Ompadhe’s shoulders slumped just enough to let Craig know she realized she was defeated. “Come back to my office,” she said.
Craig motioned for Goldfarb to stay and watch over the facility. He and the two others followed Ompadhe out of the clean room, shucking their white Tyvek costumes and returning to their suit-and-tie FBI uniforms.
As they followed the slender woman down the carpeted NanoWare halls, Craig had to fight to keep the springy bounce from his step. This entire investigation had gone well.
CHAPTER 3
With their noise and bustle and unpredictability, little kids had a peculiar way of getting on Gary Lesserec’s nerves, no matter how understanding he tried to be. It wasn’t so much the incessant whining, the tear-filled eyes, or the blatant refusal to obey simple commands — it was more the indefatigable lack of logic. Children didn’t make sense, and that scared him.
Still, he had a role to play as the T Program deputy, now that Michaelson had left him in charge. Smile, put on a good face for the PR show. Associate Director José Aragon was watching as he led the tour group of “challenged” children for the Coalition for Family Values, happy as a dung beetle deep in his element. Aragon was going to get a lot of good coverage for this event.
Lesserec pretended to be happy as he greeted the visitors, the smile burned on his face to cover his alarm at the group of wheelchair-bound, emotionally disturbed, Down’s syndrome, or otherwise crippled children. Even normal, rambunctious kids threw a complex situation into chaos, but this group created even stiffer problems, required more careful watching.
But it also gave him a marvelous opportunity, without watchdog Michaelson looming over him, and he could finally install those new bootleg chips and give them a whirl. He took it as a challenge. If Lesserec intended to reach out to a huge market share with his own VR breakthroughs, perhaps children like these, who had so little to start with, had the most to gain from his simulations.
Lesserec watched the last of the children ushered through the open security door into the T Program exclusion area. Aragon stood like a cable-car conductor, motioning everyone to come forward. Escorted by nurses, attendants, or parents, the children moved into the common area. Upon hearing the first high-pitched tiny voices, the scuffling of feet, the bumping against wobbly modular office furniture, he thought, Showtime!
He felt tense, unlike any time when he had stood up to Hal Michaelson or any of the other head-up-their-butts management types. The mob of children descended upon the Virtual Reality laboratory like a plague of locusts.
Lesserec scanned the room in reflex, all the other T Program engineers who had slapped together Aragon’s demo in record time. “Everybody ready?” he muttered, only loud enough for the technicians to hear.
Danielle, one of the programmers behind a workstation, punched in an access code, prepping the simulation run. “Equipment’s all set up, Gary. You’re the MC. You know which buttons to push. It’s your show… solo.”
“Hey, where are you guys going?”
Danielle jabbed her fellow programmer in the side and motioned with her head for him to follow. “Errands. We skipped lunch today so we could head out to Lab supply this afternoon.”
“Yeah, Gary,” said Walter, the other programmer, nodding. “You okayed it, remember?”
“Hey, that was before we set up this tour!” Lesserec pushed weakly up from his chair. “You’re not leaving me alone?”
“Of course not,” Danielle said with a parting shot. “You’ve got all those kids to keep you company.”
Lesserec muttered something he would never have wanted the children to hear, then looked up to see José Aragon extending a hand to him. He smelled of strong aftershave. His dark hair glistened with hair oil, sculpted in place like meringue on a baked Alaska. “Ah, Gary! It’s good to see you again. Thanks for all your help.”
Lesserec made sure his smile remained firmly in place as he shook the Associate Director’s hand, squeezing firmly into the other man’s clammy palm sweat. Aragon wore a leisure suit, as usual, and trousers just a tad on the short side.
“Welcome,” Lesserec said to the audience, rubbing his hands together. “We’ve got a good show for you today. I’m sure the kids will enjoy it.”
He cleared off the front of his computer console, leaving a small plastic model of Snoopy, a picture of him and his girlfriend Sandra standing outside their new condo by Lake Tahoe, and a small bumper sticker that said PORSCHE DRIVERS DO IT AT 150 MILES AN HOUR.
With a stage manager’s bustle, Aragon continued to look around the workstation area, his dark eyes carrying a glazed shallowness. “So, Hal didn’t stay to show us around?”
Lesserec erased his scowl before it could show. “He’s in Washington for a high-level meeting. Don’t worry, though, Mr. Aragon — I can handle it.”
“Yes, of course.” Aragon seemed flustered, as if he didn’t know how to deal with a change of routine. “Glad you could find time to show the children around, Gary.”
“My pleasure,” mumbled Lesserec, meaning exactly the opposite.
“Excuse me,” Aragon said. “I have to help the rest of these youngsters in.” He patted Lesserec on the shoulder and moved over to help the group enter the secure facility through the unsealed emergency exit, though it looked as if he were only getting in the way. A Protective Service Officer stood watching the slow progress.
Lesserec watched, having no idea how many visitors they were expecting. It would take all morning long just to get a dozen of them inside. He wondered whose idea this crazy spectacle was anyway. Probably Aragon’s.
Now alone in the control area, Lesserec turned to his computer console and called up a file from his private directory. He decided that would be best, and Michaelson wasn’t here to breathe down his neck anyway. Normally, he would have arranged for a computational physics simulation of one of the Lab’s new high-priority “dual-use” missions, something that would feed into the commercial sector, or perhaps even be used by the Pentagon.
He considered bringing up the jet fighter dog-fight sequence — normal, red-blooded kids should get a blast out of that — but the thought of these handicapped children disoriented by Top Gun maneuvers made him pause. He couldn’t think of anything more appropriate than the Yosemite simulation he had shot and dimensionalized himself last month. He hoped Aragon wouldn’t squeal about his fooling with the VR chamber for other than “official” business; but if the kids were satisfied with the show, he didn’t suppose that would be a problem.
Aragon seemed to be having a field day, walking around to each of the sixteen kids taking their places in the VR chamber, squatting down and speaking to them on their level, then standing and patting them on the top of the head. A photographer seemed attached to Aragon’s elbow; no accident, Lesserec supposed.
One scrawny little girl with patchy blond hair stared around the lab, her big eyes big drinking in the sights. Her sinewy neck seemed to ratchet as she moved it, as if uncertain of the muscular controls.
Computer screens as big as a school blackboard filled one of the walls; circuit boards from the patchwork control rack, optical fibers, and computer keyboards were stacked unceremoniously on one of the desks; a poster on the far wall displayed a futuristic scene with the words JEDI ACADEMY emblazoned underneath. The place looked much cleaner and more organized than it had the day before, sanitized of all classified information.