Read Craig Kreident #1: Virtual Destruction Online
Authors: Doug Beason Kevin J Anderson
The heavy vault door stood open, and the smooth-walled, featureless VR chamber looked the way he had left it two days before—but in all that time the teammembers should have been able to show something for their efforts.
In the wake of that shock, Michaelson expected the place to be filled with bodies scurrying around, preparing for the high-level foreign visitors that would arrive here in only four weeks.
He’d have to come down on his deputy, get Lesserec to start taking things more seriously, make sure his priorities were appropriately established.
He wondered if Lesserec knew his days were numbered.
Michaelson grumbled to himself and made his way through the tangled nerve center with its control racks and monitor screens, stepped over bundled fiberoptic cable.
He scanned the rows of empty workstations, discarded Diet Coke cans, and stacks of technical papers and software users manuals that cluttered the lab area.
At least his own office would be clean and neat.
Whenever he went away on travel, his administrative assistant Tansy Beaumont took the opportunity to file away the debris he left scattered around his office.
Tansy had her own cubicle now; her former area, tucked away in the far corner of the open hall, served as a holding area for the electronic equipment and spare parts that Lesserec’s people insisted on keeping around.
With the growing success and visibility of T Program, though, Michaelson had needed to establish his “moat dragon” in a prominent position to act as a buffer for all the administrative bullshit, so he could get some work done.
Once the IVI got off the ground, this place would turn into a case of bureaucratic constipation, with everybody trying to push their mouths in the same watering hole . . . he’d have to give Tansy a special briefing on how to handle it.
But he wouldn’t worry about that for at least another month, given the usual ramp-up time.
There were just too many things to do right now.
Michaelson glanced at the yellow phone messages on his desk.
Other than the usual queries for information and pestering calls he could ignore, he found a terse memo from José Aragon—did that man want his fingers in
everything?
—requesting that Michaelson meet with him at the Plutonium Facility by the end of the afternoon.
Michaelson snorted; that could wait, though it probably had something to do with the IVI demonstration.
At the end of the day he was scheduled to have a meeting with the Lab Director himself, which was probably more important; but Michaelson knew he’d probably be chastised for springing such a surprise on everyone.
Oh well, that’s tough.
He had thought there would at least be messages from the local press, requests for interviews.
He hoped Tansy hadn’t squelched them.
Michaelson shuffled through the yellow notes, tossing the entire wad into the wastebasket.
Then he logged onto the Quickmail system and methodically went through his electronic messages—still nothing of consequence.
Finally, he punched up his home phone number to access his private messages.
The thing he hated most about constant travel was all the tedious catching up once he got back.
When his home answering machine kicked on, he keyed in his private code and pulled up the messages.
Finally, two reporters requesting interviews.
He smiled.
The delivery service telling him they had stocked his pantry.
The next caller, though, caused him to rock back in his seat.
“Hal—this is Diana.
Pick up if you’re there.”
A pause. “Where
are
you?
I got into Livermore last night and you’re not home.
I thought you were catching the red-eye.
Give me a call when you get in.
I’m staying at the Pleasanton Sheraton.
I must have missed you on the plane.”
The answering machine beeped for the next caller.
“Hal, this is Diana again.
Dammit, it’s ten o’clock in the morning and you
still
haven’t gotten in—or you’re not returning my calls.
What the hell’s going on?
The Lab says you’re not due in until later this afternoon.
You bastard, you
knew
you weren’t coming back!”
There was a long pause on the recording, a disgusted sigh.
“Hal, we’ve got to talk about your confirmation hearings for the IVI.
You might think this is all a big joke and you’ll be able to breeze past this senate confirmation, but you’re not bulletproof.
Get that through your thick, arrogant skull.
If they ever find out about us, it’s going to be one hell of a ride for you.
And for me, as well.
I’m in line for a promotion here, you know.
“These guys are out for blood.
You’ve been taking potshots at Congress and the administration for years—this is their chance to get even.
They can taste it, and they’ll stop at nothing to discredit you.
People have had their careers ruined for far less than fucking administration officials.
Talk to me—do I have to threaten you?”
Michaelson punched the buttons on the phone, cutting off the recorded message.
Rocking forward in the chair behind his desk, he tossed the lightweight plastic phone back into its cradle.
Diana was becoming a bigger pain in the ass than he had imagined.
Bothersome details filled his days, forcing him to work late hours just to get his job done.
It was going to be another long night.
Alone again.
But first he had to clear up the stack of administrative requests.
He sighed and plucked one of the yellow slips out of the wastebasket.
The meeting with Aragon and the Lab Director was first on the list.
It was probably one of those butt-kissing circuses he couldn’t get out of.
He heard several people arriving, passing one by one through the CAIN booth, slipping their badges into the reader, keying in their access number, and pushing the heavy door open.
The tightly knit group of technicians returned from lunch, but it sounded as if they had spent their entire time talking about work-related problems.
