The Sensory Deception

by Ransom Stephens

  “You play?” he asked.

  She took the guitar from him. It was warped, too, nearly ruined, held together by packing tape along one edge. She strummed a G chord. The body felt alive with vibration. She’d never held a guitar like this.

  “I once used it as an oar on a Greenpeace Zodiac,” Farley said. “Chopper over here thinks it learned to sing from humpback whales.”

  She set the guitar aside. The list of questions in her briefcase seemed so trivial now.

  Farley sat next to her at the edge of the couch, oriented toward her.

  “Gloria, I want to be completely transparent with you about our goals. Obviously we need your help.” As usual, his initial words were loud and clear, with those that followed diminishing in volume, but then he interrupted his loud-to-soft voice modulation. “The four of us can change the world.” The way he said it, punctuated with those clear blue eyes leveled at her, it was easy to believe him.

  “It wasn’t the universe that disappointed you; it was humanity. If you fill a balloon with carbon dioxide and expose it to sunlight, it gets hot faster than if it’s filled with air, which is mostly nitrogen and oxygen. Human beings have increased the concentration of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere by forty percent in the past hundred years. The planet is heating up and ice is melting. The cause-and-effect relationship is straightforward.”

  Chopper added, “Earth is running a fever because it is infected.”

  “Our goals are twofold,” Farley resumed. “Nature-based virtual reality experiences will make people sensitive, viscerally sensitive, to their role in Earth’s ecosystem, and this is the key to building solutions to humanity’s greatest problems. Second, our product will generate both a volunteer network and a great deal of money. Money is important. Money wins cultural and political battles. It’s far more effective to buy people’s interests than to try to alter their actions.”

  “You don’t have any business experience.” Gloria tried to sound skeptical but it came out more like advice. “Most companies like yours fail within a year, and those that survive have one thing in common: a sustaining, overwhelming desire to succeed.”

  From across the room, Ringo interjected, “We have that.”

  “Good, but you’ll have to be convincing. You want to change the world. I understand. I don’t think I’ll ever forget what I experienced in there.” She sighed. “But that’s not what makes a business succeed.”

  Chopper turned to her, his eyes slits. “Then you tell us, holder of capital. Tell us what makes businesses succeed. Be honest. Use the word greed.”

  “Greed plays a role,” she said. She could see that Chopper was the heart of this team, the passionate lead guitarist. His temperament was necessary for their success, but could just as easily destroy them. It boiled down to his allegiance to Farley. She looked at each of them again. Farley was the front man of this band, the singer, and Ringo set the tempo, the bass line and percussion. There was something missing. They lacked rhythm, a day-to-day business rhythm.

  “Entrepreneurs who make it through the bad times—and there will be more bad times than good by the time you either surrender or succeed—are compelled to win for the sole reason that they love to win and hate to lose. You want to change the world.” She tried to sound cynical. “I’m not sure it’s the same thing.”

  Farley grinned. He looked as though he were laughing inside. “Gloria, we’re not quitters. We have the will to win. We’re fighters, not tweedy academics, and we’re not PETA activists. We are veterans of the environmental movement, but we’re not radical.” Then he laughed that booming laugh of his. “I eat meat. Chopper smokes cigarettes!”

  Serious again, he said, “We’re ambitious professionals and we want to make money. A lot of money. Does it matter whether we want money to pay for lavish lifestyles or to finance what we believe in? Trust me, we’re going to win.” He leaned forward until his eyes were level with hers. “Gloria, I want you to help us.”

  Good answer. That was it. It was easy to believe in this man. It was easy to relax on that suede couch, too. Easy to slip into Chopper’s blues riffs, easy to sip some more of the red juice of aged grapes. She could think about the details later. Right now she had that exhausted but upset feeling that you get after a good cry, the teary resolution that puts you to sleep as surely as a melancholy lullaby.

  Farley couldn’t read Gloria right now. She was too out of it. Virtual reality exhausts the brain faster than actual reality because it dilates the user’s time scale. Sleep is the natural response. With her head nestled between two couch cushions, she snored quietly.

