Death Dream (26 page)

People were already coming down the corridor, heading for the parking lot out back and evenings of relaxation at home or restaurants or entertainment. But the red light was blinking over the door to Wonderland; Jace was in there fooling around with something.

"How do, Dr. Dan!"

Startled, Dan saw Joe Rucker lumbering down the corridor toward him.

"Joe," he said. "On your way home?"

The one-armed guard was in his street clothes, a checkered shirt and faded jeans.

"Nope. Gonna play another game or two with ol' Jace," said Rucker cheerfully. "We play jes 'bout every night."

"You do?"

"Surely do." Rucker's lopsided grin showed all his uneven teeth. "Why, inside that-there game Jace rigs fer me, I got two whole arms and two whole legs! We play till I'm plumb tuckered out."

Dan did not quite know how to respond. "Well," he said weakly, "have a good time."

"You bet!"

Rucker opened the heavy steel door with his one hand while Dan hurried up the corridor, guiltily hoping that Joe would not mention bumping into him to Jace.

Dan was surprised to see Muncrief alone in his office with the stranger. Somehow he had expected Vickie would be in on this, as she was on everything else. But she was not there. Only Muncrief standing behind his desk as if it were a defensive barricade and the man from Washington, also on his feet in the middle of the room.

He introduced himself as Quentin Smith. "I know Mr. Muncrief here doesn't believe it, but that's my name, so help me." Smith raised his right hand as if taking an oath.

Dan saw that Smith was about his own height, but much more solid in his build. Sandy blond hair, conservative gray suit and dark tie, broad shoulders: he reminded Dan of the kind of actor who always played FBI agents. Smith looked young, and he was smiling pleasantly. But his blue eyes were hard as agate. He had a blocky square-jawed face with a silly little button nose in the middle of it. There was an air of tension about him, an aura almost electrical, as if he were ready to spring at the slightest stimulus.

Muncrief ushered them to his round conference table, and took the seat in the corner for himself, his back to the wall.

"Mr. Muncrief was good enough to send me your personnel file," Smith said to Dan, "so I know your professional qualifications."

Dan twitched inside but said nothing.

"What we're trying to. do," he went on, "is extremely important. It's got to be done quickly, but it's got to be done right. The first time. We don't have time for screwing around."

Dan glanced at Muncrief. His normally-affable face was radiating something close to anger.
He doesn't like this guy
, Dan realized.
He doesn't like him at all. So why is he helping him?

"What's the job entail?" Dan asked. "And why does it have to be so quickly?"

Smith smiled tightly. "The schedule is fixed. There's nothing I can do about that."

"Why? What's this for?"

Instead of answering, Smith said, "We need a VR system that can show various scenarios. Instead of reading a report or watching a video, I want a VR system that will allow the user to manipulate a scenario; make changes in it and see how they work out. Can you do that?"

"Within limits," Dan said.

"What limits?"

Glancing again at Muncrief, Dan replied," That depends on how complex your scenarios are and how much time we have to develop the system."

"It's got to be ready by February first."

"I know."

"That's a solid date," said Smith. "If you can't have it done by then tell me now and I'll go elsewhere."

"There isn't anyplace else," Muncrief said in a low rumble.

"There's Chapel Hill. And MIT."

"Universities," Muncrief snorted. "You'd get along swell with university types, wouldn't you?"

"NASA and the Air Force have been heavily involved," Smith countered.

"Then why didn't you go to them in the first place? Or Silicon Valley, for that matter?"

Smith let his teeth show. "Look, we're here," he said. "We need to have this job done by February first." Turning to Dan, "Can you do it?"

"I've got to know the size of the job," Dan answered. "It all depends on how complex these scenarios are; how complex a simulation you need."

The man from Washington looked into Dan's eyes for a long moment. Then he turned in his chair to face Muncrief. "We don't need you in on this. The fewer people who know the details, the better."

Muncrief threw up his hands. "Fine by me! I've got plenty of other things to do with my time, believe me."

"Why don't we go down to my office, then," Dan suggested.

