======================================================== The following piece of fiction contains strong sexual content and is meant to be read only by adults. If you are not at least 18 years old, or if you are offended by this type of material, please do not read any further. ========================================================
"The Garden of Tranquility"
by DG Jace Smith propelled himself smoothly along the ocean floor with slow, even kicks, his arms trailing loosely by his sides. The warm water was so clear it was nearly invisible, but he could feel it sliding and rippling along his body as he passed through it.
He was mesmerized by the white sand sliding past below him and by the sound of his own slow even breathing, and when the bottom suddenly fell away into a sheer coral cliff he gasped with surprise, feeling his sphincter contract and goosebumps break out on his arms. He hung there in the still water, two hundred feet above the sea bottom, feeling like Wile E. Coyote just before another plunge into the desert.
"Awesome," he muttered to himself.
He gazed down along the cliff, noting the way the water slowly gained a deeper shade of blue with increasing depth. Far below him, sinuous shapes moved in slow circles, forming and reforming into small groups, never stopping.
He swallowed hard, took a deep breath, and then arrowed his way straight down along the cliff with powerful thrusts of his fins. As he approached a depth of a hundred and fifty feet the sharks resolved into view, and he paused to study them with a critical eye.
There were three different species in this particular habitat - nurse sharks, tiger sharks, and hammerheads. As he watched, a large silver fish strayed too close to a tiger shark, and was ripped in half by a single savage snap. The tiger shark began swallowing the upper half of the fish, while the lower half, still twitching, was immediately set on by several smaller nurse sharks.
The commotion attracted the attention of one of the big hammerheads, which glided over and surveyed the situation with a baleful stare from one hideous yellow eye. Then it torpedoed into the fray and seized the remaining scrap of fish from the nurse sharks. A few seconds after the initial strike, the ocean returned to its deceptively calm state.
Jace allowed himself to drift down into the layer of water containing the sharks, and soon found himself surrounded by dozens of the gray, incurious creatures. He studied their movements carefully, noting the interactions between members of the same species and of different species. Then he identified a few individuals by their scar patterns and followed each for a few minutes, studying their behavior.
There was a beeping sound in his ear, and a voice said "Five more minutes of air."
The warning distracted him for a moment, making him lose track of the twelve-foot hammerhead he had been watching. As he scanned around for it, he realized to his surprise that the sharks were swimming away, dispersing along the cliff face and leaving the ocean suddenly empty. Then he saw it. A shadow, rising up from the shady blue depths, growing in size as it approached.
"What the fuck...?"
He felt a queasy trickle of fear in his stomach, and he forced himself to breath evenly and remain where he was.
The creature was immense, easily twenty feet long, and he had never seen anything like it. It vaguely resembled a shark, but its tail was horizontal instead of vertical. It had a head like an alligator, with knife-like teeth overlapping the lower half of the jaw. And it was purple.
He watched it with a grim smile of disbelief on his face, rotating his body to face the nightmare it as it circled him. After three circuits, the creature flicked its tail and surged directly toward him, jaws agape. It veered at the last second and passed within a few feet of him, and as it rocketed by he saw its smooth purple skin resolve into a geometric pattern of polygons. He braced himself for a violent shaking from the creature's wake, but the water remained perfectly still, as if it had been a ghost.
The creature swam directly away from him, its curiosity apparently satisfied, and disappeared back into the depths.
"Thirty seconds of air," said the calm voice in his ear.
He shook his head and grunted with amusement. Then he started kicking for the surface, suddenly anxious to get back to his lab.
At about eighty feet his air ran out. Enjoying the challenge, he kicked harder and accelerated upward toward the shimmering silver ceiling. Then, not ten feet from the surface, he felt a sickening lurch as he popped upward and then sank back down again. He was stuck, unable to move up to the surface no matter how hard he kicked, and now his lungs were burning like fire.
"You're on the surface, Jace!" crackled a loud voice. "Take off your regulator and breathe."
He spit out his regulator and in a breath of dry laboratory air. Unsettled by the sensation of breathing underwater without a regulator, he ripped off his mask. The ocean disappeared like the mirage that it was, and his laboratory resolved into view. The violent transition was too much for his brain to handle, and he vomited violently into an orange bucket next to the VR station, placed there for just that purpose.
