Stasis: A Will Vullerman Anthology (6 page)

"As you can see, sah,” Rolvo said, pointing to one such picture, “we've found information on this device. The Persian government called it the Reality Ring. It's apparently a prototype for full-simulation virtual reality, one that doesn't requiah a headset. It manipulates the nerves of the body for full sensory effect. By doing this, it creates a die-mension that simulates reality almost perfectly."

Brownbarr grunted. "Is there a time limit on it?"

"According to the resea'ch," Rolvo said, "no limit or precaution had been programmed when it went missing. There was only one way to deactivate it from the inside, but it wasn't on the file we found."

"So this Reality Ring went missing?"

Rolvo shrugged. "One way or anothah, the AAA got hold of it."

"I see." Brownbarr frowned, scratching at the stubble on his chin. "Vullerman isn't going to be waking up anytime soon, then. It would be the perfect way to keep him unconscious without having to inject him every couple hours. If we're going to get him back, we've got to find the AAA's whereabouts."

"We ah on it, sah. They're close to a solution."

"Good." A thought occurred to Brownbarr. "Does this ring emit a signal?"

"I'd assume so. It's a complex piece of technology."

Brownbarr stared at the three-dimensional sketch of the Reality Ring slowly rotating on the screen. "Try and find the signal using the coding information on this file. We may be able to break it. If not, then we might communicate to Vullerman, at least."

"Yes, sah." Rolvo saluted, and turned, relaying Brownbarr's orders.

Brownbarr returned his gaze to the map. Vullerman was somewhere out there, and as Director of the ASP, Vullerman was Brownbarr's responsibility. And Brownbarr vowed that he wouldn't fail in his duty.

************

"How...?" Will staggered backward, his heel catching on a close-knit clump of grass. It couldn't be Will's grandpa...could it? "You're—you...you can't be here."

"Will, it's me." Grandpa took a few steps forward, extending his arms out to Will. His thick, graying hair and sun-worn face looked wonderfully alive in the Kansas sunlight. A large nose and a wide mouth open in a smile completed his face. His frame was tall, over six feet, and thick-boned, something that Will had inherited from him.

It looked like him. It sounded like him. Will struggled to swallow. But how could it be his grandfather? Paul Vullerman was dead.

Will wanted to resist. He did. It had to be a figment of his imagination, another hallucination. But he wanted it to be true. He wanted it with everything he had—to know that his grandpa was alive and well.

Grandpa's arms enveloped him in a familiar, strong embrace. "Shhh," he said, resting his chin on Will's shoulder. "It's me, Will. It's okay."

Will pulled away. "You're gone. You...it was NRC. I was there. I watched, as—as..." That last breath. The long beep that tore his heart in two...

"But the body isn't everything, Will." Grandpa let his hands fall to his side. "Haven't I told you that, so many times? As you grew up on my knee, I told you that this world is a passing thing. My spirit still lives on."

Will had to admit that he sounded like Grandpa Paul. And he
had
told Will so many stories about the spirit and God and religion when Will was younger... "But—but how are you here?"

Grandpa gestured at Will's hand. "We're in a virtual reality. That ring you're wearing? They call it the Reality Ring. It manipulates your nerves so that you think you're in another place. My body is gone, but my spirit was captured in the Reality Ring. They had begun working on the preliminary prototypes of it when I died, so I've been here ever since."

It couldn't be true, could it? As bizarre as Paul's explanation sounded, it made sense. At least, the technical side of it. Will wasn't sure how a spirit could be drawn into a technological object, though.

His heart ached for this man's explanation to be true, that this really was Paul Vullerman, back from the dead. But instead, Will steeled himself. He couldn't believe that this was his grandpa. Not yet. He couldn't bear to lose his grandpa twice.

So what would he do? This grandfather of his had to be tested. No, not grandfather—this
man
, this person calling himself Paul Vullerman. He'd bide his time and see if the truth came out.

"So who gave this ring to me,” Will asked, a little abruptly, “and how do you know about it?"

"Sometimes I can watch real events.” Paul stood awkwardly beside Will, apparently caught off guard by Will's frosty tone of voice. For a moment Will hated himself for even thinking of hurting his grandfather in such a way, but he forced the thought away. Emotion wouldn't help him right now. There would be time for emotion later, if this man really was Will's grandfather.

Paul continued, "I watched as that man in the long-sleeve t-shirt gave you the Reality Ring. He's one of the people that put me in here. They mean you harm."

Will frowned. If this
Paul
was an illusion created by the long-sleeved man's allies, then would he be telling Will that they meant him harm? Did that mean Paul
wasn't
an illusion?

"They're part of the AAA. Arabs Against Americans is the acronym.” Paul's searching gaze found Will's, and for a moment Will couldn't move beneath the scrutiny of those brown eyes. "They're angry that the American people survived the nuclear war. They found out you were the man on the American mission and targeted you first—the top ASP operative. They could wake you up any time for your...execution." Paul said it with urgency and pain:
any time
.

Will avoided his gaze. "You know about the American mission?"

Paul nodded. "I've been watching you, Will. Sometimes I can manipulate the reality so that it projects what has gone on in the past. And I saw you on the American mission." He paused. "I'm so proud of you—going out into the land of my birth. My grandson, a hero...even if no one else knows about your role in the mission."

Will swallowed hard.

No, he couldn't. He couldn't give in. Not until he knew for sure whether this man was really his grandfather or not. "How does this...
Reality Ring
work? I was in the Sahara one moment, Kansas the next.”

Paul shrugged. "I'm not quite sure. Judging by what I've seen of the past, you could be in the Reality Ring for what feels like minutes and be out like a light for hours. Time works strangely here. But I did notice one thing—the more you walk, the sooner it seems to whisk you away to another place. If I find a place I like, I stay put.”

