The Sensory Deception

by Ransom Stephens

  The news anchor asked how certain they could be that no one from the VISHNU team had survived. The Terre Mer Gestion SA representative said, “Our reports indicate it was a terrorist act—a tragedy.” He removed his glasses and rubbed his eyes. “We all saw video of the explosion. How could anyone survive?”

  The anchor concluded the segment with this: “Al-Shabaab has already claimed responsibility.”

  A government official came on to say that not everyone could be protected, especially when they traveled to dangerous regions of the world outside the view of the State Department. An undersecretary of state lamented the tragedy but said, “We can’t protect renegade environmentalists any more than we can protect extreme adventurers.”

  Radio and TV talk show hosts as well as some newspaper columnists wrote the whole tragedy off as environmental do-gooders in the wrong crowd. One went so far as to say, “What were a bunch of tree-huggers doing in a pirate camp? They deserved what they got.”

  Ringo responded to the loss of his friend, the man he admired more than any other, the way Ringo responded to everything: he analyzed the crap out of it. He knew the spokesman was lying about the waste. The last transmission recorded on the DAQ system was a map of the radioactivity of the seafloor. The positions of individual barrels from the sonar-visualized images matched the radioactivity measurements. Ringo plotted the data two different ways, with a sonar-visualized photo of the barrel positions and a three-dimensional graph of radioactivity on the seafloor. They correlated perfectly. He sent it to Bupin for dissemination to the media.

  A week had passed since the attack, enough time that Bupin could confront the immediate problems. He knew of no other start-up that had survived the loss of the entrepreneur who had brought the company to life, and this company had only just now climbed to the steep slope of its growth curve. It had momentum, and the attack had contributed to that momentum. The old adage was true: there is no bad publicity. He had assistants list candidates, but he knew there was only one person capable of replacing Farley Rutherford.

  To assume Farley’s role, Bupin would have to resign from Sand Hill Ventures. It was time. He stared out his office window. He wasn’t particularly religious, but ten years earlier, when he moved into this office, he had placed a wood carving of Vishnu in the arms of an oak tree out the window. Now a single sunbeam worked its way through the branches of the tree, like a spotlight on Vishnu. Was his entire career meant to bring him to this point? A breeze shifted the leaves of the tree, strobing the spotlight. It looked like Vishnu was winking at him.

  Bupin swiveled his chair and stared at the documents on the monitor. The business had momentum but was now coasting rather than accelerating. Gloria had all but stopped working.

  Every member of his foundation’s first mission was dead. He could solve that problem, though. The environmental fervor of VISHNU Foundation volunteers had religious intensity. Those first twenty-five were martyrs for the cause.

  He appointed himself to Farley’s role, director, effective thirty seconds earlier—the instant he had seen that sunbeam. He sent an e-mail to his admin: “Arrange a meeting here on Sand Hill Road for Ringo, Gloria, Chopper, and me.”

  The chair next to Gloria was empty. She stared at the line of mahogany that swirled through the glass table. Chopper was in the chair beyond the empty one. Chopper was the only comfort she had, the one person who grieved more than she did.

  Ringo sat next to Chopper on the far side of the table and Bupin stood at the head, motioning to a PowerPoint slide, an agenda. She couldn’t imagine anything more absurd. How could they go on? How could they not?

  The agenda was a series of bulleted topics: Bupin’s role as acting director, maintaining company momentum, prioritizing new VR application development, and, most absurd of all, marketing/promotion/media exposure.

  Gloria had spent the weekend at her mom’s house. The two of them had holed up in the kitchen, crying and eating. Her stepfather tried to comfort them, but his presence reinforced their guilt. Her mother couldn’t forgive herself for leaving Tahir. Gloria felt she’d betrayed him at every turn; she visited her stepfather at least once a month but saw her father no more than a couple of times each year. She’d changed her name from Golie to Gloria because her stepfather said it would help her succeed in Silicon Valley. She even called her stepfather Daddy. All that, plus Gloria and her mother owed their very lives to Tahir. Tahir, who was dead in Somalia because Gloria sent him on a fool’s errand and he’d gone for the sole purpose of impressing her.

