Virtuality

by H. L. Wegley

  “No, I'm not sure. But if it fails, it will do so with an error message that tells me what went wrong. I'll fix it and rerun it.”

  “You can do that? Just restart a program wherever it failed?”

  “More or less. It’s a Perl script that I wrote. I'll know where to restart it.”

  “How are we going to get into the office? The building’s locked.”

  Vince had been like a caffeinated cat in a kennel full of barking dogs since she started writing her scripts. “You need to relax. I can get us in, Vince. I know some of the programmers.”

  “You know some programmers. That's supposed to relax me?”

  “Relax and prepare to be amazed.”

  The lights in downtown North Bend lit Vince's scowling face. “Jess, how can you joke at a time like this?”

  “I can handle my part, including getting us into Virtuality’s office. And you can handle forcing Patrick into the lab. I do my damage and we’re out of there. It will be okay, sweetheart?”

  Vince’s head turned her way. He took her hand as they headed out of North Bend toward Snoqualmie. His thumb massaged the back of her hand slowly, softly. It was quiet for the next several minutes.

  Vince pulled into the old mill site, turned off his headlights, and let the pickup roll slowly toward Virtuality’s building.

  “Don't park by the front door. There's Patrick's SUV in the corner. Park by his car. We don't want to draw attention.”

  “We could break the office window in front of his SUV. But it would probably set off the security alarm.”

  She looked up at Vince’s eyes in the dim light of the parking lot. We're not going to break in.”

  “So Jesse James is gonna pick the lock?”

  “No.” Jess pointed behind them across the parking lot. “One of those programmers is going to let me in. But you've got to get down, out of sight.”

  “Great. How do I know when to come up for air?”

  “Wait a couple of minutes, then you peek. If you see a flickering light in the office window, it will be me at a workstation on the server. Tap on the window and I'll let you in.”

  Jess grabbed her computer bag and slipped out of the truck before the three programmers reached the main entrance.

  Chip Gentry, a fellow computer science student she had recruited for Paul, was in the group.

  Jess hurried toward the three as one of them unlocked the door.

  “Chip, wait for me.”

  “Jessica? What are you doing here?”

  “You know those bugs in the decompression firmware?”

  “Yeah. Didn't you patch those a few weeks ago.”

  She stopped beside Chip. “I did, but there’s an error condition I didn't handle correctly. I need to distribute the update to the lab. It could crash the system if anything triggers that error condition.”

  Chip pulled the door open and motioned her in.

  She pulled a flash drive from her computer case. “I'll need to use the office to get on the server. I only need twenty or thirty minutes and I can let myself out.”

  “No problem,” Chip said. “Just don't mess up the lab configuration or Patrick and some of the other programmers will have my hide. Yours too, if they thought that you, uh—”

  “I get the message. I won't leave until everything is configured to my satisfaction, and you know how particular I can be.” Technically, she hadn’t lied to Chip. But every word had been full of deception. Deceiving the deceivers. That raised ethical dilemmas that she didn’t have time to sort out.

  Chip unlocked the office door. “Don't wake up Patrick. He’s sleeping over tonight. Actually, that dude’s been doing that for the last month. He locks his apartment door, because there's no alarm on it. And he's a heavy sleeper.” Chip opened the door.

  Heavy sleeper was good. “I'll be as quiet as a mouse. Thanks, Chip.”

  Jess closed the door and walked straight to the rack of blinking lights along the wall adjacent to the lab, sat down in front of a workstation, and plugged in the flash drive containing the Perl script.

  She logged in to the server and then to TeamTech's administrator account.

  A tapping sound came from the window.

  The dim parking lot lights created a silhouette of Vince’s tall frame. He pointed toward the main entry.

  She stepped into the light of the monitor, so he could see her, and waved him toward the door.

  Thirty seconds later, Vince stood beside her while her script walked the source code directories, ripping off the code and design documents for Virtuality’s entire system.

  Jess spoke softly over the whir of computing equipment. “When I've got the entire system on my flash drive, I'll start Twiddle and—”

  “Twiddle?”

