by Needles, Dan
“You’re missing the point Ally. There’s a dead teenage girl. Coincidence or not, dead bodies scare people, people that vote, people that elect Congress. And that puts the President’s plan in jeopardy. Now, be straight with me. You saw nothing like this when you tested the Nexus, right?”
She shook her head in response.
“I need you to prove it.”
Allison folded her arms across her chest. “What the hell, Ed?”
It was his turn to shake his head. “No, not to me, to the public. I need you to find out what happened and plaster the Internet with the truth. There can be no doubt in anyone’s mind. The Nexus is safe.”
“Of course.”
“Have Vinnie help you out.”
“That’s not necessary …”
Ed pointed a finger at her. “Hey. Ally, it’s not a request. Use Vinnie. He’s got a nose for these things.”
“He’s not up to speed. He’ll slow me down.”
Ed leaned across the desk. “Spend some of your overtime budget then.”
She read his face. Edward would not bend. She would need to find a better leash for Vinnie. If Steve found out her identity, the dominos would start to fall. She would have to find a creative way to keep Vinnie and Steve apart without hindering the investigation. Allison stood and gave him a terse nod.
He smiled. “That’s my girl.”
She turned and pressed a button on her left wrist to open a portal. Steve was soft on her. She would use that. Later, she would send Vinnie off to where he could do the least damage.
“Mendocino Coast,” she commanded, and then she stepped through the portal.
Steve stood high on a grassy cliff. A hundred feet below, a jagged coastline stretched for miles in either direction. The waves crashed against a grey, sandy beach. Around him, gnarled Cyprus trees permanently cowered against wind. Ankle-high green grass, clover, and an assortment of weeds filled in the gaps. The air was still and warm, the ocean calm. Why did Allison want to meet here? His virtual slacks and dress shirt didn’t fit the site’s dress code.
Steve heard footfalls behind him and turned.
Allison approached him barefoot in a casual red skirt and blouse. They accentuated her feminine form. Her alias selection was impeccable. “Good. You made it. It’s over here.” She pointed to a spot along the cliff where there was a break in the brush.
“What?” He followed her toward the spot.
“The way down.”
Steve now saw a steep, sandy trail, cut into the cliff face, leading to the beach below. “Where does it go?”
“The beach of course.” She grinned.
Steve sighed. “We don’t have time …”
“That’s not what you said in the lobby.”
“I know, but …”
“Good,” she turned and jogged down the trail.
He stood dumfounded for a second. The breeze tugged at his clothes and brought with it a fine mist that enveloped him. The sound of waves crashed below. What the hell. He kicked off his shoes and socks and chased her down the sandy trail. It felt good to run again. Stuck in VR, he had not run for over a week in reality. He caught her at the bottom of the cliff. “Hold on!”
She ran to the water’s edge and followed the shoreline. Salt water splattered and soaked the cuffs of Steve’s slacks. He caught up to her. “Stop!”
She obeyed and grinned. The breeze pulled her blouse tight against her heaving chest. His gaze darted back to her face and he gave her an annoyed look. She returned an innocent, wide-eyed stare.
“What is all this?” He spun around, arms extended.
“We needed to lighten things up.”
“Really?”
“We got off on the wrong foot.” She sighed. “I know this isn’t easy, Austin forcing you to work with me and all.”
“You’ve got it wrong,” Steve said, jabbing his chest with a finger. “Austin works for me. I’ll go along with this as long as it makes sense.”
She crossed her arms. “Is this really how you want to play this?”
Good question. He thought for a moment. No, it wasn’t. The pressure had gotten to him—the trashed lobby, the dead girl, Austin’s revelation, and the anniversary of Tamara’s death. He didn’t need to antagonize her. “Sorry, I have a lot on my mind.”
“Oh?”
He sighed. “I knew the girl who died.”
Her expression softened. “I didn’t …”
Why did he say that? He blushed. “Forget I said it.”
