Final Theory

by Mark Alpert

  He turned left, stumbling like a drunk. Gunshots echoed down the corridor but he saw only white flashes. The simulation was overwhelming his brain, making him nauseous. He felt like tearing off the headset. “Hold on, I gotta stop! Something’s behind me!”

  “No, keep going! Michael’s at Level C3. He’s almost finished!”

  David finally found the stairway. The display brightened as he ascended, showing another corridor at the top of the steps. He started down the hall, passing several bare rooms with bloody corpses on the floor.

  “Turn right when you get to the end of the hall,” Monique instructed. “Then you—”

  A soldier bolted out of one of the rooms, just a few feet ahead. David was so startled he dropped his M-16. He stepped backward, instinctively raising his hands, bracing himself for virtual death. But the soldier merely turned around and continued down the hall. David belatedly noticed that this figure wasn’t in a black jacket; he wore a khaki uniform and had a bright red 1 on his helmet. It was Michael.

  Elated, David picked up his rifle and followed him. At the end of the corridor Michael’s soldier veered to the right and David heard a barrage of gunfire. By the time he caught up to the boy, all six of the remaining computer-generated enemies lay facedown on the floor.

  “That’s it!” Monique cried. “You’re at the final level!”

  Michael’s soldier approached a doorway at the other end of the room. David held his breath, expecting to see Herr Doktor’s equations at last. But instead they entered what appeared to be a locker room. All four walls were lined with gray metal lockers, dozens and dozens of them. Michael’s soldier headed for the nearest locker and touched it with his M-16. A new weapon materialized in his hands, a rifle equipped with a fat cylinder on the underside of the barrel. A grenade launcher.

  David’s heart sank. This wasn’t the final level. It appeared to be an intermediate staging area, a place to acquire new weapons for another round of battle. “Damn it! How much longer does this go on?”

  “Wait a second,” Monique answered. “Look at the letters on the lockers.”

  Each locker had a set of initials stenciled on its door. The initials clearly stood for military ranks: The first locker was marked PVT for private, the second CPL for corporal, the third LT for lieutenant, and so on. David recognized the first dozen ranks, but as he went down the line the abbreviations became increasingly obscure: WO/1, CWO/5, CMSAF, MGYSGT.

  “Check out the row on the far wall,” Monique said. “The second-to-last locker.”

  David spotted the initials: SVIA/4. “Holy shit! The letters on the Game Boy!”

  He rushed to the locker and tapped it with his M-16. On the VR display David saw the virtual grenade launcher materialize on his rifle. At the same time the initials on the locker door abruptly rearranged themselves. The S moved a bit farther to the left, the A/4 to the right. Then the VI rotated ninety degrees clockwise. The result was an equation:

  David didn’t recognize it. But he wasn’t the physicist. “Monique, do you see that?” he called into the microphone. “Do you—”

  “LOOK OUT!”

  He heard gunfire again. He turned around just in time to see Michael’s soldier fall to the floor. Then the VR display turned red, as if splashed with blood.

  IT WAS A POOR SUBSTITUTE for war, Simon thought as he looked over Gupta’s shoulder at the computer screen. Even for a training exercise, the program was absurdly unrealistic. When the soldiers were shot they didn’t writhe on the ground or scream for their mothers. They simply collapsed. It was a child’s game, a toy. Gupta didn’t need Simon’s help; all he had to do was shoot a couple of cartoon soldiers in the back.

  After Gupta dispatched his opponents, he advanced toward the locker with the odd symbols on its door. Toggling the joystick, he extended his soldier’s rifle so that it touched the locker. First a grenade launcher appeared on the rifle and then, after a few seconds, a message flashed on the screen: READY TO DOWNLOAD? YES OR NO?

  Gupta clicked on YES. The message changed to DOWNLOAD COMPLETE IN 0:46 SECONDS. The professor gazed intently at the screen as the numbers ticked down. He seemed entranced, as if he were viewing something that lurked deep inside the computer. “I’m sorry, Herr Doktor,” he whispered. “But you shouldn’t have kept me waiting.”

  “DAVID? WHERE ARE YOU? My screen’s going haywire!”

