The Sensory Deception

by Ransom Stephens

  “The member states of the European Union consider my land a dumping ground. And not for mere rubbish. No, they prefer to dump toxic waste—medical waste, lead, mercury, arsenic, gallium, perhaps even radioactives.” He broke into deep-throated laughter. “It may come to pass someday that my coast will be mined for these elements, they are so common. When I tax these poachers, I am called a pirate; when I fine barges for dumping on the land of my people, I am called a pirate; when I protect my people and my land by escorting these ships away from my coast, I am called a pirate. Then they bring warships to my coast to ‘protect’ us from pirates. The warships prevent me from collecting my tariff while permitting garbage barges to dump their shit on my land and let poachers steal my fish.”

  Farley began to realize that the cost of recording Moby-Dick had gone up. A wisp of an idea drifted to mind. He dipped a scone in his tea and listened.

  Sy rambled on: “It’s quite simple, then. There are three types of Somali pirates. First, there are those who merit the title ‘pirate’—criminals, mercenaries, thieves, and kidnappers. Second, the Al-Shabaab Islamic fundamentalists, who fund their various jihads through a practice of kidnapping and ransom collection. On this note, I would point out that Somalia has practiced Islam longer than any other country—longer even than the Arabs—but like everything in Africa, we have no provenance. My Muslim brothers, the Shiites and the Sunni, are my enemies because my people are insufficiently intolerant. Perhaps were I a better king, I would control my people’s thoughts, prevent them from enjoying music and, among those who can read, literature. As we have so few men, our women acquire roles that certain interpretations of the Qur’an, those unburdened by an understanding of history, deem blasphemous. I have women medics, women teachers, and women farmers.” He shook his head as though trying to shake unpleasant thoughts out of his mind. “I am a feminist Muslim.” He laughed.

  “We are the third type of pirate. Simple people living decent lives. We are devout; we follow the teachings of the Prophet Mohammad, may peace be upon him. Where we differ with the others is that we study the actual text, and his words teach us how to build the spiritual community that we have formed. We have a library and a museum, the only ones I know of in Somalia. We also have a prison, which are not at all uncommon in Somalia.

  “Right, Farley Rutherford, American entrepreneur, I am a pirate, a terrorist, and a king. And none by choice. So I ask, what are you doing in my water, and in exchange for my largesse, how will you help my people?”

  “Let me explain why I’m here,” Farley said, “and then we’ll figure out how I can help.”

  Having finished his tea, Gaynes stood, said that the ship needed its captain, and left the room. Both Sy and Farley stood as he left and then sat down again. A second pot of tea and another tray of scones was delivered. Farley invited Tahir to sit next to him.

  Farley told his story in detail, from attaching video equipment to bears and birds to the Moby-Dick application. He explained the concept of sensory saturation and concluded by saying, “The effect is astounding. Nearly everyone who experiences the reality of endangered animals emerges with a changed perspective. We can do this for you, too. A pirate VR experience can alter the way the West perceives Somalia. The net result will be to bring a stop to the destruction of your water and coast.”

  “You Americans always have such big dreams,” Sy said. “When you needn’t fight for a place to sleep each night, dreaming is easy.”

  “We have the equipment.” Farley sensed that he shouldn’t go into detail before talking to Ringo and Gloria.

  Tahir interrupted the pause. “How do you protect your people?”

  Sy stood and loomed over Tahir. Then Tahir stood. The men were the same height. Farley waited.

  Tahir said, “You have Kalashnikovs? You arm women? Do you have trained forces? Do you use martyrs?”

  Sy said nothing.

  “I apologize, atdhar, for asking. We are not unskilled, though we are unarmed,” Tahir said.

  “Coming here unarmed is unwise,” Sy said.

  “But you survive. You have resources.”

  “We have resources.”

  Finally, Farley stood and said, “We have the most powerful weapons known to man: cameras and transmitters. We can tell your story. When people around the world understand, conditions are likely to change. Would that suffice as payment?”