The waves crashed against the beach and water washed over Steve’s feet. Salt water crept up his slacks and reached his ankles. As the wave retreated to the ocean, it stole sand from beneath his bare feet and he settled an inch deeper into the sand. The feeling made him uneasy. He walked away.
Allison came up alongside him and Steve met her gaze. She appeared concerned. Her expression reminded him of Tamara. How he missed her. He looked down, coughed, and let the feeling pass. “So what do you call this place?”
“Saddle Point. It’s located on the Mendocino Coast in Northern California. Usually it’s windier and cooler than this, but I cut down on some of the unpleasantries.”
Steve nodded. “It’s nice.”
“Do you like to ride horses?”
He shook his head. “Don’t know. I’ve never done it before.”
“Well, this is a good place to learn.” Allison’s eyes lit up. “Computer, two horses.”
The horses appeared, complete with saddles and tack. Allison approached a brown one with white splotches. She petted its nose and murmured into its ear. In one graceful motion, she mounted the horse.
Steve placed his foot in the stirrup, pulled himself half way up, and lost his grip on the saddle horn. He tumbled and fell flat on his back. The wet sand soaked through his shirt.
Allison laughed and then bit her lip, but she was unable to repress a smile. Steve could feel his face warming. He knew he was turning bright red back in reality. He brushed the sand off and tried again. This time he succeeded.
“There! That wasn’t so bad, was it?” Allison laughed.
Steve assumed an annoyed expression, but it didn’t take, and he laughed. They walked their horses on the hard sand where the waves lapped up onto the beach.
“Time to talk shop. Did you review the file?” Allison asked.
He nodded. “Yes. It revealed little about the problem with the Nexus. And I already knew about Camille. She was my daughter’s best friend.”
Allison dropped her head. “I’m sorry.”
He sighed. “I’m sorry, too. Brooke has had a rough year.”
“Is Brooke your daughter?”
He nodded. “Her mother died last year in a car accident.”
“I guess it has been a rough year. I lost my father last year as well.”
Steve nodded. His vision blurred with tears and he fought back the urge to cry. He had to learn to keep his mouth shut.
After half a mile they discovered a stream. It cascaded down a cliff and filled a large pool, dug into the beach. Allison dismounted. He followed her lead and managed to stay on his feet. Allison smiled.
“If you don’t mind me asking, why’d you pick this place?” he asked.
“I used to come here as a child. It holds a lot of memories. I come back here to relax, clear my mind, sometimes to remember or forget, depending.”
She checked the time. It was close to 5 p.m. Allison brushed a lock of black hair from her face. “Can we meet at noon tomorrow in your online office after I visit Camille’s autopsy?”
He nodded. “I’ll visit the crime scene beforehand.”
“What for?”
“I know some tricks to coax the Nexus into telling me what happened, but I have to be there—physically there.”
“You can’t you download what you need over the Internet?”
Steve shook his head. “It was designed that way for security reasons. Hindsight being what it is, that was probably not the best solution.”
&nbs
p; “What does it contain that wasn’t in the file?” Allison asked.
“The System and Site History Logs as well as the Core File. They’re all accessed directly through a fiber port on the Nexus. They should tell us what catastrophic software failure caused the patch’s demise and the Signal Amplifier’s overload.
“No Black Box?” Allison referred to the Portal Sphere’s Black Box, which acted like an airplane’s flight recorder and recorded all sensory data. Technicians could relive the user’s VR experience and reconstruct the events from the data stored in the Black Box.
Steve nodded. “Sort of. The Core File serves that purpose. When the Nexus detects a program is going to die, it saves a copy of all the programs in memory and creates the Core File. So, the Core File is a collection of program corpses. Several minutes of the reality the user experienced are stored inside these programs. You can construct from the Core File a Black Box of sorts.”
“Why didn’t you just call it a black box?”
