by Needles, Dan
“Why not?” she asked.
“This gun I have—the sight fell off.” Vinnie took another drag on the cigarette and tipped the gun holster. “It looks like I’ll need to borrow your gun.”
Allison reached for her gun. He stopped her and laughed. “No, you idiot. Not here. Go to the safe area. We’re not in VR.”
“Watch it, Vinnie. You’re crossing the line.”
Vinnie took several drags before tossing his spent cigarette. “This way,” he said, and led Allison to the safe area. They left their magazines of ammunition with the coordinator outside and stepped into the bay. She handed him her gun. Vinnie turned the gun over. She had customized her sidearm with a number of features for competitive matches. The magazine well was flared for easy loading, and the magazine’s capacity was twenty-two rounds instead of the standard ten. The gun’s grips had been removed and replaced with skateboard tape, which provided a better feel and prevented slippage from the gun’s recoil.
Looking down the barrel of the gun, Vinnie aimed at a mock target and pulled the trigger. He found that it had a tuned trigger job to boot. The trigger broke after two pounds of pressure instead of the standard four. The harder you pulled, the more likely your aim would skew away from the target.
“This is nice,” Vinnie said.
“Thanks. We’ll meet every night at this time, 5:30 p.m.”
“Okay, boss.” He smiled.
“Vinnie Russo, please come to bay three for stage four,” the loudspeaker announced.
His name appeared on the electronic billboard. “Do you mind …” When Vinnie looked back, Allison was walking away. He examined the gun she had left with him. He couldn’t believe it. Allison hardly knew him. “Maybe I should hold up the local convenience store. That would teach her.” Vinnie chuckled. He stepped out of the bay, collected the magazines, and approached the range officer who would follow him throughout the match. Vinnie removed Allison’s gun from his holster and handed it to the judge, who inspected it and handed it back. Vinnie grabbed a magazine and slid it into place. He pulled back the slide to load the first round in the chamber. Vinnie looked up and the range officer started the timer.
Beep!
Vinnie approached the first target with his weapon drawn. It was a metal cutout of a man’s torso and head. A target marked its heart. Vinnie leveled the gun and fired. The bullet whined and hit up and to the left of the bull’s eye. Vinnie reacquired, aimed lower, and fired. This time he made his mark. The target fell over with a satisfying clang.
He followed the range officer to the next target, a circular metal disk that swung back and forth on a pendulum. Vinnie leveled the gun and fired when the pendulum swung right. It struck the target dead center. Vinnie waited and fired when the pendulum returned. His bullet struck the center. He continued through the course of ten targets and completed the circuit in record time. Allison’s gun had greatly improved his accuracy and time.
“I guess those gizmos do work,” he said to no one in particular. His thoughts turned to the investigation. He would start with the physical evidence, investigating the crime scene. Later he would check in on Austin as she had asked.
He smiled as he thought about the real game being played. Poor Allison had no idea what she had stepped into.
Capture
“Technology, like all original creations of the human spirit, is unpredictable. If we had a reliable way to label our toys good or bad, it would be easy to regulate technology wisely. But we can rarely see far enough ahead to know which road leads to damnation. Whoever concerns himself with big technology, either to push forward or to stop it, is gambling in human lives.”
—Freeman J. Dyson, pacifist and former nuclear weapons designer, 1975.
12
Thursday, June 11, 2020
The alarm shrieked and tore Steve from his dream. His head throbbed in sync with the alarm. He rolled out of bed and stumbled into the kitchen. From the refrigerator he grabbed a two-liter 7-Up and from the top cabinet he pulled a bottle of scotch. Steve poured a glass of soda and added an ounce of scotch. Scotch was not meant to be an expensive soft drink, but the best cure for a hangover was more of the same.
“What’s this?”
He turned, glass in hand. With his body he hid the bottle of scotch.
Brooke glared at him from the kitchen table.
