Death Dream

by Ben Bova

  Dan's gut tightened. "I phoned Frankel—"

  "Yeah, yeah. He returned your call last night. Message is on your machine."

  "Last night? Sunday?"

  "He said to call him this morning at ten sharp. He'll be waiting for your call."

  "Oh."

  "So how'd you spend your weekend?" Jace leaned so far back in his chair Dan feared it would tip over. He locked his hands behind his head, planted his boots on the desktop and stretched so hard Dan could hear his vertebrae pop.

  "Doc's got a problem."

  "Appleton?"

  "One of the fighter pilots died in our simulation," Dan said.

  Jake's eyes narrowed. "Who? Martinez?"

  "No. A guy named Adair."

  "Never heard of him."

  "Doc says he had a stroke while he was flying the simulator."

  Jace shrugged. "Tough."

  "Doc's worried that maybe something in the simulation affected him."

  "Bullshit! How could anything in the simulation hurt anybody? Doc's going off the deep end without his snorkel."

  "Still—"

  Jace swung his legs off the desk and jumped to his feet. "Come on, we've got our own fish to fry. I wanna try this new background graphics before you call Frankel."

  He pushed past Dan and went out the door, heading for their lab. Shaking his head, Dan got up and followed him.

  The background was damned good, Dan saw. Better than good. He stood up close to the six-foot display screen and studied the details carefully. Yankee Stadium, crowded to the topmost tier. He could see individual people sitting in their seats, walking up and down the concrete steps between sections, munching hotdogs, making a wave.

  "Damn, it looks great," he called to Jace, across the cluttered lab. "Details as crisp as they can be."

  Jace was worming a data glove onto his left hand. "I'm gonna try it out on the system. You get back to your office and call Frankel. We need his time-sharing program!"

  "What if he can't talk about it?" Dan asked.

  "Then we'll have to get Muncrief to put the squeeze on him."

  "Muncrief?"

  "The big boss has lots of friends in high places. Frankel might not want to help me, the little shit, but Muncrief can get people in Washington to put pressure on him."

  "I don't think so, Jace," said Dan. "After all, we're talking about programs that're probably classified."

  "Classified, my ass! Haven't you heard, the Cold War is over. They got Russians working side-by-side with them in the Star Wars offices now. They got no right to keep anything from us. Not a simple little time-sharing program, at least."

  Simple little time-sharing program, Dan thought. If it's so damned simple why don't we work it out for ourselves instead of begging Bob Frankel for help?

  But he went back to his own office, fidgeted nervously for six minutes, and then at thirty seconds before ten he told his phone to get Frankel.

  "Frankel here." His voice came from the phone's built-in speaker.

  Dan picked up the handpiece. "Hello, Bob. It's Dan Santorini."

  "Hello, Dan. Haven't heard from you in a long while., Frankel's voice sounded tight to Dan, not suspicious, exactly, but not brimming with good cheer either.

  "I'm working at ParaReality now. In Orlando."

  "With Jace, huh?"

  "Yeah."

  "How is the big jerk?"

  "He's fine. We're doing some interesting things here."

  "Yeah? Like what?"

  As Dan described their work on the interactive games the tension between the two men began to ease. The personality clashes between Frankel and Jace faded into the distant background as the intrigue and excitement of technical challenges pushed it away.

  "This is all proprietary stuff, by the way," Dan was saying. "I'm trusting you to keep it to yourself until the park opens."

  "Who's the head of your outfit?"

  "Kyle Muncrief."

  "Never heard of him."

  "He's not a technical guy. He's a businessman."

  "Oh."

  Dan had gone as far as he could. He had run out of chat. Frankel had not asked why he had called, so he had to bring up the subject himself.

  Very reluctantly Dan said, "Bob, I wonder if you could help me with a problem we've run into."

  "Me? Help you? You mean help the boy genius, don't you? The guy who wants to be God?"

  "I know you and Jace didn't get along—"

  "That's putting it mildly."

  "But it's really me who needs the help."