  Farley shook the cushion. Gloria closed her mouth for a second but then sank deeper into the couch and resumed snoring.

  “Gloria,” Farley said. Then louder, “Gloria.”

  She didn’t move.

  “Dude, she sleeps like the dead,” Ringo said. “What do we do?”

  Chopper chuckled.

  “Tomorrow’s Saturday,” Farley said. “VCs don’t work weekends, do they?” He put his hand on her shoulder and shook her.

  Her eyes popped open for an instant and she said, “Yeah, I’m coming.” But then they shut again and she snuggled herself still deeper between the cushions.

  Farley looked at the others and shook his head. “Well, we got her attention, I guess.” He shook her again and she kept snoring.

  Ringo asked again, “What do we do?”

  Farley said, “We make her comfortable and turn out the lights.”

  Chopper’s favorite time was dawn. He liked to see civilization wake up, liked the way it disrupted the peace with loud, smelly diesel engines. He scoffed at himself, at the irony—civilization was the enemy, and those diesel engines were its weapons. Still, laid carefully over the rhythm of the waves crashing on the beach, it wasn’t a bad tune.

  Sitting on a bluff with the sky still dark over the ocean in front of him, he waited for the first rays of sunlight to warm the back of his neck and signify the day’s start. He considered himself one of the lucky insomniacs. He liked to be awake. He liked it best when he was the only one who was.

  Except for Farley Rutherford, Chopper had no use for Homo sapiens. And at this instant, he particularly didn’t like people who wanted to talk when the world ought to be asleep. He didn’t have to turn around to recognize the shuffle of Gloria working her way down the bluff. For a second, he hoped she’d continue along the path down to the beach. When she was a few steps behind him, he motioned with his hand for her to be quiet, or to stay where she was, or to go away.

  “Good morning, Chopper! What an incredible view. Do you come out here every morning? Should I go get some coffee? Ringo has a pot on.”

  She stood between him and where the sun was trying to rise behind them. He sucked down the last hit of his first Marlboro of the day, suffocated the butt in some dirt, and put the remains in his pocket. He scanned the horizon looking for scattered sunlight, auras, chromatic aberrations—the first hints of a migraine. There were none, so this was his horoscope: today wouldn’t hurt too much.

  “Come on,” Gloria said, so damn bright and cheerful he wanted to choke her. “Show me how to get down to the beach.”

  He turned slowly, taking his time so that he could scan his consciousness. He found two sets of thoughts. His own confused him, crowded with worries about things big and small: a planet in peril and his place on it; how to get through the day without feeling too much pain or making too many mistakes. The second set of thoughts was clear with purpose; these were Farley’s thoughts, Farley’s needs. As a neurologist, Chopper understood how it worked. The model of Farley that lived in Chopper’s brain provided calm that Chopper could never find on his own. Farley’s unspoken commands gave him a role, a place safe from his own errors.

  Farley needed Gloria, so Farley needed Chopper to get Gloria on their side. So Chopper needed Gloria.

  He shifted over a foot or so and motioned for her to sit next to him. He looked up and smiled. He forced the sm
ile up to his eyes so that it would look sincere. He looked her over and tried to generate warmth the only way he knew how. The smooth line of her cheek, the hint of flesh below her chin, the gentle upward slope of her breasts, and the subtle curve of her belly above the waistline of her fancy white pants—she was soft in all the spots a woman ought to be soft. Not one of those women on the far side of twenty-five fighting to stay lean at any cost. He could work with that; it almost resembled respect.

  “Shhh,” he said.

  She sat down beside him, crossing her legs in front of her the way his were. He gave her points for sitting in the dirt with those pants on.

  “Thanks for putting out towels,” she said. “I feel silly for falling asleep. I guess I just—”

  “Shhh,” he repeated, louder this time. If she kept babbling, he’d say the wrong thing, it would upset Farley, and the day would be ruined.

  She was quiet, but he could still hear thoughts churning in her head, disrupting the peace almost as much as if she were speaking them.

  “Can I have a cigarette?” she asked.

