Chrysalis

4

Over the next hour, things happened at dizzying speed. There were two more outer checkpoints, after which Logan found himself easing the car down into an underground structure that looked as if it were made of seamless titanium. An armed valet opened his door, took his keys with a dazzling smile, and handed him off to a bellhop. This man in turn led the way into the towering lobby of what Logan assumed must be guest accommodations for visitors to the Chrysalis Advanced Research Center. With a marble front desk, several fountains, and a string quartet playing earnestly on an orchid-framed stand, it looked and sounded like a four-star hotel.

The bellhop led him to the front desk, where he was escorted discreetly across the ornate lobby, through an unmarked door, and into a small room with two chairs and a table, on which sat some kind of screening device. A young woman in a dark suit entered from a back door and, smiling and offering endless apologies, ran a wand over Logan himself, then his bags. Then she asked him to sign a series of nondisclosure and noncompete agreements, along with others Logan didn’t bother to ask about. Ordeal complete, she escorted him out of the room and down a corridor. Reaching a bank of elevators, she entered one, spoke into her Omega module — rather different than his — then pressed the top button. They were whisked twenty floors to a sky lobby, dimly lit and comparatively elegant, obviously within the central spire of the complex. A final elevator ride brought them to what appeared to be a sprawling executive suite. The woman led Logan into a conference room, asked him to make himself comfortable, and then left, closing the door behind her.

Logan put his duffel on the long table, which he now noticed bore the distinctive yellow and red striped hues of canary wood. He took a minute to catch his breath. The first thing he felt was relief — he’d been afraid a body cavity search was next on the menu. This was quickly followed by curiosity. He walked over to the windows that spanned one wall of the huge, elegant room. They curved slightly, following the skin of the tower, and were covered with some semi-translucent material. They distorted the view below, but he was able to make out the faint twinkle of countless lights that could only represent one flank of the Torus, running along the bowl-shaped valley over which night had now fallen.

The door opened again and Logan turned to see another woman — older and taller than his guide — enter the room. She looked to be in her mid-forties, about Logan’s own age, and was dressed conservatively and rather expensively, and she was the first person Logan had seen who wasn’t wearing a badge.

“Dr. Logan,” she said, extending her hand. “Welcome to the Complex. I’m Claire Asperton, general counsel to the Chrysalis Management Group. We spoke earlier.” She had dark blond hair with just a few strands of gray, cut in an elegant, shoulder-length blowout.

“Pleasure to meet you,” Logan said, shaking the proffered hand. “It’s only been six hours, but I feel like we’re practically old friends.”

“Thank you for coming so quickly,” she said with a tight smile.

Logan was used to assignments with heavy veils of secrecy and confidentiality. What he wasn’t used to was such urgency: he’d been asked, in the politest of terms, to drop everything, make whatever excuses were necessary, and rush to this remote complex — that very day. His generous consultancy fee would take into account this inconvenience and haste.

“Please take a seat,” Asperton said. “I apologize for the urgency of our call, and the vetting process you were just subjected to.”

“The trials of the Redcrosse Knight?”

The lawyer chuckled. “And to think you still have Archimago to look forward to.”

Logan laughed despite himself. It was nice to know, somehow, that this person had read something other than law books. “Actually, I’m used to it. I find it comes with the territory.”

“Well, it’s a territory that’s new to me. You call yourself an — enigmalogist, is that correct?”

Logan nodded. “It started as a kind of hobby, really. It’s not something one studies for. But when it became a vocation, I decided I’d better give the job a name.”

“I’ve seen your face on the cover of several magazines, though usually with a more sensational job title. Like ‘ghost-breaker’ or ‘supernatural detective.’ ”

“Sensational, yes. Accurate, perhaps not so much.”

“But from what I understand, you’ve participated in some fairly high-profile investigations. Is it true you dispelled the curse of some Egyptian king’s tomb?”

“I did the best I could.”

“And you solved the mystery of the Taos Hum?”

“Most of the work I do is more… terrestrial. I prefer to stay under the radar when I can. It helps weed out the cranks.”

“But still, the cases you specialize in are always, for lack of a better term, out of the ordinary.”

“Yes. I’m not a detective — I investigate circumstances, or phenomena, the authorities either won’t or can’t deal with. Sometimes it’s because they refuse to spend time with something ridiculous. Other times, they haven’t any idea what to do.”

“But you do.”

“I’ve had an excellent success rate so far.”

Asperton nodded. “And you’re extremely discreet. That’s important: along with the fact you do most of your work on a corporate scale, rather than taking on private individuals. And you have a willingness to travel.”

“Even to places that don’t exist,” Logan said. “Like Hurricane Valley.” The way Chrysalis had removed the names of the surrounding roads, and supposedly paid mapping apps to pixelate their images of the valley, reminded him of something that — like the Roman emperor Maxentius — was in the process of being erased from history, both victims of damnatio memoriae.

Asperton nodded. “As a conglomerate, Chrysalis is unique in having so many high-tech lines of business: defense work, robotics, medicine, personal tech. Why scatter your technological resources all around the world, when you could build a single entity to house them all?”

“And in a beautiful, unspoiled location, free from distracting urban surroundings.” With security easier to enforce, Logan thought to himself.

