Chrysalis

6

At 7 a.m., Logan was awakened by a chirp from his bedside. A message from Claire Asperton told him that his clearance had come through, and she’d like to meet at 7:45, if possible.

Logan showered and dressed, and in short order he was making his tentative way through the Tower, Chrysalis employees moving purposefully around him, until Pythia told him he’d reached his destination: an unmarked door on one of the low floors. He frowned. After a moment, he knocked. The door opened and Logan found himself face-to-face with the trim figure of Claire Asperton.

“Ms. Asperton,” he said.

The lawyer smiled as she gestured Logan inside. “Call me Claire, please. This isn’t my regular office. It’s a refuge I use from time to time.”

The office was not nearly as large as last evening’s conference room, but it was pleasantly, if severely, appointed. There were no bookcases or paintings to soften the monochromatic walls: just a few leather chairs, a desk, a table, some screens that were currently dark, and a wall of glass looking out over the Advanced Research campus. A bowl of macadamia nuts sat on the table, along with a tray of breakfast pastries and two tall mugs that smelled richly of coffee. Asperton ushered him to one chair and took a seat in another.

“Last night, I explained our goal for Omega: to create a product nobody knows they need, but in a couple years won’t be able to live without — with our competition receding in our rearview mirror. But the only thing more difficult than deceiving the competition has been developing the technology itself. And that’s why the next few days are so critical — not just for the success of Omega, but for Chrysalis as a conglomerate.”

Logan sat back. “I’m all ears.”

“Good, because with your clearance out of the way, I can get you up to speed. In a nutshell, we — I guess I should say Matthew Wrigley — has devised a comprehensive three-stage rollout, as I touched on last night. The Venture we introduced last year, your device, was phase one: technology that lets people accomplish many things in a more intuitive way. Here and there, we’ve allowed this technology to bring two different mediums together — such as in movies like the upcoming Crystal Champions II — but we don’t make a big deal about it. The primary effort has been to broaden the tech beyond games, let people grow comfortable with the devices and a degree of virtual immersion. And we’ve succeeded: someone using a Venture isn’t seen as a bleeding-edge geek, or a person with a severe hearing problem, anymore. Meanwhile, behind the scenes, we’ve been frantically preparing for phase two.”

She sipped her coffee, grabbed a few macadamias. “Care for some?”

“No, thanks.”

“Phase two, the Omega Voyager, is where the real magic starts to happen. We’re leveraging our virtual reality into a persistent, viable commercial environment.”

Logan’s blank look must have registered, because Asperton smiled. “I’ll give you an example. Imagine being an avid golfer living in Tulsa — and being able to pick out a new set of golf clubs… while standing in the Pro Shop at Pebble Beach. Or St. Andrews. The smells, the sights — even the feel of the wind — all utterly realistic. And, of course, since this virtual world will be interacting seamlessly with the Voyager interface, those clubs you buy will be perfectly sized and you’ll be able to pick out the grips that feel best in your hand. In later iterations, you’ll be able to have a virtual drink at the nineteenth hole afterward.”

Logan listened intently. It sounded like a far cry from the little Venture unit of his.

Asperton scooped up a few more nuts. “It will be a perfect purchasing experience — because ‘purchasing’ becomes fun, an outing or adventure of sorts. And with our licensing fees and the per-usage charges, we’ll recoup our investment quickly. There isn’t a major retailer who won’t want to build out a store on our proprietary platform.”

She let that sink in. Logan realized the financial ramification would be staggering.

“We’ve finished beta-testing phase two, and the first one hundred thousand Voyager units are arriving on the doorsteps of early adopters as we speak. Another two hundred thousand will be synced and shipped to additional customers in coming weeks, but the first Voyagers will go live on Monday.”

Monday. That was five days away.

“And phase three?” he asked.

“Still in preproduction — probably sometime later next year.” Asperton paused and refocused. “Now, for the reason you’re here. Bad news can be told more quickly than good, I’m afraid: the day before yesterday, a member of the Chrysalis board died.”

“I’m sorry to hear that. Which member was it?” Logan asked, slipping a tablet out of his duffel and thinking of the organizational chart he’d studied the previous evening.

“Russell Spearman, producer at Chrysalis Film Studios. Something happened at a staff meeting — he had some kind of seizure. Or fit. One eyewitness said it was almost like he went insane. Then he plunged through a plate-glass conference table. Whether he died of blood loss, shock, or a combination is still an open question.”

Logan nodded, making notes on the tablet.

“On its own, his death would be a tragic circumstance for our studio and would present a vacancy on our board. But that’s not the crux of the problem. Fifteen minutes after I heard about Spearman’s death, I received a strange message on my own Omega device. At first, I thought it was gibberish. But then, on a hunch, I tried unscrambling it with my private key — all executives within the company have one. Unfortunately, that worked — and the message speaks for itself.”

