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Walking back to the Tower, Aviva found it strange that the skies were overcast, with the highest buildings’ tops lost in the low-hanging clouds. She had never seen such gloomy weather in The Virt before. Perhaps she had never noticed it before.
While walking she replayed all that Lev had revealed and the implications it might have. The situation was difficult. A pure win strategy didn’t exist. If one did, she wasn’t seeing it.
A crowd remained at the entrance of the Tower. They stood, appreciating the novel landmark. The red glow from the building’s surface lost in overcast clouds gave them a menacing hue. She wondered what this building symbolized for these onlooking people. The Tower was the only representation people had for a terrorist group that remained anonymous and invisible. A place, where a group of individuals were living luxurious lives, as if on an extended vacation that most couldn’t afford. Aviva could only imagine the cringe-worthy reporting that would be covering this Life in the Tower as a desirable thing.
The Red Masks were playing this game perfectly, letting beliefs—based on nothing but expectation—take hold of individuals’ imagination. Letting the apparent generosity instill doubt that perhaps this terrorist group wasn’t so bad. Perhaps a revolution to challenge the established world order was needed. People would start to believe this and many other crazy conspiracies. The longer it took to get the facts out, the harder it would be to dislodge them. Lev was right; they needed to hurry. But she wouldn’t hurry into a wrong decision.
“Aren’t you that woman from the news?” a man from the crowd shouted in her direction. The crowd’s attention turned on Aviva and tightened around her. They pressed her with questions. Questions about her beliefs of the Red Masks’ true intentions, why she’d gone in after the attack, and mainly about her relationship with Morgan...
She could have escaped into her condo. Isolate herself from the crowd. The guards at the entrance would hold back the crowd if she’d asked them to. But she didn’t want to go into the condo. She feared finding another note requiring her to report immediately. She wasn’t ready to do that. She didn’t want to be forced into making a decision.
Not now.
She wouldn’t get much thinking done with the crowd assaulting her with questions. She pushed her way through the crowd, ignoring them as best she could. A few continued to pester her down the block but eventually gave up. When she was alone, she stopped in front of a sunglasses shop. She wouldn’t risk living that horrible experience again. She wanted to walk the streets incognito.
The door chimes rang as Aviva entered the small fashion boutique. She examined the choice of sunglasses on the carousel next to the door.
"Not the busiest day.” The store clerk glanced over and out the window at the overcast sky outside. He was a middle-aged man wearing white linen pants, a green floral print shirt, and a gray fedora that matched his well-trimmed beard. Aviva tried on several glasses while the man continued his observations. “Strange, isn’t it? Fourteen years and I’ve always seen the blue of the sky. Sure, the odd cloud here and there, for diversity’s sake. Gloomy weather like this is pushing it, don’t you think?”
Aviva spun another carousel, the choices all too small for what she wanted.
“Are you looking for something specific?” the store clerk asked.
She explained what she wanted.
He examined her face carefully. “Ah yes, I’ve seen you on the news. It’s a pity they won’t leave you alone. Everyone deserves to have their private lives protected. But don’t worry, I’ve got just the right thing for you.”
He retrieved a frame from a locked cabinet behind the counter.
“The large size covers you quite well. The octagonal contour throws the mind off, making it impossible for people to recognize face shapes.”
He adjusted them to her face. “They look great on you.” He paused and asked, “They don’t let you change your avatar?”
“No, we don’t have access to our parameters. At least, I don’t think we do.” She examined herself in the mirror. “Could I have them slightly larger?”
“Tell me when,” said the clerk, moving a finger along a control behind his counter. The glasses expanded on her face. She raised a finger when they covered a third of her face.
“Slightly oversized, according to me,” he said. “But it will certainly have the desired effect.”
“I’ll have to see if I can connect to my bank accou—”
The man stopped her. “As a guest of the Red Tower, everything has been taken care of.”
“You serious?”
He shrugged. “We don’t ask questions when it comes to these things.”
“I appreciate your help.”
On the point of leaving, Aviva paused at the shop’s entrance. She took a step back into the store.