When he was done, his assistant Todd spoke with a worried look on his round face.
"What happened? Why didn't you breathe?"
"Because I was still six feet underwater, that's why! The program must have gotten screwed up on my depth. I can't imagine why, can you?" This last was delivered with more than a little sarcasm.
Todd was visibly crushed. "You didn't like the Barnesaurus?"
"If you're referring to that purple monstrosity, no, I didn't."
As his stomach settled down and his eyes focused on the familiar environment of his company's testing lab, Jace felt his normal equanimity returning. He saw that Todd, who was the best VR programmer he knew and a fiercely loyal employee, was pale and close to tears.
"Listen, don't mind me," he said. "I just hate getting cybersick. The Barnesaurus was actually pretty cool. Although it deconvoluted as it went by, and didn't leave a wake."
"It's not done yet," said Todd. "I finished the prototype last night, and thought I would surprise you with it."
"It surprised me. Did you come up with that design yourself?"
Todd shook his head and grinned, his good spirits returning. "Sure looks that way, doesn't it? But it's actually a dinosaur. Creatures that looked a lot like that guy actually existed a hundred million years ago. I downloaded all the physical specs from the Smithsonian Archive."
Jace peeled off his custom skintight VR suit, and began wiping the thin layer of conductive jelly off his lean, fit body with a towel. In his early thirties, he ran his own company, Custom Virtual Environments, and was one of the leading minds in the field. He was a handsome with a lean, tanned face and alert blue eyes that radiated intelligence and curiosity.
"So these dinosaurs were purple?" he asked.
"Well...that color would have camouflaged it at very low depths," said Todd, not sounding very convincing. "But it's just a guess. The real name is a mouthful, so I named it after Barney, that kids' dinosaur everyone used to hate."
"Well, it was actually quite impressive, Todd. But this ocean environment is supposed to be accurate down to the smallest detail. The scientists at Woods wouldn't be amused."
"Right, right. But I thought we could market a version of this environment to the arcades. I think people are gonna jump at the chance to swim with the sharks, and having the occasional sea monster drop in like that will kick ass."
Jace grimaced. "Until someone has a heart attack. Then it's our ass that gets kicked by a lawsuit."
Todd shrugged. They both were fully aware of the recent trend of people dying in VR. Recent improvements in the technology had led to an unforeseen quantum leap in the quality of the experience. At the current level of sensory input, the human brain was interpreting the artificial surroundings as reality. Customers in the VR arcades were forgetting that they were in a game environment, and were responding to monster attacks, gunshots, and car crashes as if they were real.
Jace finished toweling off and stepped into a pair of faded jeans. "It's late," he said. "Why don't you take off and get some rest. Don't worry, we'll find some use for the Barnesaurus. Maybe we'll toss it into the next version of our SCUBA training course."
Todd smiled dutifully, but looked uncomfortable. "Are you coming back later tonight?"
Jace was tying his running shoes and didn't respond right away.
"Yes, I've got some stuff I'd like to work on alone."
"You're going into V-World to see her aren't you?"
Jace sighed and nodded.
"You shouldn't do that alone. It's too dangerous. You're totally submerged in an environment that's generated somewhere outside our lab. If their environment crashes, or goes haywire, our computer here may not be able to compensate. It could cause-"
"A brain seizure or a heart attack," finished Jace. "I know the dangers."
"Of course you do. You contributed to the original medical journal article on cybertrauma. What I'm trying to hint at here is that you shouldn't trust Xanadu to have your best interests at heart. No offense."
Jace smiled. "I appreciate your concern, Todd. Really. But I have an excellent working relationship with Xanadu Software." He didn't tell his assistant that what he was going to do tonight was riskier than he even imagined. ******* After a quick dinner at a local restaurant, Jace returned to the nondescript warehouse that housed his company. All the available floor space was covered with computers, biophysical testing equipment, and prototype personal VR stations, leaving only narrow aisles for moving around. Only in its fourth year of operation, Custom Virtual Environments was already outgrowing its third location.
Passing by the older-model VR station he had used to test the ocean environment, Jace walked over to an advanced prototype station his company was developing. He switched on the interface computer and used voice commands to launch the control program as he stripped off his clothes and sprayed conductive fluid on his body.
"Virtual Explorer ready," said a soft female voice. "Please state destination."
