Virtual Destruction

CHAPTER 15

Gary Lesserec contented himself with the lap of luxury while Hal Michaelson wallowed in the armpit of politics.

Lesserec sat back in the ergonomic chair next to one of the workstations linked to the VR chamber. He looked at his fingernails, polished them on his “Incredible Hulk” t-shirt, then reached forward to grab his second can of Diet Coke.

Hal Michaelson was the one full of thunder and bluster. He hob-nobbed with Presidents and senators and industrial executives. He grabbed the microphone every chance he got and won his funding more through intimidation than technical merit.

Michaelson knew all the right words, knew how to bully his squad of artists into providing the flashiest viewgraphs, the slickest videotapes. He knew how to make his project sound Impressive with a capital “I”—but, Lesserec thought, Michaelson didn’t know squat about the real VR technology, about the sophistication possible through the nested realtime simulations and the suspended microspheres in the chamber itself. He saw none of the broad applications of the hardware at his fingertips, only his narrowminded, cockeyed Defense Department scheme. The International Verification Initiative — what a trumped-up joke!

If Michaelson had bothered to be there for the demo he had given the handicapped kids from the Coalition for Family Values, he would have seen for himself. Though he had been annoyed at the time, Lesserec had discovered a whole new possibility for VR therapy, if only Michaelson would get his big, ignorant face out of the picture.

Thinking of the kids’ demo reminded him to call that Plutonium Facility technician, Duane Hopkins, to see if he had managed to get the material Lesserec wanted. He hated to wait once he had an idea in his head.

On his workstation Lesserec punched up the status of the routine that T Program’s dedicated parallel computer had spent the afternoon concatenating. Danielle, Walter, and Lil were busy debating the best method to set up the Plutonium Facility demonstrations, studying blueprints of Building 332. The Laser Isotope Separation increment was the newest and cleanest looking part of the facility, though somebody would have to doctor up a bit of actual work to be done in the area, since that program had slowed down in recent years.

Lesserec cracked his freckled knuckles and rocked back in the chair, staring at the big-screen terminal. The whole Plutonium Facility demonstration seemed a bogus and boring example of VR capabilities, but Lesserec supposed it was a viable example of the actual surveillance techniques the virtual inspectors could use in a foreign nuclear weapons fabrication facility.

Of course, that assumed Michaelson’s concept was not fundamentally screwed up… and it was. Anyone could see that, except Hal Michaelson was too dense — no, too proud—to admit it.

Certainly, the microsensors and the sophisticated virtual reality technology made possible the concept of invisible inspectors, able to watch from a distance and see everything. But of course that assumed someone else with sufficient skill and computing power couldn’t alter what the sensors showed. Lesserec knew how to do that. Michaelson could have put two and two together himself, if he’d bothered to understand the implications of his sales pitch.

Some of the T Program people chatted in their cubicles patching up the minor demo routines, enhancing the Yosemite simulation and the Air Force jet dogfight; but Lesserec worked alone. He always worked alone. That gave him the freedom to concentrate and to add his own enhancements without anyone watching over his shoulder.

Hal Michaelson took all the credit and made the headlines — but Lesserec had developed the core technology himself. Sometimes Michaelson forgot about that.

And he needed to be reminded.

Lesserec had hoped to go up to his new condo with Sandra this weekend. Spend a couple days up at Lake Tahoe where they could enjoy their place, sit in the Jacuzzi, or make love in front of the fireplace. That’s the way it should be, now that he could afford the finer things.

The salaries of everyone at the Livermore Lab were a matter of public record; and Lesserec had checked on Michaelson’s earnings. Though he was only a group leader, the big man was one of the highest paid employees in the entire complex. Michaelson’s ability to bring in outside funding for enormous and prestigious projects made him indispensable.

But his salary was peanuts compared to what one could earn from VR patents and spinoff technologies. The medical benefits, the entertainment possibilities, and a thousand other applications made it asinine to keep the technology locked up in tight security, devoted to a lame and hollow spy system. Lesserec wondered if Michaelson’s overbearing enthusiasm had caused a slight case of brain asphyxiation.

Lesserec watched the progress on the terminal screen. The entire file was enormous, maxing out the capabilities of the parallel processor. He had been working on it for months, developing modules at home, fusing them at the Lab, creating something so absolutely mind-blowing it would knock Michaelson flat on his ass. The big man wouldn’t know what hit him. Lesserec smiled at that.

He was one of the few people who dared speak his mind to Michaelson. The T Program leader intimidated everyone else, including the Lab Director and a number of prominent congressmen. But Lesserec had been around since the program’s inception. He had been one of the bright-eyed boys sitting at the table, kicking back on Michaelson’s farm, brainstorming what they could do.

Lesserec had been younger then, incredibly bright and talented — and wet behind the ears, his own enthusiasm unbridled by the bureaucratic reality of working in a government lab abiding by shelves full of DOE “Tiger Team” regulations and coping with managers more interested in timely reports than in actual progress.

Back then, Lesserec had viewed the entire Virtual Reality project as a thought experiment. Given appropriate funding and appropriate talent, what is it possible to do?

He had not realized then that those two assumptions were practically impossible. As a result, T Program preyed on the enthusiasm of starry-eyed students and new graduates — like Walter Shing and Danielle Fawcett — who came in, dumped their brainpower into the project, working incredibly long weeks. T Program squeezed them dry and then tossed them aside to pick up another batch of bright young researchers. That technique kept the project working at a frenzied level at all times, producing the impossible and gaining a grudging respect from those others who operated in a normal routine. Nothing was truly impossible.

And now Gary Lesserec had created his masterpiece: a simulation that went far beyond anything Michaelson had imagined in his most gushing presentations to Congressional subcommittees, far beyond even the Yosemite simulation. The new chips he had installed made the capabilities an order of magnitude more sophisticated. The tactile response, canned smells, ultraphonic sounds, accelerometers, and the boggling graphics made this the best, most-intense experience ever produced on Planet Earth.

The mainframe took several hours, eating enough of the parallel machine’s capacity that a handful of other T Program workers came out to Lesserec to bug him about how long he was going to be. Everything else was running as if the disk drives were full of molasses — but Lesserec had finally compiled the entire simulation for the VR chamber. The chips could handle it.

He had never run anything like this before, but he was going to save it for Hal Michaelson. Michaelson, unsuspecting, would think he was just going to see himself floating above the clouds again while fighter jets zipped about below him.

But this was more, much more.

Michaelson wouldn’t know what hit him.

And then he’d believe.