  He could hear Monique’s voice but couldn’t see anything. The VR display showed nothing but a thick red mist, like a bloody fog obscuring everything from view. The last thing he remembered was the sight of Michael’s soldier falling, and as he pictured this image in his mind’s eye he recalled something else he’d glimpsed in the background. Another soldier had stood behind Michael’s. Not a computer-generated figure in a black jacket, but a soldier in a khaki uniform, with the number 3 on his helmet.

  David tore off the useless goggles. Outside the transparent sphere, Monique was bent over the terminal, frantically working the keyboard. “Shit!” she yelled. “Someone else is accessing the server! There’s a download in progress!”

  To his left, in the other sphere, Michael was readjusting his goggles. He seemed neither surprised nor disappointed by their defeat. After a few seconds he raised his rifle and began running inside his sphere again. He was starting another game.

  “We have to go back to the start,” David said. “We’ll just—”

  “You don’t have time!” Monique tugged at her hair. “There’s only twenty seconds left!”

  Unable to think of another option, David strapped on his goggles. The red mist was fading now, and he expected to find himself back in the wide field outside the village. But once the last red wisps vanished, he saw a row of lockers with stenciled initials on their doors. He was on his hands and knees, still in the locker room. He’d been shot in the body, not the head.

  He couldn’t move forward but he could point his weapon. The soldier with the 3 on his helmet stood in front of the locker, which now showed a countdown on its door instead of the equation. As the readout reached 0:09, David pulled the trigger.

  SIMON NOTICED SOME MOVEMENT ON the computer screen. Something small and round bounced against the row of lockers and passed out of sight.

  “What was that?” he asked, pointing at the computer.

  Gupta didn’t answer. He was still entranced by the countdown.

  “Something moved across the screen! It went to the left!”

  Frowning, the professor flicked his joystick to the left, bringing the whole locker room into view. A green egg-shaped object lay on the floor. Simon recognized it at once. It was a U.S. Army M406 grenade.

  DAVID’S LEGS NEARLY BUCKLED WHEN he stepped out of the sphere. He’d been inside the virtual world for less than fifteen minutes, but he felt as if he’d just stormed Iwo Jima. Tossing aside the VR goggles and the plastic rifle, he staggered toward Monique. “What happened?” he asked. “Did we stop it?”

  She didn’t look up. She stayed bent over the terminal, her eyes focused on the screen. “Why did you use the grenade? All you had to do was shoot the bastard to break his connection.”

  “But we stopped the download, right? He didn’t get the theory, did he?”

  “Oh yeah, you stopped the download. You also crashed Warfighter and deleted all the program files.”

  He gripped the edge of the desk. “What about the file containing the theory?”

  “It’s gone. Wiped clean. Because the file was incorporated into the game software, crashing the program permanently corrupted it. Even if someone tried to recover the data on the server, they’d just get nonsense.”

  His stomach lurched. It was like stepping into the sphere again, but now the whole universe was spinning around him. The blueprints of the cosmos, the hidden design of reality—all gone in an instant because of his error.

  Monique finally lifted her gaze from the computer screen. To David’s surprise, she was smiling. “Luckily, Dr. Kleinman took some precautions. He built an escape hat
ch for the file. Just before the program was deleted, it saved the data on a flash drive.”

  “What?”

  In her palm she held a small silver cylinder, about three inches long and an inch wide. “The theory’s in here. Or at least I hope it is. I better grab a laptop to make sure.”

  David went limp. He took a couple of deep breaths as he stared at the flash drive. Until that moment he hadn’t realized how important the theory was to him.

  While Monique searched the office for a laptop, Michael emerged from his sphere. He put his VR goggles and rifle back in the cabinet, then picked up his Game Boy. It must’ve been a tremendous comedown, leaving the virtual-reality battlefield and returning to a device with thumb controls and a three-inch-wide screen, but Michael’s face was as expressionless as ever.

  A moment later his mother came out of the adjoining office. With a disgusted sigh Elizabeth smoothed a wrinkle in her tights and adjusted the ankle strap on one of her pumps. Then she headed straight for David. “Okay, where’s the rest of my money?”

