The Sensory Deception

by Ransom Stephens

  She listed contingencies:

  Plan A: Farley and Chopper collaborate with the radical environmentalist for a month, maybe two, get the Moby data, and develop the killer app. Meanwhile, she gets the contracts in motion and prepares the VirtExReality Arcade launch.

  Plan B: The team gets mainstream apps ready to go, in case anything goes wrong with the Moby data or the killer app turns out not-so-killer. At the end of the meeting, when Farley whispered to her, he’d given her authority to offer Bupin those apps, complete with delivery dates. And she hadn’t had to use it. Yet.

  Plan C: She finds out the value of development licenses, so that if the bottom falls out, she can sell them fast and, in this worst case, salvage her career and the Captain’s house.

  The last one left a bad taste in her mouth. For a second, she wondered if Chopper was right about business, at least sometimes.

  At four in the morning, she put on a pot of coffee and set to work on Plan A’s administrative details. She dug through her notes and refreshed her memory: the pod of sperm whales was a few miles off the coast of the Horn of Africa being monitored by a man named Randy Gaynes, captain of the Cetacean Avenger. She did an Internet search on the ship’s name and got a slew of YouTube videos and news reports about the “outlaw antiwhaling vessel.”

  She brought up a travel booking website. The closest major city, Mogadishu, didn’t seem to have a functioning government, much less daily flights from San Francisco. They’d have to fly into Nairobi. It took another two hours to figure out the paper trail she’d have to blaze to get their sensor and DAQ equipment through both US and Kenyan customs. Red flags popped up at every turn. Though Kenya had the most stable government in the region, it also had plenty of theft, kidnappings, and carjackings. The deeper she dug into the details, the clearer it became that she needed expert advice.

  She knew an expert on traveling in that region of the world, and not only would he be wide-awake at this time of day, but he’d be tickled to hear from her.

  Gloria’s father answered on the first ring. “Golie! Why do you never call me?”

  “I’m calling you right now.”

  “Of course; I’m sorry.”

  “Do you have a fare?”

  “No, I am crossing the Golden Gate Bridge.” Tahir had been driving a taxi for nearly twenty years now.

  She tried to ask questions about travel to Somalia without providing details. She should have known better. It took half an hour to explain the situation.

  “All this to put a camera on a fish?”

  “It’s an entire sensory data acquisition system. They need to record everything the whale experiences.”

  “Why not use American fish?”

  “Oh, never mind. I’ll ask someone else.” Gloria didn’t mean to be cruel. “Can you at least help me find a guide?”

  “A guide to take your friends to Somalia?”

  “No, to a ship off the Somalian coast.”

  “Do you care for these men?”

  “Yes, of course.”

  “You care for them a lot?”

  “They’re good men, my business partners.” She said it with warmth and pride.

  “Then tell them not to go to Somalia.”

  “That’s why I’m trying to find a guide.”

  Tahir went silent. She could hear him driving, and then the engine cut off. He said, “You insist that they’re going, and you want someone to go with them to provide advice on their safety. Is that right?”

  She said, “Yes, someone who knows the customs of the region in case anything comes up.”

  “Do you love this man? What is his name? Farley?”

  The question shouldn’t have caught her off guard, but it did, and she answered without thinking. “Yes.” A beat later she added, “Not like that though—I mean, not romantically. He’s my business partner. A very good man.”

  “Two men will be going?”

  “Yes.”

  “But you only love one of them.”

  This was the reason she didn’t call her father more often. Regardless of the subject, he managed to confuse everything she said.

  “Never mind. I’m sure my firm can find someone.”

  “Golie, wait. I’m sorry. You know I don’t understand how you live. Always I say the wrong thing and push you away. This time, though, I can help you. Please let me. This once, please.”

  The unspoken reference to her stepfather stung. Developing her career as an Iranian female, even in egalitarian Silicon Valley, required guidance that her stepfather had provided. “You think you can help?”

  “Yes. I will go with them.”

  “They are strong, intelligent men.”

  “You care for this Farley. I will protect him.”

  “That’s not what I meant.”