  She looked up at Vince’s wrinkled forehead. “It’s what I named the sabotage script. That's when you need to wake up Patrick.”

  Vince studied Patrick’s room door for a moment.

  “Yes, Vince. It's locked. Just knock on the door and wait until he replies.”

  “Then what?”

  Jess turned to face Vince. “If he opens the door, he’s all yours. If he asks who you are, say you’re Chip and that you’ve got a problem he needs to see, now. He'll open the door. Then you pull out my gun and tell him what we rehearsed.”

  “Jess, are you—”

  “I'm sure, sweetheart. This will work.” She squeezed his shoulder, then turned her attention to the script that was spitting out copied filenames to the monitor.

  Five minutes later, Jess had the entire system source code, makefiles and design documents on her 512 GB USB drive. She plugged in the flash drive containing Twiddle and launched it from the command line.

  Twiddle began living up to its name by employing a moderately sophisticated byte twiddling algorithm. It traversed two directories without any problems. The script was working fine and shouldn’t need any further attention.

  She turned to Vince. “Time to wake up Patrick. And, Vince, don't forget to give me the cipher code to the lab door before you go in. Once inside, I won't be able to contact you. The door is soundproof, and your cell won't work in there. The walls block all radiation—the entire spectrum.”

  “I understand, Jess. But if you sense trouble, come and get me, immediately.”

  * * *

  Vince stuck his right hand into the pocket of his shorts and pulled out Jess’s .38.

  She glanced at the gun in his hand. “Remember, it's a Smith and Wesson, a five shooter.”

  “I know.”

  “I just didn't want you to make a one-off error, you know, like programmers do sometimes.”

  “I’m not a programmer. And quiet, Jess, or you'll wake up Patrick.”

  “Isn't that the idea?”

  “Let's just—”

  “It doesn't have a safety either.”

  “You already told me that.”

  “I just didn't want you to actually shoot off something … like your ear.”

  “What's gotten into you, Jess. This isn't a game we're playing.”

  “You’re wound up a little too tight. You need to relax, get into your role, and intimidate Patrick. If you do that well, you shouldn't have to shoot anybody.”

  “You, who can’t act, telling me to get into my role?” Vince shook his head, then took a calming breath, pointed the gun at the floor, pounded on Patrick's door, and listened.

  Nothing.

  He pounded again.

  “Just a minute.” A weak voice, barely audible, came from inside.

  The doorknob rattled, then stopped. “Who's there?”

  “It's Chip. We've got a problem. You need to take a look at this, now.”

  The door opened. Patrick stood, facing Vince, wearing basketball shorts and a Star Wars T-shirt. Patrick's eyes looked up at Vince’s face and went wide with recognition.

  Vince hooked Patrick's neck with an arm and jammed the gun against his forehead. “I'm through playing games. You are going to open the
lab door and give me a tour or what few brains you have will—”

  “Okay, okay. Just don't shoot, Vince.” Patrick glanced back into his room.

  “Eyes this way, Patrick. Do exactly what I tell you and no tricks. If you do that, you might survive the night. Now, I want to see my lab.”

  “I know you wanted to shoot him, Vince.” Jess's voice came from a workstation near the wall. “But, if you can, let's do this without killing anyone. That’s so messy.”

  Jess’s words came wrapped in cold indifference, the perfect intonation for intimidation.

  Patrick’s body trembled.

  Vince stepped behind Patrick, clamped a hand on his upper arm, and shoved the .38 against his back. “To the lab door.”

  “W-what's sh-she doing here?”

  “Questions like that could get you killed, little man. Now, open the office door and walk straight to the lab door. Got it?”

  “G-got it.”

  When they reached the lab door, footsteps sounded behind Vince. He shoved Patrick's face against the door and twisted to look back.

  Jess.

  He blew out a blast of air, trying to calm himself. “I might have shot you, Jess.”

  “Hurry, Vince.”

