Virtual Perfection: Technology has drawn everyone into Virtual Reality, but what will happen to humanity if no one can get out? (Veiled Destiny Book 1)

by Jason Bourn

  “Thank you,” he said formally. “I think we should get started. Welcome, it is nice to see you again.”

  Evidently pleased with herself that she had got a reaction, she said in an equally formal voice pitched as low as she could and said with a straight face, “Yes sir, how did you want to proceed sir.”

  This was not going to be easy, thought Calaes. He tried as hard as he could not to smile, but seeing her expression brighten even further, he was fairly sure he had not succeeded. “Your father indicated that we should talk about strategy and tactics and I think that is a great idea. I believe in starting with the big picture and then working the details, in that order. It doesn’t really make any sense to work the details if the big picture is not correct. In other words, if we are not headed in the right direction, concentrating on how to make small course corrections just doesn’t make sense.”

  She responded, “Yes, that makes sense. How do you propose we start?”

  This immediately irritated him. He wasn’t sure why exactly. He supposed that since she was the “expert” that she should start. Well, if she wasn’t going to do it, then he would show her how to do her job!

  “Ok then,” he said probably a bit more gruffly than he had planned, “let’s do a quick scrub on the strategy. Here is what we know. One: the vast majority of people are ‘stuck’ in VR with no hope of ever getting out. Two: the government has advocated and facilitated this path. Three: the government sponsored a way out of VR, namely the Mars Colony, but sabotaged it from being built and populated. Four: If nothing gets done relatively quickly the human race will be ‘stuck’ in VR with no realistic way out which will eventually lead to the end of mankind.”

  He looked at her, but she just smiled back at him and waited for him to continue.

  “Our strategy,” he finally continued, remembering back to what he had told her father, “is to get a large enough group of people to Mars so they can establish a society independent and isolated from the powerful draw of Earth-based virtual reality that threatens to eventually doom the human race.”

  “Well,” she responded, looking at him critically, “I suppose that this strategy is probably the best we can come up with?” She almost made it sound like a question.

  This caused Calaes to bristle. “We?” He had done all the work. How was it that “this was the best that ‘we’ can come up with”? “Ok,” he said through clenched teeth, “can we get to the tactics now?”

  She responded airily, “Well, I suppose so, if that is the best strategy there is. Given this strategy, what tactics do you recommend?”

  Calaes just grew more frustrated. It seemed like he was going to have to do all the work. Some expert she was! Thinking that this meeting might be just a waste of time, he quickly and brusquely went over the tactics that he had told her father: “One, we need to fight off the government that is trying to obstruct the building of the settlement; two, find the missing material; and three, get the installation work started.”

  Hope responded, “OK, for the first how do you recommend fighting the government? They are much bigger and more powerful than we are.”

  Calaes thought about that for a few seconds. He grudgingly admitted that she was probably right. “OK, maybe ‘fighting’ is not the right thing to do. I guess the first tactic should be changed to ensuring the government doesn’t interfere with the Mars colony.”

  “What do you mean,” she asked, “by ‘doesn’t interfere with the Mars colony?’ Your last tactic is to ‘get the installation work started.’ Does that mean that your first tactic is redundant?”

  “Damn,” he thought. He hadn’t expected to get the ninth degree on this. He had thought this would be simpler – two people talking, with both sharing their ideas. Here she was critiquing him on his ideas. It wasn’t really fair. He felt silly with his reaction, it seemed almost childish. He couldn’t figure out whether it was her fault for making him feel this way or whether the fault was entirely his. Trying to save face, he responded, “You bring up a good point. The last tactic should be changed to ‘get the installation work started and completed.’ I’ll have to think if the first tactic can be removed due to redundancy.”

  Hope said, “I’m glad you’re not throwing it away without thinking about it.”

  For the next twenty minutes Hope continued to, in Calaes’ opinion, nit-pick every part of the tactics. Calaes had expected that this would annoy him, and while it did to a certain degree, he found himself intrigued by her insights and her well-thought-out opinions.

  Time passed so quickly that, looking at the time, Calaes couldn’t believe that it had become so late. Hope also looked at the time and commented, “It is getting late, so I think that we should take this up in our next meeting. Maybe you’ll be better prepared after you’ve had some more time to think about it.” Her smile was so wide that Calaes couldn’t help but smile. He knew she was doing it on purpose just to get a reaction. The thing was that she did get a reaction from him. It was a frustrating mix of emotions that she elicited out of him.

  She continued, “I talked to my father and he suggested that the next meeting between us should be a face-to-face meeting. How about you suggest a time for next week and I’ll confirm if I can make it.”

  Calaes agreed and they said their good-byes. Calaes thought about getting up to leave, but he hesitated. He wasn’t sure how he felt. Their conversation was stimulating both from the mental and emotional point of views. He felt exhausted, like he had run a marathon. Why was it that she evinced so much emotion from him? If this was what a crush was, he was pretty sure he didn’t want anything to do with it. But deep down he had to admit that he was intrigued by her: Her mind, yes. Her body, definitely. But mostly it was her personality that attracted her to him. Especially how she would playfully criticize him and then smile that devilish smile.