  "If you're working with Jace then he's the one who needs the help and he's too big of an asshole to ask me for it himself. He's using you as an errand boy."

  Grimacing, Dan asked, "Don't you even want to hear what the problem is?"

  A long silence from the other end of the connection, broken only by Frankel's breathing. Finally, "All right, what is it?"

  Dan described his idea of splitting the computers" time between the foreground images and the background.

  "Sure, we've done things like that here. Hell, we've got to keep track of the thousand objects at once, all of them flying at hypersonic speeds, all in real time. The only way to do it is with stuttering."

  "Stuttering?"

  "That's what it's called. Jumping the sensors from one object to another in nanosecond timeframes. Or less."

  Stuttering. "Is it classified?"

  "The particular programs we use sure as hell are. But the technique isn't. It's been published in at least one of the math journals."

  Bingo! Dan said to himself. Trying to keep his voice from showing too much excitement, he asked, "Do you remember which one?"

  "Not offhand. And I'm not going to look it up for you, either. Find it for yourself. That's what NREN and CompuServe and all those other electronic databases are for."

  "Okay, right. I'll look it up."

  Another hesitation. Then, "I've got a paper coming out on the subject. It'll be in the Journal of Applied Mathematics in January or February."

  "Gee, could you fax me a copy of it?"

  "So you can help Jace get rich?"

  The idea of money had never entered Dan's head. But he swiftly replied, "I think I could get Muncrief to hire you as a consultant. How does that strike you?"

  Frankel actually laughed. "Have you forgotten everything they drummed into your skull when you worked for the Air Force? Remember the conflict of interest regulations?"

  "Oh. Yeah."

  "If this stuff about stuttering helps you, get me a lifetime pass to your Cyber World."

  "Okay. Sure. I can do that."

  "And tell Jace I still think he's a horse's ass. In spades. Tell him that."

  CHAPTER 17

  Victoria Kessel leaned back in her chintz-covered armchair and said to the speaker phone, "If you've used the game yourself, Sue, then you must have seen that there's nothing in it to cause any harm to anyone."

  Coming over the phone's speaker, Susan Santorini's voice sounded strained and implacable. "But it's not just that one game. It's almost all of them! The games that Angela describes to me all seem to be tailor-made just for her. There are differences—"

  "The differences are in your daughter's perception of her experience," Victoria said, trying to keep patient.

  Susan could hear the growing edge in Vickie's voice. She was sitting in her kitchen alcove, her morning's work pushed aside as she tried to track down what was happening to Angela. Every time she asked her daughter about the VR games at school Angela told her how wonderful they were.

  "There's always people in them that I know," she told her mother. "You and Daddy and even Uncle Kyle sometimes."

  The child seemed happy with the games, but Susan checked with Eleanor O'Connell and found that what Angela was reporting was not programmed into the games.

  "How could they program each child's friends and relatives into each game?" O'Connell asked Susan. "That wouldn't make any sense, would it?"

  Instead of
being afraid of the games, Angie now looked forward to them so much that Susan was beginning to fear she might be getting addicted to them.

  "It's as if the games are made specifically for her," Susan said into the phone. "The differences are small, but they're there. "

  "That's just not possible," said Vickie.

  "I've talked with Angie in some detail about it,, Susan explained. "What she's experiencing is different from the other kids."

  The edge in Victoria's voice grew sharper. "That's exactly what I've been trying to get across to you, Susan dear. Her perceptions of the game are different. It's like two people looking at the same painting, they can see entirely different things."

  "No," Susan insisted. "This is more than—"

  "Didn't Dan go through that game she played? 'Neptune's Kingdom'? What did he experience?"

  That brought Susan up short. Dan had told her next to nothing about his run through the game. Only that he didn't see anything harmful and couldn't understand what had bothered Angie so badly. In the two months since then Susan had mentioned her growing worries about Angie a couple of times, only to have her husband mutter that there was nothing wrong with the VR games.

  "Dan saw the same game that I did," she replied.

