Authors: Greg Krehbiel
"The only way I can prove myself to you is to take you for a ride,"
Duncan
said. Hanna didn't make the connection -- hadn't they just taken a ride in a hovercar? -- until MacKenzie looked over at the virtual reality tanks.
"Let's suit up,"
Duncan
said. MacKenzie nodded.
Hanna had to convince herself that there was nothing inherently wrong with the tanks.
Just because people use them for creepy stuff doesn't mean they're inherently creepy,
she told herself as she followed Duncan and MacKenzie to a bank of doors that looked like dressing rooms. She glanced at MacKenzie before she went in, seeking some assurance. MacKenzie gave her the thumbs up and they both went in.
The dressing room was small, and there were no directions. Hanna wasn't quite sure what to do.
To MacKenzie. Chat mode requested.
Accepted.
What do we do?
In my room there are shelves on the left side. Do you have any?
Hanna looked around.
Yes, on the back wall,
she said.
The lowest drawer is the smallest suit -- child size. You'll probably wear the suit in the fourth one up.
Hanna opened the drawer and pulled out the suit. It was a thin, black material, similar to something she had seen in MacKenzie's computer lab. The fabric was a complicated web of fibers that provided the computer interface with dual interactivity. Every time the person wearing the suit moved, the fibers registered the change and sent the appropriate signals through the interface. Similarly, the virtual reality program could send a signal to the suit that would simulate a punch to the midsection, or the feeling of water against the skin, or a kiss.
Once the suit was on, Hanna was somewhat surprised at how loose it was. How could it measure her movements if it sagged so much? She walked out of the dressing room looking like someone who had lost 100 pounds in two months.
"No, silly," MacKenzie said, and Hanna noticed that MacKenzie's suit was skin tight. "You look like an elephant. You've got to turn it on." She reached up to the side of Hanna's goggles and pressed a button. Hanna's suit immediately tightened up over her whole body. The sensation was almost like diving into water.
"There," MacKenzie said. "Hey, you look good in that," she said, looking her over. Hanna struck a model's pose and smiled.
"If you two are ready, we can go in now,"
Duncan
said, business-like, as usual. Hanna tried very hard not to notice how the suit accommodated
Duncan
's anatomy below the waist.
The three of them looked like scuba divers in their tight black suits as they walked up the steep stairway to the top of the VR tanks. Three were open, revealing the clean solution they were about to plunge into. If the water had been cloudy, as it was in some of the seedier VR shops, Hanna could have seen the crisscrossing laser beams that continuously monitored the rider's position in the tank.
"Okay,"
Duncan
instructed. "After you jump in, throw this switch on your goggles." He indicated which one, and Hanna reached up to touch hers. "That will shut off all outside light and enable you to see the VR images. You might be disoriented for a second or two. Don't worry about it. We're all going to the same location, so just look for me and follow."
"How do we follow you?" Hanna asked. "I've never done this before."
"You can just walk around, like you would in real life, but we're going to be moving a little faster than that. When you want to move, tap the button on your right wrist and point in the direction you want to go. The longer you point the more you'll accelerate. You stop by making a fist. Don't worry, you'll catch on." Without waiting for a reply he jumped into his tank. MacKenzie followed immediately, and Hanna, still telling herself it was okay, went last.
*
*
*
When Hanna opened her eyes she was standing in the middle of the warehouse, facing in the direction of the virtual reality tanks. But she knew her body wasn't actually there. For a moment she wasn't certain if she was really in
Duncan
's warehouse, but as she looked around at the physical features of the room, it was clearly the same building. The three windows were on the east wall, where they should have been. The support beams were all in the right places. The southeast corner had that peculiar corner wall she had noticed, but the contents of the room were all wrong. Instead of computers, workers, VR tanks, offices and empty pizza boxes, there were wooden crates.
Then she noticed workers milling about, checking the crates, moving them from place to place, opening one and closing another. As she studied the things in the room she noticed that some things looked very real, while others had a computer-generated look. Even some of the faces had it. One man who was working by himself seemed to be almost completely an animation. There was something about the texture of his clothes that wasn't right. It looked too perfect to be real. But the thing that disturbed Hanna the most was when she saw the man's desktop floating in front of him. She was too far away to make out what he was doing, but she was sure that she would be able to read it if she got closer. It gave her a guilty feeling, as if she was trespassing, or a peeping Tom. But she knew that none of these people were really in the warehouse. It had to be some kind of computer-generated illusion.
MacKenzie moved next to her, or, rather, the virtual image of MacKenzie moved next to the virtual image of Hanna.
This is weird,
Hanna sent, remembering that they were still in chat mode.
"We can talk, you know," MacKenzie's image said aloud. "Nobody can hear us unless they're in the same program, which for us just means
Duncan
. You can do just about anything in here that you can do in real life -- that's the idea, remember?"
Hanna reached over and touched MacKenzie's shoulder. It felt like she was really touching her shoulder, but she knew that both their bodies were actually suspended in tanks of liquid about 15 feet from one another. And they were wearing those black VR suits, but MacKenzie's image was wearing blue overalls, a red turtle-neck and a pair of walking shoes. They had to be virtual clothes, because MacKenzie didn't own a pair of overalls. Hanna was suddenly concerned about what she was wearing and looked down at herself. She was dressed exactly the same, only her shirt was blue. MacKenzie laughed.
