Gloria stood just a couple of inches over five feet. Farley was at least a foot taller, but he made eye contact in a way that suggested they were on the same level. He reached out, took her hand, and gave her a welcoming pat on the shoulder. The combination of this gesture, his voice, those ocean-blue eyes, and something about his smile—something sort of hippie-like, as though this was the guy who led the drum circle—made her feel like an insider, not like family but like part of a team, and she still hadn’t said a word.
A thin black man stepped across the threshold.
Farley said, “Gloria Baradaran—did I pronounce that right?” She nodded and he continued, “Meet Ringo Hayes.”
Ringo wore a Spider-Man T-shirt, flip-flops, and shorts that revealed skinny legs. His spongy hair was sun-bleached to a dark brown and his long, narrow face emphasized his smile. He looked every inch the African-American übergeek; Gloria figured he must be the electrical engineer described in the proposal as a design ace. He leaned toward her and, as he said, “Hey,” his elbow rubbed her arm. She took it as a kind gesture, if overly familiar and unprofessional. Standing between Farley and Ringo, she introduced herself as the venture capitalist scout and explained that she was there to evaluate their business prospects, not to make any decision about their funding. “But if everything goes well, I’ll get you a meeting with the partners.”
“Excellent,” Farley said. He guided her in and let the wooden screen door crash shut behind them. The wood-on-wood impact, along with the ocean breeze and, most of all, the disarray of furniture inside, reminded her of summer camp. A picture window on the far wall showed the sun hanging over the sea. It was dark inside, as though the lights hadn’t yet been turned on after a long summer day.
It took a minute for her eyes to adjust to the light. Then she saw another man standing across the room. Where Farley’s stature and voice had captured her attention, this man’s very silence grabbed her. He had a chiseled jawline and his deep-set eyes squinted as if the room were brightly lit. His dirty-blond hair, faded jeans, and the tight black T-shirt that emphasized his biceps did not present the image she’d expected from the proposal, but he could only be the neurologist-pharmacologist. She had to pry her eyes away, and as she did, she saw him smile.
Farley said, “Gloria Baradaran, let me introduce Romeo Vittori. We call him Chopper. Someday maybe he’ll explain how he got his nickname. If he does, please fill the rest of us in.” Then he laughed. His laughter was thick, slow in its modulation, and nearly impossible not to join. Chopper walked deeper into the house.
A worn suede sectional couch filled the living area, with one section facing the ocean view and the other oriented toward the kitchen. A beat-up guitar rested on a driftwood coffee table. Surfboards leaned against the wall on each side of a whiteboard and a pile of wet suits lay on the floor. The dark brown carpet felt stiff, and she could see sand at the base of its pile. She felt a slight urge to tidy up after these boys.
She thanked them for inviting her down and, as she spoke, realized that she’d left her frustration outside. She looked at Farley again. He had a broad forehead and a straightforward approach that conveyed patience and competence. For some reason she felt both an urge to impress him and a sense that he believed in her. She had to turn away and remind herself why she was there.
He had it. Oh, yes, whatever that magical quality is that separates leaders from managers, the Holy Grail of MBA programs, Farley Rutherford had plenty of it.
She looked up at him, and he said, “I want you to experience the demo before we say too much.”
“Virtual reality, right?” she asked.
Ringo said, “It’s the next generation of entertainment.”
Gloria said, “Please try not to use the phrase ‘next generation.’ In venture capitalism it translates to ‘no known market.’”
As Farley guided her through the kitchen, she combed her memory. She wasn’t certain if Sand Hill had ever invested in a virtual reality company, but she had overheard the partners discussing it. One had agreed with Ringo’s assertion that it would be the next phase of entertainment; another had written it off as stillborn back in the 1990s.
They walked through a laundry nook and then reached the garage. Gloria couldn’t help laughing. Since taking this job, she’d seen a lot of garages that had been converted to laboratories. Always garages. This one was typical: poorly matched carpet remnants, cast-off cubicle partitions, desks covered with computers, test equipment, and circuitry.
