depressed him, but not enough to turn it off. With every outlandish comment, he rose with indignation, then sank when realizing the propaganda had reached millions of people, that a percentage of busy individuals swallowed the slanted view given to them without objectional thought.

  A reporter described, in abhorrent detail, the condition of Roy’s body upon arrival at the county coroner.

  Of course he looked bad, Alex thought. The man was almost ninety years old and had been wheelchair bound for a decade. Outside of Hollywood films, death was never beautiful.

  After checking the time, he sagged a bit more. Six hours until the only show with integrity, Rebecca Trevino’s, Inside Today, aired.

  He believed most of the public knew the Lobby was safe. Yet each additional burst of drivel swayed a few more of the American masses. How long until they doubted their own memories, believed the news anchors, and questioned the Lobby’s necessity?

  The current media “expert” being interviewed embarrassed the industry. Apparently, authoring a blog about the Lobby granted this woman credibility to hypothesize, on national television, that Roy Guillen had been murdered, because he was about to expose some sinister conspiracy at Broumgard, which she persistently intimated was at the behest of Alex Cutler.

  A previous guest had the brilliant idea that the Lobby was a sentient being, which grew to hate Roy’s presence—as it hated all of us—so it surged his body with electricity, stopped his heart, and presumably cackled an evil, digital laugh as Roy died.

  Glen delivered the soda and dessert as Rosa exited the bathroom. Luckily for everyone involved, she exited wrapped in a towel.

  “Guess I need to start dressing before entering my own bedroom.” She stormed into the closet and closed the door.

  Glen set down the plate and soda as if he hadn’t heard her.

  Once the main door shut, Alex yelled loud enough to be heard through the thick gorilla glass door. “I’m sorry—I thought you’d be in there a while longer.”

  She cracked the door and peered out. Noticing they were alone, she softened her tone, “I intended to be.” She glanced at the pastry, back at Alex, and forced a smile. “But then I came up with a wonderful idea to get you out of your mood.”

  He sipped the Coke, and munched the baked empanada.

  “I’m not in a mood, Rosa. My entire world is collapsing,” he said.

  “Our world.”

  “Our world,” he amended.“You know what I mean.”

  As he attempted to take another bite, she crossed the distance and took the treat from his hand. She opened a trash receptacle in the wall and tossed the empanada in.

  “I’m serious,” she said. “This lying around feeling sorry for yourself isn’t healthy.”

  Having an idea of the conversation’s direction, he decided to head it off. “I don’t need to go see Father Michael or talk to him here, or anything like that.”

  “Well, of course you do,” she said as she pulled a T-shirt over her head.“But that’s not my plan. Although… I’ll keep it in mind.” She sat next to him, pulled her moist hair from inside her shirt, and let the tendrils flop down her back. With a mischievous smile, she said, “Let’s sneak into the Lobby.”

  He flinched as if slapped, then searched her face. He bolted to his feet. “We can’t do that. Accessing the Lobby would be a direct violation of my house arrest. I could go to jail.” It wasn’t like he didn’t consider taking a quick vacation a hundred times each day, but Rosa was supposed to be the voice of reason.

  She stood next to him. “I know all of that, honey, but those officers hardly enter the property; they never come inside the house, let alone venture upstairs. Six of our chairs work fine, and who would know—?”

  “Glen is at the door with the rest of your meal,” Victor said.

>   Victor’s voice seemingly answered Rosa’s question about who would know. After seizing control of their phones, Alex had considered deactivating Victor, but couldn’t decide if privacy was worth the hassle of organizing his own life.

  “Tell him to come in,” he said.

  “What is it this time?” Rosa asked. “Deep fried cheese with hollandaise sauce?”

  Glen, with his head down, silently placed the fajitas on a nearby table and left in the same fashion.

  Alex wished Rosa would go easier on the kid. Alex believed if Rosa would be super nice to him, a skill she displayed with such ease, Glen might open up a bit.

  Once Glen exited, she inspected the food.

  Alex leaned over, removed a tortilla from the warmer, lined it with three strips of steak, jack cheese, a dab of guacamole, sour cream, and a pinch of fresh-cut onions.

  “Think about it, Alex. In the Lobby, all this stress and depression will be lifted from you. And how often do I volunteer a trip?”

  He wrapped the small fajita tight and, before taking a bite, arrived at the answer: never. Her last visit, over a year ago, had taken months of cajoling from him. Feeling a little control slip back into his life, he said, “Can we go to one of those trippy Alice in Wonderland-type worlds?”

  “Don’t push it.” She then ducked into the access room, and returned a minute later. “Two hours. Douglas, Nebraska, 1871.”

  Douglas, Nebraska, 1871 was one of the least visited worlds. The world’s blandness never bothered him. He loved having a day with Rosa all to himself. He smiled at her, and nodded with genuine enthusiasm.

  “Victor,” Rosa said, “block access to both our suite and the access room. Alex and I would like some husband and wife time.”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  Alex sat back down and briefly wondered what would happen in the real world during his absence, and then concluded that if he could enter the Lobby, he didn’t care.

  He muted the news program, where two bloggers who held the same view pretended to debate by supporting each other from different angles.