Duane turned on the television and let Stevie watch cartoons. In the kitchen he set a pot of salted water to boil and tore the top off a cardboard package of macaroni and cheese, which he would spoon-feed to Stevie while his own portion remained warm on the stove.
When dinner was ready, he wheeled Stevie to the formica dinette table. He used a damp rag to wipe the drool from around the boy’s mouth, tucked a napkin under his shirt as Stevie’s bright eyes fastened on him. The boy opened his mouth to receive the creamy orange macaroni.
Duane listened as highlights from the President’s news conference came on the local news broadcast in the living room. He pricked up his ears, turning to look when he heard the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory mentioned. He paid attention to some talk about the Lab’s Virtual Reality program, and he smiled.
“That man, Stevie,” he gestured toward the television, “He’s the one in charge of that sightseeing chamber you went in yesterday.”
Stevie seemed to understand and made more noises, but then he smacked his lips for another bite of his supper. Duane fed him and listened again, smiling as he thought of the tour the day before.
He had never seen Stevie quite so happy as when the illusion had transported them to Yosemite. Duane had never been to the mountains himself, though he had lived in California all his life. He had gone to high school in Livermore: his high school diploma, proudly framed, still hung on the mantelpiece next to the faded old photo of Rhonda, his wife, who had left him years before.
He had enlisted in the Army for a couple of years, received some training on the GI Bill, and came back to his home town where he began working at the Lab. He had been there for more than twenty years.
On the TV Dr. Michaelson was saying many difficult technical things, that Duane couldn’t quite follow.
“…hot topics in electronics include solid-state lasers, radiofrequency and optical devices — devices typically smaller than a pinhead. By ganging them together, you can imagine solid-state sensors no bigger than a postage stamp being able to transmit sound and pictures. Hang a postage-stamp-sized sensor on a wall, or scatter several of them in an area, and you’ll be able to monitor…”
Duane nodded, as if Michaelson were talking to him directly.
“…the actual chamber is lined with solid-state lasers, able to be phased, or coordinated, with each other. If you phase these guys right, you can create a ‘true’ hologram — one you can actually walk around, not just move back and forth in front of. The possibilities for remote surveillance are…”
Duane wandered into the living room to watch. As he saw the image, it startled him to see Dr. Michaelson standing next to the President himself, talking about their big initiative. It sounded as if some major work was going to come to the Lab. Dr. Michaelson sure sounded optimistic about it. That made Duane feel good and relieved.
After all the talk about the Cold War ending, budget cutbacks, program shutdowns, and layoffs, Duane had been uneasy for some time. Even with his high school diploma, at his age he doubted he could find another decent job if he got laid off from the Plutonium Facility.
The house was mostly paid for after twenty years, but Stevie’s medical bills continued to eat up most of Duane’s paycheck, not allowing him to move an inch ahead, barely letting him keep running in place. Duane didn’t like his job, had few friends among his coworkers, though he had worked quietly beside them for years.
After supper he spent an hour in the nightly ritual of dunking Stevie in the warm running bath. The boy splashed around in the water. He seemed to enjoy the heat and the buoyant freedom the bathwater gave his traitorous body.
Duane noticed that Stevie’s cough was getting worse, phlegmy and congested-sounding. After toweling the boy off and swaddling him in his nightgown, he forced some cough syrup into Stevie’s mouth, wiped the sticky red stuff from the boy’s grimace, and put him to bed. Stevie rocked from side to side and continued to make noises long after Duane went back into the living room.
Duane crouched in the old rocking love seat, leaning over the Mediterranean-style coffee table. He pulled out a worn deck of playing cards.
For the rest of the evening the TV played a blurred succession of sitcom after sitcom, and Duane knew from the laugh tracks when he was supposed to chuckle at the jokes. He shuffled the cards and spread them down one by one in a line for another game of solitaire.
He stared at the cards, moved the appropriate ones and turned over new cards, studying for strategy, looking up at the sitcom when the laugh track grew particularly loud. He considered peeking under the two piles of cards that remained, wanting to see which would give him the best advantage — but he did not do it. If you cheated at solitaire, you were cheating no one but yourself.
In the bedroom Stevie coughed, then fell silent with sleep.
Duane considered changing the channel, but realized that it probably made no difference. He dealt out another game of solitaire and continued playing.
CHAPTER 6
Not one of the programmers in the Virtual Reality project said a word about staying late to watch the President’s news conference on CNN.
Over the past two years Michaelson had brainwashed them all into believing they were part of something as important as the old Manhattan Project, coercing them into working 90-hour weeks. They drove in red-eyed at dawn, stayed past dark, ate a steady diet of junk food bought in bulk from the local Costco warehouse store, and generally erased their families — if they had them in the first place — from their lives.
Wearing a Captain America t-shirt, Gary Lesserec lounged back in a chair at the head of the table, while Danielle — a black undergrad from Caltech on summer loan to the Livermore Lab — fiddled with the TV set that stood on a metal rolling cart in the corner of the conference room. All Danielle seemed to find were scrolling Livermore Lab Television Network announcements for upcoming technical talks.
“CNN is on Channel 12, Danielle,” Lesserec said, “at least I think so, unless they changed it.”
The other T Program technicians came into the room chatting with each other, Diet Coke all around, aluminum cans clanking on the table. Someone crackled open a big bag of nacho cheese Doritos and dropped it on the tabletop as hands reached in from all directions to grab a few chips.
Danielle finally got the station right as the CNN announcers were discussing the “President’s major new policy announcement, right after these messages.”
“Whoa,” said Walter Shing, the bespectacled Korean programmer who squinted through thick lenses at the image on the TV. “Hal’s rubbing elbows with important people.”
“We already knew that, Walter,” Lesserec said. “I just want to know what he’s going to spring on us.” He lounged back and waited during the CNN preamble and commentary that promised — as usual — that the President’s every word had some bearing on the ultimate future of the nation. None of the networks had bothered to broadcast the conference live, but CNN carried everything.
While Michaelson was away, Lesserec had enjoyed his freedom to follow up on a few discrete phone calls to industrial partners. He could copy some of the files he needed to bring to his slick new home, where he would put in a few hours on his consulting work. He enjoyed sitting there in the evenings curled up in a saddle chair with the laptop propped in front of him, pecking away at a few codes and simulations, as he stared out the huge picture window overlooking the southern slope of Mount Diablo.