They stopped and Farley encouraged her to take in a line of photographs set on the wall. “These pictures will anchor the experience for you—it’s an adventure.”
The first one showed a polar bear lying in the snow embracing Farley as though Farley were its teddy bear. Farley looked childlike and amused but uncomfortable. Another picture showed Farley and the bear standing together. Farley was bracing it by the hips and the bear towered over him.
“I want this image set in your mind before we begin.” He stared deep into her eyes. “Do you experience motion sickness?”
“Umm, no.”
“Good. You’re ready to go.”
They entered a separate room. It reminded her of a photographer’s darkroom in its isolation. There was a huge flat-screen monitor hanging from the ceiling immediately in front of a well-stuffed easy chair. On a table to one side of the chair, a pair of headphones sat next to oversize sunglasses, a strap with a large metal contact and LCD readout, and a bunch of cables, plus a mouse and keyboard. A clamp-on desk lamp cast the only light in the room other than the blue screen of the monitor. The walls and ceiling were dark, so dark that she couldn’t tell if they were recessed or perhaps covered in some sort of black fabric.
Farley stopped at the entrance and Ringo swung the monitor to the side. Gloria sat, and he manipulated a lever at the chair’s base, reclining her into a comfortable position, though at that moment she didn’t feel comfortable.
Ringo wrapped the strap around her arm. The metallic contact in the center of the strap was cold against her skin and the display fluctuated around zero. A cable emerged from it and ran under the table. He turned off the clamp-on light.
Farley pointed at the mouse, which had a tiny red LED. “If you want the demonstration to stop, just click the mouse. We’ll be right outside.”
Ringo helped her put on the sunglasses. Now she got it: they were like the glasses handed out for 3-D movies, though heavier and wider and connected to another cable that ran under the table. Then Ringo put the headphones over her ears. They were tight against her head and absolutely noise-canceling.
Ringo positioned the flat-screen monitor so that its center was inches from her face and its screen completely occupied her field of view.
All she could see was blue screen. Then the intensity started to fade, and as it did, she felt warm, from her feet to her forehead, warm. The light grew so dim that the blue appeared gray, and then it was dark. Seconds passed and faint white noise built up, and as it did, the warmth made it to her heart, generating calm, as though she were meditating.
Her last articulated thought was that it had a nice effect but was not a salable product.
The monitor blasts white light. Glaring white light that consumes her vision as its intensity grows. The white noise resolves into the sound of waves crashing on a beach behind her, and the white light resolves into flying flakes tinted in blue, green, and gray. Taste and smell combine in her nose and on her tongue, an acute taste of brine that she can separate into different wet, earthy sources like salt, fish, dirt, and snow. Glorious snow.
As she hunkers forward, great blasts of white cold blow against her face. She is aware of the cold the way that, as you read, you’re aware that you’re reading, aware but not exactly conscious of it. Icy needles prickle her nose, bracing but not uncomfortable. Her arms are warm and alternately tense, pulling herself upward, climbing. Her legs feel different, coiled and powerful. She’s filled with a great urge, a wonderful, joyous d
esire to leap into the air and scream—so she does.
She launches above the rush of snow. She roars and roars again. At the base of her awareness it sounds barbaric, but at the front of her senses, in her eyes, her ears, her hands, even on her tongue and in her throat, she senses her identity in this voice. She roars again, this time straight up into the sky—a sky so bright, so blue, that she scrambles up the hill toward it. She finds herself on a great sheet of ice and starts sliding backward, but her nails, her great black nails, inches long and strong as daggers, cut into the ice and draw her forward, upward.
The wind tears into her as she crests the iceberg, and great foamy waves fire icy tendrils up and over and into her from below. Deep in her mind a question tries to work itself to the surface, something to do with how it can be so cold but she can feel so warm.