"Bradbury Hub," said Jace. "I'm going to take the scenic route to the Club."
He pulled on his VR suit, and after a moment of deliberation he removed the fabric panel covering his groin and replaced it with a larger unit that fit around his genitals. Then he stepped inside the station, which resembled a small shower stall, and pulled the door shut behind him.
The muted hum of servomotors filled the station as padded sections of biomimetic plastic molded themselves around his body. Jace dropped his visor into place and watched the glowing text scroll by as the configuration program ran. He was asked to flex his arms and his legs, and then to turn his head from side to side. Then a series of geometric shapes appeared in front of him, and he manipulated them as asked.
"System calibration complete," said the female voice. "Contacting Bradbury Hub."
After a few seconds of total darkness, Jace suddenly found himself in a small room with a shiny metal door directly in front of him. He reached out and activated the door latch, noting with satisfaction the perfect visual match between hand and lever and the realistic feel of the smooth, cool aluminum against his palm.
The door slid open, revealing a huge corridor that resembled a crowded airport terminal. This was Bradbury Hub, the central point of the rapidly growing entity known as V-World. From the earliest days of VR, people had felt the need to organize different VR environments into a three-dimensional grid of locations, like a real city. Now V-World spread out around Bradbury Hub like a bizarre, dreamlike metropolis. No two people experienced V-World in exactly the same way, but many people thought of it as their second home.
Jace stepped out into the corridor, joining the stream of virtual citizens who were using the Hub to move from one location to another. Many of them looked like normal people, although most wore strange costumes. Some took on exaggerated physical characteristics, and a few weren't even human. As usual, Jace chose to simply resemble himself.
Walking behind three Imperial stormtroopers who were no doubt heading to the popular Gaming Level, Jace located the central tower on the detailed overhead map. It wasn't necessary to walk anywhere in V-World, of course, you could always just "zap" directly to your desired location. It was an interesting sociological phenomenon that people often preferred to move around the fashioned way.
A few minutes later he stood in front of an unobtrusive door made of polished green wood. He touched a yellow panel next to the door.
"Welcome, Mr. Jace Smith," said a male voice. The door dissolved from view with an elegant shimmering effect that bespoke high-level programming and plenty of throughput. Jace stepped forward into the small, old-fashioned elevator. As the door resolved back into place, a wiry figure wearing black ninja garb made an acrobatic leap into the elevator.
"Bad idea," said Jace with a grin. "Security here is very tight."
The ninja didn't reply, because he was already frozen in place, disconnected from V-World by the Club's control program. There was a low pitched buzzing sound, and the ninja disintegrated into a small pile of charred ashes, which then vanished.
"We apologize for the intrusion, Mr. Jace Smith."
"No problem."
The elevator door shimmered opened again, and Jace stepped out into the 21st Century Club, the most exclusive private club in V-World. Membership was exclusive, and the cost of the required personal VR equipment was prohibitive. Many of the members were celebrities and politicians who used the Club to socialize anonymously or to satisfy their kinkier cravings without being caught by the media. Other members were successful entrepreneurs and executives who found the Club an excellent place to make contacts.
The throughput assigned to each member when they were inside the Club was much higher than in Bradbury Hub, and the citizens milling around the bar in the middle of the large circular room appeared with a correspondingly greater amount of detail. As Jace smiled and greeted people, he could see individual hairs, sparkling eyes, and smooth, realistic skin.
He drifted toward the curved outer window, which afforded a spectacular 360-degree view of V-World from the perspective of a hundred-floor skyscraper. A riotous, hallucinogenic quilt of flashing lights, tangled streets, and gravity-defying architecture extended as far as the eye could see.
Just west of the central tower was the huge Adult Village, a sea of glowing pink neon advertising every sexual service that could be conceived by the fertile human imagination. The fact that virtual sex was a mediocre experience at best with current technology didn't stop it from being the number-one activity in V- World.
To the south stretched a long row of virtual casinos, where more money was wagered every day than in Las Vegas. A growing chorus of social commentators warned that V-World was creating a community of modern lotus-eaters who would drag society down into a morass of unproductivity, and the view from the 21st Century Club was often used to illustrate their point.
