Direct evidence, p.11
Direct Evidence, page 11
“I’m trying, Jake, I really am. I’m attempting to control all twenty individual muscles of the human face independently and then map emotion data obtained from these psych textbooks on top of them?” he sighed. “I don’t know. Sometimes it looks great, but other times…”
Jake scratched his chin as he nodded.
“You dropped in yet today, Tony?”
Tony’s eyes immediately went toward the VR goggles and controllers on his desk.
He tried to think about the last time he’d loaded up. Two days? Three? Had it been a week?
He couldn’t remember.
“You should try it,” Jake said with a shrug. “Maybe you’ll get some ideas. You know what they say? All work and no play…”
“Maybe you’re right. Thanks.”
Jake saluted him with two fingers and then left the open-air cubicle.
It wasn’t uncommon for half of the forty or so software engineers on the sixteenth floor to be in the metaverse at any given time. But the idea of gaming during work time, for research or not, made Tony a little uncomfortable.
This didn’t apply now, however. At just after two in the morning nobody but Jake was around. HVG didn’t hold normal office hours. They were a results-oriented company, and nobody cared if you rolled in at six am or noon so long as you got your work done.
Somewhere tucked in the dark recesses of his mind, Tony knew that his behavior was bordering on obsessive.
He also knew that the same thing had happened at his last job.
The job with those pricks who had stolen his game and given him nothing.
Nothing.
But this was different.
HVG was different.
The metaverse was different.
It wasn’t just a game. It was another life. A better life. The great equalizer.
IRL, everyone started at different levels. Some were lucky and had rich parents, others were born in a ditch to a crack-addicted mother and no father in sight.
But in the game, in the metaverse, everyone started at zero. And that was the true American dream. Work hard. Move up. It didn’t matter who your parents were, what school you went to, where you got your degree from—hell, it didn’t even matter if you had a degree.
All you had to do was put the time and effort in and you could succeed.
You could win.
Tony would do what he promised. He would build a bridge across the uncanny valley, and he would help create a metaverse that was indistinguishable from reality.
When Tony had been a young boy, he’d read something that had blown his mind and changed the trajectory of his life forever. It was what had gotten him interested in computers and computer programming. It was the simple theory that if you believed it was scientifically possible, maybe not now, maybe not in a hundred years, but eventually, for a computer to create a universe as complex as our own, then it follows that it could create an infinite number of said universes. In the future, a more advanced being could create such worlds on their supercomputers with the ease of someone doodling in MS Paint on their eight-year-old IBM Thinkpad today.
And if that were true, then what are the odds that this world, our world, was the only real one?
Effectively zero.
And if that wasn’t meta, what was?
Tony was smirking when he picked up the VR goggles. And he was smiling a smile that reached his eyes and activated all twenty facial muscles when he dropped into the metaverse.
Chapter 24
Use. Abuse. Work.
Those were Chase Adams’ three outlets. Dr. Matteo had identified them instantly, and he had made Chase aware of them. But this self-awareness came at a cost.
Knowing what you were addicted to could help you avoid them. It could also drive you to them.
After leaving Louisa’s, Chase didn’t go home. Instead, she drove to New York City, a place she hadn’t been in a long time.
A place that brought back mixed feelings.
She drove through some of the seedier neighborhoods, slowing as she passed the darkening alleyways. The memories conjured by these locations surprisingly had nothing to do with her time as an NYPD Detective. Instead, she was reminded of Seattle.
Chase had always wanted to be in the FBI because she knew that they had the best chance of finding her sister. But she was continually turned down by the bureau with them repeatedly citing her lack of experience. So, Chase became a cop, taking the first job she was offered: a NARC in Seattle.
This was during the time that the opioid crisis was just starting to peak. Her superiors, trying, and failing miserably to stop the trend, realized that Chase’s special talents could be put to better use than sniffing out marijuana on the street.
Mainly, her youth and attractiveness.
Chase had been on the job for less than a year before it was suggested that she go undercover.
The FBI wanted experience, and that’s what Chase got… in the worst possible way.
On several occasions—no, more than several—Chase’s addictions had nearly cost her her life.
Chase trained her eyes straight ahead.
But that was all in the past.
Wasn’t it?
Her cell phone rang but the number wasn’t programmed into her phone, so she ignored it.
Chase was thinking more and more about running. There was some truth to the adage that you can’t run from your problems, but sometimes a change of scenery—maybe of names, too—was all you needed.
A fresh start… people said that, too.
It would be hard on Georgina, especially now that she was established and going to a regular school.
But she’d get over it. She’d have to.
The issue was money. Chase still had some stashed away, but her hospital bills had taken a huge bite out of her savings.
As she drove, Chase subconsciously reached up and massaged the spot near her collar bone where Bridget, who had been suffering from induced Cotard’s Syndrome, had tried to murder her.
The sick woman had come close. But Chase was nothing if not resilient.
She’d survived much, much more than a knife nicking her carotid.