  “Let me do this for you, Golie. I will protect your man. Maybe you love him, maybe you don’t. I am not too old yet for this. Maybe it is my last chance to help you.” His voice went soft. The confidence and bluster gone, he said, “Please, you know that I can do this job better than anyone you might find.”

  At fifty-five years old Tahir was still built like a rock. He didn’t participate in sports or go to a gym, but he did the equivalent of a triathlon every week. He told people that it was the only way to remain sane as a cabdriver. She considered the idea, wondering how Farley would react and how Tahir would respond to Farley and Chopper. The call hadn’t gone the way she’d expected. She’d only wanted advice, but conversations with her father never went the way she expected. She pictured the three of them together and it started to make sense: three resourceful men with complementary talents.

  She asked, “Have you ever been to Kenya?”

  Now he sounded impatient. “Golie, there is not a situation among men that I can’t handle. Child, you know this to be true. I am going.”

  She gave him directions to the Captain’s house and, noticing that it was almost seven a.m., said, “I have to leave right now—how long will it take you to get there?”

  Farley usually slept at least seven hours, but he spent that night in the office. The sound of the waves below comforted him. A single nautical light hung over the desk, illuminating a piece of paper with a phone number. He scanned the floor-to-ceiling bookcases. Over the years, Farley had moved the Captain’s books to the top shelves where they formed a foundation for extensive cobwebs. Antique books on meteorology, navigation, and shipbuilding accompanied sixty-seven cardboard-bound logbooks, one for each year of Butch Rutherford’s career as a fisherman and whaler. He had recorded more than tides, catches, and weather conditions in them. The Captain had written one line for each day of his life from his first year at sea when he was fifteen years old to the day before he died.

  At fifteen, Butch got a job on a whaling ship out of Providence, Rhode Island. He sailed down the Atlantic to Antarctica and then up the Pacific, chasing whales and killing them. After twenty years, he became one of the first captains of the Del Monte Fishing Company, which sailed out of the Golden Gate. Butch Rutherford resigned his first captaincy after one voyage. He moved to Santa Cruz, took a year off, and built this house for his wife and three-year-old son, Farley’s father.

  As a child, Farley begged the Captain for stories about his whaling days. And the Captain told tales of salt and bullshit, the pursuit of monsters through huge swells in subfreezing seawater. The stories captured young Farley’s interest, even as they grew more dramatic with each telling, but the Captain never spoke about his days working for Del Monte Fishing. He would just shake his head, look out at the horizon, and, depending on his mood, mumble something about the power of fools, the seven deadly sins, or the value of knowing your place in the universe.

  Gray whales, which migrate at about four knots up and down North America’s western coast, wintering along the Baja peninsula and summering in the Arctic Ocean, were nearly wiped out by diesel-powered ships capable of forty knots and equipped with rocket-propelled harpoons. Finally, the Marine Mammal P
rotection Act of 1972 declared whaling off-limits within two hundred miles of the coast. The act had worked, and Farley spent his childhood watching the gray whales reclaim their place.

  Now Farley paced in his office. At first he thought his anxiety came from the accusation that, by attaching sensors to a sperm whale, he would violate the spirit of the Marine Mammal Protection Act. That couldn’t be it, though. He’d been equipping wild animals with sensors his entire career and had never impeded the ability of those animals to protect themselves or hunt.

  The choices echoed around his head: sell out to the video game industry or sell out to a guy like Randy Gaynes. He pressed his ear against the window and listened to the ocean’s rhythm. Wind whistled up from the beach. He stepped outside, embraced the cold, and paced on the deck. It was failure. That’s what was bothering him: that he couldn’t achieve this goal without compromising. If he stood his ground, he’d lose the Captain’s house. Was that it? Could he be so small?

  Farley leaned over the deck railing and inhaled salty spray. He went back inside, sat at the desk, picked up the landline, and dialed the number on that sheet of paper. Two in the morning here, it was afternoon at the other end of the line. Farley knew the phone would ring on the bridge of the Cetacean Avenger. The pilot answered and then paged the captain.

