Virtual Perfection: Technology has drawn everyone into Virtual Reality, but what will happen to humanity if no one can get out? (Veiled Destiny Book 1)

by Jason Bourn

  Randy just shook his head, looking from Hope to Calaes and back, and said, “I’m sure that everyone is nice once you find out what makes them tick. But let’s get moving on our real agenda.” He took an exhausted breath, wincing in pain. “The reason that I wanted to have this meeting was to map out what we have been doing, where we are now and where work still needs to be done in regards to making the Mars settlement habitable.”

  “Yes,” thought Calaes, “that is exactly what I wanted to know.” Out loud he said, “Good, let’s get started.”

  Randy started in, “First off, the goal that we have set is to get at least a limited habitation capability set up during the next launch window. The launch window is when the planets are lined up correctly to make the trip efficient – we can use the momentum of Earth’s orbit pushing us to the closest point where Mars is going to be. This window is when we can get to Mars the quickest and with the least amount of energy expended. If we miss this window, since Mars will be receding away from Earth and Earth away from Mars, we won’t be able to realistically launch again for a little more than two years from now – twenty-six months to be exact. Anyway, if we can meet this window it will allow people to stay at the settlement in the near future, but there won’t be any fancy bells and whistles. Also, the settlement won’t necessarily have all the equipment in place to support long term living – in other words, it won’t be self-sustaining at this point. So, with this capability you could visit and stay through the next launch window or two, but you wouldn’t expect to stay forever without more supplies. What we’re shooting for is to be able to get as many of your candidates as you want up to Mars by the time the next launch window closes in a little less than one year.

  Calaes was starting to get excited. This was exactly what he had been waiting for. He knew that training they had been performing was good, but it only went so far – there was only so much you could do Earthside. There was no substitute for actually being on Mars, in the settlement.

  Randy continued, “We have devised a plan that we are fairly confident can get this limited habitation capability in the next year, but it is somewhat risky and we need your help. Let me describe it and let me know what you think.”

  Calaes was intrigued. He wanted to know all the details. “Go on,” he said, trying not to show his excitement.

  Randy continued, but he had started speaking more slowly, as if the act of speaking was draining all the available energy out of him. “First of all, we ‘rebels’ can’t be seen doing anything – for obvious reasons. So, you and your candidates will have to be the face of the plan. You also need to know that although the President has managed to bypass most of the normal oversight committees, there is one committee under his direct control that oversees the entire Mars settlement project. They have thus far been figureheads, just rubber stamping everything the has been requested. The global government has really been the one holding up the progress on the settlement.

  “The strategy is to force the committee to initiate an audit, which in turn will get things rolling. Since the outside of the settlement is essentially done, there are relatively few tasks that need to be accomplished to get a minimal habitable environment. They just haven’t done it, due to this little problem or that. With the push that the oversight committee can give, we believe we can achieve this goal within the year.

  “Now for the specifics – this is where it gets a bit tricky. We need a way to get several areas highlighted that show that there are issues that the committee can help overcome. For example, currently you have a legitimate need to request information. We propose you ask the right questions which will highlight these settlement-blocking problems and have this information go to the oversight committee. The key is that once the committee sees this information, they won’t have any choice but to force the project to move forward. Even the government can only stomach so much incompetence and corruption. The government either agrees to the committee’s wishes or the oversight committee would take over – that is the last thing that the government wants. So, voila, we get a habitable Mars settlement – though just barely. The conditions won’t be luxurious, but at least they will be livable. And that is the first step. We’ll discuss what happens next at a later meeting.”

  Randy paused tiredly, rubbing his sore knee and said, “Well, what do you think?”

  Calaes didn’t have to think long nor hard on this one. It was a brilliant maneuver. It kept the rebels hidden from view and scrutiny and it forced the government’s hand on getting the settlement at least minimally habitable in a relatively short time frame. To Randy he said, “It looks pretty good. I don’t see any immediate holes in it. Let me run it through my team-leads for their buy-in and to come up with a proposed list of specific information requests.”

  Both Randy and Hope nodded their heads. Randy said, “OK, let us know when you are ready. We will discuss the proposed information requests at that point.” Pausing, he then asked, “Is there anything else you wanted to discuss today?”

  Calaes was so exuberant with the results of this meeting that he didn’t bring up any of the issues he had with the rebels. What was he going to do anyway? He really didn’t have much of a choice but to work with them – for now at least.

  CHAPTER 28

  Things were starting to fall into place nicely, thought Calaes.

  The team-lead meeting had produced several good information requests that really highlighted the problems that had been holding up construction of the settlement and particularly the habitability portion, which is what they were focusing on. Not only were good ideas generated, but the mood of the meeting was decidedly upbeat, with all the team-leads sensing the real possibility of a breakthrough where they could now actually see themselves getting to Mars in the near future.