  Maybe her work was going more quickly than she anticipated. If so, he needed to hurry if he wanted to inspect the lab thoroughly.

  Vince grabbed a handful of Patrick's t-shirt, twisting Darth Vader into Vince’s bandaged hand. It hurt, but not nearly enough to stop Vince. He jerked Patrick to the side of the lab door. “Give me the cipher-lock code.”

  “Now you’re really committing a crime, Vince. A federal crime.”

  “A federal crime? I was thinking of committing a simple Washington state crime. You know, one like murder? Give me the code, doofus!” Vince growled out the words and prodded Patrick with the barrel of the gun.

  “Two, zero, one, six”

  “How ingenious. The year you and Paul started Virtuality.” Vince punched in the numbers. The lock clicked and the hiss of rushing air escaping from the lab rippled Vince’s hair. He opened the door.

  Behind Vince, Jess’s footsteps retreated across the tile floor.

  Good. Jess had heard the code. Now for a tour of his lab. But with all the high-tech gadgetry, would he even recognize what he was looking at?

  Vince pulled Patrick to the door and poked the gun into his back. “Just so any workers in here don’t get overly excited, the gun is going into my pocket, but my hand will be on it. You lead exactly like I tell you, and answer my questions without hesitation, and you might not get shot. Like Jess said, not shooting you isn't my preference, but it could happen. Now, let's go.”

  After they stepped into the lab, the door closed and locked behind them.

  Vince scanned the large open bay lab. Five or six workstations lined the left side of the lab. A long row of cubicles lined the right side. He saw only two other people. Two men.

  One sat at a workstation in the far-left corner, typing furiously. The other man sat inside one of cubicles near the far-right corner.

  Vince spotted a third man in the second cubicle to Vince’s right, adjacent to the one where Vince had encountered the waterfall scene. The lab worker wore what looked like VR goggles made into a helmet and had a contraption attached to the helmet that looked like what that programmer, Walker, had worn. He also wore a black body suit that molded to his shape like spandex, but with small white circles distributed across the legs, back, shoulders and arms. The man ran on a round device like the treadmill Vince had stepped onto. The surface moved any direction the man ran. And run he did, cutting right, then left, until he fell to the floor. The man got up again.

  “What's that guy doing, Patrick?”

  “That's classified information.”

  Vince pointed at the runner. “Look at that. He took a handoff, ran left, then cut back and fell. He's playing football. The Army doesn't train people to play football, except for a few guys at West Point. You're developing games for retail sales, aren't you? Next-generation video games, using virtual reality and remote nerve stimulation.”

  Patrick's head snapped around toward Vince. “Who told you that?”

  “You just did. I'd say you're developing next-generation video games to be sold by LACO, and the Army is footing the bill but doesn’t know it. That's fraud, Patrick. It's the DOD and the taxpayers you're cheating. You’ll be an old man before they let you out of Leavenworth, if I don’t shoot you first.”

  “It's not like that, Vince. The Army will get what they paid for at the price we agreed on.”

  “So how are you—wait. That Walker guy was asking you to cut his pay so he could have more time. You're keeping the costs off the books by not paying your developers. But you’re using the Army hardware and money to develop this stuff for LACO. It's still fraud, Patrick.”

  “Don't you see, Vince? Everybody wins. Nobody's getting cheated here.”

  “Nobody? Then why did three thugs try to kill Jess and me? We were getting cheated right out of our right to life.”

  “I don't know who those people are. Honest,” Patrick said. “LACO said to ignore them. I think some business associate of LACO sent them in and … everyone seems to be afraid of them.”

  “Gee, I can't imagine why. If you make them mad, they come after you with AK-47s. But that's hardly more than a squirt gun. Like LACO said, just ignore them.” He paused. “You know, I think LACO needs to re-associate.”

  “But those people are not part of the business deal. They are—”

  “Oh, but they are, Patrick. You've brought organized crime in on your sordid little rip-off scheme.”

  “Mafia? You're crazy, Vince.”