Jace's heart was beating rapidly, but not because of the view, which he was quite familiar with. His eyes scanned the crowd in the Club continuously, but as usual, her voice came from directly behind him.
"Looking for someone, Jace Smith?"
He turned and smiled. "Karma. You're late as usual."
The woman who stood facing him was breathtaking. She had an exotic heart-shaped face with high cheekbones, a small nose, and large, widely-set eyes of constantly changing color. Tonight she had long black hair which was wound into an intricate knot that echoed the design imprinted on her blue silk dress. Her appearance was slightly different each time Jace saw her, and this time her features had been subtly morphed to give them an cast.
Her physical beauty was not unusual in a world where citizens chose their own appearance, of course. What set her apart was the quality of her image. While all the patrons in the Club had an image quality higher than the average citizen, Karma appeared with a level of perfection that was stunning. A living, breathing woman down to the tiniest detail, she seemed to be lit from within by a primal glow.
After a few seconds spent absorbing Jace's gaze, Karma raised an eyebrow and said "You like the dress?"
Jace nodded, glad he wasn't programmed to blush in this environment. "Can I touch it?"
"Of course."
He brushed his knuckles along the side of her ribcage. The silk was cool and slippery, but he thought he could sense the warmth of her flesh underneath.
"Incredible," he breathed.
She pouted playfully. "I only wish it was me you thought was incredible, and not just my dress."
"Everything about you is incredible" said Jace. "You're better every time I see you."
She smiled and twirled playfully, causing the dress to float up around her thighs and then settle back in place. "Thank you. I wouldn't be possible without your new biointerface technology."
Jace smiled at the common V-World indulgence of treating one's virtual self as a separate entity from the real version. He didn't know the real person behind the beautiful image he was facing. Curiously, he didn't really care. The entity he knew as Karma was intriguing, sexy, and self-consistent. To use the V-World expression, Jace was virtually in love with her. That she was a rep for a huge software company with whom he was currently negotiating an alliance was a fact he tried not to dwell on.
"You've used our biointerface technology and taken it way beyond anything we've been able to accomplish," said Jace. "I'm glad I lent you the prototype."
Karma tilted her head to the side and purred "With our software and your hardware, we hold the future of V-World in our hands."
"So why are negotiations between CVE and Xanadu Software going so slowly? The outlined plan on the table is fair, but you keep stalling."
They smiled at each other like friends who have been having the same argument for years.
"Oh, Jace...let's not talk business tonight. You should experience the new software from the inside. It's like nothing you've ever imagined."
She stepped closer, almost pressing herself against him, and whispered in his ear. "I want to give you a demonstration that will show you the full potential."
Jace nodded, and they walked hand-in-hand to an elevator unit. He could feel jealous stares from other patrons as they waited for the door to open. Once inside, Karma spoke the coordinates of the main Xanadu campus, and added "Garden of Tranquility, please." ******* The elevator dissolved completely, leaving them standing in a small, formal garden. In front of them was a smooth rock wall with a small waterfall cascading down into a round pool. A tall, perfectly-trimmed hedge enclosed the garden on the other three sides. There were no physical entrances or exits to the garden, creating an atmosphere of privacy and solitude.
The grounds consisted of a thick, closely-mown lawn from which small fruit trees grew at artfully random intervals. The level of graphics was equal to the image of Karma herself, and although Jace had been in environments created by Xanadu's new software before, he once again found himself marveling at the glowing, jewel-like perfection of every detail.
"They wanted this environment to create a feeling of relaxation and inner peace," said Karma. "It's based on a real garden on the grounds of the Japanese royal palace. Come here - I want to show you something."
She led him over to the pool beneath the waterfall and pointed downward. Beneath the rippled, shimmering surface swam several colorful koi. They were as realistic in their appearance and motions as any artificial creature Jace had seen in V-World.
"Beautiful," he said. He dipped his hand into the cool water and reached toward a large white one with orange spots. Instead of swimming away, it ignored him completely, and his hand passed right through it. The minor discontinuity made his heart pound and his stomach lurch, and he realized how deeply he was embedded in this alternative reality.
"They're visual only," explained Karma. "There's a real pool with real koi in it, and these fish are a real-time mirror of that."
Jace remembered Todd and his shark programs, and was comforted by the thought that they could still teach Xanadu a thing or two about VR programming.
"This place is beautiful," said Jace truthfully.