  Calaes had ridden the natural high that came from that meeting to the next meeting with Randy and Hope. During the first part of the meeting with Randy and Hope they had all agreed with the recommendations from the team-leads so everything was moving forward without any hitches. The next point of discussion was who on the committee to “share” this information with and exactly how the sharing was to be done. Randy suggested that the best approach was to get the information to the head of the oversight committee, Doojin Seong. Being the head of the committee, he would be able to wield the most influence. With that agreed upon, they then discussed the question of how to share the information. They finally decided that a simple status from Calaes to Doojin was the most appropriate.

  The meeting had also gone very well – except that he still hadn’t been able to talk with Hope privately, however much he had wanted to. However, with so much progress being made on the settlement, he really couldn’t complain too much.

  Generating the status report had gone smoothly. Calaes had never sent status before, but as the leader of all the candidates, it was not unreasonable for him to do so. It was a relatively simple matter to convert the information requests into status bullets. He had carefully written the message, highlighting each of the twelve agreed-upon issues as well as the underlying root cause. For example, the lack of interior panel construction was attributed to a warning about their potential for toxic outgassing. The safety warning was obsolete – the outgassing had been tested and certified as safe – but the warning was still in place and the panels had not been installed. Another example was that the kitchen facility design was hung up in review. The design had been reviewed and approved but the status was still “Awaiting Review,” so the kitchen facilities were at a standstill. The rest were similar in nature – progress halted for a lot of not very good reasons.

  All their efforts were starting to pay off. Upon receipt of the status report Doojin had acted immediately, shying away from his normal rubber stamp mode. A large oversight committee-backed investigation was launched which found twelve specific issues that were holding up development of the settlement. In a harshly worded committee resolution, the government was told it had the choice of fixing thos
e specific issues within the next launch window or a larger investigation would be instituted, effectively taking control away from the government. “Funny thing,” Calaes thought, “the issues in the committee’s resolution lined up item-for-item with the twelve issues from my status report. Oh well, the government has never been accused of being innovative or efficient.”

  Just today a tersely worded statement was released by the government stating that these issues would be addressed and that initial settlement habitation could begin during the upcoming launch window. Calaes was so excited that he immediately sent off a message to all candidates informing them of the good news. Chills formed on Calaes’ back when he heard a low roar from hundreds of people as they read the message. The roar of approval went on for many seconds as everyone realized that their long wait was finally going to be over.

  Calaes sat back with a satisfied smile on his face. He had been working for weeks nonstop to bring all the pieces together to make this event possible. Now he could finally relax and bask in the afterglow of this achievement.

  After no more than fifteen seconds a message came in from his persa. Since his persa automatically handled the vast majority of his incoming messages, either there was a major emergency or he had received a message from one of only a handful of people that his persa put through to Calaes directly. It turned out it was Randy and Hope requesting an immediate vidcon.

  “Calaes,” Randy said, “did you hear the great news? They caved in and went on record saying that within the year the settlement will be ready.” He had a raspy dry cough that didn’t sound good, but he was obviously elated, which helped him sound somewhat stronger.

  “Yeah, I heard,” responded Calaes. He was in a great mood. “Isn’t that great? Congratulations, we did it. This was the culmination of a lot of excellent work.”

  “Yes, but are you ready for the real work to begin?” Randy asked.

  Calaes was somewhat blindsided. “What do you mean? We have been working nonstop for the last several weeks to get this to happen. What needs to get done now?”

  “Well, think about it,” Randy replied. “We have to make all the arrangements to get over five hundred people from Earth to Mars, along with all their effects. This is a huge undertaking. Probably the largest exodus from Earth that has ever been attempted. And we have to ensure that all the staples are in place for survival for at least two launch windows, or almost five years. Think about it. The settlement structure itself is basically ready now, but what about getting all the insides set up and also providing what I call the sub-infrastructure? The sub-infrastructure includes all the consumables that you need to live, especially food stocks. But it also includes the thousands of other items, including personal items like toothpaste, underwear and toilet paper. We have to ensure that all these things are there ahead of time or you will have some very unhappy campers.

  “And these are just the items themselves. If we want to ultimately have a truly self-sufficient settlement, we need to be able to create these items, not just import them from Earth. This ability to create all of these items is a multiyear endeavor, and the planning must start now. You can’t just make this happen overnight. The planning itself is a nightmare.

  “But for now, we only have to concentrate on getting the insides set up and the sub-infrastructure in place, even if it is all imported from Earth. If we want to get this in place in time for the launch window, the work will be continuous and strenuous. The plan needs to have the first set of shuttles take all the material and equipment that is not already on-site to get the insides of the settlement set up. The second set of shuttles will take all the supplies, material and equipment necessary to get the sub-infrastructure in place. The last set of shuttles will be retrofitted to accommodate the human passengers – those will be the last to leave Earth just before the launch window closes.”