She tapped a tablet of her own, then turned its display toward Logan. The text it displayed was brief.

Logan read, then reread, the message in silence. As Asperton withdrew the tablet, he made a quick mental calculation. “You said his death was the day before yesterday.”

“Yes,” she said, gaze leveled on Logan.

“Which means today is the ‘day after tomorrow.’ ” Logan thought a moment. “I assume you’ve forensically analyzed that message?”

“Very quietly, using only our top-level assets in security and logistics. We know nothing more than what you can read from it yourself.”

“You don’t know what the ‘second’ is, or what ‘drop’ signifies.”

“No. But I can’t see any happy ending.”

Nor could John Christie, I expect, Logan thought. It was becoming clearer why Christie, knowing personally of Logan’s expertise, would have thought of bringing him in: so much at stake, so little to go on.

“You said unscrambling the message with a private key was unfortunate. Why?”

“It means whoever sent the message has the ability to infiltrate our systems using asymmetric cryptography.”

Logan took a few more notes. “This message contains no specific threat. No blackmail. The red flags are simply that Spearman wasn’t an accident, and that a second drop would take place today.”

Asperton nodded. “Our concern — our primary concern, beyond grief at Spearman’s death — is the timing.”

“The rollout of phase two.”

The lawyer nodded.

“Any autopsy or police reports yet?”

“Preliminary. Inconclusive.”

“Chances of suicide? Murder?”

Asperton sighed. “Hard to know. So far, no evidence of either.”

“Conglomerates like Chrysalis have fingers in many pies. Is there some other important spin-off, or anything, that will happen in the near future?”

After a brief hesitation, Asperton shook her head. “There’s the Crystal Champions sequel Spearman was producing, but that’s months away and they’re already scrambling to replace him. Voyager is the big event. And I mean big — if we have to hold off the rollout, we’d lose tens of millions of dollars a day. But more importantly, we’d lose the initiative and untold credibility with both the public and our corporate partners. It would be a crippling blow, not only to the subdivision but Chrysalis as a whole.”

“I’m going to ask a stupid question, and it’s stupid because, if it was relevant, you would probably have mentioned it already. Can you think of any person, company, or entity of any sort who’d like to see Chrysalis or this product compromised? Or, for that matter, who’d be powerful enough to make such a thing happen?”

“Well, there’s the magic question. Corporate espionage is always a possibility. But as I’ve told you, we’ve done a superb job of misdirection with Omega. And the retailers partnering with us in this next phase have almost as much to lose as we do. You could posit a whole raft of things — a disaffected stockholder, a jilted business rival, a psycho — but within minutes you’d be drowning in hypotheticals.”

“Fair enough. Yet you called me, in particular, because — as soon as you got this message — you assumed it had to do with the impending launch. Right?”

“I hoped — and still hope — it doesn’t. But it’s too serious and unsettling to ignore. We need you to investigate this in any way you see fit.”

Logan nodded, then put his tablet aside. “I assume that’s all you can tell me.”

“As of this moment, that’s all I’ve got. But we can now give you unrestricted access to the Chrysalis databases.” She stood up, smoothed her skirt, walked over to the desk, and pressed a button. “We’ve set up a space for you to operate; I’ll have you taken there now. Maybe you can learn something about Spearman, or the message, that will shed light on this and help us anticipate what’s next. While you’re here, I can grant you access to anyone and anything within the company. Where necessary, we’ll tell people you’re working on a high-level data analysis for my office.”

There was a knock on the door. Logan, assuming it was his escort, stood up. But Asperton stopped him. “Just a moment, Dr. Logan.”

He paused.

“There’s one thing I want to make clear. It may be helpful; it may not. Last night, I told you I was aware of your work as a paranormal sleuth. I know you’ve solved several nonsupernatural cases as well, but those don’t make headlines. When an emergency meeting was called Monday afternoon, I was the person — once Mr. Christie mentioned your name — who insisted you be called in. Obviously, not because of your affinity for ghosts, but because of what you call yourself: an enigmalogist. You confront — and solve — problems nobody has encountered before, that stymie normal methods of investigation, rules of engagement. Is that an accurate appraisal?”

“I may well add it to my CV.”

She gave a wintry smile. “Then you understand what’s at stake and why I hired you. This is a problem we’ve never encountered, and frankly aren’t sure how to define, let alone handle. And we’d like to keep it quiet. I wanted you here on-site, fully briefed, as quickly as possible. Let’s hope I acted from an overabundance of caution.” She gestured toward the door. “Good luck, Jeremy.”