Steve shrugged. “Artistic license. I thought Core File sounded better.”
Allison laughed. “You know, it’s the little annoying discrepancies like that which keep the public in the dark about VR.”
“Yes, and it’s those little discrepancies that keep me paid so well.”
She laughed again. “I’ll see you tomorrow, Steve.” Her virtual representation winked out of existence. She had exited VR.
Steve drew a deep breath. He did not look forward to the flight he had to take, and he was even less interested in wading through the hundred million events recorded in the System Log by the Nexus programs. At least they would tell him why the patch failed and, perhaps, why Camille died.
11
Vinnie Russo, DARPA Investigator, stepped away from the shooting bay as the loudspeaker blared the name of the next contestant. He inhaled the fresh evening air of the San Ramon Mountains. Vinnie could smell just a hint of burnt gunpowder.
“Nice shooting, Vinnie!” Allison said.
“Allison, tell me the truth. Isn’t this better? This is the real thing. None of that virtual crap you had me going to last week.”
She crossed her arms and fixed him with that look.
He hated that look. She thought he was old fashioned. His boss was a recent political appointee, one that would probably be replaced in two or six years—whenever the White House changed presidents again. Whoever his boss was, Vinnie knew his place and so did she. Vinnie got the dirty work done.
She ran DARPA. As such, she set DARPA’s direction and managed its day-to-day affairs. As bosses went, Vinnie found Allison to be young, naïve, and under-qualified. She was nowhere near the caliber needed to fill the position of Director. In other words, she was an average political appointment—underpaid and under-skilled; therefore, it was no surprise that Vinnie’s presence dwarfed that of his younger boss.
At forty-two, Vinnie was thirteen years older than Allison. His stocky build, thick black hair, and domineering, almost black, eyes overpowered her whenever they met. Despite all her efforts, he remained louder, stronger, and more obnoxious. He didn’t care what his new boss thought of him now or ever. Besides, he had other things to occupy his mind at the moment.
It was 5:30 p.m., half an hour after the start of regional tryouts. During the last stage, his gun’s sight had fallen off. In spite of the problem, he had managed to hit five of the six targets in less than three seconds.
There was nothing special about his gun. It was a Springfield 2011, yet another rendition of the Colt 1911. In the intervening century, the Colt design had changed very little. It was neither the cheapest nor the most accurate handgun; however, like the personal computer, the Colt model was very common, easy to customize, and simple to tinker with because everyone worked off the same specification. And Vinnie liked to tinker.
“Vinnie, do you remember the work you did for Nexus Corporation?”
Vinnie shrugged.
“There’s been a development.”
“Oh?” Vinnie smirked as he pulled out the empty magazines from his belt and loaded the rounds for the next match.
“There’s been a death. A teenage girl had a seizure while logged onto a Nexus Transporter.”
Vinnie raised his eyebrows and stopped loading his magazine.
“Knock it off. I know you gave Davis the news.”
Vinnie chuckled and continued to load his gun.
“Do you know what happened after you filed your original report?”
“Nope. I didn’t follow it much.”
“Davis immediately approved the Nexus.”
Vinnie looked up from his gun and stared at his boss. “I wrote a product spec, not an evaluation! Didn’t someone else follow up and test the Nexus?”
“It’s political, Vinnie. The President of Nexus, Austin Wheeler, has the favor of the Assistant Secretary of Defense. Davis slipped the Nexus through without adequate testing. It’s possible that a defect was missed.”
“What’s your point?”
“The point is that you’re lucky to still have your job. He’s ordered us to handle this matter quietly. From now on, he wants you to report your findings to me. You made him look bad, Vinnie.”