Michaelson expected nothing less.
“Hey, Dr. Michaelson, that was some press conference!” the young black woman from Caltech called, raising her hand.
“Yeah, does this mean we can move to a real lab facility now?” said someone else—Michaelson had forgotten his name.
He waved them off and growled as he picked up the phone to call Aragon.
“Tell Gary I want to see him in my office as soon as he gets back,” he called.
“We’ve got to change these banker’s hours and accomplish some work around here.
That international team will be here before you know it.”
Not waiting for a reply, he punched the number to call Associate Director José Aragon and acknowledge the meeting in the Plutonium Facility for that afternoon.
CHAPTER 12
Wednesday
Building 332—Plutonium Facility
Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory
Looking both ways, Duane Hopkins peeked out of the bathroom door in the Plutonium Facility.
He hoped no one had noticed how long he had hidden inside the rest room.
He had already spent a lot of time that morning washing his badge and recovering from the shakes, hoping never to see Ronald and his mean friends again.
He had vowed to get even with them, but it probably wouldn’t work, and then they would be on his back even worse than before.
So he had hidden there during the afternoon break, avoiding any chance at another confrontation.
He hesitated when he heard someone come toward him, almost turning around to rush back into the rest room, but he forced himself to keep going ahead.
He stepped away and tried to regain his composure before somebody else hooted after him.
“Hey, it’s Diarrhea Duane!”
He looked up and saw Ralph Frick chuckling next to two other guys.
Ralph had always been an OK guy, ribbing him instead of openly insulting him—but lately Ralph’s teasing had taken on a more bitter tone, harsher, and Duane just couldn’t laugh it off any more.
He tried desperately to think of a come-back line, but all he could manage was a red face.
Duane hurried back to his glove box station in the metallurgy lab.
He had to stay away from the bathroom, at least for the rest of the day.
He looked at his digital watch.
Hours to go yet, with each second passing like a blacksmith’s mallet hitting an anvil.
His stomach had been knotted all day long.
He wondered if he had time to get the stuff for Gary Lesserec.
Duane flinched every time he looked at his badge, afraid that invisible radiation kept pouring out of it into his body, streaming through his chest and lungs.
After all the years he had worked in the Plutonium Facility, Duane had a healthy respect—no, a mortal terror—of radiation.
He was playing with fire every day he went in to work.
His biggest scare had come early in his career at the Lab, back when it had been called the Lawrence Radiation Laboratory, long before the strict handling procedures had been put in place.
Nobody knew any better.
It had been shortly after his marriage to Rhonda, when Duane had walked with a spring in his step fresh from leaving his short stint in the Army, aglow with his training under the GI Bill.
He was happy then.
He hadn’t known the world was so full of nightmares.
He used to smile.
He talked openly to people because he hadn’t realized how much better it was to remain quiet, never to open up to everybody.
Back then, the group of bullies had been led by a man named Bodie.
A different group from Ronald’s gang, but just the same nevertheless.
No matter where he went, they seemed to target Duane Hopkins.
Duane had talked to everyone about how wonderful it was to be a newlywed, all the plans and dreams he and Rhonda had.
They had wanted to have kids, three or four of them.
He said that a lot; he talked about it at the lunch table where everyone could overhear.
Duane had been stupid, unsuspecting.
Bodie and three of his wise-ass friends were standing outside one of the materials vaults.
The halls of the huge Plutonium Facility echoed.
Back then yellow lines had been painted on the floor showing allowable separation distances between carts that contained sealed sources or canned parts:
follow the yellow brick road
!
Yellow and black radiation alarms were mounted on the wall with neutron counters.
The harsh white fluorescent lights washed away all shadows, all softness of color.
The building really hadn’t changed much in fifteen years.
Duane had been going about his business, pushing his cart along, probably even whistling to himself.
He had his inventory card hooked to the bottom of it, returning a sealed sample to its appropriate lead-lined can on its appropriate shelf in the vault.
“Hey, Duane,” Bodie called from inside the otherwise empty vault.
“Come here, we’ve got a wedding present for you.”
Duane raised his eyebrows.
“A wedding present?
I got married months ago.”
“Yeah, so we’re late,” Bodie said.
“Come here,” he gestured for Duane to come into the vault.
Even now as he thought about it, Duane winced.
He wished he could go back in time and change what he had done.
That one act of stupidity may have doomed him for the rest of his life, and all of Stevie’s.
Inside the vault Bodie said, “Heard you want to have kids.
That’s nice.”
It was Bodie’s favorite phrase, Duane remembered.
That's nice.
“We wanted to warm up your sex life a little bit, Duane.”
Even then, Duane had been more baffled than afraid.
Nobody else was in the corridors.
The Plutonium Facility was a big, ugly building with a maze of halls and corridors, but not a bustle of people inside.
“What do you mean?” he asked.
Bodie looked at his two companions and they each grabbed one of Duane’s arms, yanking him into the vault.