“Huh?” he took a sip. His gaze drifted to the floor.
She held up a scratchpad with Allison’s name and pager number on it. He set the glass aside on the counter. “Oh that. She’s a colleague, someone I work with.”
Brooke nodded as if she had something to say in the matter.
Steve smiled. “Did you finish your practice test?”
“No.”
“No?”
“Dad, it’s not like that. I need the Nexus. It’s just too hard with the Portal Sphere.”
“You know, when I was your age all we had was a word processor and a printer.”
Brooke rolled her eyes. “Old school.”
He laughed. “Old school? I made the Nexus.”
“Exactly. So what’s the problem, Dad?” Brooke glared at him.
Steve sighed. He would find the glitch soon enough. He had to. The Nexus Healer release was scheduled for next Monday. “I’ll tell you what. What if I can fix it by Sunday?”
“Really?”
Steve nodded.
“I guess that’s alright.”
He slipped the bottle of scotch back in the cabinet. “I won’t be back until late, so you’ll be on your own.”
Brooke rolled her wheelchair into the kitchen. “You forgot didn’t you?”
Steve placed the 7-Up back in the refrigerator and searched his Swiss-cheese-like memory for the reference but came up blank.
“Our weekly breakfast?”
“Oh that!” Last week he had taken Brooke to the Lake Forest Café, her mother’s favorite spot. Brooke had goaded him into promising to make it a weekly ritual, in honor of Tamara. Already, he had forgotten. “I’m sorry sweetie; something came up.”
“It always does.”
Steve sighed. “I’ll tell you what. Tonight, when I get back, no matter how late it is, we’ll go out on the town, just you and I.”
“Promise?”
“Scouts honor.” He gave a weak salute.
She laughed. “Yeah, like you were ever a boy scout.”
“I’ve got to run.”
Steve showered, threw on some jeans and a polo shirt, and gathered his gear into two large suitcases. Zipping them up, he dropped them on the floor.
Crunch. Probably an old DVD.
His room looked like his office—a mess. He grabbed both the suitcases’ telescopic handles and dragged them toward the front door. One of the suitcases fell over and exposed a busted wheel. A long scratch in the hardwood floor stretched from his bedroom to the suitcase. Steve picked up the suitcases by their handles, groaned, and lugged them to the front door.
“You won’t forget, will you?” Brooke asked from behind him.
He put the suitcases down and faced her. Her large, blue eyes melted him. So much of Tamara was in her eyes and smile. He leaned down and hugged her. “Promise, sweetie,” he whispered in her ear.
“I love you, Dad.”
“I love you, too.”
He gave her one last squeeze before getting up, turned, grabbed his luggage, and left the house.
The spacious San Francisco International Airport terminal was almost deserted, no longer filled with angry mobs as they clamored for their tickets. Four years ago ten major airlines had serviced over twenty thousand customers a day. Since then, the industry had dwindled to just three airlines. They served less than one quarter that number. He walked past rows of empty counters that once housed airline stations.
It amazed Steve how quickly online commerce, virtual businesses, and virtual vacations had devastated the passenger airline industry. It took four short years. Worse, they didn’t see it coming. The Internet thro
ugh VR did not appear that much different from the Internet with video conferencing; but it was. Although airplanes continued to fly, their cargo shifted from passengers to online commerce. Many shipping companies, such as Federal Express, UPS, and the U.S. Postal service, prospered as the distribution of goods was pushed out from stores to the consumer. The passenger airlines never thought of moving large scale into the shipping business until it was too late. The spacious but empty terminal served as a reminder of a more prosperous past.
Steve walked up to the first window. He followed the automated attendant’s instructions to check his bags. By sliding the expense card from Austin through a card scanner, it confirmed who he was and deducted almost nine hundred dollars from the account for the flight. Without competition, airline fares had skyrocketed.