"You haven't really experienced it yet," said Karma seriously. "Are you ready?"
Jace nodded. "How does this work?"
"Xanadu's computer is standing by to take over. You just need to open a direct interface to your own computer and tell it to switch you over."
Jace took a deep breath and said "Jace Smith to control. Request direct link to Virtual Explorer."
He heard a soft beep in his left ear and his female computer said "Control to Jace Smith. Direct link open."
"Requesting transfer to the local control program. Maintain current status and position."
There was a pause, and Jace had the silly notion that his computer was going to refuse, or give him a motherly lecture on the dangers of outside control programs.
"Successfully linked to Xanadu control. Touch your palms together to initiate."
Jace touched his palms together and the universe flickered out of existence, then returned a moment later. The first thing he noticed was the sound of the waterfall, which was louder and more musical. Then he took a breath and inhaled the sweet scent of grass, flowers, and soft earth.
"Jace? Are you all right?""
"My God...I can smell the garden!"
Karma beamed a radiant smile. "I told you you would be surprised."
She reached up and plucked a heavy, pink peach from a thin branch that hardly looked strong enough to bear its weight. She bit into it, and Jace heard the delicate sound of her teeth slicing through the ripe, juicy flesh.
"Delicious," she said. She held it up to his lips.
He leaned forward and bit into the fruit. A sunburst of flavor exploded inside his mouth, and he gasped. Juice dribbled down his chin as he stared at her in disbelief. He chewed the pulpy mouthful and swallowed it, feeling it dissolve away into nothing as it reached the back of his mouth.
"How...?"
"They've figured out how to generate tastes and smells by manipulating very small electromagnetic fields around the brain. As I understand it, if you're biting into something that looks and feels like peach, your brain is already anticipating that it will taste like a peach and just needs a little encouragement."
She put her arms around his neck, tilted her head up, and licked the peach juice off his chin. "Don't you want to know what *I* taste like, Jace Smith?"
He kissed her gently on the lips, then pressed his mouth firmly onto hers, and she melted against him. He ran his hands down her back and pressed his palms against the firm swell of her buttocks, and she mewled deep in her throat and slipped her warm tongue into his mouth.
Jace was suddenly aware of the normal male sexual response. But instead of the expected uncomfortable resistance of his tight VR suit, his cock seemed to be growing smoothly, straining joyously upward. He separated himself slightly from Karma and looked down. The utilitarian virtual clothing he was wearing earlier had been replaced with thin, loose-fitting cotton pants and a tunic.
"You're dressed to match the Japanese theme," said Karma. She reached down and touched his cock through the tented fabric. A throbbing, pleasurable sensation coursed through his body, and he moaned.
"I'm glad you wore the genital unit. This is one particular biointerface I haven't been able to test yet," she added with smile. "How does this feel?" She was gently rubbing and squeezing, exploring the expanding length of him.
"Unbelievable." He noticed that her nipples were poking at the thin silk of her dress, and he slid a hand upward until he was cupping one firm breast. Her nipple felt like a warm marble, and he rolled it between his fingertips. "How does that feel?"
"Very nice."
They kissed again, and Jace found the zipper in the back of the dress. It opened easily, making a perfect, crisp unzipping sound. She stepped back and eased the dress forward off her shoulders. It slithered down her body with a soft whisper, ending up in a puddle at her feet. Of course, she wasn't wearing anything underneath. He held his arms up tentatively, drinking in the sight of her, and she moved forward until her small, white breasts were pressed against his hands.
"Do you like my body, Jace?"
"Of course. Jesus, Karma..."
"You're mixing your religions. The reason I ask is..."
She closed her eyes, and he suddenly felt her growing under his palms. Startled, he released his grip and gaped.
"...I can make any sort of adjustments you might prefer."
He laughed out loud. Her were now large heavy globes, out of proportion to her narrow frame, but mouthwatering just the same.
"That's maybe a little too big," he said. "They were fine before."
"As you wish..." Her shrunk back to their previous size.
"So what do you think? See any profitable applications from this sort of thing?"
Jace shook his head slowly. "This is beyond profitable. This is...Karma, it's like we're really here." He waved his arm in a sweeping gesture. "The garden, the waterfall, you, me. It's real. Do you know what I mean? This isn't just a game any more. This is as real as anything. I'm trying to remind myself that I'm sitting inside a little booth in an empty warehouse on the outskirts of Chicago, and my mind can't begin comprehend it."
