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

  Shuttle availability, food stock availability, legal issues – and the list went on and on. Each item had to be worked to find a solution. Some solutions were mundane, such as re-prioritizing shuttle launch dates and destinations. Others took a bit more ingenuity, such as substituting a 3-D printer with a generous supply of many types of filament instead of separately shipping a whole group of original and spare parts.

  Fortunately, the lift capability from Earth to Mars was not an issue, since so much material and equipment had already been shipped for many years. There was therefore no need to build additional shuttles, which would have extended the schedule well beyond what was desired.

  As each problem was resolved, Calaes’ optimism grew. He could see the end in sight. That was when the major problems started to hit.

  The first started out as a seemingly minor issue. They always loaded the same products on two different shuttles to Mars – this was done for convenience so they could easily ensure that if only one of the two ships arrived safely, they would still have all the products from the duplicate ship manifest.

  Calaes’ teams were constantly checking and rechecking everything. This included the weights of the shuttles. The, at least initially, small problem was that even though the manifests matched, the weight of the shuttles did not. There was something off. And with thousands of items on both of the ships’ manifests, it was difficult to determine what was wrong. Each team responsible for their manifest checked and rechecked. However, they couldn’t reconcile the difference. Finally, Calaes decided to intervene directly. He normally didn’t, but this was starting to become a big deal – holding up two future launches.

  Calaes secured both manifests and quickly verified they were the same. Since both teams were totally independent, there was no common factor between them to check with. Time was counting down and he had no reasonable way of proceeding. He finally decided that having each team perform a visual check of each ship was the only way to proceed. He knew that this would take an extra day, but he didn’t have a lot of options. So, even though each team had inspected their ship’s manifests for all the items on each of their ships, off they went to visually re-check their ship. The only problem was that both teams came back and said that their ships’ manifests were correct. And yet the unaccounted weight difference persisted.

  Calaes thought it over. He wasn’t sure how to break the logjam. He didn’t want to count the items himself – that didn’t make any sense and would take way too long anyway. Finally, a thought came to him that just might work. Since both teams had the exact same manifests, he would switch responsibilities. So, team A would now be responsible for ship B and vice-versa. He asked them each to re-check their (new) ship.

  The report from the first team came back indicating that all was accounted for.

  The report from the second team came back indicating that there was a problem. One particular part, quantity five, an oxygen exchanger, was not the correct part. All five of the parts that were in place of the oxygen exchangers were pulled and inspected. These parts were found to be extremely volatile, and would have likely ruptured and caused the ship to be destroyed. They had prevented an “accident,” but it appeared not to be an accident.

  Calaes consulted with the team-lead of the original team to find out how this had not been caught. The team-lead indicated that a team member named Bernard Hastings had been responsible for this part, including checking the ship’s inventory.

  Calaes immediately requested the position of Bernard. The system responded with “Error. Person or persons not found.” How was this possible? The team-lead had been corresponding with him less than an hour ago. He sent an emergency message to security to pull Bernard in for questioning immediately.

  Security checked his office and living quarters, but could not find him.

  Calaes sent a quick message to Randy asking him if he knew anything about Bernard’s disappearance. Calaes received a quick response saying “Yes, when it became apparent that Bernard was a security risk, he was removed from the training campus.”

  Calaes did not know what to think. Removing him was probably the right decision, but Calaes was not happy being out of the loop. He really wanted to be consulted. His doubts about the rebels came rushing back. Could they really trust them?

  And this was just the first problem. The next problem was worse, far worse.

  It had started innocently enough.

  A request for information from Kurt Van Winkle, an aviation specialist candidate, concerning the government’s updated schedule. Since it was going outside the training campus, it had to be approved by Calaes. Normally Calaes’ persa would either approve or deny the request. However, this request was subtly different from most requests. Instead of a request for a database lookup or some other benign lookup request, this request was to a person. Calaes’ persa recognized the difference in requests and since it didn’t have any rule or previous guidance, it alerted Calaes without approving or denying the request.

  It took a moment for Calaes to recognize why his persa was not simply approving the request. When he finally understood the subtle difference, he considered the implications of this request. He had to find out why this particular request was being made. He set up an interactive meeting with Kurt to discuss his request.

  When Kurt’s face appeared, Calaes got right into it. “Kurt, why did you send a request to an April Morita? Normally requests for schedule information are sent directly to the scheduler program.”

  Kurt, looking slightly defensive said, “I know April very well. We grew up together and she is associated with the government. We’ve been led to believe that the government is doing something wrong and I just can’t believe that April would be involved in anything that would be considered corrupt.”

  Calaes could feel for the man, but on the other hand he couldn’t allow the government to catch wind of the fact that they knew about the government’s intentional slow-down strategy. As tactfully as possible Calaes said, “I’m sorry, but personal communications to government personnel is a potential security violation and is specifically prohibited.”