“A remote location wasn’t only agreeable — believe it or not, it was central to the conception. We’re a hundred miles from two of the planet’s cultural hubs — New York and Boston — and yet our own campus is so self-contained that few feel the need to leave. In fact, it makes poaching high-level talent almost easy. With so many lines of business in one place, we’ve been able to provide a facility with a dozen fine restaurants, four gyms, two live theaters, a hospital, a tech university for cross-discipline study, a sixty-acre wooded park, spacious living quarters with first-class furnishings — all provided without cost. Not to mention the most important thing: the psychological and professional benefits of working with so many others, in so many fascinating lines of research, pushing so many envelopes.”

The lawyer paused. Her contralto voice with its faint finishing-school accent was still light, but now her smile vanished. “In any case, I wanted to speak with you as soon as you arrived, if only to explain the urgency. We’re still waiting on your final security clearance, but we hope to have it completed late tonight. In the meantime, there’s a good deal of background I’d like to give you.”

She shifted in her chair. “Chrysalis has come a long way from John Christie’s original automobile and farm-implement manufacturer. As with other large international entities, we’ve diversified into areas such as medical devices, a motion picture studio, nanotechnology. But we’ve also learned you can’t be Sony and IBM and Exxon all at the same time. So rather than duking it out with the established competition, we’ve been focusing our major attention, and research, into technological backwaters not yet fully exploited. And the most promising avenue — and where we’ve funneled tremendous resources — is developing software codecs from our entertainment division that, combined with neural engineering, will create a fully immersive, existential telepresence. The result is that.” The lawyer pointed at the device currently protruding from Logan’s pocket.

“Omega,” Logan said.

“Virtual reality is going to revolutionize the world — it’s not a question of if, but when. And since our technology has been under development for some time, it’s now almost fully mature — while our competition is just beginning to realize what they’re missing out on. They’ve continued to think of VR as primarily a game technology. But it’s got the potential to be much, much more. Which is why we bought Infinium — and the brain behind it.”

Logan nodded. He had, of course, read about this. Infinium had originally been the brainchild of Matthew Wrigley, an MIT postdoc who’d developed a passion for 3D and augmented reality literally in his dorm room. The press had been full of stories about how, by buying Infinium for a staggering sum — and bringing the famously difficult Wrigley along to supervise its growth — Chrysalis had spent far too much on a passing fad. But the union of Wrigley’s vision and Chrysalis’s funding had formed Omega: a technology now seeping slowly into daily life.

“The device you have there in your pocket,” Asperton went on, “and the others snugged behind people’s ears everywhere — they’re marvelous, but they’re only the first phase of our business plan. The second is far more ambitious… and, best of all, it’s being quietly rolled out as we speak. All the infrastructure is in place for announcing Omega’s new incarnation, the Voyager — and taking it live next week. We’ve poured hundreds of millions into this, Jeremy. That’s how much we believe in Omega.”

Abruptly, she sat forward and her expression changed.

“But we’ve run into an issue. That’s why you, you specifically, were brought here on such short notice — to make sure it’s only an issue, not a problem. As the top lawyer for Chrysalis, it’s my job to be paranoid. I’m bringing you in for a six-figure fee as a precaution. Too much is riding on the phase two rollout, which is why your presence here at this critical juncture is an occupational necessity. And this decision comes from the highest perch in the company.”

“The highest perch,” Logan repeated in a low voice.

Asperton nodded slowly. Then she pressed a button on a console built into the table, spoke quietly into it. A minute passed. And then a door on the far side of the conference room opened and a form slowly emerged.

Logan, who had seen a great many strange things, thought he was inured to surprise. But as he looked at the person who’d just stepped into the room, he stood up automatically, astonished. Asperton did the same.

Standing at the far end of the conference table was a phantom. Yet Logan had no doubt this phantom was real: the heavy brow, the hooked nose, and the unmistakable scar across the left jawline — testament to an accident on the factory line fifty years ago — identified him beyond question. John Christie IV, descendant of the Christie who had founded the auto empire now known as Chrysalis. Nobody outside the company had glimpsed him for almost twenty years. It was rumored he was long dead from his factory’s carcinogens. But here he was, beyond question, in the flesh. He was thin, almost gaunt, and his bespoke suit hung on his skeletal limbs. After a brief silence, he came forward, along the edge of the table, to where Logan was standing.

The two looked at each other for a moment. And then the aged man took Logan’s hand in both of his.

“It’s a pleasure to meet you, Jeremy,” he said in a whispery voice. “The work being done here is precious. It’s the future of technology — the future of man. We have our own people looking into this tragedy, but the time element is critical. Even if it turns out to be a police matter, the authorities would only impede our progress unnecessarily. Besides, we have police of our own. That’s why you are here. I know what you did for Lux: please do the same for us now. You’re the only person in the world I felt comfortable contacting. You’re our Hail Mary, Jeremy. You’re our just in case.”

As Christie spoke, the pressure of his hands on Logan’s increased. For such an old man, he had a remarkable grip. At last, Christie relaxed his hands. He patted Logan’s shoulder. Then he turned and walked slowly away. The door closed with a soft click and it was as if he had never been there.

But he had. And Logan understood why. This was the conglomerate’s way of telling him how seriously they took this problem.

Asperton broke the gathering silence. “It’s quite late. You’ll find a corporate prospectus, org charts, and a stack of other reading matter waiting in your suite. We’ll send dinner as well. Get acclimated; get some rest. Because at some point tonight, your clearance will come through — and then the real work begins.”

And with that, she smiled slightly, then led the way out of the conference room.