Chrysalis

23

Logan waited until Wrigley had shut the door behind him. Then he turned back to the young woman in the white turtleneck and faded jeans who’d given him the demo. “Roz, right?”

“Right. Roz Madrigal.”

“Mind taking a seat for a moment?”

They sat down, facing the black wall of glass. Roz looked at him with curiosity.

He paused a moment, calculating how to get her maximal cooperation in the shortest amount of time. “Roz, I’m afraid you have to take what Dr. Wrigley said literally. I have questions, maybe a lot of them, and I need answers to them all.”

He could see hesitancy mingling with the curiosity. “What’s all this about —?”

“Here’s what I can tell you. Chrysalis is under threat — a very dire threat. And it seems to involve your product.”

“Omega?”

He nodded. “We don’t know how it was accomplished or anything about its mechanics. That’s where you come in. You see” — and here he leaned in closer — “during that demo you gave the board of directors, two weeks ago… something happened, it’s not clear what. But three of those directors have died over the last several days. And Chrysalis has been threatened — unless the corporation pays a staggering ransom, many more people will die, as well.”

Roz’s mouth hung open as she searched for words. “I don’t understand.”

“I’m relieved to hear that. But we have very little time to figure this out, and less to do something about it.” He considered asking her about Karel Mossby, or whether there’d been recent upticks in unauthorized probes of their firewall, but decided that could wait. “I’ll put it as bluntly as possible: somebody — a hacker, an ex-employee with a grudge, maybe even a nation-state — has found a way to leverage your Omega technology as a weapon.”

“Omega?” she repeated in disbelief.

“Specifically, the second-generation Voyager. The one you demoed for the board members… and that goes live Monday morning.”

Very briefly, he described the death of the board members, the threat of killing a thousand clients. Then he steeled himself for questions; he knew she’d been helping spearhead this project for months, maybe years, and such a development could be nothing short of overwhelming.

But it seemed Wrigley had chosen wisely. “How exactly can I help?” Madrigal asked.

“By taking me, step by step, through everything those board members experienced during their time here in your division. It’s the only common element they share with the — the hostages.”

Roz thought a moment. “It wasn’t that different from what you requested this morning. We just had more time to prepare, do a little set dressing.”

Not that different. This was a rather alarming thought: in the chaos, it hadn’t occurred to Logan that he, too, might in some mysterious way be marked for death. He forced this away.

“Okay, let’s go through each step in detail.” He paused. “I’m sorry for the trouble, but it’s the only common factor we’ve got.”

“Don’t be sorry,” she replied. “We can do it all from here.”

“Pardon?”

“The security cameras capture everything. If I cue up events in the proper order, and from the proper locations, we can view the board’s entire visit, and I can answer your questions at the same time.”

“The security cameras capture everything?” Logan thought about the beautiful marble shower he’d used that morning.

“Not in the way you mean.” For the first time, she smiled. “But they really are all over the Complex — not just Infinium. And not just cameras, either.”

“Infinium?”

“I’m sorry. That’s what I still call this division sometimes.”

“So you’ve been with Wrigley since before the acquisition?”

She nodded. “Let me just get this set up.” She pulled out her tablet and began tapping rapidly on its screen. The wall of black before them turned briefly to glass — Logan had a momentary view out over the soundstage — and then it went dark again, displaying the corporate logo of Chrysalis.

He noticed Madrigal had two Omega units — one, cradled in her hand, that looked like the one he’d been upgraded to, and another, quite different unit in place above one ear: a type worn only by people who worked at the Complex. “Why the two devices?” he asked.

“What? Oh. This one I’m wearing is a Sentinel. It’s used internally, by developers, managers, security, and such.” She held up the one in her hand. “This is the phase two Voyager. The one that’s going live Monday.”

“So what exactly happens Monday? Does everyone just put their Voyagers on and it works, like magic?”

“If you can call ten million lines of machine code, countless new patents, and a hundred geosynchronous satellites magic, then: yes.”

“What’s to stop someone from trying one out early? Get a head start, so to speak?”

“Nothing. In fact, a large number of them are. Already, our people are processing a lot of registrations and sync data from the curious. But they won’t see anything different from that old Venture you came in wearing this morning.”

“Until you flip the switch on Monday.”

“Right.”

“And this ‘switch’ is the same for everyone. There are no special groups or subsets.”

“Correct.”

“So all the Voyager units are completely identical?”

“The ones sent out in the initial hundred-thousand drop are, yes. It’s the code that can be modified.”

“In what way?”

She paused. “Omega software includes variables to account for individual users, based on questionnaires and medical forms. And, like most other modern tech, the units have firmware that can be updated as necessary, just like the software.”