Her senses tighten, her eyes focus; she licks her nose and tastes the air. It’s salty, yes, but there’s something, something she wants. She smells desire. Hunger fills her and she drops to all fours, roars again, and springs down the other side of the iceberg. She goes too fast, though, loses her grip and rolls. She rolls through pillows of snow. She stretches out her limbs and the rolling becomes sliding on a level plain of ice that ends in crashing ocean waves.
A swell pulls her from the ice into the thick green and blue medium. The cold is replaced by an engulfing bath. Not exactly warm, it is wide-awake comfort.
She swims under the ice. She sees them. The determination of instinct takes control. Everything is immediate. She distinguishes the seals that are catchable from those that are not. She sees the hole in the ice where the seals rise to breathe. Without resolving the thought, she understands that she is meant to take an older or wounded seal, and not just because it will be easier and thereby leave her enough energy to carry it above the ice to her snowy dining room.
She waits and watches, aware that these circumstance are not the usual way of things. The woman who lurks below the senses would not have known this; it is a primal realization.
There. A seal with the large, dark rings on its back that signify age. It swims with a jerky, unbalanced motion—it has a wounded flipper. She kicks and paddles. The seals scatter to the left, to the right, and below. She has the advantages of surprise and overwhelming strength. Her target struggles behind the others. Reaching across its back with one arm, she pulls it toward her and takes its head in her mouth. It struggles. She clamps down. It stiffens for an instant and goes limp. Her momentum carries her to the hole in the ice. She kicks and kicks again, accelerating, and with the seal in her mouth, she bursts from the water and slides up on the surface. She drops the seal and takes a deep breath. The smell of warm, bleeding seal flesh is hunger incarnate.
She eats. The juicy flesh melts in her mouth, the taste more wonderful than the smell. It is prime rib that has roasted for hours, charred skin surrounding tender, red meat. Deep in her mind, for just an instant, the sensual saturation diminishes enough that her mind is able to resolve a coherent human thought: it is so good she doesn’t even want horseradish.
She finishes and yields the scraps to waiting birds. Exhausted, satisfied, and enjoying the warmth radiating from her core, she lumbers back up the ice mountain. As she passes their breathing hole, three seals dive through. At last, she rolls into a fluffy snowdrift and, like a child in a swaddling blanket, nuzzles deep into this world. That feeling of appreciation becomes affection for all that she knows. She sleeps.
Hours of exhaustion melt away. As golden rays of sunrise penetrate her white blanket, she rises and scampers back to the waves. She sniffs around the seals’ breathing hole and confirms that they left hours ago. She steps off the ice shelf and, one pull on the water after another, swims toward the golden ball of fire on the horizon.
With her intrinsic buoyancy complemented by an occasional stroke, she covers the miles with the ease of a bird soaring on a thermal. To rest, she rolls onto her back, pulls herself in a circle, and surveys the horizon. At the forefront of her mind, even though she can see and sense only the limitless ocean, she knows that within hours she will come to another ice floe. It has always been thus.
She swims. The hours pass and she swims. Winged creatures fly overhead, affirming the certainty that an ice floe is near. The sun slips back below the horizon and a great full moon rises before her. And she swims.
Another day passes, another lap of the sun around the horizon and into the sea. And another. As the days of swimming pass, an alien awareness emerges so gradually as to be intrinsic to her sentience. When at last she identifies it, the realization fills her at first with shock and then a waxing loneliness, as though she’s been overlooked. The world has moved on without her.
She has felt hunger. The unpleasant cycle of plenty and need is the grist of reality for the carnivore. But this other thing…this alien feel to the water isn’t right. The sea, nearly by definition, is the comfortable place. Warmer than the air, warmer than the ground, the sea is warmth and food and bliss.
A horrible feeling works its way up her limbs and invades her. Just as it permeates the core of her body, it invades the core of her heart and mind.
Cold becomes a force of evil. She needs rest, but when she pauses, she has to tread or she sinks. Something has stolen her buoyancy.
The ocean, her friend for thousands of years, has turned on her.
As her breathing slows and she struggles to hold her nose above water, light flickers ahead. Ice?