Karma nodded, and he thought her eyes looked sad. "Of course I know what you mean. But don't get all metaphysical on me, Jace. We have to leave the implications of this to the philosophers and the priests."
She dropped her eyes to the ground, and he wondered if she was suddenly embarrassed by her nudity. He realized that as a gentleman he should really be naked as well, and he started to remove his tunic.
"I'm authorized to tell you that Xanadu is accepting the latest proposal," said Karma.
Jace was taken aback. "Really? Just like that?"
She was staring at him with a hint of a smile on the corner of her mouth. "You knew Xanadu would try to reverse engineer your VR station. I guess you were pretty confident they would fail."
Jace answered her smile. "The biomimetic plastic is what makes it possible. Making it is, to put it mildly, tricky."
"As in two hundred of our best scientists tearing out their hair and getting nowhere, yes."
"That explains the delay in the negotiations, I suppose."
They looked into each other's eyes, and Jace said "So what about us?"
"There's a lot of virtual testing that needs to be done. Perhaps we should get started?"
It didn't really answer his question, but he wasn't in the mood to push it. Especially since she was stroking his cock through the thin cotton of his pants again. Their mouths met in a hungry kiss, and she undid the drawstring and let the pants fall to grass. Holding his cock in her hand, she kissed her way down his smooth, muscled chest until she was on her knees. She kissed the head of his cock and then let it slide into her mouth until it was pressed against the back of her throat. He moaned with pleasure, and she winked up at him. Then she began him with long undulating strokes that were as smooth and slippery as the mouthful of peach he had tasted earlier.
He pressed his hips forward, and then began thrusting against Karma's mouth, increasing the pace. He felt his climax starting to build, and he tried to relax and back away from the edge. Jace prided himself on his sexual control, but this time he seemed to be as trigger-happy as a teenager.
"Karma, wait...slow down. I don't want to..."
Instead of slowing down, and she reached up and cupped his testicles in her left hand. Her mouth became an endless devouring tunnel, and a sudden, brilliant flash of pleasure bloomed inside him, leaving him weak and rubbery.
He dropped to his knees to face her, and she smiled at the consternation on his face. "Wasn't it good for you?"
"Incredible. But I wanted it to last."
"We're just getting started, Jace Smith. That was a virtual orgasm - all in your head."
Jace nodded; he had been figuring it out as she spoke. As the echoes of the climax faded inside him, he could feel that his cock was still hard, anxious, and throbbing.
"Would you like me to do it again?"
"Of course. But it's your turn."
She sighed dreamily and leaned back into the soft, grass. "I knew you wouldn't be a selfish lover, Jace."
He spread her legs gently and kissed her smooth white thighs. Her was a delicate pink flower peeking out of a nest of silky black hair. He kissed it, and teased her open with the tip of her tongue. Her taste was unexpectedly sweet, like a faintly musky peach. He looked up at her with a smile.
"You're full of surprises, Karma."
"You seemed to enjoy that bite of peach so much..."
"You taste even better."
She stretched and arched, offering herself up to him, and he buried his face hungrily between her thighs, lapping up her sweet essence like a devouring a saucer of milk. She stiffened, and then cried out her pleasure in a voice a sweet and pure as a silver bell.
Before she had fully recovered, he was on top of her, sliding inside her. She was tight and hot and slippery, and when she wrapped her legs around his back and pulled him in deeper another orgasm flooded through his body, taking him by surprise. As with the first one, his cock remained hard and his balls remained full.
"I don't believe this," he said.
"Believe it," she said. "And while you're believing it, please fuck me."
He complied, and they spent the next hour using the technology of the future to engage in the most primitive and basic of human activities. Jace eventually discovered that with each virtual orgasm he was moving closer to the real one, and the tenth one continued to build in intensity until he thought he would pass out from the pleasure, and then he finally felt the semen emptying out of him.
Karma rolled him over onto his side and kissed him on the lips, but he was already asleep. ******* He woke a few minutes later and saw that Karma's eyes were closed and her face was wet with tears. He kissed her cheeks and her nose, drying the tears away. Peach again.