  He decided to stop thinking about that smile, because he couldn't think about anything else when that started. He knew that he needed to concentrate on the valid criticisms from their meeting, so he vowed to do that and not let anything else occupy his thoughts. He would not think about her wonderful smile. “Damn,” he thought to himself several seconds later – of course her smile was all that he had been thinking of. This was not going to be easy.

  CHAPTER 22

  It had taken a bit more than a week to set up the face-to-face meeting with Hope. Calaes’ candidate interviews were winding down. He had more and more gaps of two or three days between interviews. Again, Randy said that he would ensure that the candidate would decide not to break out of VR so Calaes would have several hours of free time to meet with Hope. Calaes had asked Randy how he could ensure this would happen, but Randy had begged off of telling him in the name of security. “Not knowing what you don’t need to know will keep us all safer,” he had said.

  Calaes had used the time well. He had gone over the tactics forwards and backwards and now he felt prepared to “win” his conversation with Hope. He had felt that he had not performed very well during their last meeting, so he was determined to do much better. If he thought about it, he knew that he was trying to impress her so he intentionally refused to think about that part of it. He had solidified in his mind the tactics that he felt confident would stand up to any level of scrutiny.

  Feeling fully prepared, he set off to meet Hope at the agreed-upon location. As he approached the building, he saw that it had a large lobby. In looking inside the lobby, off to the side, he saw Hope. She nodded quickly to him and walked rapidly to the elevator. Without speaking, she waited for him to enter then pushed the lowest floor button – three floors below ground. Hope silently led him to a large room with solid-looking doors containing a large table and chairs, but not much else.

  He closed the door, turned and saw Hope had settled down comfortably into the closest chair. Again, she wore the standard stretch suit – but for some indefinable reason Calaes thought she looked great.

  She started out by saying, “My father said that this r
oom is safe for talking without anyone eavesdropping in on our conversations.”

  Calaes nodded. He really hadn’t considered checking the security of the room himself, but he saw the wisdom of doing it.

  He settled down in a chair across from Hope. Her long golden-brown hair flowed down her back, unencumbered by pins, clips or bands. Calaes felt that this was very much in tune with her personality. She looked at him oddly, turning her head to the side and asked, “What are you looking at? You haven’t taken your eyes off me since we sat down. Do you even know what color the walls are or what is hanging on them?”

  She smiled at his look of discomfort. He realized that she was right. He hadn’t noticed anything but her. And there was something else. Not just how she looked. He thought about it, but couldn’t place it. It was there, just outside of his comprehension. She looked back at him, then exhaled loudly shaking her head.

  That’s when it hit him. It wasn’t what she looked like that held him. It was an elusive quality that he hadn’t even thought about. She just smelled right!

  She smelled good, true, but it was more than that. He knew if he closed his eyes and sat there, that she was what? “Compatible” was the only word that came to mind. Not that he wanted to close his eyes. It wasn’t anything in his conscious mind – but he felt it nevertheless. He then knew that no matter the outcome, this meeting and any future face-to-face meetings were going to be much harder to get through than he had thought.

  Hope was saying something. He smiled and shook his head to clear it. This brought an immediate smile to Hope’s face, lighting it up. “You look so much better when you smile,” she said. “I thought that I had lost you. You were just staring at me, but sort of through me. Welcome back.”

  Calaes was chagrined. This meeting was not starting out as he had hoped, no pun intended. He chuckled to himself at his little joke. At least he still had his sense of humor, if not his dignity. “Sorry,” he said, “I was just thinking about a few things. Did you ask me a question?”

  “Yes,” she replied, “I asked if you are ready to begin.”

  “Yes, ready as rain.” He immediately felt foolish with his response. He had sworn to himself that he would remain professional and he wasn’t doing a very good job so far. “I’m ready to continue the tactics discussion that we started in our last meeting, if you are up for it that is.”

  Hope smiled and said, “Actually, I wanted to ensure that you’re still good with the strategy. That is much more important to do first, rather than tactics.”

  He grimaced. Of course, strategy should go first. It always went first. But since they had discussed strategy last time, with no real disagreements from her that he could think of, he had assumed that they could skip right to the tactics. What exactly had she said about the strategy he had put forth? He tried to remember, but he couldn’t think of exactly what she had said.

  She continued nonplussed, “You said ‘Our strategy is to get a large enough group of people to Mars so they can establish a society independent and isolated from the powerful draw of Earth-based virtual reality that threatens to eventually doom the human race.’ ” She said it as if she were a teacher lecturing a slow student. That really grated on him. If he had hackles, they would be standing straight up. He wasn’t even sure what hackles were, and that frustrated him even more. She continued, “So, are you good with this strategy, or should we work on it some more?”