  “Farley Rutherford!” Gaynes said. “I’ve been expecting your call. Yeah, got an e-mail from Bert Stasheff—remember him? Used to crew for me. He said you’ve got some tricks up your sleeve, need a sperm whale. That about it?”

  Farley started to describe virtual experience technology but Gaynes interrupted him. “Sure, attaching cameras and microphones and whatnot, you’ve been doing it for years, right? You know, a sperm whale is bigger than a songbird.”

  Farley described the company, the technology, and their predicament.

  “Yeah, Greenpeace has no balls,” Gaynes said. “So you’re going to tranquilize a mature bull sperm whale?”

  “Not so much tranquilize as give him a nice, euphoric buzz so he’ll let us attach equipment.” He described how Chopper had formulated similar drugs for the polar bear.

  “Chopper found education? I did not see that coming.”

  “He’s a research neuroscientist, PhDs in neurology and pharmacology.”

  “Well, Chopper never was the type to do something halfway.”

  Farley could hear Gaynes speaking to someone. When he came back on the phone he said, “Okay. You’re in. We have space for you. Just one rule.”

  “I’m listening.”

  “Once you’re on my ship, you follow my orders. Our mission is pretty simple: we protect whales from humans.”

  “Randy, I know you.”

  “I haven’t changed much.”

  They spoke for another ten minutes about logistics before Farley hung up. He resumed pacing.

  As the sun rose, Farley and Ringo sat on the couch working at their laptops and drinking one of Ringo’s thicker brews. Chopper sat out on the bluff communing with the ocean, or whatever it was he did out there every morning. The coffee tasted like acidic dirt, but Farley felt the bags under his eyes fading away with each sip. By the time Gloria got there, Chopper had joined them on the couch.

  Ringo said, “You’re late.”

  “It was a long night,” Gloria said. “Just let me get some coffee.” She set her briefcase on the counter, went into the kitchen, and poured herself a cup. She took a sip and winced. Standing next to the whiteboard, she looked at each person and said, “I think we should reconsider working with Randy Gaynes.”

  Chopper smiled.

  Ringo looked at Farley.

  Farley said, “I don’t see any other way to go.”

  Gloria sighed and asked, “Are we unanimous?”

  Chopper said, “I’m in.”

  Ringo said, “Really? Randy Gaynes?” He looked at everyone, shrugged, and added, “Okay.”

  Farley said, “It’s not my first choice. Let’s just get in there, get what we need, and get out.”

  “I talked to an expert on East Africa last night,” Gloria said. “We need to know what we’re getting into.”

  Farley said, “I’ve sailed the Indian Ocean before. Chopper and I have sailed every ocean on earth. We’ve worked with Randy Gaynes before, too. We know what we’re getting into. It’s not an ideal situation, but it’s not any more dangerous than if we were working in Monterey Bay.”

  “You’re going to an unstable part of the planet. There are no pirates in Monterey Bay.”

  “Pirates? Seriously?”

  “You’re aware of the problem, aren’t you?”

  “I talked to Captain Gaynes, last night, he didn’t mention any problem with crime. The Cetacean Avenger doesn’t have anything they want.” He leaned forward. “Gloria, I’ve thought it through. It’s morally dubious but not unsafe.”

  “As an investor,” Gloria said, “I have two conditions.”

  “Name them.”

  “I want you to take a guide. Someone to help with customs in that part of the world. Think of him as a cultural adviser.”

  “You have someone in mind?”

  “I do.”

  “We’ll have to interview him.”

  “He should be here in a few minutes.”

  “Then you knew before you got here that we’d be going with Gaynes?”

  “The second condition is that I want Ringo to work on a few mainstream apps and have prototypes ready just in case.”

  “We already agreed to that.”

  “What?” Chopper said.

  Gloria turned to Ringo. “How long would it take to develop something like a flight simulator or race car app?”

  Ringo’s eyes lit up. “I can do much better than that.” He looked at Farley, oozing enthusiasm, but avoided looking toward Chopper. “How about Spider-Man? Or the Avengers? Or even Daredevil? I can reuse existing software.”