“Is everything all right?” asked the clerk, looking out into the street to see what Aviva was staring at.
Across the street stood a man, leaning against a wall and smoking nervously. She had noticed him when she’d left Terry’s lounge. There was no doubt it was the same man. He had a distinctive crooked nose and archaic beige jacket with brown patches on the elbows.
“No, no, thank you for your help.”
She stepped outside and turned immediately to walk in the direction with the most pedestrians. She glanced back as she turned the next street corner.
The man was following her.
Ahead, there was a restaurant terrace, busy with people drinking coffee. She hid behind a concrete column. The man passed without noticing her and then paused, looking around wondering where she had gone.
“What do you want?” Aviva asked, stepping out from behind the column.
The man jumped back, startled.
“Who are you?” she asked.
“There’s things you need to know.” The man spoke with a French accent. He was in his thirties at most, unkempt blond hair and a nervous twitchy movement, the type of guy who was nervous and unsure of himself.
“That doesn’t explain why you’re following me.”
“I was waiting to have a moment to discuss discreetly with you, away from the crowd.”
“I probably wouldn’t want that, don’t you think?”
“Yes, of course,” he said, inspecting the surroundings nervously. “But we can’t speak out in the street. We need some...privacy.”
“Why would I trust you?”
“My name’s Jacques,” he said. “Jacques Duffy. I worked as a programmer at The Virt’s Decision Center in Paris.”
This was enough to grab her interest. She was curious.
“Where are you now, physically?”
“In a safe location under Paris. I entered hours before the attack. I live in the Tower, like you.” His eyes darted down the streets. He leaned forward to whisper, “Lev’s people were in Paris before the attack. I have names and need help to find out more about them.”
Lev in Paris—she didn’t doubt this. Lev was everywhere.
She grabbed Jacques’s forearm and started walking down the street. “Where do you want to go?”
“Paris,” he said.
“Sure,” she said. “I know a place where we can go.”
They descended the stairs of the next subway station. The subway station served as portals to other destinations in The Virt. At the base, Aviva entered the location into a terminal. They pushed through the revolving doors taking them away from New York and into Paris.
––––––––
She had chosen a location near the center of The Virt’s Paris. A place where international journalists often gathered after work. Aviva had spent many evenings there, in the real place as well as in the simulated Virt version. The staff—most of them were French but didn’t live in the real Paris—knew her by her first name. If Jacques Duffy wasn’t who he claimed to be, she’d be safe there. The hostess greeted Aviva, surprised to see her as the word had clearly spread about what had happened to her. Aviva asked for a quiet table away from the other journalist who wouldn’t have left her alone if they knew she was there. The hostess brought them to a table secluded in a corner on the outside terrace.
“Come see this,” said Jacques, who had walked to the building’s edge and was motioning for her to come and join him.
The sight of the city had a strange effect on her. The quiet and damaged Paris she had left behind contrasted with the Paris in full activity before her. A Paris with the SkyTrain circulating normally and the flow of pedestrians and cyclists flowing through busy streets. It was as if nothing had ever happened.
“Do you know what’s wrong with this scene?” Jacques said.
She scanned the city to see what he meant. The Virt’s Paris was different from most cities. The walls of the structures were old, with signs of accumulated filth on the aged concrete, the pavement cracked here and there, like it was in the real city. Some shops were closed, windows boarded over. The SkyTrain’s concrete columns were sprayed with sloppy graffiti, and the column nearest her had a j’en ai ral bol sprayed sloppily across it. These types of details you didn’t find in most other simulated cities.
New York’s Virt was clean, with vibrant colors, modern in architecture and perfectly laid out. The trash was invisible. The graffiti was only found in neighborhoods specially designed for it, and when you found it, it was professionally illustrated. But the imperfect Paris wasn’t an accident. The French Government held conservative views regarding The Virt. They were among the few countries who decided to make its simulated cities similar to the real thing—not a fantasy representation of what people wanted the city to be. That is why this Paris faithfully copied the infrastructure of the real city as closely as possible. The French had three reasons to justify this approach. First, it was hoped that this would limit the citizens’ desire to spend more time in The Virt. This didn’t turn out to be true as most people in Paris enjoyed uploading into foreign cities where things were cleaner and utopic. However, this was compensated with a significant increase in tourism from people around the world, drawn to visit cities offering an authenticity—as if they were really there—that other places couldn’t pull off. But what turned out to be the most beneficial reason to copy reality was that it promoted the upkeep and vitality of the real city. Compared to the real Paris, the real New York was on a quick path to decrepitude.