  He grimaced, but refused to get into another “we” argument, even though he had done all the work in generating the strategy. Before he could say something he was going to regret, he quickly said “Yes, I’m fine with it. We can go to tactics.” So far, this meeting had not gone any better than the last one.

  “OK,” she said, “if you’re sure. But we can go back to the strategy any time you want to.”

  Calaes grimaced and started outlining his updated tactics to Hope. “One, we need to let the candidates know about you rebels without alerting the government; two, we need to find the missing colony materials; three, we need to get the installation work started and completed within a reasonable schedule; and four, we need to keep the government from interfering with the building and running of the settlement.” He paused and waited expectantly for Hope’s reaction. He felt confident, but Hope was always surprising him so he tried not to feel overconfident.

  She started out, “I’d like to start with your first tactic. You have to be extremely careful that the government does not find out about us. We have had an extremely talented group of people working to ensure complete anonymity. We cannot afford to have anyone or anything compromise our security. So, whatever you do, it has to be done with this assurance in mind. This is the number one priority. How do you propose to do this?”

  Calaes considered this. He had known that it would be delicate indeed to let everyone know about the rebels and that the government was not doing what it was supposed to do. How specifically this was to be done was not something that he had thought a lot about. “I was thinking that I could break the news to the team-leads first and gauge their reactions. If everything goes well, we can flow the news down to their teams, on a team-by-team basis.”

  Hope countered, “But how do you ensure that no one will either intentionally or inadvertently alert the government to our presence? As I said, that would be a complete disaster and we need to prevent this at all costs.”

  Calaes was so unfamiliar with all the nuances of both the people and the message that he didn’t know exactly how to proceed. He tried to think what he should say, but he couldn’t find the right words.

  Looking like she was throwing him a life-line, Hope’s appearance softened. “I’m glad you’re not charging ahead like a rampaging bull, trying to impress the girl.” She smiled. “Some guys try to do that as attention-getters, but that always rates them poorly in my book.” She paused, then went on, “Since security is so important, I recommend that you provide only the most essential information to them and only give additional information to those you trust the most, and only when it is critical that they have the information.”

  “I know,” she added, “that this is hard, but it is extremely important. In fact, I must confess that we are withholding some important information from you – to protect both you and us.”

  Calaes was somewhat disturbed by this information – but he really couldn’t blame them. He understood what the stakes were. He finally said, “I agree with your approach, but there really is no foolproof way to ensure that the government will not find out about something.”

  Hope responded grimly, “Yes, but we need to do whatever we can to prevent this.”

  Calaes smiled at that. He had never seen Hope look down or depressed. That was one of the things that he liked about her – she was always so upbeat. Wanting to lighten her spirits, Calaes wondered what he could do. He decided that maybe they could talk about something else, something on a lighter topic. “So, what is your favorite color?”

  She responded, “You know the beautiful blue of the water on a tropical beach with white sand? Well that isn’t it.” She laughed, “No, actually I do like that color. But I like lots of other colors as well. The deep green of a pine forest or the almost pure-white of a full moon. I sure am going to miss those when we leave.”

  Calaes was intrigued by her response. He had received much more than the expected “red” or “blue.” She seemed so much more whole a person, with more depth and variety – more so than anyone else he could remember. He wondered what she thought about him, but thought that it might not be appropriate to ask at this point.

  They engaged in conversation about various topics, with Calaes becoming intrigued with her more and more as time went on.

  More quickly than he would have liked, their time was at an end. He wanted to hug her or say something about what he was thinking to her, but he wasn’t sure that it was appropriate. In fact, it probably was not appropriate. He decided to shake her hand and give it a gentle squeeze – and he was thrille
d when it was reciprocated. “Good-bye. I enjoyed our meeting and conversation very much,” he said.

  She agreed, not saying much. Calaes left through the lobby and looked back once. He couldn’t be sure if she was there, hanging back, or not.

  It was a long walk back to the candidate meeting room, as Calaes thought about all the challenges ahead.

  CHAPTER 23

  Calaes had thought for the last few days about how to disseminate the news to the candidates. He had decided to start with the team-leads in a separate meeting. This was a no-brainer since there were less than thirty of them and he didn’t expect any problems from any of the thirty. The bigger challenge was how to let everyone else know. There were now almost six hundred that also needed to be informed and he really had only two real choices. Either he could tell them in smaller groups or all at once. He would much rather tell them in smaller groups so it was easier to see everyone’s reactions and speak accordingly, and it would also be easier for everyone to ask questions in a small-group forum. However, he knew that there was one fatal flaw to this approach. If he told everyone in small meetings, it would take several days to get through all the groups. There was sure to be gossip from the first groups to all the others that had not been told. This would invariably lead to miscommunication, which could be disastrous since the most important element was to ensure that the government not hear anything about this. There was far too much chance of a rumor getting out that would cause someone to contact or otherwise alert the government.

  The team-lead meeting invitation had stressed that no electronics could be brought to the meeting and even the fact of the meeting’s existence was to be held under strict confidence. This immediately raised the level of interest of all the team-leads.