They walked down the emptied, half-darkened corridors, past Wonderland where the red light still blinked steadily, their footsteps echoing off the silent walls. Dan gestured Smith through his office doorway, then stepped in himself and closed the door softly behind him.

Smith looked around the neatly-kept little office and took a flat oblong black box from his inside jacket pocket. He swept it through the air, along the desk top and phone console, across the bookshelves as if he were dusting them with a hand-sized vacuum cleaner.

"You think the room's bugged?" Dan asked.

"It's all right, it's not." Smith took the plastic chair in front of the desk. "But you never know."

Dan felt relieved as he went behind his desk and sat in the swivel chair. "You're doing a good job of making me curious as hell," he said. "Now just what is this all about?"

Smith seemed to relax half an inch. "People in high places have to make important decisions. Those decisions are based on the information they receive from their staffs. But the information gets more complex every year, and the time scale gets shorter, too. They've got to make their decision quick, and they've got to be the right decisions, too. If you can produce a VR system that helps certain people make better decisions—well, you'll have done your nation an important service."

"People in high places," Dan echoed.

Smith leaned forward in his chair and laid one powerful arm on the edge of the desk. "Get this, Santorini: the quality of the decision can only be as good as the quality of the information input. Understand that? When a man has to make a decision about going to war in the Middle East, he has to juggle a thousand factors: the price of oil, the reaction of ethnic groups here at home, the readiness of the armed services, the number of bases available in the proposed area of conflict, the reaction of our allies, the possibilities of other nations joining the country we're going to fight, the United Nations, the international banking system—a thousand other details. He's got to make a decision fast, and he's got to consider all those interacting factors."

"This is for the President, then," Dan guessed. "You're working for the President of the United States."

Smith actually laughed. He leaned back in his chair and broke into a sharp barking laughter. Dan thought of a hyena.

"What's so funny?"

Smith shook his head and pulled out a Kleenex to dab at his eyes. "I'm sorry. I shouldn't laugh at you. People who aren't in the loop always think that the President makes all the big decisions."

"He doesn't?"

"Oh, sure, of course he does." Smith's face went sober again. "He makes the ultimate decision. But by the time a problem gets to the Oval Office a lot of other people have worked it over. They make their decisions before the President ever sees the problem."

Dan thought that over for a moment. "You're saying that the President's just a puppet? His staff people make all the real decisions?"

"Hell no! Nothing like that! The Man in the Oval Office makes all the final decisions, that's for sure. Hell, most of the time the staff's split seventeen different ways on any really tough issue and the Man has to decide which way to go."

"So you want a VR system that can show certain scenarios—"

"And play them out to their logical end," Smith said. "We want to use VR to show the user what will happen if certain kinds of decisions are taken."

"Give me an example," Dan said, feeling an old thrill of excitement edging up his spine.

Smith looked excited too. He had dropped his suspicious, cloak-and-dagger attitude. Dan wondered if Smith was some kind of engineer or technician.
Maybe he's from the President's scientific staff
, Dan surmised.

"Okay," Smith said, "let's go back to the example of a war in the Middle East. We do a VR scenario that shows what will happen if we don't go to war; just let things happen without us getting involved. That leads to one conclusion. We see what happens to the price of oil. What happens to Israel, to Saudi Arabia, to the Moslem Republics on Russia's southern flank. All that kind of stuff."

Dan nodded.

"Then we can run another scenario that shows what would happen if we went to war, but all by ourselves. Without any allies, not even Israel. How we fight the war. How many casualties. All the factors I mentioned in the first scenario, of course. We can change our military tactics, see which approach works best. Then we see how it would go if we went in with allies, or under a UN authorization—you get the picture now?"

"Yeah. But I see a problem."

"Problem?"

"GIGO."

Smith's face went hard again. "Garbage in, garbage out."

"Right," said Dan. "These scenarios will only be as good as the data that's fed into them. A VR system isn't a magic wand. Just because you experience a certain scenario in a virtual reality simulation doesn't mean that the scenario is any better or more accurate or apt to turn out right in the real world."