  And Farley. At least her mother had had the chance to love Tahir. Gloria and Farley would never have that.

  Bupin tapped the glass table and got Gloria’s attention. She apologized and blew her nose. Bupin continued in dulcet tones, explaining that someone had to assume Farley’s position. He delivered a short sermon emphasizing the impossibility of the task. He said that the team needed time to grieve, but that the company couldn’t afford it. “None of us would be here without Farley Rutherford’s vision. VirtExArts is much more than a company. We must not stop now.” He stared at Gloria. Gloria’s eyes wandered to Farley’s empty chair.

  Gloria could feel Bupin waiting for her to look at him. She took a breath, pushing back on the absurdity of it all, looked up, and said, “Life goes on—it’s the strangest thing about death.”

  Then Bupin asked Ringo to report. Ringo handed around a fifty-page analysis of the toxic waste site, charts and graphs of everything from light levels in the documentary video to image analysis where he’d searched for concealed messages below the sensor noise levels. He graphed the frequency of e-mails they’d received from Farley and even plotted the frequency of bit errors in the transmission feed. Gloria went to sit next to him. Everyone grieves in his own way.

  Bupin pointed a green laser at the next agenda item and interrupted Ringo. “The King of the Beasts VR requires a zoological expedition to Kenya. Maybe we find answers there, too.” He pointed at Chopper. “You want a chance in Africa? Your friend Farley would favor answers to obvious—”

  “No,” Chopper said. “We’re doing the Rain Forest Destruction app. The polar bear, bird of prey, and Moby-Dick confront people with other realities and force them to see the arrogance of their species. To get people to take the relationship between Earth and Sea as seriously as they take their consumerist urges, we need them to realize the actual cost. This is the key app. It will crank up both foundation recruitment and media exposure, and I know exactly where and how to record the data.”

  Ringo furrowed his brow and said, “The whole point of sensory saturation is to overwhelm the senses and immerse them in an animal’s state of pure response. I didn’t even bother with it in the Daredevil and Spider-Man apps. I mean, imposing sensory stimulation is one thing, but imposing thoughts or…I guess, well, maybe if we switched from one human point of view to another fast enough, or overlapped them. We might be able to do something.” He flipped the pages of his report.

  Gloria put her arm around him. She could see him choking back an avalanche of feelings. Then she saw Ringo become Ringo again. He started to nod. He took a pencil from his pants pocket. Bupin started to speak. Gloria and Chopper both held up their hands to stop him. The room was silent but for the scratching of Ringo’s pencil. He nodded faster, and there was a hint of a smile.

  “The trick to animal VR is sensory saturation. It prevents people from reflective thought and gives them the nonlinguistic immediacy of nature, right?” Ringo said, without looking up from the flow chart he had sketched. “For human VR, we need to control their thoughts, or somehow coerce them to think in certain directions. Oh, this is gonna be something! We’ll confront people with the reality, the actual experience of both destroyer and destroyed in one application.”

  He had that look that he got—the one Gloria had seen pretty much every day back in Santa Cruz in the wonderful old house that the Captain had built. Ringo didn’t have the solution, but he was hot on its trail, and that was the plac
e he liked more than any other.

  Two days later, Gloria sat on a bench in Santa Monica halfway between the hotel and the VirtExReality Arcade with a paper cup of cappuccino next to her. She stared across the street, down an alley, into the sun. Gloria couldn’t focus. She couldn’t bear the thought of failing Farley, but in the ten days since he died, she’d come to realize that VirtExArts would have to go on without her. The whole thing had been Farley’s passion, and without his leadership to inspire, she didn’t have a place there. Besides, Bupin had taken over and he didn’t need her.

  Chopper walked up from the beach. He sat down, picked up her cup, drank her coffee, crumpled the cup, and threw it into a garbage can. He said, “I need you to get your shit together.”