Almost all of her money had come from playing online poker. Seattle PD, the NYPD, and the FBI for that matter were known for a lot of things, but not their competitive salaries.
Chase had recently tried to get back into the game, but things had changed. It was considerably more difficult, especially at the higher stakes. The other players, if they were indeed players and not bots, just didn’t make mistakes. Using game theory optimization, they seemed to make the best possible decision in all scenarios.
That meant that someone like Chase, who was more of a ‘feel’ player, would get lucky every once in a while, but like more chance-based casino games, you would eventually lose to the odds.
Odds were king.
She needed money. Lots of it. Enough to go somewhere—
Her phone rang again and even though she didn’t recognize the number, she saw that it was coming from a Nevada area code.
Chase pulled over to the side road and answered.
“Hello?”
“Chase?”
Like the number, Chase didn’t recognize the voice, either.
“Who is this?”
“It’s Stu. Stu Barnes.”
Chase fell silent as she pictured the handsome man in his sixties. And then she started to contemplate the coincidence of thinking about poker and the man who had staked her into a deadly game calling her at that very moment.
“Chase? You there? I’m in trouble. I’m in trouble and I need your help.”
The seriousness of the man’s voice dashed silly notions of coincidences.
“Yeah, I’m here. Tell me.”
Chase listened intently as Stu told her about being charged, about the evidence against him, and him adamantly stating that he was not guilty.
While their interactions were limited, and often blurred by consumption, Chase knew Stu to be a lot of things.
Trusting, generous, and confident came to mind.
Murderer did not.
When Chase spoke next, it was with two things in mind: one, she owed him. She owed this man a lot. Two, he had money.
A lot.
“What can I do?”
“My lawyers… they’re not optimistic. They say the evidence—Chase, they say evidence can bury me. The only chance we have is to find out who really killed Jake Hollister. That’s the only way they think I’m going to go free.”
With Stu’s financial resources, Chase knew that he could afford to hire the best PIs in Nevada—no, all the PIs in Nevada.
And yet, he was calling her.
Why?
As if reading Chase’s mind, Stu said, “I don’t know who to trust—except for you. I can trust you, Chase. And you… well, I know that you won’t stop until you find out who did this.”
Chase closed her eyes.
“Will you help me?” Stu asked.
Chase wasn’t well versed with Nevada law, but she thought that sixty days was a reasonable time frame from arraignment to trial. Probably on the short side, but still, she didn’t have sixty days.
She didn’t even have thirty.
Chase had two weeks.
“Chase? Please.”
Chase’s eyes snapped open.
“I can do it. I can help, but I can’t do it alone. There are a couple of other people I need to bring in. Is that going to work for you? I trust them.”
Stu cleared his throat.
“If you trust them, then, yeah, I have no problem with that. I’ll cover all expenses, of course, and—“
“Just send me your address. We need to start yesterday.”
Chase hung up before either of them could contemplate just how strange this entire conversation had been.
Then she made another call and a man answered on the first ring.
“Floyd? It’s Chase. I need your help.”
Chapter 25
It wasn’t like being transported into a different world. It was like being transported into the same world… only different. How, exactly, Tony couldn’t say. It definitely wasn’t the lack of realism. The HVG metaverse was indistinguishable from reality. As Tony Metcalfe stood outside the HVG headquarters he was awestruck by how much the building looked like it did in real life. The glass was so perfectly reflective that Tony thought he could feel the sunlight heating his skin.
Someone had made some major upgrades.
The inside of the building was equally as detailed as the outside and Tony quickly felt the barrier between reality and the game dissolving.
This is amazing, he thought. He looked down at his hands and turned them over, marveling at how lifelike they were.
“Good morning,” a pleasant female voice said.
Tony glanced at Gina who was standing at her post behind the glass desk.
“M-morning,” he said hesitantly.
Feeling slightly disoriented now, Tony got into the elevator and hit the number 16. When the doors opened moments later, he was surprised to see Jake waiting for him, a wide grin on his face.
“Jesus,” Tony said. He reached out and grazed Jake’s cheek with his fingertips. “You seem so real.”
Jake’s smile faltered and he pulled away.
“Because I am real.”
“No, seriously, Jake, I can’t even tell that this is the metaverse. The changes, like, it must have—what? What’s wrong?”
The corner of Jake’s lips had turned downward.
“Remember the rules,” he reminded Tony in a whisper.
Tony was instantly remorseful.
“Of course, of course. I’m sorry.”
And then he mentally checked off the three golden rules of the metaverse: one, always stay in character; two, no killing other characters; three, you can only be one character at a time. No swapping out characters on the fly.
There were, of course, other rules, but these were buried in the terms of service and pretty much ubiquitous for all massively multiplayer online games: you had to be 18 to play, no hate speech, no overtly sexual behavior, and basically anything offensive could get you reported and suspended or even banned.
“What are you doing here so late, anyway?” Jake asked.