"That's my problem, not yours," Smith said tightly. "All you've got to worry about is making the system work. I'll provide the inputs."

"The garbage?" Dan joked.

Smith did not laugh.

"It's going to be a pretty big job, then," Dan said.

Smith leaned back in the creaking plastic chair. "Yeah, I know. We've got a lot of work to do between now and February first."

"We?"

"We," he said with a sigh. "I'm stuck here in this tropical paradise until the job is finished."

"You're staying in Orlando?"

The man looked decidedly unhappy. "For the duration. Dammit."

When Dan finally arrived home that evening the kids had already had their dinner. He gave Philip his nightly bath in the sink of the second bathroom while Angela watched, already in her pajamas. The baby splashed them both with warm sudsy water.

"How's it going with you, Angel?" Dan asked his daughter as he toweled off the baby.

"Okay," she said.

"Everything all right in school?"

"I guess."

Dan sighed inwardly. Angela either babbled so much he could not stop her or she was as incommunicative as a clam. There did not seem to be any in-between with her these days. And she's not even a teenager yet, he told himself.

Finally Dan settled onto the living room sofa with Susan, both children tucked safety in their beds. The local weather channel was showing a special about the continuing drought. Dan saw that the water district was imposing limits on watering lawns and washing cars.

"I don't care what Vickie says," Susan muttered, frowning, "there's something weird going on with those VR games."

Dan had been waiting to tell her about Muncrief's "special" job. He felt his own brows knitting.

"Not that again," he grumbled.

"Vickie keeps saying there's nothing wrong, but Angie says she's seeing people she knows in those games. This—afternoon it was Phil—he was in a game she was playing about babysitting."

"I think Angie's just very impressionable," Dan said. "Maybe too impressionable."

Susan shook her head.

"Maybe we should just tell her teacher not to let her play any of the games."

"And what will she do when all the other kids are playing games?" Susan snapped.

Dan shrugged. "She could read a book, I guess. Wouldn't hurt her."

"She'd be the class oddball."

"She could still use the teaching programs. They haven't bothered her any, have they?"

"No, apparently not."

"It's just the games, then. She gets wrapped up in them too much."

Susan shook her head stubbornly. "It's not Angie. It's the games themselves."

"But none of the other kids have had a problem with them."

Susan did not reply. Dan studied her face. He saw doubt there, worry, and a simmering anger. Time to change the subject, he thought.

Forcing a grin, he said, "I've got good news and bad news."

Susan's eyes lit up. "Give me the good news first!"

"I have a consulting contract for you in my briefcase. You'll get a minimum of thirty days over the next twelve months, guaranteed."

"Great!" She clapped her hands. Then, "At what fee?"

"You're supposed to phone Vickie tomorrow and settle the fee with her."

"Oh."

He saw the disappointment darkening her face. "What's the matter? Don't you like Vickie?"

Looking troubled, Susan replied, "I don't know. She seems—cold. Maybe it's because I've been bugging her about Angie's reaction to the games, but I get the feeling she doesn't really like me. At all."

Dan had gotten the same feeling, although he had never thought of Vickie as cold. "She's okay," he said. "She didn't give me any trouble over giving you a contract. Give her a call and work out your fee."

But Susan looked dubious. "That's the good news?"

He nodded. "The bad news is that Muncrief's got a super special job he wants me to do and I'll have to work overtime on it because I can't take the time away from the work I'm doing with Jace."

"Overtime?"

"Nights," Dan said. Then he added weakly. "Weekends too, I guess."

"Nights and weekends." Susan frowned. "And you're already working fifty or sixty hours a week. You're not sleeping well, either. You've been grinding your teeth every night for the past several weeks."

"At least I haven't had another asthma attack," he countered weakly.

"Are you still having nightmares?"

"No," he half-lied. His dreams were disturbing, frightening, but he had willed himself to forget them when he woke up. All he recalled was a vague feeling of dread, a kind of terror buried so deeply in his subconscious that he barely recognized it. But he knew it was there, like the asthma, always lurking and ready to pounce on him.