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Love Vs. Illusion

Page 16

by MJ Rodgers


  She put on the glasses and concentrated on the mirror reflection.

  “You see it?” he whispered.

  “A volume signature unit. The slightest sound near it and it goes off.”

  “And if we touch the VSU control box without the right access code, we’ll set off its alarms.”

  She leaned against the rock wall, took the glasses off and handed them to him. “Well, I’d say this is definitely a setback. Any ideas?”

  “Just one.”

  A.J. watched as he reached into his jacket and pulled out a small, cone-shaped device with a black box about the size of a matchbook attached to its narrow end.

  “What is it?” she asked.

  “I call it a snuff box. It’s taken from a new technology designed to help people work and live in noisy areas by making those areas less noisy.”

  “I think I’ve heard about the concept. Isn’t it based on canceling out a sound wave by emitting an identical, opposing wave?”

  “That’s it.”

  “How can it help us?”

  “By snuffing out the noise the VSU detects when we swing down and break through that iron gate.”

  “But you’d have to have programmed this snuff box, as you call it, to counteract every single possible sound wave a sensitive VSU is equipped to register. Simultaneously. Instantaneously.”

  “And make it small enough to carry comfortably,” Zane added with a nod.

  “This snuff box will do that?”

  “It hasn’t been field tested yet, so let’s just say that’s what it’s supposed to do.”

  He handed her the rod with the mirror on the end. “Hold this as steady as you can.”

  She took the rod as she watched him pull out some string and tie it to a small hook at the top of the cone. He flipped a switch on the edge of the black box. A small red light began to flash. Then, using the mirror as a guide, he lowered the snuff box very slowly to the ground in front of the iron gate.

  “Can you tell if it’s working?” she asked.

  “Only one way to do that.”

  Zane shoved the mirror and its extension into his pocket, grabbed the rock ledge with both hands and swung his body over the edge. He hung suspended there above the iron gate entrance to the cave for several very long heartbeats before dropping to the ground.

  A.J. tensed, fully expecting to hear an ear-piercing alarm. When all remained quiet, she looked down to see him smiling at her.

  “A successful field test, I’d say. It’s about an eight-foot drop. You coming?”

  She grabbed the ledge and swung herself over it. She readied herself to roll into a tumble as she landed in order to lessen the impact. But when she let go of the ledge, she found herself landing not on the ground, but in Zane’s arms.

  He caught her easily and hugged her firmly to him.

  “You didn’t have to do that. I know how to fall,” she protested while every muscle she possessed threatened to melt into the hard body holding her.

  “Yeah, I know,” Zane said as he gently set her on her feet.

  She turned away from the warmth in his tone and faced the iron gate on shaky legs. It took less than a minute for Zane and his gadget to break the code on the digital lock.

  The hinges creaked as he drew the gate open. A.J. had to crouch to fit into the entrance of the oval-shaped cave, which was about four feet high by six feet wide. Zane also crouched as he followed her inside, drawing the iron gate closed behind them.

  She pulled a flashlight out of her jacket and directed it into the cave. She went down on all fours, continuing to hold the flashlight to light their way.

  The odor of the sea remained strong as they proceeded into the cave. A.J. had been hoping there would be a light ahead, showing the way to the intersection with the larger cave she was certain existed. But she was disappointed when all that reflected back was blackness.

  She was even more disappointed when, another twenty feet ahead, the cave dead-ended in solid rock. Someone with a warped sense of humor had stuck a sign on it that read Sucker and drawn a happy face around it.

  A.J. tore off the sign and ran her hands over the rock. “It’s solid. But it can’t be.”

  Zane tested it, too, before sitting back on his heels.

  “So, Linbow aimed all his surveillance equipment at this spot just to mislead people like us into pursuing a dead end. It’s a neat trick. Hell, I should have seen it coming. I’ve used it often enough myself.”

  “No, I don’t believe it,” A.J. said. “There has to be another explanation.”