After a half-hour wait, he boarded the plane with a few other passengers and soon was airborne. Rows of deserted houses and apartments in the dead suburbs passed beneath them. They circled over Burlingame, Steve’s old hometown. His dad still lived there.
Steve remembered coming home after he had signed the papers creating Nexus Corporation. As usual, his father, Steve Senior, was unhappy with his son’s decision. He thought Steve was taking too much of a gamble. Steve cut his stay short. They did not speak for sometime after.
The following year his father suffered an upset election. A competitor had developed a large campaign based in VR using the Portal Sphere. The numerous commentaries that followed pointed out his son’s involvement in VR. His father was portrayed as an inflexible bureaucrat of a bygone era. His father’s image and career never recovered. Neither did their relationship.
As the Portal Sphere gained in popularity, Steve pleaded with his father to move, but he refused to listen. Steve couldn’t blame his dad. How could he have known what was coming? At the time, it had sounded crazy even to Steve.
The changes started small. It seemed the Portal Sphere just provided an inexpensive and semi-portable access to the Internet. It shrank the computer screen, speakers, and microphone to simple headgear and placed its user inside each Internet site. Soon they added a body suit, which allowed movement around the virtual environment by walking on a universal treadmill. Alternatively, voice commands could be used to move about in VR.
Business executives realized the Portal Sphere’s potential. It could transport them anywhere, instantly. They could interact face to face in cyberspace and exchange ideas from all over the world. Travel constituted over half of an executive’s busy schedule. Now they could get twice the work done in a twelve-hour day. Further, most executives remained biased toward physical media—books and papers instead of Adobe or Word documents. In VR, their desire for the tangible was realized. They could flip pages and exchange the papers with one another in VR, instead of faxing or mailing physical copies. All the while these papers were virtual, a series of 0s and 1s on the hard drive of the VR server. As a result, they cut their carbon emissions and retained carbon credits for their respective companies. In short, they could cut their travel time to zero, remain green, and yet work the way in which they were accustomed.
Executives demanded the Portal Sphere as part of their sign-on contracts. Senior contractors and professionals followed. As more and more people purchased Portal Spheres, the price fell. Business owners soon saw another opportunity—the virtual building. Now, anyone could be anywhere, at anytime, even if that place didn’t exist physically.
These virtual buildings resided on the hard drives of VR servers and were much cheaper to construct and maintain than real buildings. Online business exploded as retail stores consolidated to virtual buildings with a transportation network and a warehouse. White-collar workers were moved from expensive metropolitan centers to online virtual buildings.
Even virtual factories became common. Lawsuits for on-the-job injuries and decreasing robotic costs fueled the transition. Blue-collar workers began remotely controlling machinery. This prevented injury and increased their legal working hours. Companies found that virtual reality even circumvented many of the government regulations and Union contracts.
Most employees, like the businesses they worked for, discovered that virtual reality was cheaper and more convenient than true reality. In the physical world, businesses and employees had to cluster around the same metropolitan areas, driving up real estate prices and commute times. The Portal Sphere changed these dynamics.
As the Portal Sphere dropped in price, people discovered that a large country estate and a Portal Sphere device cost the same as a small condo in a crime-ridden city. Further, commute time was non-existent. The VR user simply plugged into the Internet and within seconds appeared in her virtual office. Over the last decade, VR had transformed the business landscape. Now over a third of the country worked from these virtual offices.
Steve’s father had not listened to him and had paid a terrible price. His father had treated home equity as a piggy bank. He mortgaged his house to the hilt as real estate soared in the Bay Area. With the advent of VR, property values plummeted while his father’s mortgage payment remained the same. Worse, his father found it increasingly difficult to find work.
No longer viable as a political candidate, his father had switched to consulting, but his lack of VR experience made it difficult to get new clients who now hid within social media sites, meet-up groups, and other social structures that had not existed twenty years prior. Steve was not sure how his father would make it through the next couple of years. Steve tried, but his father refused his help.