“Working on that problem, you know?”
Tony was hesitant to say exactly what the problem was because it fell in a strange gray area. In the metaverse, people had jobs, just like in real life. There were cops, judges, even computer programmers. But rarely was there a computer programmer working on the actual game while they were in the game.
It was a bit of a mind meld.
Jake cleared up this discrepancy pretty quickly.
“Uncanny valley? Any development on that?”
Tony shook his hand.
“As I said earlier, I’m trying everything. I’m pulling data from the HVG archives from their other games, trying to figure out what worked and what didn’t. The real sticking point is getting from here,” Tony put the blade of his hand on his nose just below his eyes and then raised it over his head, “to here. Nothing seems to work to connect the eyes to the mouth, you know?”
Jake nibbled on the inside of his cheek, which was something he’d never seen his boss do before.
It made him nervous.
“No, no, there is progress. I’m making progress, things are getting better, but it’s just gonna take—“
Jake waved a hand.
“I know you’ve been working your ass off. Don’t think that your long hours aren’t being noticed, either. They are. But burnout is a real thing, Tony. You should think about taking a little break. Nothing huge, just a little time off. Refresh your mind.”
“You’re still here,” Tony pointed out.
Jake smiled.
“Yeah, but I’m not reaaally working.”
Tony was intrigued.
“Tell me more,” he pressed.
Jake appeared to wrestle with this for a moment before he shrugged and led Tony over to his desk.
“It’s a work in progress,” he said excitedly. “Kind of a passion project that’s outside the purview of what we do here at Happy Valley. But if you promise not to say anything…”
Tony crossed himself.
“I swear.”
Jake was clearly conflicted, which only made Tony want to see what his boss was working on even more.
“Jake, I won’t say anything. You can trust me.”
Jake assessed him with one squinted eye and then glanced around nervously. Tony did the same, but their apprehension was unwarranted; just like in the real world, at this hour, HVG was practically empty.
It was just the two of them.
“All right,” Jake said, unable to keep the excitement from his voice. “It’s a new kind of metaverse.”
Try as he might, Tony couldn’t keep the disappointment from his face.
A new metaverse? What’s wrong with the old one?
“No, no,” Jake held up a finger, “this is different. You know the rules we talked about earlier?”
Tony nodded.
“Yeah, the three golden rules.”
“Well, what if there was a metaverse with only one rule?” Jake put a hand on Tony’s shoulder and squeezed. “And this one rule is, you get a single chance, that’s it. When it’s over, it’s done.”
Tony glanced up at his boss.
“What do you mean?”
“What I mean, is that you get to create one character and that’s it. When they’re toast, they’re dead, or they’re stuck or whatever, you can’t play anymore.”
Tony wanted to share his boss’ enthusiasm, but he was too tired to fake it.
“Uhh, I dunno, they tried that with hackers in Call of Duty. People get banned and they just make a new profile, get dummy phone numbers and they’re back in a few days.”
Jake’s smile grew.
“Not if we have a hardware lock.”
“Hardware lock?”
“Yeah, it’s complicated, but in order to play in this metaverse, you need to grant the program access to your GPU, CPU, and peripheral serial numbers. You can’t fake those. It registers them with you and your character. We’re also working on some pretty advanced biometrics so that you can’t even get a new computer and try to run it on that, you’ll just be locked out.”
Tony had heard rumors of technology such as this, but in the past, it had been linked to software and was designed to help prevent piracy. This was a different use entirely.
“Okay, but why does that matter? Why is it so important that you only get one chance?”
“Because of the beta,” Jake informed him.
Tony still wasn’t getting it.
“Beta?”
“Okay, okay.” Jake exhaled loudly and he looked around again. “Between me and you, I had some people try out an early version of this metaverse—beta testing, you know? Like, real early. I just wanted to see if they liked it, liked the idea of it, if there was a market for it, that sort of thing, before I put all this work in. I told them that this was different than the HVG metaverse, that this was a world where they could do whatever they wanted. And I granted them anonymity just to appease any concerns they might have. Tony, get this: they loved it. They fucking loved it.” Jake’s eyes sparkled now. “Yeah, they were reserved at first, but then I told them to look inward and reminded them that this was a world where they could fulfill their deepest, darkest desires and fantasies. Once they got the hang of it, Tony, you’re not going to believe the amount of time they spent online.”
Jake inserted a pregnant pause here.
“How many hours?” Tony asked, brow furrowing.
Jake shook his head.
“Not hours. Days. They stayed logged on for days.”
Tony scoffed.
“C’mon.”
“No, I’m not kidding. The average daily play time was twenty-four hours. Twenty-four hours of straight gameplay was the average time spent per day. Tony, this is ridiculous. The average session time? Like, the amount of time between when they dropped in and when they finally logged off? Twenty-nine hours.”
It was ridiculous but also impossible. Even the HVG metaverse numbers, and they had the best numbers in the genre, weren’t close to this—not even a quarter as high.