  He watched her run her hands over the cave’s walls on either side. He could tell from the set to her mouth that they were proving to be solid, too. But she refused to give up. She doubled back toward the entrance, carefully feeling along every single inch of the rock.

  Zane did not try to stop her. People handled disappointment differently, and he sensed that continued mental and physical movement was the way A.J. handled hers. He was sure it would gradually diminish as she accepted the inevitable.

  “Zane. Over here. This portion of rock doesn’t feel the same.”

  Zane made his way to where A.J. crouched. He pushed against the rock face. It gave ever so slightly.

  He pulled out his compact densimeter and swept it across the surface. The frequency of the sound waves altered as the solidity of the rock changed. He replaced the densimeter in his jacket to free his hands.

  “Seems to be hollow beyond about an inch. Has to be a door of some type. Maybe there’s a lever or something around here that opens it.”

  They checked the walls, the ceiling, the rock floor. They found nothing.

  “Could it be activated by some kind of remote-control device like Linbow’s office computer screen?” A.J. suggested.

  Zane pulled his specially designed universal remote signaling device out of his jacket and trained it on the wall. “If it is like the screen, then we’re going to have to find the right frequency to activate it.”

  It took several minutes of adjusting the program on the tiny electronic computer in his hand, but finally, with a squeak of protest, the rock wall before them slid back to reveal another leg of the sea cave.

  Zane leaned over to give A.J.’s cheek a quick kiss. “I knew you’d be better than a thousand surveillance photos. Come on, let’s see what’s at the end of this.”

  The passage grew steadily narrower, then turned at a forty-degree angle to the right. Once around the corner, Zane’s eyes picked up the light that marked the end of the tunnel, about ten feet ahead.

  “We’ll have to go single file from here. It’s too narrow to accommodate the both of us.”

  Zane led the way. When they reached the end of the tunnel, he found a large air vent wedged in the space.

  Zane peered through the metal louvers and saw a fourteen-by-twenty-foot cavern on the other side. Its ceiling was close to seven feet, well lit by a string of fluorescent tubes. Its black volcanic walls had been whitewashed. Its floor was covered in the ubiquitous black-and-white linoleum squares. Rock music blared out of a stereo in one corner. In the opposite corner was a table with an urn, plastic cups and several packages of chips and cookies. The smell of coffee was in the air.

  Facing the far wall sat two young women and a man, all with their backs to the room. They were concentrating on the messages flashing on the computer monitors in front of them. On the wall beside them were shelves filled with golden disks.

  Zane threw A.J. a whisper over his shoulder. “This is it.”

  “Let me see,” she whispered back.

  She crawled forward, not giving him a chance to respond, much less move. Her breasts, belly and then thighs brushed tantalizingly against him.

  “They’re working on the VR fantasies,” A.J. whispered, totally occupied with the scene ahead and totally unaware of what she was doing to him. “That programmer on the end is adjusting something in a Jurassic Park type environment. See? She’s stopped the program to make some kind of chan
ge to it.”

  Zane rested his forehead on the cold volcanic rock and concentrated on controlling his body’s runaway responses to A.J.’s closeness.

  “Are you as good with computers as you are with those gadgets you carry?” she asked, still totally focused on the business at hand.

  He took a couple of long, deep breaths and reminded himself he was a patient man. “I know my way around them.”

  “Good. We need to get to a terminal. There are two other cave rooms leading off this one,” A.J. whispered as she pointed. “Neither seems to have a door, which makes it convenient. Shall we find out if one has an available computer terminal?”

  It was a risky proposition, moving across the room with the programmers still in it. But like A.J., Zane was eager to take this opportunity. And he knew with the rock music blaring, any sounds they might make would be masked.

  “Let’s start with the room on the left. Scoot back and I’ll see what I can do about removing this vent.”

  A.J. moved obediently behind him, treating him to a new bout of brief, exquisite torture as her body rubbed against his.