  “Where’s Mannheimer?”

  “Asleep on the couch. He’s a one-shot man. But you owe me two hundred just the same.”

  “All right, all right.” David took out his wallet and removed the bills. “Listen, we have to leave the base before anyone gets suspicious. You better come with us.”

  She grabbed the roll of twenties and slipped them into the waistband of her tights. “That’s fine. Just drop me off at the motel.”

  By this point Monique had found a laptop, a sleek silver MacBook. Before she could turn it on, though, David went to the window and noticed two disturbing developments. First, Graddick’s station wagon was no longer parked by the rear entrance of Infantry Hall. And second, a squadron of MPs was running toward the building. From a distance they looked a lot like the virtual soldiers in Warfighter, but the M-16s in their hands were definitely not made of plastic.

  LUCILLE STOOD ON A PARADE ground at Fort Benning, arguing with one of the SecDef ’s flunkies. The secretary was giving a speech from a podium in front of Infantry Hall. A crowd of at least three thousand soldiers and civilians stretched across the parade ground, and several hundred more people loitered behind the podium, blocking the building’s main entrance. It was a security nightmare—with all these folks milling about, it was impossible to conduct a proper search for the suspects, who had apparently conned their way onto the base less than an hour before. Lucille wanted the SecDef to cut his speech short, but his Pentagon aide balked at the idea. He was a stocky kid in his twenties, dumb as a post.

  “We’ve been planning this event for months,” he said. “The troops have really been looking forward to it.”

  “Look, this is a matter of national security. You’ve heard of that, right? National security? That means it’s more important than your goddamn event!”

  The aide looked puzzled. “Security? I thought the MPs were handling security.”

  “Christ on a crutch!” In exasperation, she reached under her jacket and pulled her Glock out of its holster. “Do I have to shoot you to get your attention?”

  But even the sight of the gun failed to pierce his thick skull. “Please, ma’am, calm down. The secretary is finishing up. He’s getting ready to tell his joke about the three-legged chicken.”

  THE MP S RUSHED IN THROUGH the rear entrance of Infantry Hall and began climbing the stairs. David turned away from the window. “Let’s go, let’s go!” he shouted at the others. “This way!”

  He pulled Michael down the corridor while Monique and Elizabeth clattered behind. He instinctively headed for the front of the building, away from the pursuing soldiers, although he knew that another squadron would most likely come from that direction as well. When David reached the stairway above the front entrance, he heard voices below, and at first he assumed these were the shouts of gung ho MPs racing up the steps. But after a moment he heard laughter and a great burst of cheering. It sounded more like a party than a manhunt.

  They barreled downstairs and emerged in an entry hall crowded with soldiers and their families. Men and women in civilian clothes were lined up at a long table stocked with bowls of potato chips and six-packs of Coke. Some kind of reception was in progress. People were shaking hands and telling jokes and stuffing their faces. David threaded through the crowd, terrified that someone would raise the alarm, but no one paid any attention to him or Michael. A few of the soldiers leered at Elizabeth and Monique, but that was it. In half a minute they stepped outside and joined the stream of people who were heading for the parking lots. As they walked away from the building, David saw an old man with a familiar face shaking hands with several generals. Jesus, he thought, that’s the secretary of defense. David tightened his grip on Michael’s arm and walked a little faster.

  They moved with the crowd for half a mile or so, going west past a series of parking lots where groups of spectators peeled off to find their cars. After about ten minutes the crowd had thinned out but the four of them continued walking in the same direction, following signs that said WEST GATE, EDDY BRIDGE. They passed a tennis court and a field where a dozen soldiers were playing football. David saw no MPs, nor any other signs of pursuit.

  After another ten minutes they saw a river up ahead, a sinuous strip of muddy water with wooded banks on both sides. It was the Chattahoochie River, the western boundary of Fort Benning. A two-lane bridge spanned the water and on the near side was a security gate. The barrier was down and several cars were backed up behind it, waiting to leave the base. The drivers were pounding on their horns but the two MPs at the gate stood there like statues. Shit, David thought, they’ve locked the place down. He considered doing an about-face, but the MPs had probably spotted them already. Their only hope was to bullshit their way through.