“Updated how?”

“Pushed out to the individual units, via our two-way links.”

“And this will happen to all Voyagers out there in the wild?”

“As long as they have any internet access, yes.”

He hesitated. “Roz, could these software or firmware updates be tampered with in such a way as to cause harm?”

She looked at him as if he was insane. “Harm? My God, that’s crazy. I mean, there have been endless code reviews, alpha and beta test environments… something that sick would be caught long before release. Everything gets its firmware updated these days — headphones, televisions, refrigerators… and just how could these Voyager units cause harm, anyway?”

“I don’t know. Just a thought.”

The corporate logo disappeared from the large window-cum-screen in front of them, and she tapped in a few more commands on her tablet. “Here it is. I’ve tried to stitch together an unbroken narrative. If you have questions, or want me to pause, just say so.”

The screen now displayed a well-appointed conference room, with a central table and a lectern at one end. For a security camera, Logan mused, the fidelity was remarkably good. He could see the twelve members of the board sitting around the table, with Wrigley at the lectern, gesturing at a presentation deck displayed on a screen behind him. “…Although Voyager works internally with a refresh rate of 144 hertz,” he was saying, “we downscale the display to twenty-four frames per second, with a pixel resolution of 3,840 by 2,160 per eye. This gives us the slight blurring effect of motion pictures, undetectable but necessary for the immersive experience that’s been our goal.”

Logan, recognizing at the table the now-deceased Russell Spearman and Marceline Williams, found himself staring at them. The sound cut out, but Wrigley kept talking, and Logan realized Roz had muted it.

“Do you want to hear more?” she asked.

“Not of that. I assume this is the pep talk that preceded the demo?”

She nodded. “Wrigley met the group at the main concourse, just beyond the security barrier to Arc E. He brought them in for the intro you see here, then moved immediately to the demo itself.”

“Can you speed up the playback? I’ll let you know if I have any questions.”

“Sure.” She tapped again. Suddenly, Wrigley’s gestures grew frantic. Logan watched as the man darted back and forth briefly, then led the group out of the room. The view cut to another angle of them walking down a hall, Wrigley leading the way like a docent. Another cut, and the directors were filing into a space Logan recognized: the production lab that held the “cage.” But instead of a cube-like mesh, the video showed three neat rows of four chairs each, placed in the center of the room. All the various machines had been pushed against the walls.

“Pause it, please.” We just had more time to prepare, do a little set dressing. “Okay. Start it up again — at, say, four times normal speed.”

A few more taps on the tablet, and the board members took seats in the rows of chairs. A small group of technicians rushed in, fawning over them like headwaiters, attaching Voyager-style devices and getting them prepped. The technicians rushed away as quickly as they’d come; the lights dimmed slightly — and then all twelve board members went motionless.

“Pause it again, please,” Logan asked after about ten seconds. He turned to her. “What happened?”

“Nothing happened.”

“We’re still running at four times speed?”

“Yes. They’re experiencing the demo.”

“But they’re not moving at all. Can you zoom in?”

“Of course. I can pan over the group, if you like.”

“Really? Normal speed, please.”

The camera angle changed again, and — as Madrigal slid a finger over her tablet — the view moved across the faces. Some were smiling broadly, others had their mouths agape in awe… and then Logan understood. He’d probably worn a similar silly expression when the technology was demonstrated to him. Wrigley had said it best: I wanted to show them where we’re really going with this technology — not just next week, but next year.

Now the camera view returned to a bird’s-eye perspective: the lights were back up and the board members were standing, looking almost like people exiting a roller coaster — laughing, talking. Logan watched as Marceline Williams embraced some board member he didn’t recognize.

And then Wrigley returned and ushered the group back out the way they’d come. They moved out of frame, and Logan glanced at Madrigal. “What next?”

“That’s it. Wrigley escorted them to the exit portal, and they headed for embarkation. At least, I think that’s where they were headed — it was late afternoon by then.”

“You mean—” Logan began, then stopped. He’d been sure something about this demo would leap out at him; there would be some clue to lead him further in his investigation. After all, this was the only common link….

Then he remembered something. “Wrigley said the demo he’d given was not just of phase two — but of phase two advanced.”

Madrigal nodded. “That’s right.”

“And is that the same demo I was given?”

“Well, almost. The Voyager devices were the same, but we had to manually re-create some effects that, in phase three, will be automatically—”

“Can you show me?” he interrupted. “These enhancements you gave the board?”

She considered a moment. “I can’t duplicate it exactly, but I can offer a reasonable facsimile.” She stood. “You’d better follow me.”