  “Oh, come on,” Chopper said. “Let’s just open a Walmart instead. Or maybe we should sell our intellectual property to the Pentagon.”

  Farley stood and said, “Take it easy, Chopper.” He took his place on the opposite side of the whiteboard from Gloria. “It’s a backup plan.” He watched Chopper, knowing how much Chopper would hate the idea. “And we need a backup plan. What if, for some reason, we can’t get Moby data on the first try? If we’re not prepared, we’ll be finished. What if the first pass at Moby doesn’t work? What if we can’t get sensory saturation without more sensitive biometric feedback?”

  Chopper exhaled through the side of his mouth. “Don’t worry about sensory saturation, it’s in the bag.”

  Farley said, “Gloria, did you work up a budget?”

  She pulled her laptop out of her briefcase, opened it, and wrote on the whiteboard. “I based the budget on what I think we can get from Sand Hill Ventures once you have some Moby data and anything resembling a prototype. It’s essentially a shoestring version of the original proposal. I also raised some money by moving some things in-house.” She pointed at the first line. “We’ll cancel the VirtExReality chamber order and make do with the converted sensory deprivation chambers we already have, and I’ll get a quote for just twenty-five VirtExReality helmets, gloves, and jumpsuits. We’ll open one VirtExReality Arcade—we have enough money for two, maybe three months’ rent on a retail location. We have to be ready when a location becomes available, and we’ll have to remodel it ourselves.” She pointed to the last number on her list but was interrupted by a knock on the door.

  “He’s here.” She sounded nervous.

  Farley went to the door with Gloria right behind.

  A short, wiry man with deep lines in his forehead and at the corners of his eyes greeted Farley with an abrupt “Hello.”

  The man looked familiar, but Farley couldn’t think of where they’d met. He noticed a taxi parked in the driveway. Maybe he’d gotten a ride from this man at some point.

  Gloria said, “Farley, this is Tahir. He’s the expert I told you about.”


  Tahir stepped to Gloria and took her in his arms.

  Gloria looked embarrassed. She said, “He’s my father.”

  “Your dad?”

  Tahir said, “Golie, she is my daughter.”

  Farley held out his right hand and said, “Good to meet you, Mr. Baradaran.”

  Tahir released Gloria, stood straight, and looked Farley up and down before taking his outstretched hand. Farley locked his hand on Tahir’s until the older man turned to Gloria.

  She said, “He’s an expert on North African culture and the Middle East.”

  “I am more than that,” Tahir said.

  “Come on in,” Farley said.

  Holding Gloria’s hand, he stepped inside. Farley watched him scan the hallway. He looked into the shadows as though mapping the layout, then swiveled his gaze across the pictures hanging on the wall, all in one fluid motion. He seemed to repeat the process with every step.

  Gloria led him to the living room and introduced him to Chopper and Ringo.

  Chopper stood and shook the man’s hand. Farley was struck by the similarity of the two. They had olive complexions, the same build, and a way of carrying themselves that suggested agility and dexterity.

  “Have a seat,” Farley said. Instead of sitting on the couch with the others, Tahir took a stool at the counter between the living room and kitchen. Every move this man made seemed designed to acquire some sort of psychological, tactical, or even physical advantage. “I appreciate your coming, but I have to admit that I don’t know how you can help.”

  Gloria started to speak, but Tahir quieted her with a gesture. He said, “You’re going someplace dangerous. It is impossible for you to blend in. You will be a target everywhere you go. I can help.”

  Gloria said, “You’ll need his help dealing with the locals, the language, and the culture.”

  Farley said, “Other than airports and harbors, we’ll be at sea. Chopper and I have sailed all seven seas. Seriously, we’ve done this before.”

  Gloria said, “Think of him as—”

  Again, Tahir quieted her with barely a look. “I have traveled by sea but am not a sailor. Let me show you something.” He dismounted the stool, pulled a map of Africa out of his back pocket, and unfolded it on the coffee table. He ran his hands from Kenya to the Persian Gulf. “Exactly where will you be going?”