  When he had collected his wits, Zane dug out a screwdriver from his utility vest and started removing the bolts that kept the vent in place. He pulled it toward him. It took an energetic pull before he finally got it loose. He pushed it to the side of the opening, out of their way.

  “I’ll go first,” he whispered. He climbed through the small opening and soundlessly dropped the six feet to the floor of the larger cave, keeping his eyes on the programmers. To his right, he could see another opening into the cavernous room. The sharp scent coming from its direction told him it was the outlet to the underground sea cave.

  He felt A.J. land beside him, lightly, gracefully. She led the way to the room on the left as they both kept a wary eye on the programmers.

  They made it there unseen and ducked inside.

  It was about eight by ten feet. The single bare fluorescent bulb hanging from the ceiling was unlit. The light reflecting in from the larger room revealed two single-size fiber-optic beds equipped with pillows and special masks. One wall was a mass of small open shelves filled with sets of tiny golden disks. The headings on the shelves corresponded to the various fantasy programs. There looked to be at least twenty-five sets of each. There was no computer terminal.

  “This must be a testing room for the programs,” Zane whispered. “Let’s try the next.”

  They slipped into the next room. It was much longer and narrower than the first. Instead of beds and masks, it was lined with shallow metal cabinets. It did not contain a computer terminal.

  “We’ll have to wait and hope the programmers knock off for the night sometime soon,” Zane whispered.

  A.J. didn’t respond. She had turned on her small flashlight and pointed it toward the metal cabinets lining the walls.

  “These are very oddly shaped,” she whispered after a moment. “Do you suppose these cabinets could be storage receptacles for the VR programs?”

  After a quick check to verify that the programmers were still glued to their computer screens, Zane turned toward the metal cabinets and scanned them with his flashlight.

  “The size and shape are right for the tiny disks,” he whispered after a moment. He pushed in a protruding lever on the metal unit in front of him. A tiny shelf with a recessed pocket containing five shiny disks slipped out.

  Zane looked around the room. “There must be thousands of storage shelves here.”

  “But there are only fifty VR programs. And we’ve already seen a wall full of copies of those. And a large group of disks, which I’m assuming are blank, that the programmers are using. Why would Linbow need thousands more storage receptacles?”

  “That does seem excessive.”

  “Hmm, this is curious,” A.J. whispered, her fingertips tracing the outside of the tiny storage units.

  Zane shoved the drawer into the cabinet and moved to her side. “What?”

  “Feel this,” she whispered.

  He ran his fingertips over the indicated surface. “It’s a number hammered into the metal. Five hundred and fourteen.”

  “The one below it is five hundred and fifteen. These disks are filed in numerical sequence.”

  She pushed the protruding lever on both and shone her flashlight on the shiny disks that popped out. “And they’re full, too. Zane, I think these are the program disks used by customers number five hundred and fourteen and five hundred and fifteen. And if they are, that means we can find the actual disks Patsy Harper and Fran Temark used.”

  “I don’t think so, A.J. Elling told me Linbow said his CDs were used over and over again, just like video rentals.”

  “And if he lied?”

  “Does it seem likely that Linbow wouldn’t reuse his disks? Their advanced technology and miniaturization is incredibly delicate and intricate. They’re like nothing else out there. They must be expensive as hell. It would be an unbelievable waste of money not to reuse them.”

  “Unless Linbow doesn’t have a choice. Zane, what if he can’t reuse the disks precisely because their advanced technology is so incredibly delicate and intricate?”

  “It’s possible.”

  “And if he did lie, it was so he didn’t have to hand over Patsy and Fran’s disks to Elling. Which also means there could be something on those disks he didn’t want Elling to see.”

  “All right,” Zane said. “Let’s test out this nonreusable theory. The park has been in business for eighteen months, which means approximately seventy-five weeks at fifty patrons a week. That works out to about thirty-sevenhundred customers.”