  “Commerce involves value. If you provide value, it will suffice. I would also accept dollars or euros.”

  Working through the mathematics of sonar, Ringo’s mind bounced back and forth between Moby-Dick and his all-time favorite superhero.

  Matt Murdock’s eyes had been fried by a radioactive rock. Ringo loved how radioactive substances served as the catch-all mechanism for how superheroes both lost their mundane abilities and developed their super abilities. The radioactivity that had blinded Daredevil also intensified his other senses and gave him superpowers. Chief among these was that Daredevil had sonar.

  Along with whales and submarines, Daredevil could “see” by emitting carefully directed bursts of sound and assembling images from the reflected echoes. If an object is moving, the reflected sound shifts in frequency, an effect called the Doppler shift. If it’s moving away, the echo is shifted toward the bass; if moving closer, it shifts toward the treble—the very effect you hear when a car drives by. The highly developed sonar of whales provides complete three-dimensional “vision” plus a fourth dimension, the relative speeds of objects. Two miles deep in the ocean, it’s dark and the water is murky, but sperm whales can see. The bursts that they emit are the loudest sounds produced by any animal on earth.

  To Ringo, the creative part of his Moby-Dick task was converting sonar images into graphics that would provide the whale’s “visual” experience. Ringo was just seven years old when he first wondered how Daredevil experienced vision. Since then he’d racked up lots of ideas. He experimented with correlations of sound and color, smearing and echoes. He was way past the simple stereovision used for 3-D movies, with those dorky sunglasses. He had different models running on every computer in the house.

  Ringo exchanged e-mail with Farley every few days through the DAQ systems on the ship and in Santa Cruz. Farley asked how difficult it would be to do a Somali pirate VR experience. Ringo said it would slow everything else down, but that it was possible.

  With Farley and Chopper on the other side of the world, Gloria only dropped by on Wednesdays. By the third such Wednesday, her visits felt routine. That morning, Ringo updated his progress on the whiteboard and brewed her favorite caffeinate blend. When he heard her let herself in, around ten, he saved and closed his files, came out of the lab, and sat next to her on the couch.

  She brought up Farley’s pirate VR idea, except, she called it a “refugee VR.”

  Ringo said, “You think ‘refugee’ is a better marketing keyword than ‘pirate’?”

  She crossed her arms. “I’m having a little trouble accepting the idea that I sent Farley and my father to work with Somali pirates, okay? But I don’t mind their working with refugees, and let’s never use the word ransom.”

  “Rowing up denial, are you?”

  “Please. They’re not pirates. This Sayyid Hassan checks out. Degree at Imperial College, son of a bureaucrat, everything he’s told Farley adds up. It’s as legitimate a government as they have, and charging a tariff has ample precedent. So no, I am not rowing up the Denial River.” She sighed and uncrossed her arms. “But we do have to pay them. How long will it take to make a refugee VR?”

  “Once I have data, it’ll take six to eight weeks to crank out a demo. But it’s a stupid idea.”

  “Why?”

  “Because you’re right. They’re not really pirates. If they were, you know, rum-drinking, plank-walking, saber-wielding, one-eyed, Captain Hook pirates, I could do a killer VR. But these guys are farmers. No one wants to do a farmer VR.”

  “The alternative is paying fifty thousand euros.”

&
nbsp; “Can you get Sand Hill to pay?”

  “Bupin will use the tariff as leverage. He’ll also make a stupid pirate metaphor, and I swear I’ll throttle him.” She looked at the whiteboard. “Push extra hard. If the Moby app is awesome, he’ll give us anything we ask for.”

  “I’ve been spending a lot of time on Daredevil and Spider-Man.” He made a face to convey his uncertainty.

  “That’s perfect! Get a superhero demo together. I might be able to use it to squeeze some money from Bupin.”

  “You sure I shouldn’t spend more time configuring the experiential database, interpolating the octopus and fish data into a colossal squid simulation, and converting the sensory deprivation chambers?” He elbowed her. “I’m not suffering from a short to-do list.”