  They strolled up to the gate like an eccentric family on a hike. David waved to the MPs. “Hey, soldiers!” he called. “Is this the way to the campground?”

  “You mean the Uchee Creek Campground, sir?” one of them replied.

  “Yeah, yeah, that’s the one.”

  “You cross the bridge and go two miles south. But you can’t cross now, sir.”

  “Why not?”

  “Security alert. We’re awaiting further orders.”

  “Well, I’m sure the alert is only for cars. Pedestrians can go through, right?”

  The MP thought about it for a moment, then shook his head. “Just wait here, sir. Hopefully it won’t take too long.”

  While David and Monique exchanged nervous looks, a Humvee sped up to the gate. The driver jumped out of the vehicle and ran to the MPs. He held a couple of flyers in his hand; David couldn’t see what was printed on them, but he was willing to bet that his own photograph was somewhere on the page. The MPs had turned their backs to them, so David quietly led Michael, Monique, and Elizabeth around the barrier. They headed for the bridge, which was about a hundred feet away.

  “Halt!” One of the MPs had turned around. “Where the hell do you think you’re going?”

  David looked over his shoulder but didn’t stop. “Sorry, we’re in a rush!”

  The other MP, who’d already scanned the flyers, pointed his pistol at him. “STOP RIGHT THERE, ASSHOLE!”

  Within seconds, all three soldiers had drawn their M-9s. The drivers of the cars behind the barrier had ceased their honking; they were too busy watching the confrontation. But because all eyes were on either the soldiers or the fugitives, no one saw the rattlesnake until it landed at the feet of the MPs. It bounced on the asphalt, a thick, rust-colored serpent writhing in pain, and sank its fangs into the first moving thing it saw, which happened to be the calf of an MP’s leg. The soldier screamed, and then a second snake came flying through the air. David looked ahead and saw Graddick crouched behind his station wagon, which was parked by the riverbank, not far from the bridge. With a great heave, Graddick tossed his third rattler at the MPs, who were now running for the woods. Then he waved at David. “Come on, you sinners!” he sh
outed. “Get in the car!”

  KAREN AND JONAH WERE IN Brownsville, one of the poorest neighborhoods in Brooklyn, following Gloria Mitchell across the glass-strewn grounds of a public housing project. Gloria was an indefatigable reporter; she’d spent the entire day gathering details about the double homicide, first talking to the cops at the local precinct station and then interviewing the friends and relatives of the victims. She was still on the job at 9 P.M., trying to track down a witness to the shooting. Under ordinary circumstances Karen would’ve never dared to venture into Brownsville at night, but oddly enough she had no fear of the place now. The gangs of teenagers on the street corners didn’t scare her one bit. What she did fear were the slow-moving SUVs that seemed to trail them wherever they went.

  As they hurried through a deserted playground, a tall, thick-necked man stepped out of the shadows. The light was so dim Karen saw only a silhouette. She couldn’t make out his face, but she could tell he was wearing a suit, and she noticed a coiled wire snaking behind his left ear.

  Karen stopped in her tracks and squeezed Jonah’s hand. But Gloria, afraid of nothing, marched right up to the agent. “Hey, buddy, are you lost?” she asked.

  “No,” he answered.

  “The Bureau’s office is in Federal Plaza, in case you were wondering. That way.” She pointed west, toward Manhattan.

  “What makes you think I’m with the Bureau?”

  “Your cheap suit, for one thing. And the fact that your pals have been following me all day long.”

  “I’m not interested in you. Just your friend.”

  “Well, forget about it. If you arrest her, it’s gonna be all over the front page of the New York Times tomorrow morning.”

  The agent reached into his jacket and pulled out a gun. “Fuck the Times. I read the Post.” Then he aimed at Gloria’s head and fired.

  Karen grabbed Jonah and pressed his face into her belly so he wouldn’t see. Her legs trembled as the agent stepped forward and a stray wedge of streetlight illuminated his face. His nose was swollen and bruises mottled his forehead, but she recognized him nonetheless. It was Agent Brock.