With her nose bobbing at the surface, a wave catches her and drags her to shore, then another pushes her up the beach, and another, until she finds herself lying in a foamy wash on gritty sand. She doesn’t like sand. Where the scouring properties of ice melt into cleansing water, sand is filth that infects her eyes and nose. Finally, though, she can relax. She sleeps through the darkness.
By the time she wakes, the sea has retreated. She rises above the driftwood, shell fragments, and a great pile of seaweed. A variety of both welcome and unfamiliar scents accompanied by a rush of strange sounds overwhelms her. She singles out one of the smells and focuses. It draws her along the shore. It’s not the everyday scent of the ringed seal; it’s the less common, not-quite-as-welcome scent of harbor seals.
Motion up the beach steals her focus. An unfamiliar scent scares her. She ambles more quickly along the beach. Around a dune, she finds her prey. Experience-tinged determination gives her confidence, and confidence brings relief. Without a pause, she vaults at the lone seal.
But something is wrong. It moves faster than it should. It doesn’t smell right. It makes strange sounds. There is nothing right about it.
She pauses and, because she knows no other way to approach confusion, she roars. It is her roar, the roar that defines her being, but it is weak.
Three more of these wrong-smelling things surround her and the weariness returns. A week, maybe even a day before, she could have parted these creatures with one lashing of her paw, but now she has nothing left.
A consciousness she had long abandoned floats to the top. She recognizes the creatures and the tools they carry.
Two men level their rifles at her and fire.
Gloria sat straight up, hit her face on the monitor, and pounded the mouse with her fist, screaming, “NO, NO, NO!”
Farley waited at her side the whole time. With the headphones, glasses, and monitor in the way, he couldn’t really see her. As the demo progressed, his mind wandered back to the vision of her walking up to the house. She had an olive complexion, but her skin looked pale against her luxuriant, wavy black hair. She looked Persian, Indian, or maybe Arab or Greek, and she spoke with the trace of a foreign accent. In her flared white jeans and black V-neck top, she’d perfected the casual Silicon Valley look without sacrificing the formality of a high-power venture capitalist. She was more glorious than beautiful. He smiled and wondered if “Gloria” was a nickname.
After she lurched forward, she grabbed his hand. He covered her with a blanket and gently pushed her back on
the chair. He had expected a pronounced reaction, but not this pronounced. He eased the headphones off and said, “Gloria, you’re in Santa Cruz and everything is okay.”
She was shaking and couldn’t seem to catch her breath.
He pulled off the glasses and pushed the monitor aside. “How do you feel?”
After a few more beats, she relaxed and let go of his hand. He asked, “Any nausea?”
She shook her head, but was swallowing instead of breathing.
It took several more minutes for Gloria to settle enough to accept a mug of herbal tea. Farley held it for her and waited. She looked up at him. He felt guilty that the demo had startled her to this extent, but there was more to it. She rubbed her eyes with the back of her hand and shook her head as though trying to get her mind into a new place. Then she smiled. That’s when it happened. In smiling, she transformed. Farley had always thought smiles were strange things. To most mammals, spreading lips and showing teeth is a threat. Even among people, smiles expose uncertainty and anxiety as often as joy or mirth; they are telltales indicating the direction of a person’s emotional wind. Indicators that helped Farley guide the people who depended on him.
This smile was altogether different. Two things happened when Gloria smiled. First, as her smile formed, the simple elegance of the curve of her cheek was punctuated by dimples. These two symmetric flaws brought a feeling of warmth to Farley’s stomach. It was the second thing, though, that changed him forever. As she smiled, her cheeks framed her eyes—huge, dark, soft, world-encompassing eyes—and Farley felt a pull he’d never experienced before.
She reached for the mug. Still caught in those eyes, so dark that the pupils were barely discernible from the irises, he leaned too far forward and spilled a few drops of tea on the blanket he’d just provided.
She said, “Wow.”
The Sensory Deception Page 2