  She elbowed him back. “Would it make you feel better if I said something like: ‘I want you to work on Plan B’?”

  “Yeah, but you need to say it in a deeper voice.”

  She repeated it in a deeper voice.

  Ringo asked, “You sure Farley is on board with Plan B?”

  “He said as much in our last morning meeting. Remember?”

  “I don’t think he was that specific.”

  “He agreed that we shouldn’t have a single point of failure. Just keep everything moving forward and capitalize on the synergy among all the applications; you never know when the business model will change.”

  “Farley never said ‘single point of failure.’ He never mentioned a business model, and he’s never said the word synergy in his life.”

  “Ringo, have some fun. Do the voodoo you do so well. Let me make the business decisions.”

  The two of them finished their coffee. Ringo got up and headed for the garage, and Gloria stepped toward the office.

  She called after him, “And try to think of a way to do an exciting refugee VR.”

  “Right. Exciting refugee. Those words were made for each other.”

  As Gloria drove her Toyota Corolla away from the Captain’s house, she realized that Ringo’s progress on superhero apps meant that she needed to prioritize licensing the superhero copyrights from Marvel or DC Comics. She made a mental note to ask Ringo to focus on characters from just one of the two. As she crested the Santa Cruz Mountains, another thought dawned. A refugee VR meant that Farley and her father would have to go ashore to get the experiential data.

  Back at her office on Sand Hill Road, she knocked on Bupin’s door. He was on the phone when she walked in. She looked out the window onto the courtyard beneath the young redwood trees. The sun worked its way through the trees and lit up a small Hindu statue wedged into a crook between branches.

  Bupin hung up the phone. “You are here to tell me that all my wishes have come true!”

  She laughed. “Almost.”

  “You would joke in the face of my ship’s arrival?”

  She decided it would be better to open with the good news, so she told him that Ringo would have superhero apps ready for demo in a few weeks.

  “The intrigue of well-considered system, the joy of a plan.”

  “Tomorrow I’m having lunch with Steve Allen, a product engineer at Electronic Arts, and in the afternoon I’m meeting with Scott McMorrow at Pixar to gauge their progress in virtual reality products. I’ve got fifteen minutes on Friday at San Jose Airport with Rob Kroozee, the Nintendo executive, to get an idea of how much they will pay for licenses to develop our technology.”

  “You are here to boast and name-drop?”

  “With the mainstream apps coming along, I need to get some contracts ready because we might have to license Marvel and DC characters. It’s turning out to be a problem. Their rack rates are insane—it would take all of our Series B funding, were you to grant it. I wondered if—”

  “You want to borrow my kryptonite?”

  “Can you make some calls for me?”

  “Gloria, you have come to the right place. You see, I am Venture Cap-Man. Or even Venture Capeless-Man.”

  “Right.” She tried to indulge him by smiling. “Do you know anyone at Marvel?”

  “Gloria, Gloria, Gloria, I know everyone.”

  He picked up his cell phone, selected a contact, and made a call.

  As he waited for someone to answer, he leaned back in his chair and waved Gloria out of his office. “Run along. Someone at Marvel will call you in one-half hours.”

  “There’s one other thing.”

  He cocked his head to the side, wedging his phone between his shoulder and cheek. The motion knocked his hair loose, and a few strands fell over his eyes. Staring at her, but speaking into the phone, he said, “I want to talk to my friend Stan Lee—What? He has retired? Then rehire him.” He laughed and asked for someone else. In the few seconds he had to wait, he looked at Gloria with a toothy grin. Then, “My good friend! I am here to collect all of your debts. What? I owe you a favor?” The discussion was more verbal sparring than conversation.

  Gloria looked over her notes on how to broach the topic, hoping to come up with something that didn’t involve the word ransom.

  Bupin hung up the phone and brought his head back into the vertical position. “You have the one more thing?”

  She explained that the sperm whales were in Somali territorial waters and that the local government was charging a tariff.

  “You pretend that there is government in Somalia? I think Somalia is anarchist dreamland. Gloria, tell me the truth.”