"What is it, Karma?"
She opened her eyes, and they were the sky-blue of a newborn.
"They are going to betray you, Jace. Xanadu isn't going to enter an alliance with your company. As soon as they figure out how to manufacture your VR stations, they're going to cut you out of the loop and bring this whole package to the marketplace."
Jace thought about it. What he had just experienced fulfilled the wildest dreams of the cyber community and the direst prophesies of the neo-Luddites.
"I believe you," he said. "Virtual reality will be better than reality. Not only will people prefer to spend their time in V-World, but they'll do anything to get here. A company that springs this technology on the world will gain more than market share and obscene profits, they'll control the future of the human experience."
"Jace...I've known what Xanadu was up to all along. I've betrayed you."
Jace was silent for a few seconds. When he spoke his voice was cold and even. "No. I always knew who you represented and where your loyalties were. More importantly, I knew where the technology I was developing would eventually lead. It just happened faster than I thought."
She sat up next to him and hugged her knees to her chest. "Pandora's box has been cracked open. Can it be shut again?"
"I'm the only person who knows how to build the biointerface," said Jace. "The details are in my computer files, but they are heavily encrypted."
"You need to go back to your lab and destroy those files, and soon. Xanadu will find a way to access them."
Jace nodded. He had no doubt that Xanadu could access his computer remotely despite the firewall. All his sensitive files were protected by an encryption system that was supposed to be unbreakable, but suddenly anything seemed possible. He stood up, and pulled Karma to her feet.
"Will they let me go?"
"I think so."
He kissed her softly, and said "Jace Smith to control. Exiting virtual environment."
"Xanadu control to Jace Smith. Confirming environment termination."
The garden faded away slowly into darkness, and then he was back inside his claustrophobic VR station. The local computer sensed his arrival and activated the release mechanism. When the plastic sheaths had retracted fully, he pushed open the door and stepped out into his familiar lab.
Feeling dizzy and exhausted, he walked over to his private office and placed his palm on the door lock. The door slid open, and the lights and computer came on. He sat down in front of his terminal typed in a series of complex passkeys. Then he brought up the relevant files and deleted them one by one, using an application that overwrote the sectors on the optical drive with random gibberish.
When he was done, he turned off the computer and pushed himself away from his desk. Then he was startled by a soft knock on his door frame.
"Jace? Everything OK?" Todd was standing in the doorway, a concerned expression on his face. "Sorry to bother you. I came back to make sure you exited Xanadu's system safely."
Jace was touched by Todd's concern. "I've had a pretty wild night. But I'm fine."
"You want to tell me about it?"
"We're not going to ally ourselves with Xanadu, Todd. In fact, we're not going to market the new biointerface at all. I just deleted all the files and data."
Todd nodded slowly. "I understand."
"You do?"
"Of course. But you can't stop progress, Jace. Pandora's box, and all that."
Jace smiled grimly. "That seems to be the relevant analogy. But maybe I've delayed progress long enough for the world to catch up with the implications of it."
"You did the right thing, I'm sure."
Jace stood up and stretched. "I'm going to go home and get some sleep."
Todd looked like he wanted to say something else, but he finally just nodded and said "Sounds like a plan. We can talk about it more tomorrow."
Jace walked over to the main exit, still feeling vaguely disoriented. He turned the latch on the steel door and pulled it open. The doorway was completely blocked by a featureless white wall. He stared at it dumbly for a few seconds, then pressed his hand against it. It had no texture or temperature, it simply exerted a smooth resistance that prevented his hand from going through.
He had been tricked. Xanadu Software had his passkeys now, and they would be decoding his files this very moment. Jace realized that only one person besides himself could have created a such perfect virtual replica of CVE and his personal office computer.
He turned around, but Todd wasn't there. Instead, it was Karma looking back at him. They stared at each other for a few seconds.
"Todd?"
She dropped her eyes and nodded. "I'm sorry, Jace. I wouldn't have done it for money. But they told me I would be able to make love to you." The End, "The Garden of Tranquility"
© 1998 by DG (Dionysian1@hotmail.com)
Notes:
1) Thanks to The Bear (Baird Allen) and Bitbard for their helpful feedback. And thanks to Bear for proofing.
2) All my are available on my web page: http://baird.pair.com/dg.htm
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