  Victoria sensed the slight sullenness in Susan's tone. She glanced sharply at the phone's little speaker grill, as if she could see Susan's face in it.

  "There. You see? You and Dan went through the same game. Dozens of school children use the games every day without any problems at all. If your daughter is seeing things in those games that the other children don't see, the problem is with her, Sue. I know it's hard to face up to that fact, but we really don't keep separate disks on hand for individual students."

  It was a lie and Victoria knew it. But it was one more hold she had acquired on Kyle Muncrief.

  Susan hung up, still obviously unconvinced. Victoria sat tensely in her chair. She knew that she was going to have more trouble with Susan Santorini. Something would have to be done.

  In the meantime, though, she had to follow up on Kyle's dealings with Washington. She got up from her chair, checked her hair and makeup in the Venetian mirror hanging on the opposite wall of her cozy office. She worked hard to keep looking good. Her silk blazer was a hot fuchsia color, set off with a heavy gold necklace and gold bangle bracelets and earrings. Just a hint of décolletage, enough to keep some of the younger guys interested. Satisfied with her appearance, she started down the corridor to Muncrief's office.

  Thanks to modern electronics and Victoria's insistence, there were no secretaries at ParaReality. One young woman served the top six of the corporate executive group. Her title was Executive Assistant to the President.

  All told, there were four other "executive assistants" in the company, two of them male Almost all the typing, filing, telephoning and other secretarial services were done by computerized machines. Even the coffeepots were automatic. Joe Rucker emptied and scrubbed them each night; he broke quite a few because he had only one hand to work with, but Jace Lowrey—of all people—insisted that Joe not be embarrassed by giving the chore to someone else. The executive assistants took turns filling them each morning.

  So there was no secretary guarding Kyle Muncrief's privacy when Victoria opened his door and stepped into his office. Muncrief was on the phone with a man who was obviously Japanese. It was not Hideki Toshimura in the desktop phone screen, but one of his underlings. A bad sign, Victoria thought as she perched herself on the leather couch next to the door, out of range of the telephone's TV camera.

  "Let me explain it one more time," Muncrief was saying, smiling his most cordial smile into the screen. "The programs that we develop and all the other technical data are the property of ParaReality Inc. The investors do not own that material."

  The man's face seemed as immobile as stone. "It is highly unusual, is it not, for one to own shares in a company and yet not own a share of the company's assets."

  "The investors own shares of Cyber World, not ParaReality. Cyber World Inc. provides the funding for ParaReality but does not own any of it. ParaReality is privately held. By me. That is the agreement that Mr. Toshimura signed," Muncrief said, with strained patience.

  "That is not our understanding of the agreement."

  "Very well then. Have your lawyers talk to my lawyers. There's no sense in our going around this again."

  The Japanese flushed visibly, then dipped his chin slightly. "I am sorry to have taken up your very important time, Mr. Muncrief."

  Muncrief smiled even more widely. "Think nothing of it. Tell Mr. Toshimura for me that I'm sorry this misunderstanding has come up. I'm sure our lawyers can iron it out."

  "Thank you for your time, sir."

  "Think nothing of it."

  The image on Muncrief's desktop phone screen winked off. He glared across the room at Victoria. "Toshimura thinks he can steal everything we're developing here and set up his own version of Cyber World in Tokyo."

  "That's what he's after?" Victoria asked as she walked across the deep russet carpeting and took one of the chairs in front of Muncrief's desk.

  "What else?"

  "But in our agreement it says we'll set up a Cyber World in Japan after the Orlando park is up and running."

  "Sure. But if he can get his greedy little hands on our programs Toshimura can dump us and go off and do it himself. Or make a deal with Sony or MGM or one of the other biggies."

  "What about Swenson?" Victoria asked. "Does he want to steal everything too and set himself up in Europe?"

  Muncrief's whole body seemed to sag. "I hadn't even thought of that! Lord, these guys are supposed to be investors, not competitors."

  "You're swimming with sharks, Kyle."

