Lisa Black - Evidence of Murder

The man tilted his head toward the girl. “See what I mean? We’ll get our money back in spades once Evan’s up and running. But I still think he could do an MMO at the same time.”

The man in question interrupted them. From the dais at the end of the room, he announced into a microphone, “The time has come for me and Jerry, your humble hosts, to demonstrate our wares. But to do that, we’re going to have to take a quick walking tour of the currently underutilized Kovacic Industries campus. Zip up your coats and follow me.”

Theresa turned to the financier. “What are his bigger plans?”

“You’re about to see.”

“Did you come here to find out?”

He chuckled. “No, I already know. I’m here to remind Evan that he’s missed two release dates. Your daughter might want to see this. I don’t want to leave out any potential customers.”

“Tear yourself away, Rachael. We’re moving on.”

The vendors at the other booths watched in resignation as the customers filed out, though a few used the break to put their feet up and open Styrofoam containers of lunch. Theresa and Rachael followed the crowd through a set of double doors at the rear of the building and past a crowd of smokers braving the below-freezing temperatures to satisfy the nicotine craving. The scent of tobacco followed her, tempting and taunting. But if Paul’s death hadn’t pushed her back into the comforting arms of burning tobacco, nothing would. It wouldn’t get worse, right?

“I want to buy that game, Mom. They’re having a sale.”

“Good idea.” Perhaps she could deduct it as a business expense.

“The main character is Captain Alastair, and first he has to lead his team around these really cool cliffs to get to this castle, and there’s these branches that come off the side from the trees above you and form sort of a tunnel, and you think they’re just roots, but then when you’re about halfway through-well, after you kill the troll-they come to life and you have to figure out how to get them to stop-”

Theresa’s mind wandered back to the idea of venture capital as she took in deep breaths of frigid air, noting the architecture surrounding them. Eight rectangular, barnlike buildings, including the one they had just left but not including the fancy offices/apartment building near the street, lined the fenced property. The sounds of traffic and the rapid transit rolling past faded quickly, dampened by the thick snow. A brass plaque, turned green with age, hung on the wall of the next structure; it told her the National Carbon Company had been established in 1886. That sounded terribly old, though beyond the peeling paint and rusting metal fixtures, the walls seemed sturdy enough.

She didn’t interrupt her daughter to tell her that the carbon company had been instrumental in creating Lakewood. They needed a workforce and encouraged the influx of Slavic immigrants, saturating the area around the turn of the century. The company provided homes within walking distance, and the surrounding streets, with names like Thrush and Quail, became known as Birdtown. It had been a time of great opportunity. Of hope.

The walking tour skipped the closest building, and moved through heavy steel doors into the one beyond it. It smelled like dust and metal, the air turned to a shade of gray by the combination of overcast outdoor light and high windows that hadn’t been cleaned since, perhaps, its original construction. The entire building existed as a single open space with catwalks running the two-hundred-foot length on either side. Whatever carbon-processing equipment it had once housed had been removed, leaving only pits and discolorations in the concrete floor and three vast metal silos in the southeast corner, but the two cameras mounted above them, in opposite corners, appeared quite new. Closed in by a metal-mesh cage, the silos bore faded labels in red paint: NCC, N2, and even a haphazardly drawn smiley face. Remnants of the past. In the center of the building, however, stood the future.

A gray gyroscope, at least nine feet in diameter, stood balanced on black rubber supports. The beams crisscrossed each other, interrupted here and there by protrusions or short cables. On either side of this sphere computer monitors balanced on stands, displaying the Polizei logo.

The crowd gathered around this centerpiece, talking rapidly but not with the reverence Theresa expected to hear. “It’s a virtual-reality sphere,” a waif of a girl declared to her companion. “I saw one at the tech show in Columbus last month.”

“Cool but way too pricey,” a boy to Theresa’s left intoned.

“I did this at the carnival last year,” Rachael told her mother. “That was just a ride, though. I think this one is meant to be used with a video helmet.”

“A what?”

As the last of the crowd drifted in, Jerry Graham stepped into the sphere, moving gingerly until he strapped his feet into two of the protrusions on the inner frames. Then he plucked a set of goggles from a bracket at the top and a gun from another at the side. The gun-or plasma rifle or phaser or whatever futuristic weaponry it represented-and the goggles remained attached to the frame by flexible spiral cables, long enough to let him move in all directions but not long enough to tangle as he ran, twisted, turned, and jumped. The rings of the gyroscope rotated with him, but the entire sphere itself remained in place, resting on its rubber chocks without a quiver.

Evan took his place next to the object, speaking into a wireless microphone so that his voice seemed to boom from all four corners of the building. “This is a virtual-reality sphere. You’ve seen them before. Doppler ultrasound tracks your moves, and instantly translates them into the game. The haptic interface lets you interact with the objects around your character. With this you don’t just see what Captain Alastair sees, you feel it. You feel the snow crunching underneath your boots. You feel your thighs aching as you climb the winding staircase. You have to duck low to avoid the spiders. You live the game.”

The monitors behind him changed to a scene in motion, an underground stone tunnel. The view advanced, lit only by the flicker of an occasional torch, with every step Jerry Graham took within the gyroscope. The rocks glistened with subterranean sweat. Theresa could almost smell the mold, and had to remind herself that, given the age of the building, she probably did smell mold.

Some sort of humanoid appeared from the dimness ahead, did a double take at the approach of the captain/Jerry/the crowd, and began to lift a sword. As Jerry held the weapon out in front of him, the tip of it appeared at the bottom of the monitors, and a burst of fire felled the unlucky henchman. The people around Theresa gasped and applauded. The venture capitalist had not exaggerated the game’s popularity.

From there the action moved into a treasure-filled cavern, where gold and diamonds glowed with such real color that Theresa felt a twinge of jealousy toward the captain’s team.

“Cool, Mom. Can we get one?”

“No.”

Rachael laughed.

“I’m glad you’re not a video-game junkie, by the way. I’m getting the feeling my bank account couldn’t handle it.”

“That’s what credit is for,” Cannon said.

“You all know what happens next,” Evan said, with such a boyish grin that the crowd giggled and even Theresa couldn’t help but smile.

“What happens next,” Evan went on, “is, you decide you have to have one of these. Every serious gamer does. But there are two problems. What’s number one?”

“Affordability!” shouted a man in a Harley-Davidson T-shirt. Several other attendees echoed this sentiment.

“Good point. We’re working on the price-more on that in a minute. But what’s your second obstacle?”