  Zane turned around the room, doing a quick mental count of the metal storage units. “This room looks like it can store about five thousand sets of disks. If those metal storage units are the five hundred block, that means number one begins at that top left corner there.”

  Zane moved to the opposite end of the room to the final section of the cabinets.

  “If these are the actual CDs used by customers, there should be some in this row. It marks the beginning of the three thousandth customer.”

  Zane pushed in the protruding lever on the metal unit in front of him. The shelf swung out. Its pocket was full.

  He moved to the right. “And there won’t be any in this row, because it marks the beginning of the four-thousandth customer, who hasn’t come to the park yet.”

  Once again Zane pushed the lever on the unit in front of him. Once again the shelf swung out. Only this time its pocket was empty.

  “These are the used customer disks,” A.J. whispered excitedly beside him.

  “You could be right. Do you remember what Linbow’s computer showed were Patsy and Fran’s customer numbers?”

  “Patsy’s was thirty-nine and Fran’s was forty-eight.”

  Zane moved to the first row and counted down thirty-nine from the top, running his finger over the indented number on the metal to be sure he’d counted correctly. He slipped out the shelf, removed the five tiny disks and handed them to A.J.

  “Let’s get Fran’s, too,” A.J. said.

  “We can only test one set at a time. I’d rather stick with Patsy’s.”

  “Okay,” A.J. said as she carefully slipped the disks into her pocket. “Let’s get out of here.”

  But just as they turned to leave the storage room, a sudden loud bang echoed, signaling a door had been slammed.

  An angry male voice followed, spewing obscenities as a red light began to flash. A.J. and Zane retreated into the dark recesses of the long, narrow file room. A few seconds later Linbow stomped by the doorway with Clanse on his heels.

  “That damn Woodson!” Linbow yelled, still at full volume. “He’s never satisfied. All he does is demand! Even VR has its limitations. We can’t grow him new legs!”

  “I know he’s a pain in the butt, Lex,” Clarise agreed, “but except for refusing to let us take care of Sacha, he’s been pretty reasonable. We agreed that he had to be satisf
ied with his own VR program before he released the second block to us.”

  “There’s nothing wrong with our customized program for him. He’s just using it as an excuse! He knows without that second block of stock as collateral we’ll never get the expansion loan after the damn suit is settled. What does he care? He doesn’t have any vested interest in the park!”

  “Woodson can’t afford to cross us, Lex. Besides, he’s right about his VR program. I ran it on the screen last night. It is rough in spots.”

  “What spots?”

  “In reading his feedback charts, I can see the spinal stimulation we’ve programmed is insufficient for establishing a sense of full leg movement. We’re going to have to compensate by tapping into his motor cortex. It’s the only way we can provide him with the kind of physical simulation that will approximate the movement he remembers.”

  “Will it work?”

  “It should. Electrical stimulation of the motor cortex of subjects who have lost a limb gives them the sense they are feeling that lost limb again. But it’s going to have to be absolutely accurate. I have a detailed map of the specific brain area. But to get it all into the computer and integrated into Woodson’s program—and to get the bugs worked out—I’m going to need all the programmers’ time again. Both shifts, for at least two months.”

  “Two months? He’s costing us a mint!”

  A buzzer sounded down the hall.

  “It’s probably the cleaning guy,” Clarise said.

  “Just what I need!” Linbow screamed. “If it isn’t the noise of that damn rock music, it’s the noise of the damn vacuum driving me insane. I’m getting out of here. You coming?”

  “Yeah, I might as well take the programmers on this shift and go someplace quiet where I can explain about Woodson’s program. Then, when the cleaning is done, they can come back and get started.”

  Linbow stomped through the door and slammed it behind him.

  Almost instantly the sound of a vacuum cleaner filled the air. Less than a minute later, Zane watched as Clarise and the programmers walked by the room where he and A.J. were hiding. The hallway door slammed again. Zane moved to the entrance of the file room and looked out.

 

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