  Calaes knew it was going to be a large undertaking, but he really hadn’t considered the thousands of big and little things that had to come together. “It seems the first thing to do is to let Samantha know that we are intending on sending all of the team members to the settlement at the first opportunity. This in turn will drive the conversation to getting the sub-infrastructure ready.” His disposition had rapidly crashed back down to Earth. This was going to be an interesting conversation, he thought wryly.

  “Yes,” Randy agreed, “but that is not the hardest part. Remember that the government is not going to stop its delaying tactics. Sure, they’ll be forced to meet the launch window deadline – they really don’t have any choice but to do that. But we anticipate that they will throw up new obstacles along the way. With the many pieces that need to fall into place, there are so many opportunities for them to throw proverbial wrenches into the works.”

  Calaes considered briefly. When he thought about it, there were literally thousands of opportunities for the government to mess things up. And even one shortage would be anywhere from painful to catastrophic. Calaes’ mood would have dropped even lower if that were possible. From such a high to such a low in so short a time. Randy sure had a way of making a person’s day.

  Smiling, Randy said, “You should see your face right now. Relax, it isn’t the end of the world. If we didn’t know there was an issue, we would be blindsided and we’d never even know what hit us. But since we know what they are trying to do we just have to be proactive, anticipate problems and fix them as they occur.”

  Calaes was not sure at all that they could succeed – he wished that he had the confidence that Randy had.

  Hope smiled at him and said, “You look like we don’t stand a chance. Well, we do. We just need a good strategy. She paused, tilted her head and said to him, “And yes we need good tactics too.”

  Calaes knew that she was poking fun at him about their earlier conversation, so he decided poking back was the only way to save face. “So, what do you propose our strategy should be?” he asked in the same tone of voice that she had used when she had grilled him in their previous meeting.

  Smiling sweetly, showing that she understood what game he was playing, she responded, “The strategy should be to ensure that every item in both the infrastructure and the sub-infrastructure list have at least two independent pathways to get to the settlement. This ensures that if anything happens to any one area, save the settlement itself, there is no catastrophic loss.”

  Calaes thought about this for a while – actually a long while. He admired what she came up with. He couldn’t spot any holes at all – unless they wanted to go with triplicate or even more redundancy. He really found that he was admiring her – the whole her. He realized that he was attracted to her body – no question about that. But more, he was attracted to the whole package. This wonderfully stated strategy and her overall logic just added to the package’s value.

  “Well?” she finally said smiling. “You look like the Cheshire cat that just got the prized mouse. I guess you like the strategy – but why the mischievous smile?”

  Trying not to show any of his feelings, he gruffly said, “I can’t find any flaw in your strategy. I was just wondering if you could follow this up with any good tactics.”

  “Well, I was thinking,” she replied, “of a few that might meet your approval. First, double ordering all equipment and supplies – at a minimum. Ensure that each single order has full independence, from separate suppliers to the transportation to separate launch vehicles to the storage at the settlement. Second, double check all initial plans and especially any changes for accuracy. Third, check for cybersecurity breaches. And finally, forth, ensure that no one person is able to be involved with both orders – this makes it much harder for any one person to sabotage the system as a whole.”

  Calaes was again impressed – actually very impressed. He couldn’t think of any other tactics – and she had come up with a couple that he hadn’t thought of. He said, “Are you sure that you haven’t left any out?” He tried to keep a straight face, but he wasn’t sure he succeeded when she smiled b
ack at him and said, “Nope, I can’t think of any more. Feel free to add to them or modify as needed.”

  Calaes had to be satisfied with a mere “If you can’t find any more, I guess we’ll have to live with these. Far be it from me to add any trivial changes. I’m fine with these.”

  Randy interjected, “OK, you two. It sounds like you’ve come up with a viable approach. Again, we have a huge amount of work ahead of us and this old body of mine needs a rest.”

  With that they signed off, but Calaes silently agreed that there was a tremendous amount of work – hopefully not too much for them to accomplish.

  CHAPTER 29

  Hayden thought he had the renegades well in hand.

  He had succeeded in fragmenting them, and everything was going according to plan. That was when things started to fall apart.

  His control over the leaders had ensured that he had control over the colony’s oversight committee. He had been proven spectacularly wrong when the head of the oversight committee, Doojin Seong, had been tipped off and forced the oversight committee into completing the colony’s construction.

  This made Hayden extremely frustrated, but there was nothing that he could do directly. However, Hayden vowed to do whatever it took to stop the colony, using whatever indirect means available.

  – – –

  For Calaes, the problems started getting more frequent and harder to solve.

  As Randy had predicted, there was a huge amount of work to be done.

  Calaes had informed Samantha of their desire to relocate all the candidates to the settlement as soon as practical. Of course, she had come up with a litany of reasons why they couldn’t possibly meet this “absurdly aggressive schedule,” but Calaes had duly noted each issue and had worked off each item.