Vinnie sighed. He dreaded the latest change of guard in Washington. As usual, the change of administrations had ushered in a new era and with it a new political landscape. The changes went beyond Allison. The President had expanded the role of the ASD C4ISR and he appointed his lifelong friend, Ed Davis, to the post. The acronym stood for Assistant Secretary of Defense (Command, Control, Communications, Computers, Intelligence, Surveillance, and Reconnaissance). The title matched not only the position, but the man—a confusing jumble of words whose acronym spelled POLITICS. The appointment was under a year old, but Ed already knew all that was wrong with DARPA and the intelligence community, and he promised to fix it. Needless to say, Vinnie was not impressed with him. It was one more Washington mess created by a U.S. President out of touch with reality. “So, as I said before, what’s your point?”
“Look, Vinnie, you can make a real difference here. The success of the President’s plan depends on a secure and reliable Nexus.”
Vinnie shrugged and resumed loading the gun’s magazine. “And what exactly is that plan?”
“The President and Davis see a fundamental problem with the military. It’s a physical-based organization in a virtual-based world. The armed forces, Navy, Air Force, Army, and Marines, operate respectively in the sea, air, land, and miscellaneous.
“So you have to ask, who handles the information? It has no physical basis, yet it requires special skills, equipment, and training just like any of the other armed forces. The explosion of the Internet and VR has only exacerbated this problem. Worse, the nation’s intelligence resources are scattered among thirteen different and competing agencies.
“The President envisioned a solution, the Information and Intelligence, or I2 Corp. We believe a consolidation of the intelligence community is what is needed here. We expect the I2 Corp will swallow up and replace all the other intelligence and covert agencies.”
Vinnie laughed. “Jesus! You sound like a politician reading from a VR teleprompter! Do you have this stuff written down on your hand or something?”
Allison frowned.
Vinnie sighed. “What does any of this have to do with the Nexus?”
“I can’t say exactly, but Davis selected us to be the cornerstone of the President’s plan. The Nexus designs you reviewed for DARPA were just the beginning. In the near future, our organization will supply I2 Corp with all the technical toys they need to get the job done. He’s moving DARPA to the next level.”
“Oh, the elusive next level. Thank god!” It all sounded so quaint; but his memory stretched back farther than a four-year term. Historically, there were reasons why the intelligence community remained divided. Intelligence was inherently secretive and resistant to the democratic process. This had been shown repeatedly. Only keeping them small and competitive th
warted their natural tendency to subvert the government.
Vinnie finished loading the magazine and placed it on his belt. He withdrew a Marlboro from his shirt pocket, lit up the cigarette, and took a hard drag, sucking large volumes of air through the filter. Vinnie stared at the ground and exhaled.
Allison shot him a glance. “You really shouldn’t. It’s a disgusting habit.”
Vinnie smiled. “You know, Allison, anyone can quit smoking, but it takes a real man to face lung cancer.”
“Knock it off, Vinnie. There’s more. Only you, Ed Davis, and I know about the investigation. If word gets out, our careers will be over. Keeping it quiet will be difficult if more deaths occur. So, I need you to drop everything and work around the clock on this.”
“Politics and overtime! That’s just great,” Vinnie mumbled.
“I want you to start by tracking Austin Wheeler online.”
Vinnie groaned. By nature, homicide was a physical crime, an event at a particular place at a certain time. There was a physical body and a physical weapon; however, VR had spread like cancer, jumping from career path to career path, turning them all virtual. Was it his turn? He had assumed his job was safe.
“Unbelievable!” Vinnie chuckled. “Do you realize this will be the first time that you’ve asked me to break all three of my career goals?”
“You’ll earn a promotion to Investigative Specialist.”
Vinnie looked Allison in the eye. “So what you’re saying is that you’re giving me crap work at a lower wage, but my title has changed and so I should be happy? That may work with the rookies, but not with me, babe. I’ve been around too long to play that game.”
“Suck it up, Vinnie. It’s not that bad.”
“Long hours, political situations, and online work—how is it not?”
“We’re not voting on this. Either you do it, or we’ll discuss it again at your annual review.”
He laughed as he looked down. “This isn’t going to work.”