  He felt a genuine smile crawl across his face. He tried to stop it. This smile, the asymmetric one that he could feel lighting up his eyes with as close to delight as he ever felt, could cause trouble. He opened the red box, took out two barches, put them both in his mouth, and struck a safety match with his thumbnail. He lit them, took a long draw, and handed her one.

  She coughed and looked back at him.

  He exhaled toward the sea. Her knee touched his. He wanted her to leave.

  “Why don’t you like me?” she asked.

  She knew. This horrified him. Trained reaction took over and his body relaxed as his senses caught fire. Chopper radiated cool when he was most upset. He’d learned it the hard way. Having grown up in the Vittori household the youngest of four boys with five younger sisters, he’d understood that showing fear brought nothing but humiliation. Solitude became safety. Book learning concealed his weaknesses as it made him strong.

  He took a hit off the barch and let the smoke out as he spoke. His heart might betray him, but not his voice. He spoke with clarity and a thick illusion of confidence. “Oh, rest assured, I like you. I like you just fine.” He looked at her, starting with her thick, wavy black hair and pausing at her eyes, two dark pools of either innocence or naive stupidity. Or maybe simple sincerity? No, he tossed that thought aside. Chopper knew one person on earth who was sincere, and he knew for damn certain that there was only one person on earth like Farley.

  His gaze moved on, down Gloria’s face. Her lips were thick and soft. He continued down her neck. Her arms were fleshy, too—the price of admission, he supposed. The price for those breasts that moved just so when she laughed. Down her belly, a pillow he could sink into. He laughed at himself, at his defensive audacity, and looked up at her. As he expected, her eyebrows were raised in a “How dare you?” look.

  “Gloria, you are the solution.” She started to speak, and he altered his expression into just enough of a sneer to shut her up. “I think you understand greed. Maybe even appreciate it, but I don’t. I don’t understand quarterly profits, or profit at any expense. I don’t understand shortsighted rationalization or the incarnate evil of so-called business decisions. Why do people worship money above all else? You are a venture capitalist. You chose a career designed to transform the wealth of Earth into money. I don’t understand why anyone would do that.”

  “That’s not true,” she said, her eyes narrowing and her back stiffening as she spoke. “Venture capital is a problem-solving tool.”

  He exhaled a stream of smoky disgust from the side of his mouth.

  She got it, too. One uncontrolled breath and she saw through his shield. He’d have to be careful with her. Anyone who understood him too well was a threat.

  “Prosperity is the biggest booster of global responsibility.” She sounded indignant, and that released some of the pressure he felt, so he let her ramble some more. She argued that wealth can be created, that there is sufficient wealth for everyone on earth if it’s well shepherded. “Isn’t that your goal? To be a good shepherd?”

  He took the cigarette from her, snuffed it out, and put the butt in his pocket. She was staring at him.

  “No,” he said. “Not even close.”

  “What?” she said, but it was an expression of anger, not a question.

  “Just a minute,” he said. “The sun’s just cresting the hills behind us—no, don’t turn around! Stare out to sea. Trust me.” She obeyed, and he appreciated her tiny dose of trust.

  A few seconds later, he felt the day’s first direct sun rays warm the back of his neck. He reached over to her. She started to turn toward him and he corrected her with the set of his jaw. More credit to her, he thought; she accepted his trivial offering. He wouldn’t like her, but he would work with her. Of course, he’d work with whoever Farley brought on the team.

  He gathered her hair in his hand and lifted it so that she could feel the sun on her neck, too.

  He said, “Let the day start.”

  She sighed and a few seconds later said, “You are a strange man.”

  They sat motionless for a few minutes as the sky lit. Then Chopper said, “No, we’re not their shepherds. The assumption of human superiority over every other species needs to be corrected.”

  Gloria glared at him. “You’re wrong. Our problems can only be addressed by directing capital to solutions, and the fact is—whether it appeals to you or not—the fact is that solving problems like global warming, hunger, and disease creates wealth, and that is what will save humanity. Assuming it needs saving.” She stood up, casting her shadow over him, and added, “This is why you don’t like me?”