  “Chopper, I’m doing the best I can.”

  He lit a cigarette without offering her one. The two of them stared down the alley. Chopper said, “Look at that. Start from the ground. The filth, the asphalt with puke and shit ground into it. See how the grass fights through the cracks? It will take very little to help Mother Earth break through our arrogance. Above the ground, you see that Dumpster? It’s overflowing with the shit of civilization. The shit that is mankind.” The veins in his neck pulsed. “The garbage truck will come, take the feces of civilization to a hillside, and hide it so we can carry on this illusion.” He inhaled his cigarette with every breath, and the words came out in jets of smoke. “Same thing that that corporation did when they contaminated the Somali coast. We showed it to the world, didn’t we? And what did they do? They hid it again. They killed Farley and carried on like nothing happened. They fucking killed our Farley.”

  When he said those last words, “killed our Farley,” his head spun away and he covered his eyes with both hands.

  She thought he was crying, so she put her arms around him and tried to comfort him. He took his hands away from his eyes. Still no tears. Just warm, sad, amber-brown eyes. She’d never seen anyone look so sad in her life. A sob blew its way up her throat and tears started down her cheeks. It felt good to cry for someone other than her father or Farley. It felt good to cry for someone she could help.

  “Stop it!” he said. “Don’t cry again. We can’t let him die. He’s alive in us, but only as long as we keep him alive. We’re not finished. We have it now. We have the solution. We have sensory deception. Did you see how Bupin converted? We’re this close, this fucking close! We can show them, we can make them animals again, make them mammals by forcing them to experience, to feel the reality, the misery caused when they destroy the innocent for money. We’re ready to strip the arrogance from Homo sapiens. Damn it, Gloria—stop crying and help me.”

  “Chopper,” she said, putting her arms around him, “I know what you’re going through. Just let it out. He didn’t abandon you. Let yourself grieve.” She managed to stave off her own sobs. “Come on, Chopper, let’s go to the arcade and talk.”

  They stood and walked along the street to the strip mall. Chopper stared at the ground in front of him as they walked. The parking lot was empty; most stores wouldn’t open for two more hours. She unlocked the door and held it for Chopper.

  She led him to the couch and they sat together.

  “Gloria, I need you to pay attention.” He leaned forward and spoke just above a whisper. “If we can do as I say, we can keep Farley alive, okay?”

  “They’re gone, Chopper, can’t you see?”

  “He loved you.”

  “He did?” She tried to hold back the sob, but it was pointless.

  “You know how close Farley and I were,” he said. “We were of a mind. I knew him better than anyone, and so it’s up to me to carry out his work. And he loved you.”

  She looked up at Chopper, stared at that face with its perfect features. His jaw strong but not large, nose carved without being sharp, eyes spaced perfectly, and the combination of his olive skin, amber-brown eyes, and brownish-blond hair painted from the palette of a master. She took a deep breath and steadied herself. “Chopper, you haven’t been abandoned. We’ll get through this together.”

  “Gloria, he’s the only person who ever mattered to me. Farley and I, we…” And it finally came. He closed his eyes and, as his lids came down, they pushed those first tears onto his cheeks, his perfect cheeks. “Sorry, I—” He laughed at himself. “I haven’t cried since I was eight years old. It’s just that Farley…”

  As his first sob made its way from his belly to his heart, he leaned over, wrapped his arms around her, and buried his face in her neck. Gloria felt all the tears that Chopper had been holding back since he earned his nickname. He cried and cried, his tears pooling in her clavicle before rolling down her chest. She massaged his back and rested her face against his head. Now and then she’d hear him say Farley’s name or something about how he never cried, and she would respond with “There, there” and “Let it out” and “It’s okay.”

  Finally Chopper loosened his grip and sat up. His face was soaked. Her blouse had streaks on it, and she could feel his tears between her breasts and in her navel. She held his head with open hands at his temples. He looked so sad. So beautiful and so sad. Another tear rolled out of one of his eyes and she kissed it away and said, “I miss him. I wish I could tell him that I love him.”