  Kurt almost shouted, “You can’t do that.” Then he visibly attempted to regain control. “I’m sorry, but there are a group of candidates here that are in the same situation as I am – we have friends in the government and we find it difficult to believe that they are participating in anything like what you are accusing them of. We have been talking among ourselves and we have a big issue that has been just festering and we wanted to talk to someone about it. I was chosen as the guinea pig to see if we would be allowed to. Obviously, the answer is no. But this doesn’t alleviate any of our concerns.”

  Calaes was floored. He couldn’t believe what he had just heard. “How many are in your group? And do they all feel as strongly as you?”

  Kurt looked extremely defensive while considering Calaes’ requests. Finally, he said, “I don’t think it is in my or our best interests to divulge any additional information. We’ve all seen people disappear around here. We don’t think it is any coincidence that it happened to those who were the most vocal. I was elected to try to test the waters and sure enough this vindicated our misgivings. You should know that if I disappear, you’re never going to know who the rest of our group is. We have taken great pains to ensure that there is no electronic trail or any other trail to find us.”

  Calaes considered this. He hadn’t anticipated this level of coordinated resistance. He didn’t really know the scope of the problem – was it five people or five hundred people? And were any of the team-leads sympathetic to this group?

  He felt he was really in a bind, surrounded by groups he couldn’t fully trust on all sides. The government was plainly attempting to sabotage the entire undertaking. The pro-government resistance that Kurt represented at a minimum were pushing back and quite possibly were trying to get the government involved. And Calaes didn’t know if he could fully trust Randy, Hope and the rest of the rebels, who might h
ave an agenda of their own.

  Calaes knew that he didn’t have enough information on this resistance group, so he did what he felt was the only thing that he could do – buy time and try to get additional information. “So, what can I do to mitigate your concerns, without going to the government?”

  “Why,” Kurt asked, “are you so concerned about going to the government? It is almost like you have something to hide.”

  “There it was,” thought Calaes. They did have something to hide, but he couldn’t let Kurt or any of their group know this. Out loud he said, “It isn’t so much that we have something to hide, it is just that we don’t want to give the government any ammunition to be able to slow down the building of the settlement,” Calaes said.

  Kurt just stared at him for a long while. Finally, he said, “Plainly you won’t let us talk to our friends in the government to get their side of the story. And just as plainly without this information our group is not going to be satisfied with anything that you might say. It sounds like we are at a standoff for now.”

  “Great,” thought Calaes. Now he had to somehow walk a tightrope, trying to get all the candidates and equipment ready to go to the settlement while some unknown number of them were potentially attempting to sabotage this same goal. How were they ever going to be successful?

  CHAPTER 30

  Calaes didn’t feel he had any choice. He didn’t fully trust Randy. Yet he couldn’t think of anything else to do, so he sent a message off to Randy.

  Normally Randy responded very quickly. However, this time he didn’t respond until late the next day. As he was forced to wait for Randy’s response, Calaes was tormented by all the potential obstacles that this group could produce. Yet he was powerless to do anything about it.

  When Randy finally responded, Calaes had run through hundreds of problem situations but no resolutions. Randy, as always, looked calm though even more frail. Calaes quickly described the situation and sat back waiting for any ideas that Randy might have. Randy had never let him down. So far.

  Randy sat back and rubbed the back of his neck. “I was afraid this might happen. Do you have any thoughts on what you might do?”

  Calaes was stunned. He had called Randy looking for ideas and assurances, but here Randy was asking Calaes for thoughts. This was not turning out the way that Calaes had envisioned.

  Calaes looked intently at Randy. What he saw was an old man. He no longer looked in control, like he had done every other time they had talked.

  Calaes didn’t want to panic, but he needed some reassurances that everything would be all right. But he wasn’t getting them.

  They sat looking at each other for a long time with neither of them speaking. Finally, Randy broke the silence. “Unless they give themselves away by using electronic communications, there is no way we can find out anything about this group from the outside. You are the only one who can do that. You need to find out how many there are and who they are. The integrity of the entire project is at stake.”

  This was not what Calaes wanted to hear. He asked, “Can’t you do anything? Look into everyone’s records or something?”

  Randy smiled and said, “Sure, but this will not prove anything. I’m sure just about everyone knows someone who works in the government. We could have our AI look into all the electronic communications over the last twenty years and see who had friends that are currently in the government. But the government is so large, by far the largest employer – especially now with everyone in VR. You wouldn’t believe how many people have power trips – they want power, no matter what. The most fulfilling way is to become part of the government. They don’t actually do much, but they get to be in charge of something. Never forget that the government is both big and powerful. Anyway, the AI could then assign everyone a probability of being a resistor, in other words part of the resistance.

  “In fact, our AI has done that. Again, the problem is that now that we have that probability, what do we do with it? Where do we put the cutoff? How do we use this information? Do we question them – what good would this do? They probably won’t just volunteer that they are resistors. Also, did you know that you have a fifty-four percent chance of being in the resistance?”