“ … and bring your seat back to an upright position.” The stewardess’s voice awoke Steve. They landed at San Diego International Airport.
Once on the ground Steve found a taxi to take him to Carlsbad. Forty minutes later, they turned onto Del Oro Drive and pulled up to the Andersons’ home. Steve entered the crime scene through the open front door.
“Hello, Steve.”
Steve turned and saw Vinnie Russo, the man that had let the defect slip through.
“Pretty strange death, don’t you think? A young teenager dying of a seizure?” Vinnie mocked Steve.
“What do you care?” Steve responded.
Vinnie raised an eyebrow. Steve bit his lip, regretting his impulsive response. Vinnie had helped grease the wheels that got the Nexus released. He was not someone Steve should piss off. “Sorry.”
Vinnie nodded in acknowledgement. “Okay, I guess you know the drill. I’ve been assigned to this investigation. If you hear anything, call me immediately.” Vinnie handed him his business card. Surprised, Steve glanced at it. “Call me old fashioned,” Vinnie said with a shrug. Steve slipped it into his pocket as he entered the room where Camille had died.
The office was small, twelve feet by ten feet, decorated in neutral tones and beige carpet. The ivory curtains, highlighted with tawny lines, were pulled back, revealing a set of French doors. Sunlight streamed into the room, illuminating a contemporary teak desk, and behind the desk, a cream-colored leather chair. A chill ran down Steve’s spine.
It was the chair where Camille had died. All that remained of her was a blue chalk outline on the leather chair. The dead girl’s Nexus lay on the seat within the chalked lines.
This must never happen again.
Steve broke out a fiber cable. He plugged one end of the cable into the Nexus and the other into the back of his laptop.
While he downloaded the Site Log to his laptop, Steve checked his schedule. He was meeting Allison at noon online. It was 11:20. Once he downloaded the Site Log, he displayed it on the laptop. It listed the last thirty sites Camille had visited before she had died. Steve looked at the last four:
Fashion Island 06/09/20 08:12 - 09:01
The Outback 06/09/20 13:46 - 14:51
The Ritz 06/09/20 14:52 - 15:10
s#@~#d$f9e*r8& 06/09/20 15:10 - 15:32
That’s odd, he thought. The last entry was garbled. It was just a random collection of letters, numbers, and symbols. He would take a closer lo
ok at it later.
The entry above it was clear: The Ritz. He was familiar with the site. It was a chat room. Another puzzle. The V-chip should have detected that Camille was a minor and prevented her from entering the site.
Steve double-checked the entry against the System Log. The log recorded that the girl’s mother, Dr. Ashley Anderson, had visited this site. He looked at the timestamp. It matched the estimated time of Camille’s death. Camille had used her mother’s identity. The V-chip would never have been activated.
He readjusted the laptop’s screen to reduce the sun’s glare and saw the reflection of someone standing behind him. He closed the laptop and turned. It was Vinnie.
“What are you doing?”
“Sorry. Boredom does that to me,” Vinnie said.
Steve waited for Vinnie to walk away before he returned to his work. He downloaded the System Log and Core File. He glanced at his watch. It was 11:40.
He decided to take his work to a hotel. From there, he could get online and view the logs with Allison. Why rush? He had time.
13
Jeff and Sarah drew their weapons and approached the corridor. They had slipped past the sentry. This was despite the fact that Jeff had chosen a ten-foot-tall, reeking ogre with a twelve-foot-long pole-arm.
Sarah shook her head. She had chosen the more petite female high elf as her avatar. It gave her stealth and speed. She rested on her haunches, her sword held with a relaxed grip in her right hand. With her left hand, she wiped the virtual sweat from her brow. “This perspective is strange.”
“Would you rather do homework?” Jeff asked.
Visually, she was out of her body. Her perception floated ten feet above the ground. This part of the game she didn’t like, but she could live with it. The perk of hacking the other team to pieces made the game worth her time.