  And the sobs came back, this time to both of them at once, and they kissed each other’s tears. She put her arms around him, and, as though he couldn’t bear for her to see him cry, he lowered his face to her neck. His body racked with sobs, and she leaned back so he could rest on her. He rested his face against her breast and she held him there. This fearless, tough man, sobbing at her breast. Her tears flowed, too. All she wanted in the world, right then, was to comfort him, make him feel safe and loved. She pulled his face against her. His nose ran and she couldn’t help but kiss him. He kissed her back, and their noses ran together and it made them laugh. Then he said something she couldn’t understand and started sobbing again. He lowered his face to her breast again and she pulled him closer, unbuttoned her blouse so that his face could rest against her heart. He took her breast in his mouth and sobbed.

  The thought that she would never make love to Farley invaded her and she cried harder.

  She wanted Chopper closer, so she removed the impediments. He seemed so lost and she could help him find his way, so she loved him. She brought him into her, she wrapped herself around him and held him and she loved him. As he made love to her, he reemerged as a man. The wilted, pathetic, sobbing creature whom she opened herself to brought forth the beautiful man whom she knew as Farley’s right hand.

  Chopper finally stopped crying.

  Gloria found her clothes distributed on the couch and floor. However temporary, the satiation filled that emptiness. She even laughed, and Chopper held her close and laughed with her.

  “I don’t usually cry,” Chopper said.

  “You had a lot to release,” Gloria said. “It’s okay. I think we both needed some warmth and understanding. I feel better. Do you?”

  “I do,” Chopper said. “Thank you, Gloria.”

  She looked around the arcade. “It’s a pretty good business we’ve put together.”

  “It’s more than a business,” Chopper said. “We’ll be a good team. We can keep him alive together.”

  Gloria looked him over, hoping Chopper wouldn’t lose it again.

  He said, “I’ve accepted his death. What I mean is that I’m going to nurture his memory, how he exists in my mind. I always knew what he wanted, remember?”

  She nodded.

  “I can do that for you, too.”

  She put on her shoes and went behind the bar to put on a pot of coffee.

  Chopper said, “We have to get down to the Amazon rain forest by the end of the week. The equipment is all ready. There are just a few things I need to check on.”

  “We?” Gloria asked.

  “Yeah, I need you to come with me.” He described the village and how he’d helped the villagers find rare herbs and other botanicals to h
arvest without harming the land or river. “You can make a big difference. Just teach them some of your idealistic capitalism.”

  Gloria poured coffee into two mugs. “My idealistic capitalism?”

  “Right,” Chopper said, taking one of the mugs. “You seem to actually believe that market forces can achieve something other than wanton destruction. It’s time to deliver the goods.”

  “Chopper, I’m not going to the Amazon.”

  “You have to come. I need you there. They need you. VirtExArts needs you.”

  Gloria said, “I’m a venture capitalist. Now that the business has taken off, my role is just about finished.”

  “No,” he said. It came out in one sharp syllable.

  It hadn’t occurred to her that anyone would expect her to continue working for the company. She’d already done far more for VirtExArts than her job required. Of course, if she hadn’t taken such a big role, the business would have failed and her career would have failed with it. “Chopper, this is your business, yours and Ringo’s and now Bupin’s. It’s not mine.”

  Chopper smiled.

  It seemed like an odd response to Gloria, but at least he didn’t sound as angry as he had the previous second.

  He leaned over the counter and picked up his yellow tackle box. He opened it and fiddled with his tools, or whatever he kept in it.

  She leaned on the counter and stared into the parking lot. A few of the other people who worked at the strip mall had parked their cars. She told Chopper how important her time with VirtExArts had been to her, how special. She started to weep a bit when she said how much she’d miss them.

  “When are you going to leave us?” he asked. She noticed a certain calm to his voice, and it pleased her.