"Don't worry," she said, "I took care of it for you. I didn't think you wanted to go for a walk with
Duncan
while you were buck naked. Virtually, that is."
"Thanks," Hanna said, and giggled. "But what is this place? It's not
Duncan
's warehouse, but it looks the same."
"I suspect he's figured a way to put a false signal on the hole so nobody can spy on his operations."
Duncan
came out of the bathroom a moment later.
"I forgot to go before," he said. Hanna didn't even want to think about how that worked. "But let's get going." He pointed to a control panel on his wrist that had four buttons. Hanna noticed that she and MacKenzie had one too.
Duncan
pointed to the lower left button so Hanna could see what he was doing, then he pressed it and pointed straight up with his right index finger. His body began to accelerate toward the ceiling.
"If I can touch you," Hanna said to MacKenzie, "doesn't that mean that he'll smash into the ceiling?"
MacKenzie reached out and put her arm right through Hanna. "Once you touch this button, everything becomes transolid. Let's go," she said.
As soon as Hanna pushed the button she could no longer feel her body weight pressing her feet against the floor, although she was still standing in the same place. She looked, pointed up and watched as the ceiling got closer and closer. She winced as her head came in contact with the virtual ceiling, but in an instant she was through. It was an amazing sight. She was looking at the roof of the warehouse, but as she continued to ascend her field of vision grew wider, taking in the surrounding parking lot and a moment later several city blocks.
*
*
*
Jeremy realized that the rest of the workers at his new assignment had no idea what he was up to and, now self-conscious of his mission, he tried to forestall any unwanted questions. He had to come up with a reasonable excuse for his wanderings.
He was taking a walk now, somewhat more comfortable with the lay of the facility, and he glanced down one of the hallways to see a bank of terminals. The facility was crammed full of electronic devices of all kinds. He knew that some electronic devices interfered with implant communications, and he suspected the workers would blame them for any random noise, since humans naturally look for patterns in events. He decided to pretend that he was doing a study on the implant communications glitches the workers experienced while they were in the office. He would make his rounds
every day
, ask everyone on duty whether or not they had had any problems with their implants, and, if necessary, he would imply that there was some suspicion of interference from the electronic equipment.
The story was a phenomenal success from his very first attempt. Everyone was thrilled that the agency was paying attention to the problem, which they had suspected anyway. Furthermore, he learned a great deal from some of the more technically minded workers about how implant communications really worked. Signal distortion was a common and regularly occurring problem with everyone, whether they worked in an area with lots of electronics or not, but whether the machinery was really causing more glitches than would be expected in another environment or whether the workers simply paid more attention to the glitches at the office, Jeremy never found out. All that mattered to him was that everyone was happy to see him and report their latest problems and pet theories.
The other advantage of his imaginary assignment was that he had free rein of the entire facility. He also took the opportunity to make friends with the support staff.
While he was in the administrative wing, questioning some of Lenzke's administrative assistants, the AIC himself came into the room and listened as Jeremy questioned a Mr. Edwards.
"Is there something you need, sir?" Edwards asked Lenzke as he came in the room.
"No," Lenzke said. "I'm just waiting for a reply from Peter, and I thought I'd watch Mr. Mitchell at work. Have you found anything out yet, Jeremy?" he asked.
He's quick,
Jeremy thought. He hadn't told Lenzke what he was doing.
"It's too early to say, but it seems that the biggest problems are concentrated near the central computer area," Jeremy said. It was a bald lie, but he had to make up something for the sake of the people listening in. Lenzke came closer and spoke to Edwards. Jeremy picked up that distinctive smell again. It was very faint, but he was sure he had smelled it before; he just couldn't figure out what it was.
"What do you think of Mr. Mitchell's study, Edwards?" he asked.
"It's about time somebody did it," he said. "I think we've all been wondering about this for a long time."
Lenzke nodded and went back to his office. Jeremy looked at Edwards with a smile and sniffed, visibly and obviously. Edwards smiled back, then looked to be sure Lenzke was gone.
"So you've smelled her, eh?" he said. "We keep telling him to run his clothes through the launderer after he sees her, but he doesn't listen."
Jeremy smiled, but his heart almost stopped. He realized where he had smelled that perfume before -- on Dr. Berry.
*
*
*
Duncan, Hanna and MacKenzie were moving along at an incredible speed over a virtual image of the streets and buildings of Washington, D.C. Duncan would have liked to go faster, but it was making Hanna dizzy. He decided to use the time for a lecture on the mission of his organization.
"After the riots, you see, everyone was desperate for some peaceful resolution to the crisis," he said in a quick, but deliberate tone. "So when the government offered to hand over the encryption technology for the net, nobody doubted that they had. The fools! They thought that the government had learned its lesson and was going to play nice. To be fair, most of the government did. But several agencies -- or at least people in the agencies -- kept the key to the encryption routines, and they've been monitoring the hole for decades."
"Why?" Hanna asked. "What have they done with all that information?"
"A lot. More than I know, I'm sure, although we've figured out some of it. Do you remember when Miller disappeared?"
Oh no, not another Miller story,
Hanna thought. Clayton Miller had run an eccentric campaign for president in 2036, claiming that the hole had been compromised, that the government was stealing from people, that innocent citizens had been arrested and all records of their existence erased -- every good conspiracy theory had to involve Clayton Miller. He had gathered a small but devoted following and threatened to renew violence against the government, but then he suddenly disappeared.