  He couldn’t help it. Even as the defense mechanisms piled up, he couldn’t retreat. He should have known better. He put on his most winning, most troublesome smile. It made her eyelashes flutter. Then he let his eyes drift up to her chest level and said, “Oh, I like you just fine.”

  “Chopper,” she said. “Up here.” She motioned to her eye level with two fingers.

  Cowed, nearly panicked inside, he obeyed. Then he yawned.

  “Don’t you get it?” she asked, motioning behind them to Farley’s house. “Sensory saturation. It’s your idea, right? Farley discovered the power of acquiring data from animals and Ringo knows the technology, but what I experienced yesterday was more than clever video and hot tech. Sensory saturation is yours, and you deserve to benefit from it and do whatever you want with the wealth you create.”

  Chopper started to hum “The Star-Spangled Banner.”

  “You don’t need to like me, but understand this: without people like me, either sensory saturation goes nowhere or some huge company steals it.”

  Farley understood that his dream couldn’t come to life without labor pains. The first contractions were waves of doubt propagating from partner to partner across a long table in a Sand Hill Ventures conference room.

  Gloria presented a barrage of PowerPoint slides, starting with the original Silicon Valley darlings: Bill Hewlett and Dave Packard and the Palo Alto garage that most venture capitalists deem the birthplace of Silicon Valley. She followed with Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak, and rounded the field with Google’s Larry Page and Sergey Brin. Then she added an image of Farley, Chopper, and Ringo standing under the huge redwood tree in front of Farley’s garage.

  “This is the organizational chart,” Gloria said, bringing up a slide with a three-box tree diagram. She pointed to each box and described the team’s UC Berkeley roots, advanced degrees, and research careers. Farley, the zoologist, was president of the company; Chopper, the neurologist, was director of research and development; and Ringo would resign his “distinguished staff engineer” position at Intel to become chief technology officer.

  One of the VCs, a bald man wearing an immaculate coal suit, said, “A president, a director, and a chief. I love small companies—titles in lieu of pay.” His colleagues laughed, except for
a man named Joel McKay.

  McKay, who was dressed for the golf course, interrupted the levity in a disparaging tone: “Academic credentials are not what made Dave and Bill or any of the Silicon Valley stars successful.”

  Gloria advanced to the next slide, Farley’s curriculum vitae. “Dr. Rutherford has led men into battle.” She paused to give McKay a chance to respond. McKay nodded for her to continue. “Commanding a dozen men in four rubber boats, he routed an industrial whaling fleet that had harpoons locked, loaded, and aimed at them. You realize that harpoons are rocket-propelled grenades? Armed with nothing but banners, cameras, a guitar, and courage, Farley Rutherford won.”

  Farley wasn’t comfortable with Gloria’s manipulation of his environmentalist credentials. He’d have preferred that everyone air their doubts and find consensus now, so there would be fewer misunderstandings later, but while preparing for the meeting Gloria had insisted that steamrolling the partners would be more effective.

  Farley and his team sat on one side of the table, their backs to a window. The table was made of glass and stainless steel with a line of mahogany swirling about the surface. Just out the window, young redwood trees filtered the sunlight, yielding a calming effect—exactly what Farley had expected from Sand Hill Ventures.

  Gloria stood at the end of the table, to Farley’s left. Chopper sat to his right, and then Ringo. It had taken two weeks to prepare the business plan for this meeting, including the hours required to devise a company name. Farley had tried to defend VRts, pronounced vee-arts, and Gloria laughed at him. They’d spent ten days side by side in her office in this building, in the office of his house, in his lab at the Santa Cruz Institute of Oceanography, at the café down the street, and at the dolphin-themed restaurant at the end of the Santa Cruz Pier. It was at the Dolphin, halfway through their second bottle of wine, that Gloria thought of VirtExArts—Virtual Experience Arts. All told, they had spent more than 120 hours arguing, compromising, drafting, and redrafting the business plan. Gloria had lost her temper several times when they got stuck on points where he wouldn’t compromise. She’d yelled at him, but Farley had made his goals clear that first night, and her yelling didn’t bother him. The louder she got, the more certain he was that she would fight for him.