  “What?” Calaes replied. “That can’t be true. Who do I know that is in the government?”

  “Didn’t you know,” Randy responded, “that your old childhood friend Sam is now fairly high up in the government? That puts you at a fairly high-risk level.”

  Calaes couldn’t believe it. “But I haven’t talked to Sam for years. That is just not fair.”

  Randy responded, “Well, that is exactly what I was telling you. If we just used the government-association information, we would get a lot of false positives and would probably also miss some of the key resistors. That is why I am telling you that on this you are on your own. I will send you the results of the AI scan, complete with probabilities. Use this information as you see fit. But don’t expect that this will be of much practical use, and believe me when I say there really isn’t anything else that we can do from here on this one.”

  As Randy closed the connection, Calaes took a look at the information that Randy had sent. Virtually everyone at the training campus had at least some acquaintances that worked for the government. Unfortunately, that made sense. The AI had used an algorithm such that the closer the friend was, and the higher level the government official was, and the more recent the contact with the friend was, the higher the probability of being a resistor. This probability ranged from ninety-six percent down to eighteen percent. Sure enough, near the upper-middle of the list were both Kurt and Calaes. Since he knew that Kurt was part of the resistors and he knew that he himself wasn’t, the idea of using this information without any other corroborating evidence just didn’t make sense.

  If he had to hazard a guess, he would have thought that the number of resistors would be maybe five to ten at the low end and maybe fifty to one hundred at the high end. This would be a good sanity check when he finally narrowed down the group. In other words, if the data showed that Kurt was the only resistor at the one extreme or if almost everyone were resistors at the other extreme, he would have to invalidate his methods.

  Looking for a way to proceed, Calaes thought about what information he knew. The only other data that Calaes thought would be relevant were the physical whereabouts of all candidates. The system kept location histories of everyone at the training campus. He requested his persa determine the locations of everyone at the training campus from after the all-hands meeting until present time and provide the names of everyone who was within three meters of Kurt after the all-hands meeting. After a few seconds his persa provided the list.

  Eagerly Calaes scanned the list, but then shook his head in frustration. Unfortunately, the results were not very helpful. All but three of the candidates were on the list. Calaes realized that there was an inherent problem with the list in that anyone who even walked by Kurt would show up – no wonder so many people were on the list.

  Next Calaes requested his persa provide lists for only those who were within three meters of Kurt for more than two seconds, five seconds and ten seconds. These three lists were somewhat more helpful. Each list was slightly smaller, but amazingly none of the three lists narrowed down to the list much at all.

  The first list again had all but three of the candidates on the list – this must mean that even walking by someone took more than two seconds to get more than three meters of separation. The second list had all but eight of the candidates and the third list had all but ten of the candidates.

  This was very confusing. Calaes had thought that these lists would quickly reduce the contacts that Kurt had physical access to and hence identify the potential resistor personnel. Instead it did not pass the sanity check. What was going on? Why was Kurt near so many people?

  Calaes next asked the same questions of his persa, but for himself instead of Kurt. The first list had almost half of the candidates on the list.
The second and third lists each vastly reduced the number of candidates, with the last one having less than thirty of the candidates. This was more of what Calaes was expecting. Why were Kurt’s lists so different?

  Calaes asked his persa why the lists were so different. The response was that Calaes was the candidate leader and his physical interactions were much smaller than the mean and the median, whereas Kurt’s physical interactions were much higher than the mean and the median due to his job function. His persa helpfully provided his job function as galley assistant.

  Smiling wryly, Calaes had to give the resistance credit. Everyone who ate had to be within several meters of the food servers. The resistors had picked a perfect person to represent them without giving away who he had corresponded with.

  Calaes sat there, frustrated, trying to determine what to do next. Suddenly an inspiration struck him – he could just remove the contacts that Kurt had in the proximity of the food operations. Smiling to himself, Calaes confidently made the request to his persa – provide a list for those who were within three meters of Kurt for more than ten seconds, while weeding out the food operations area from the time of the team meeting until now. The results came quickly, but they were very confusing. The list had a single entry – Calaes himself. Doing more checking, Calaes found that Kurt had not left his room except to go to work since the team meeting.

  Thinking about it, Calaes realized that they must have picked someone who would be the perfect representative and had ensured that he would hole up in his room to avoid any contact with anyone else. He had to give them credit – their plan had been successful.

  Feeling deflated, Calaes could not think of anything else to help him with his search. In frustration, he did the only thing that he could think of. He ordered more independent checks of everything in the infrastructure and sub-infrastructure lists. This would work only as well as there were good trustworthy people checking. If all of the independent checkers were resistors, the checking would all be for naught. If this happened, there was no telling what the impact would be to the schedule and maybe to their lives.