“Austin, Beth is not answering the call. She is not carrying her device.”
“How the hell will I find her?”
“I don’t know.”
“Give me your money!” someone screams. Austin spots a robbery in progress and quickly darts to the opposite end of the platform. The thief wields a knife and steals someone’s VR headset before running off. Austin cowers behind an electrical box. A train arrives.
“Express line to Livermore now arriving.”
Austin hops into the lead car. He sits next to a middle-aged man wearing a red jumpsuit and headgear. The guy laughs hysterically and rotates his hands in the air as if driving a vehicle.
An ad loads in Austin’s smartglasses. “When you’re in Hayward, visit the OASIS center, home to the world’s largest VR gaming community. First player shooters, role-playing, team deathmatch—OASIS has them all. Join other gamers in online communities to fulfill your wildest fantasies.”
This must be Virtual Reality Land.
Austin turns to find most of the passengers wearing headsets, playing out their lives in alternate realities. People mumble, laugh, and shout to themselves. A man holds out his palms and screams while a girl strokes a virtual pet. Someone behind him yells, “There’s a bus in my lane!”
A half-hour later, Austin arrives in Livermore with a migraine. He exits the train and hits a blistering wave of dry heat. A woman with an ice chest stands at the exit.
“How much for water?” he asks her.
“$1000.”
“For a bottle of water?”
He shakes his head and stretches his soaked collar, wiping his sweaty forehead with it. He leaves the train station just as a police officer chases a group of teenage boys. A burning trash can rolls down the street behind them and explodes a few feet away. Austin jumps and runs.
So this is the East Bay.
“Isaac, call Sara.”
Beth’s assistant answers the phone. “Austin, are you in Livermore?”
“Yes. How do I find Beth?”
“Head over to the riverbed. She’s wearing a blue dress.”
Austin loads a navigation browser and looks for a river on the map. An ad begins and he removes the glasses from his face.
Are you kidding me? I’m sick of these commercials.
He sees a high-heeled woman standing on the corner and approaches her. “Can you tell me where the river is?”
“I’ll take care of you for $1000.”
He hands her a $100 bill. “Where’s the river?”
She takes the money and points in a direction. “Ten-minute walk that way.”
Austin heads north and spots a boy playing in the dirt, his face and hair covered in filth. Someone hollers through a screen door. “Matthew, you better not be playing in mud again!”
Matthew?
Tears flood Austin’s eyes.
I miss my boy. Olivia, I wish I could hear your voice.
He gives a dollar to the youngster and continues walking north. Minutes later, he sees an estuary stretching to the horizon. A shantytown runs along the bank, its homes constructed with spare metal and old aircraft parts. He bumps into a line of people waiting to fill empty plastic bottles at a pump station.
Guess there’s no running water here.
Austin sees a woman with a blue garment and approaches her. “Beth?” he whispers. She turns around and shakes her finger in his face. “I’m sorry, I thought you were someone else.”
A frustrating hour passes and there’s no sign of his boss, so he takes off his shoes and walks into the river to cool off. Plastic bottles and debris float downstream. He notices sludge in the water and turns to leave just as a soccer ball slams into his face, jerking him back and casting him into the creek.
A boy appears over the bank. “Give me my ball back!”
Austin rubs his head. “You stupid kid!”
“Get it, old man!”
He gathers himself and reaches for the ball, walking ashore towards the youngster. “You need to learn some manners, little guy.” As he scolds the teenager, he notices something on his arm. “Is that a Google band on your wrist?”
The boy spits in the air. “Shut up, old man.”
Austin takes out $100. “Do you want this?”
“Give it to me!”
“Who gave you that wristband?”
“Some lady.”
He approaches the teen and waves the bill. “Where is she?”
The boy points. “She’s over there.” He punches Austin in the gut and grabs the money and soccer ball from him.
Austin rolls on the river bank in pain, groaning in agony. He slowly gets up and heads along a mud-caked road in the direction of a tenement camp, clambering over a downed tree and past a metal scrapyard.
Feels like a third-world country.
He finds himself in the middle of a vagrant community. Families sit in makeshift shelters staring aimlessly at the sky, their faces withdrawn and empty. All eyes turn to him.
Austin tenses and shouts, “Beth, are you here? I came to get you!”
A hooded woman steps out from the shadows. She removes her blue headscarf and reveals a gash over her forehead. She limps forward in pain.
Austin leaps. “Beth?” He races to her and hugs her. “What happened to you?”
“Let’s head back to San Francisco,” she says meekly, her voice shaky and hoarse. Bruises cover her arms and legs. A scab marks an injection site on her right shoulder. “I don’t want to be seen.”
“Who did this to you?”
They head towards the town. “The military. They kidnapped me and forced me to confess.”
Austin’s jaw drops. “The government?”
“Yes.”
“That’s shocking and not to mention illegal! What are they trying to do?”
“I don’t know. Silence me, I suppose. I can’t be seen in public after what happened.”
Austin stops walking. “They’re trying to push you out, Beth. You can’t quit now. You’re still our CEO!”
She turns and points her finger at him. “I’m not backing down. No one is taking my position, but I have to operate from hiding. They’re planning something big against us.”
“Are we in danger?”
“Yes.”
He grows pale. “You mean they want to take control of Google?”
She rubs her shoulder and writhes in pain. “Yes, I think so. My hijacking could be a preview of their bigger intentions.”
“Let’s fight back, Beth. We have to sabotage their plans.”
She continues walking. “We can’t fight fire with fire. We can’t wage the government’s type of warfare and expect to win.”
“So how do we counter?”
They walk silently and approach a water pump. Austin buys an empty plastic bottle from someone and fills it, then hands it to his boss. They slowly make their way back to the Livermore Station, where he purchases two fares. They board the inbound train for Hayward.
Beth takes a window seat and closes her eyes. “It feels so nice to sit.”
“You’ve been through a lot.”
She looks at him. “I just thought of something.”
“What?”
“Do you remember Project Bodi?”
Austin’s brow rises. “Of course I do… that was our code name for the Google Vision smartglasses. How long ago was that?”
“Almost forty years.”
He looks down. “That was the best accomplishment in my career.”
“Mine as well. That was our first project together, remember? You were my first hire.”
“I can’t believe that was four decades ago!”