The palsied boy’s expression changed, though Lesserec could not read subtleties in his uncontrolled facial muscles. Lesserec took hold of the small hand and brushed it back and forth against the illusory rock.
Other children moved forward to parts of the images, making sounds of amazement as they touched the mountain. José Aragon wandered the circumference of the chamber, prodding and stroking, a fascinated grin on his face.
“Just don’t press too hard,” Lesserec warned.
The simulation paused a moment, before dropping toward the ground in a gut-wrenching fall. Several of the children cried out, but the plunge slowed until they reached the rocky, forested ground below. Hikers and people in cars started moving toward them, all wearing puzzled expressions.
Lesserec popped open the chamber door, disengaging the simulation and letting a wedge of fluorescent light spill into the room. Yosemite vanished like a snapped rubber band, and the tour group found themselves sitting in a featureless VR chamber. The children and their escorts sat stunned and breathless for a moment, looking around in disbelief.
“That’s all for today. Be careful on your way out,” Lesserec said, pointing toward the door. “Please keep away from the walls — we don’t want you to harm the sensors.”
Aragon bustled over to him. He seemed genuinely moved. “Gary, thank you for allowing us to experience this magnificent demonstration! I will speak with Hal about opening this up as part of a general Lab tour.” He nodded at the excited children on their way out of the chamber. “This is just the type of thing we need to improve our image with the community.”
Lesserec smiled tightly, aware that Aragon was looking at more than pure community relations — if pitched properly, this would ensure Aragon’s directorate wouldn’t be short of funds as well. Well, they all fed out of the same trough.
“I’m sure Dr. Michaelson would enjoy that,” he said without the slightest trace of sarcasm.
He kept his smile in place as the children made their way out, each one thanking him in their own way. He felt like a flight attendant watching passengers file out of an airplane. The last pair out the door was the boy with cerebral palsy and the slight man with stooped shoulders. The boy seemed delirious with happiness.
The tired-looking man nodded to him and extended his hand. “Thank you, sir. I’m Duane Hopkins—” He fingered his green Livermore badge as if to prove it. “I just wanted to thank you. Stevie, my son — I’ve never seen him so happy. This was really special for him.”
“No problem,” Lesserec said. He was pleased with their reactions. The simulations seemed very marketable.
Hopkins looked down at the floor, then back up, as if he were afraid to meet Lesserec’s gaze. “Stevie has been sick for… well, he’s always been sick, and I just can’t take him out very often. I work in the plutonium building, and we don’t get to show off—”
“Mr. Hopkins, we’re leaving now,” interrupted the woman from the Coalition for Family Values. “Come along.” The others had made their way out the emergency exit door where the security guard continued to watch. The woman from the community group gave a stern smile and raised her eyebrows, motioning for him to hurry.
The man, Hopkins, was startled, mumbled his thanks again, and rushed after the others, pushing Stevie’s wheelchair.
As the chaotic tour group left, Lesserec relaxed back in his chair, thinking how well received the simulation had been. He ran over the possibilities, wondering how people might respond to something really exciting, exotic, not just a vacation snapshot. He couldn’t wait to test out some of the stuff he had been developing at home.
Through the dollar signs in his daydreams, he saw a real chance to make it big. He had Aragon snowed… leaving only Hal Michaelson.
CHAPTER 4
Looking up and down the street, nondescript, Hal Michaelson decided to enter the White House through the most inconspicuous entrance. He doubted anyone would recognize him, despite his height and large frame and distinctive moustache; but the paparazzi permanently stationed by the south entrance hungrily scanned everyone who entered by more obvious means, and Michaelson avoided them on general principles. Most of the reporters wouldn’t care, or even understand, the International Verification Initiative; of course they wouldn’t carry the news conference live.
He entered through the Old Executive Office Building, a five-story gray granite structure that would have looked more at home in 18th century France than next to the White House. The blocky, gothic-looking building held most of the 1,500 staff members who actually served the White House. Two of the entrances were on 17th street, allowing Michaelson to slip inside.
Once he passed the secret-service checkpoint, Michaelson still felt conspicuous. As he walked along the black-and-white checkerboard halls, he fingered his laminated badge that prominently displayed a large V for visitor. Nothing was more likely to attract attention. He had to concentrate on his speech, on his meeting, not worry about pestering interviewers.
He elected to take the circular stairway instead of chancing the elevator where he might run into some desperate reporter. God, he hated stupid questions. He climbed the stairs to the ready room off to the side of the fourth-floor auditorium, where the conference would take place at eight.
Usually Michaelson didn’t mind the attention, since he had made his name through bluster and unorthodox showmanship. More often than not, he had used the press to discredit the tedious boors that infested the bureaucracy, embarrassing them into passing his proposals — as he had done with the Laser Implosion Fusion Facility.
But not now. Now was the time to play his cards close to his chest. He had kept the IVI secret from Lesserec and the rest of T Program; he certainly wasn’t going to spill everything to a random reporter he happened to encounter in the tiled halls of the Old Executive Office Building!
He huffed up the stairs, remembering the last time he had been interviewed at the White House, during the previous administration. His biting denunciation of the fossils running the space program as “the gang that couldn’t shoot straight” had, in part, eventually resulted in the successful testing of a new class of rocket vehicles that had been delayed through red-tape snafus for years.
But today he needed to stay out of the limelight. It was the President’s show, and he would get enough secondary glory from it. As difficult as it was for him, Michaelson needed simply to be present, not to make troublesome statements or stir up controversy. Today, people would be throwing darts at him, rather than the other way around. He ran over the words in his mind again. The main question was whether the stupid public would understand the significance of the IVI, or if they would miss the point altogether.
As he moved along, lost in his thoughts, business-suited young men and women clicked past him on the stairs. He watched them, glad he spent most of his life in California where everybody wasn’t wound up so tight and mummified in business clothes. The White House staff was always in a hurry, but their sense of urgency was inversely proportional to their position in the hierarchy. The men wore dark suits, white shirts, modest ties, and expensive black wing-tips; the women, every one of them stunning after hours of applied makeup and expensive dresses, slid by in smart high heels and soft skirts swirling against sheer panty hose.
Michaelson sighed wistfully. The sight of these focused young women made up his mind for him. He made a mental note to cancel his “meeting” with Diana and call Amber instead. He needed a real break tonight, a celebration after the interview. Amber would be enthusiastic and refreshing. He looked forward to it. Diana was getting too rigid… too matter of fact.