THIRTY-NINE

Chimes sounded a third time, and Stewart’s head popped up, his attention pulled from the confusing configuration Vanessa had left. He glanced at his watch, then leaned far to the right of where he sat, glancing over to his own console to double-check on Kenna and Jason’s progress.

They may not necessarily like each other but, according to the readout, they were making good progress on the team-building drill.

Stewart reached across both consoles to silence the chimes, then returned to the confusing array of connections in front of him.

What the hell had Vanessa been doing last night? She wouldn’t have reconfigured the system so strangely without a good reason.

He knew she and Kenna had been working on Charlie’s final VR scenario. Stewart scratched his head. Vanessa generally left an e-mail or voice recording letting him know what was up, but there was nothing from her this morning. And the state of disarray she’d left was unlike her. Unless, Stewart reasoned, she’d planned to be back early this morning to continue her work.

Stewart stood up and stretched, enjoying the satisfying pops of his spine snapping into place. He took a deep breath, contented. Life was starting to get back to normal again. He’d been worried about Kenna more than he cared to admit. The girl had suffered so much in her life. And yet, every hit she took only served to make her stronger.

He walked around his own console to take another reading on Kenna and Jason’s progress. They were doing well. Alert to any hint of distress, techs kept a close eye on the duo, too. Charlie’s death at his facility had taken a toll, and Stewart hated the fact that he was constantly afraid that he might lose another one of his kids. He wondered, not for the first time, if this VR business wasn’t all it was cracked up to be.

Stewart paced the control room. White walls, stark lighting, giant gray workstations, and tall gray consoles against the walls. Equipment everywhere: flat, ugly, harsh. Depressingly necessary for making customers’ dreams come true.

Stewart strolled to the room’s far end. Windowed, it looked down over the ground-floor mainframe that ran every VR adventure for their clients. He stared at the mechanical monstrosity. It took an enormous amount of power to maintain detailed adventures, and yet Virtu-Tech promised smaller units were on their way. They’d take up far less square footage and allow for more VR capsules and stations. Continual upgrades…

Virtu-Tech. Always looking to squeeze another buck out of the fantasizing, eager—not to mention, paying—public. Like a low-lying storm cloud, it remained above the masses, hovering, powerful…threatening…omnipotent.

He shook his head to dispel the negativity. Things were finally back to normal. He needed to chill.

Stewart wondered at that. Entertainment came solely from VR adventures nowadays. Few souls really “did” anything anymore when it was just so much easier to participate virtually. Almost no one walked along the lakefront. Or skied. Or read books. Why should they passively read, when they could, virtually, live the story?

Every single day, people trotted off to work to pay for future VR adventures. Each night, they’d return home to sleep before starting the cycle all over again. He wondered about future generations and what the effect of all this would ultimately be.

Maybe he should retire.

A fourth chime sounded. Kenna and Jason would be halfway through the program soon. Marching right along…they seemed to be able to work together. He hoped he hadn’t pushed Kenna too soon.

Stewart scratched his head again. Time to focus on something positive, he reminded himself, returning to Vanessa’s console. She must have found something—there had to be a good reason why she’d left things a mess like this.

He glanced up at the clock again. It was nearly eleven in the morning. Pretty late for Vanessa, even if she had worked through the night. Maybe he should give her a call.