  "Tell me about it."

  "All the more reason to get some protection from Washington."

  He glowered at her.

  "How is the Washington deal going?" Victoria asked, crossing her legs primly. Her skirt was mid-thigh length, her patterned stockings a slightly deeper shade of purple than her suit.

  Muncrief barely glanced at her legs. He huffed and ran a hand across his chin. "How's it going? Smith wants a particular program. Won't tell me what he wants it for, but he says it's got to be developed and delivered before February first."

  "Why then?"

  "Who knows?" With a shrug.

  "Can we do it?"

  "If we can get the blasted baseball game going we can do it. From what he's telling me, we'll get the basic visual and audio material from Smith himself. All we have to do is to program it into an interactive system."

  "What kind of audiovisual material?"

  Muncrief fluttered his beefy hands. "Sounds like news footage, mostly. Videotapes from CNN and other news services. Stuff like that."

  "And what do they want to do with it?"

  "Use it as the basis for interactive scenarios. You know, what'll happen in the Middle East if somebody knocks off the prime minister of Israel or there's another revolution in Iran—that sort of thing."

  "Scenario building."

  "Yeah. It'll need the best possible graphics program; and it's got to be interactive. When I told Smith about the conflict games we're developing his eyes lit up like a Christmas tree."

  Victoria leaned back in her chair, fascinated. When Esther Cahan, an old friend from Victoria's college days, had first contacted her about this all she had said was that somebody in the government was interested in virtual reality. Slowly, over weeks that lengthened into months, he would phone Victoria and ask roundabout questions about what ParaReality was doing. Victoria was equally roundabout, fearing at first some subtle kind of government investigation might be underway.

  Gradually the two former college friends began to trust one another. It turned out that Esther was working in the White House: Well, not actually in it but in the Executive Office Building next door that housed most of the White House's ever-growing staff. And someone who really did work in the White House itself
was intrigued by certain possibilities of virtual reality.

  As she watched Muncrief struggle to keep his investors happy while maintaining the ever-increasing flow of development money he needed, Victoria realized that a connection with the power—and funding—of the White House would not be a bad idea. It had taken much more work than she had expected to convince Muncrief of that. He was afraid that Washington might uncover his past. But at last her boss, in desperation, had bitten the apple.

  It's my chance, she thought. My fallback position. Even if Kyle goes whacko and screws up the Cyber World deal, I can still take our expertise and make an exclusive deal with Washington. I won't need that slob Peterson and whoever he's working for. I can work for the White House instead.

  "Can you deliver what they want on time," she asked Muncrief, "without jeopardizing the Cyber World work?"

  "That's the big question, Vickie. I've got everybody working flat out to deliver the Cyber World games. How can we fit this blasted extra work in?"

  "Jace Lowrey could do it, if it interested him enough."

  "Oh no!" Muncrief snapped. "Not Jace. He'd drop the conflict game work he's supposed to be doing and play with this new program."

  "But isn't this a conflict game, too?"

  "Could be, maybe. Jace's done enough of the basic work. We don't need a genius for this. Especially not a crazy one like Jace."

  Victoria smiled and nodded reluctant agreement.

  "Besides, this project is supposed to be very hush-hush. Tell that to Jace and he'll be blabbing to the Washington Post before the sun goes down."

  "Who, then?"

  Muncrief shook his head.

  "What about Dan?" Vickie suggested. "He's a solid citizen. Quiet and dependable."

  "Dan," Muncrief muttered. "Can he do the work? Would it be too deep for him? He's really just a glorified technician, isn't he?"

  "It shouldn't be that tough. Like I said, Jace's already done the hardest part. Yeah, I think maybe Dan could handle it."

  "Then you'll pull him away from Jace?"

  "No. no! I'll just get him to do this on overtime. Nights, weekends. He's a workaholic anyway."

  Victoria thought that "workaholic" was not the most accurate description of Damon Santorini. Serious, yes. Very sensitive to his responsibilities. Very dedicated, with a strong sense of commitment.