  “I didn't say Mafia. You did. And you were right, weren't you?” He didn't wait for Patrick's reply. “Let me guess. These people either represent, or are being paid by, the adult entertainment industry. Let me be more specific—the porn industry. They want the technology and are willing to kill to get it.”

  Patrick was shaking his head and backing away as Vince advanced. He grabbed Patrick's throat. “But there's still a missing piece.”

  “You're all wrong,” Patrick said. “We're not making anything for the adult entertainment industry.”

  “And you are full of it, little man.”

  “No, that's not so.”

  “Couldn’t prove it by me. But I’ll let you try. Tell me what that guy’s been doing at the far end of the lab. He laid down on his side after we came in. Now, every few seconds he reaches out a hand, like he’s touching something, then sprawls out on the floor again.”

  “I—I hadn't noticed.”

  “You are a liar, Patrick. I'll tell you what. We're going to walk up to him, and you’re going to tell him to stop what he's doing or you’re gonna pull his power plug.”

  “No. You can't do that. He might get upset.”

  “Upset? You mean like dangerous?”

  “Maybe.” Patrick started shaking again.

  “Which is more dangerous, my gun against your skull or your order for him to stop before you pull the plug on him?”

  “Your gun, of course.”

  “Then your choice is clear.” Vince pushed Patrick toward the prone man.

  When they approached the man, Vince recognized him. “Walker. Who would've guessed. It’s your deep-brain stimulator junkie, Patrick.”

  “Who told you that?” Patrick's eyes widened again.

  “You just did. Let me guess. You're using ultrasound to target the pleasure center of the—”

  “Who have you been talking to, Vince?”

  “It doesn't matter. You've reduced Walker, a human being, to that lab rat they show in Psych 101, the one with the electrode in his brain. Hopelessly addicted to something better than the strongest drugs. Only your little experiment has gotten out of hand. People can't stop. Don’t you see how stupid this is? Sure, you can get them hooked on your product, but they're so helplessly, hopelessly addicted, you'll never sell
them anything else. They'll tune out the world and drop out of society. You do that to enough people and society itself will collapse. I'll bet you're just now realizing that, aren't you, Patrick.”

  “There are certain problems with the device Walker has been using. That's not anything we would ever sell to—”

  “But the adult entertainment industry would. Wouldn't they? And they'd kill for the chance to do it. They’ll even kill you, Patrick, if they think they can steal the technology from you.”

  Patrick didn't reply.

  “You've only got one option. Turn yourself in and stop this disaster before it destroys everyone it touches.”

  “You wrong, Vince. It doesn't have to be that way. In fact, if you knew the truth, you wouldn't be doing this. Because …”

  Vince waited.

  Patrick didn't continue.

  “The truth about what?”

  “About Jess.”

  “I know she coded the algorithms for the nerve—”

  “No. About her and Paul.”

  Vince felt his gut knot up. “Get to the point before I lose my patience with you, little man.”

  “Maybe you should reconsider who you're calling little man.” Patrick paused and studied Vince’s face. “Jess and Paul had an intense relationship going, until—”

  “That's enough, Patrick.” Vince’s gut tightened to a nauseating cramp. Patrick was lying, trying to—trying to what? Get even? Maybe, but Vince didn't have a good answer. Patrick had found the chink in Vince’s armor and he had no defense for it. But Patrick couldn’t have known that, could he?

  Patrick continued. “Paul put the brakes on the relationship when he got the bad report about his cancer. It broke Jess’s heart. I guess … you're the next best thing to Paul.”

  Patrick’s words came like Vince’s blow to Jimmy Grant’s solar plexus, stealing his breath, leaving full-fledged nausea in its wake. And, like Jimmy, Vince wanted to throw up.

  Patrick's eyes—Vince couldn't read them. But Patrick wasn't a good liar. Vince had already seen that. And before Paul's death, Jess had cried more than he'd ever seen her cry. The crying stopped after Vince had been with her for a few days. But that didn’t prove that Patrick wasn’t lying. It might even validate—no.