Finally! Something Will could
do
. “Let's walk, then.” Will started forward aimlessly, picking a direction and walking like he was actually going somewhere. Paul kept up beside him, his long legs eating up the meters, easily keeping pace with Will.

Will tried to reorient himself as the silence stretched on. Paul's appearance had jarred his emotions a little bit, but Will's objective was unchanged: get out of this alternate reality. He added another: don't trust Paul.

“How do you get out of this place?” Will snapped off the top of a long prairie plant with his left hand and twisted it with his fingers, stripping the seed pods off the blades, pouring his frustration and longing into the action.

Paul gave Will a sideways glace. “I've listened in on the conversations of AAA members, but no one let slip how to get out of here." His voice softened. "Besides, if I got out of here...I would revert back to my spirit form."

He would be gone again. Yet another reason why Will couldn't accept that his grandfather was here, even if Paul was speaking the truth.

He shoved his hands into his pockets, but as he did so, he felt something, deep in the hollow. His comm!

Will pulled out his comm, halting, a grin spreading across his face. If he could get his comm to work—

Paul stared at Will, stopping beside him. "What are you doing?"

"I'm seeing if I have a comm signal here." Will jammed the earpiece in his ear. "I don't know how it would work, but maybe if I manipulate my comm in virtual reality, I can get it to work in real life. I could call for help, or even hack my way out of this. Surely this Reality Ring has some sort of a coding system I could break into."

Paul chuckled. "You, hack? Son, you barely passed technology in your ASP entrance exams."

But I took a tech class after I moved to EC
. Will shook his head: Paul wouldn't know that, since he had "died" before then.

But Will said nothing to Paul, and turned on the comm instead. “Comm?” he said aloud.

Nothing happened. There wasn't even a beep to signify that the comm could turn on. Will ripped the earpiece out of his ear and shoved it back in his pocket, feeling sour.

"So?" Paul still stood there, his dark, thick eyebrows shooting upward and causing deep furrows in his forehead.

"It doesn't work." Will closed his eyes and rubbed his forehead. If only the comm had received
some
sort of signal! "I'll have to find another way out."

************

A loud beeping sound reverberated around the intelligence room. A blinking red dot pulsed on the world map, right in the middle of Persia.

The room erupted into an uproar.

"Get me coordinates on that signal!"

"Tracing the signal now, stand by!"

"Identify it!"

"What's going on?" Brownbarr shouted to Rolvo.

Rolvo pulled up a string of numbers and words on the screen and scanned them. "It's Will Vullahman's comm signal, sah!"

Brownbarr glanced at the blinking dot on the giant map. He had assumed that the AAA would have disabled Vullerman's comm, which was the easiest way to trace them. "Rolvo, is Vullerman's comm voice-locked?"

"Yes, sah.”

Vullerman had to be alive, then, and trying to communicate. A voice-lock was almost impossible to hack, so there was a good chance that this signal was genuine. Brownbarr shook his head. "How in the blazes did he manage to do it this time?"

"Who knows, sah?" Rolvo punched a button on the screen and pulled up a map of Persia. "All that mattahs is that he managed to do it."

"Signal traced!" someone shouted. "Coordinates are up on our mainframe."

"Comm.” Brownbarr put a finger to his earpiece, making sure it was securely in place. "Send a message to all active ASP operatives."

The earpiece chimed. "Now recording."

"The ASP is now under a code red," Brownbarr said. "All operatives must be ready to leave within a moment's notice and armed for combat. Stand by."

"Message sent," the comm said.

"Directah Brownbah!"

Brownbarr located Rolvo a dozen meters away, hunched over a different, smaller computer screen. "What is it?"

Rolvo looked up from the screen and rubbed his pale forehead. "We've picked up a strange signal situated at the same coordinates as Mr. Vullahman's comm. It matches our expectations for the Reality Ring's signal. What shall we do?"

"Is it active?"

"The ring?"

Brownbarr rolled his eyes. “Of
course
I mean the ring. Speak quickly, Rolvo, we don't have all day!"

"Yes, sah, it appears to be active."

"All right. Try to break the code of the Reality Ring and enter into the data stream. Once you have broken the code, make contact with Vullerman's comm, bypassing the coding of the ring at the same time. He may still have the Reality Ring on. Once you do that, I'll speak with him."

Rolvo nodded, a slow smile spreading on his face. He gave an open-handed British salute. "On it, sah."

A voice came from behind Brownbarr. "And sir, what would you need me to do?"

Brownbarr turned. "Try not to break anything, Mothinghotch. It's best that you stay near the door."

Mothinghotch bobbed his head. "Yes, sir." He moved back towards the door.

Brownbarr sat down on one of the chairs lining the back wall of the room and leaned back. "Well," he muttered to himself, "It's been an exciting first day so far."

************

Scarcely a minute had gone by when the earth vibrated. A loud siren wailed from the sky, and then quieted.

"What was that?" Will craned his neck and stared up at the sky.

"I've been here for years, but I've never heard that sound before." Paul's brow furrowed. "I don't know what—"

The earth thrummed again, and then a voice boomed from the heavens. "Vullerman—Vullerman, can you hear me?"

What? It was Sunglasses, the man he had worked with on the American mission! But how did he manage to contact Will...from the sky? Will craned his neck and shouted. "I can hear you!"

There was a short silence.

"We've detected a slight variation in the coding of the Reality Ring," said the booming voice. "We can only think that you are trying to communicate but cannot while under the influence of the ring. Now, listen. You've been kidnapped by an organization called the AAA. Our sources show that you're in central Persia. You need to do everything you can to escape. We've hacked into Persian files on the Reality Ring, and according to them, there's a way you can get out of this virtual reality from the inside. Try to—"