“The city isn’t damaged... Should it be?” asked Aviva, unsure if the infrastructure should be updated in real time to copy the damaged Paris from the attack, with shattered windows and collapsed billboards.
“It absolutely should,” said Jacques. “The delay to update is less than five seconds. The only way this is possible is if someone changed the settings.”
The streets below were swarming with tourists. There was a festive air to the streets on this warm summer night.
“The French have come to see the city for themselves, expecting their romantic city to be damaged,” continued Jacques. “They are staying to celebrate this Paris, relieved that it has been preserved.”
“Is it possible that the government changed the settings prior to the attack?”
“The only place where such changes could happen are at the Paris Decision Center. At the very terminal where I worked until moments before the attack. Someone did this after the attack, from the inside. There is no other way.”
“Does this not need approval from the other decision centers?”
“No. Changes to city infrastructure manifestation are under each country’s jurisdiction.”
“If not your own government, then who?” asked Aviva.
“I have reason to believe people working with Lev are mixed up in this.”
They returned to their table to discuss this troubling accusation over wine.
“Americans were sent to support the French,” said Jacques. “I don’t know exactly where the order came from, but I was told to accommodate them by my superior. I complied.”
“Americans? Sent by the president... Do you know if they were military personnel?”
“I doubt it. They were older men, in their fifties, dressed in T-shirts and jeans. They walked around the office with their semi-automatic guns so casually. The same way a French person would carry a baguette. It was frightening how carelessly they swung those things around. One of them. A big fella with a bald head and gray goatee sat next to me, his gun resting on his lap. It was impossible to work with him next to me. He spun endlessly on the swivel chair—like a child would—emitting guttural sounds that he wasn’t aware he was making.
“At some point he asked my name. When I told him, he thought it was hilarious. Duffy, he remarked, was an American name. What made it funnier—according to him—was that he had a French name, Monet, Brad Monet.”
“Jacques, cut to the chase. I don’t have time to waste.” she said.
“Yeah, yeah,” he said, shifting forward in his chair. “In this conversation I saw an opportunity to find out the names of his colleagues at the Decision Center. You know, to laugh a little about their origins. I noted their names as soon as I could, and again as soon as I could after uploading into the Tower.”
“Who else did you tell this to?” she asked.
“I discussed it with a colleague I could trust. He thought I was being paranoid. He said our own military protecting the Decision Center outnumbered the Americans. We also had an emergency lock-down procedure to prevent tampering. But I remained suspicious about their presence.”
“Where is this colleague of yours?”
“He didn’t want to go into the safe location,” he said, saddened. “He stayed with his family in Paris the night of the attack.”
“Military?”
“Yes.”
“I’m sorry,” said Aviva. “Why do you assume Lev has anything to do with this?”
“Ah, yes! I forgot to mention the tattoo. The guy spinning on my office chair had a tattoo on his neck, below his ear.” Jacques pointed to the spot below his own ear, to show where it was. “The tattoo was two letter Bs, drawn as if hanging on the end of a pistol.”
She stared at him in disbelief.
Jacques dug into his pocket to retrieve a folded page, which he handed over to her. “Like I said, I got their names but haven’t found a way to investigate them from the Tower. With you working for the Networks, I thought that perhaps you might have access to outside resources. Sorry to have frightened you, but that’s why I was following you around.”
“Yeah, I understand.” She slipped the sheet with the names into her pocket. “I’ll gladly look into them and let you know what I find.”
She thought back to her meeting with Lev and his ridiculous speech about being the most generous guy around. Self-praising himself to try to fool her. She doubted his generosity but not his voracious desire for power. If anyone wanted to control The Virt, it was Lev.