  She sighed. “I’m sorry, Bupin. That is the truth.” She described Sayyid Hassan and his “village” and said that they charged a fee for use of their resources. “It’s effectively identical to what we’d encounter anywhere else in the world, if a bit unorthodox.”

  “And you did not plan for it.”

  “No, we did not plan for a Somali government.”

  “Of course. How much?”

  “Fifty thousand euros, about sixty-five thousand dollars.”

  “Still less than if you had hired a ship and crew, only now two of your executives are being kidnapped and held for ransom by pirates.”

  “No, don’t say that.” Gloria felt the muscles in her back and neck tighten. “That’s not what I’m saying.”

  Bupin leaned back in his chair, and his toothy grin couldn’t have been more annoying. “Then clarify.”

  “Bupin,” she said, speaking through gritted teeth, “there are several ways to approach the problem. This is a group of struggling refugees who need our help. How many times have you told me that the mission of Sand Hill Ventures is to create wealth while solving problems? These people have a problem. Farley wants to try to help them.”

  “What ways?”

  “We have a great deal of recording equipment already in place. Perhaps a pirate VR app can generate support for them.” She struggled with the word pirate but got it out.

  “Much better, Gloria.” He leaned forward and stopped smiling. “Now you have my interest. Continue, and please, try not to be angry with me. A pirate VR…”

  “The problem is that they won’t release our people until the tariff has been paid, and they’re not really pirates—they’re farmers, refugees, and a refugee VR will take too long and probably won’t help.”

  “Which brings you here.”

  “Yes.”

  “Gloria, think.”

  Enduring the condescension of Bupin’s mentoring was Gloria’s punishment for needing help. She’d already been thinking. She’d been thinking for weeks. “I think that I don’t want Farley and my father in a Somali refugee camp recording VR data.”

  “You’d rather pay?”

  “I’d much rather pay, but—”

  “Sell one development license.”

  “Farley won’t agree to that. He wants to help these people.”

  “Then you are back to basic principles,” Bupin said. “Think back to business school. You have more than one problem; maybe they have one solution.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “Leverage.
” He leaned forward, his elbows on the desk and his hands together. “You are planning wonderful product launch and have great promotion plan for your, what is it? VirtExReality Arcade. These people who own Farley’s fish, they have a story. Heartbreaking story connected to your product. If I want attention for a thing, I tell story to generate interest and then direct interest to my thing. Those sad refugees, put upon by Western society, have a good story, but not good reality.”

  He stopped, obviously expecting Gloria to solve the riddle. He said, “Connect dots from product marketing to pirates.”

  She tried to concentrate. Tried to believe that if she were male he’d treat her the same way. That thought distracted her.

  He said, “Review for me your marketing plan.”

  Then she got it. She let loose a long sigh. “Trailers. We’re going to produce trailers for every VR experience.”

  “And how will you attract attention to these trailers?”

  “By leveraging newsworthy events.”

  He reached across his desk and offered her his hand. “Now continue with your work. Leverage is magic.”

  Back in her office, she assembled her notes on Somali pirates. Bupin had nailed it. She kicked herself for not thinking of it herself. Somali pirate videos drew thousands of hits on YouTube, and none of them told a story. They wouldn’t need a pirate VR; they just needed video. A documentary that she could pitch to the big magazines and websites, then follow up with TV, maybe a movie. Recording footage for a documentary required far less effort than recording VR experiential data. It still meant they had to go ashore, but maybe not for as long.

  Thirty minutes later, her desk phone rang. It was an admin from Marvel, ready to discuss trademark licensing. He quoted a rate 20 percent below what she’d found out on her own—still way too high, and, since they based the price on the number of uses, it would never go away. She started to negotiate, asking for a block rate for the first hundred thousand uses, with one “use” defined as one exposure of the copyrighted character to one person. It seemed like the admin wasn’t listening. He countered with an offer of an unlimited license in exchange for 10 percent ownership of VirtExArts. That stopped her. Bupin had talked to them, all right.