Chapter Nineteen
The Color of Life
The room, if it was a room, was devoured by light specked with a billion bits of sparkling static. A faint hiss of electrical energy buzzed in their ears like some far away mosquito. There was no visible floor, wall, or ceiling, yet they were standing on something solid. They were alone and dressed in their ordinary clothes.
"What's going on? Is this a computer malfunction? Did we screw something up?" Rosa reached for Cameron's hand and squeezed it.
Something clicked inside Cameron's head. The firm pressure of Rosa's hand triggered thoughts about the game of Time Tag, stirring some vague memories. "Did you create your Sparks character from scratch or did you get him from the Academy database?"
"Sparks?"
"You know, that blond guy with the accent — the radioman in your Solar Scouts simulation? Your Sparks character!"
"My Sparks character?" Rosa was incredulous. "You're crazy! My Sparks model was a girl — a red-haired girl. You're describing your Sparks character."
"I didn't have a Sparks character in my simulation." Cameron began to understand. His mouth upturned slightly, displaying just a trace of a smile. "Remember the message on my multiCom during the Mars simulation? 'Don't worry'?" Rosa nodded. "Well, I think I know what's happened."
"¿Por qué?"
"We've been pulled into someone else's simulation."
Rosa was dumbstruck. "Whose?"
"Sparks'."
Rosa considered the idea a few moments before commenting. "You know, I noticed him at his keyboard when Beth Stein was gathering information about Pluto. I bet he programmed the Mickey Mouse clue into your simulation in real time. That means Sparks wasn't an IHTcharacter. He was a real person."
"He has to be a genius to program all this as we go," said Cameron. "It took me almost two weeks to create the shuttle crash simulation."
"Just the fact that he was able to enter into our simulations so seamlessly is mind boggling." When Rosa started to relax her grip on Cameron's hand, Cameron tightened his slightly and smiled. Rosa felt the renewed warmth of a blush on her face as she smiled back. Cameron started, hesitated for an awkward, eternal instant, then leaned in to kiss Rosa. Rosa closed her eyes and began to rise up on her toes, pursing her lips in anticipation.
"So," came a third voice, which startled the young couple. "I'm sorry, is this a bad time?" It was the large blond man they had known as Sparks. He looked worried.
Rosa and Cameron discretely let their hands drop to their sides. Now Cameron was blushing, too.
"Do you know who I am?"
"You're Sparks," said Rosa. "You're the one who's controlling this simulation."
"Well it's not a simulation really, but, yes, I control it. You're quite safe here." He seemed distracted for a moment, as if he were considering the meaning of what he had just said or wandering down some stray line of thought. His brow furrowed with concern. He quickly collected himself and smiled warmly, "I assure you I mean no harm. Quite the opposite, really."
Rosa was still wary. "If it's not a simulation, then what is it?"
"I guess it could be best described as a bubble of white noise within a simulation. A safe harbor, if you will."
"Safe from what?"
"From simulations gone awry, from prying eyes and ears."
"Was the Mars simulation yours?" asked Cameron.
"No."
"Was it something we did? Did we screw something up?" Rosa's voice was suffused with contrition. "Are we in trouble?"
"It was not of your doing, Miss Costas. In fact, most of the errors in your simulations, the ones you no doubt catalogued over Christmas break, were not your fault or the fault of my engineers."
Cameron was working his brain like a gold miner's pan, scouring his thoughts, which swirled around like so much sand, when a wave of enlightenment coursed through him. The sand washed away, and he found a small nugget of a thought on which his mind could latch. "Remember the logo on the multiCom? You know, the circles broken with the arrow?" Rosa nodded. "Well, don't think of it as circles broken with an arrow. Think of it as one piece, as a design."
Rosa closed her eyes, visualizing the image. Slowly it took shape. "It's a stylized G!"
"It's my signature logo," said Sparks.
Rosa was bursting with excitement, "Gund! Are you Mr. Gund...the GundTech Gund?"
The man radiated with joy, his face brightening with childlike enthusiasm. He had surrendered his adult worries to this game of deduction and discovery. "Well, yes...and no."
"Then you're an IHT-generated character and not the holographic image of the real Mr. Gund."
"Let me assure you, Miss Costas, this is really me. I think I know you two a little bit. You like puzzles, so I won't give you the answer. If you can figure out who I am, you'll be the first to have done it."
Taking up the challenge, completely oblivious to the strangeness of the situation, Cameron smiled and withdrew the multiCom from his pocket. "May I?"
Sparks nodded. "Be my guest, Sherlock."
Cameron entered "GundTech" into the search window. The search results indicated that there were volumes of information about GundTech in the database. He had to narrow his search. He tried "Mr. Gund" with no results. That was odd. Cameron looked up at Sparks, who just smiled back at him.
"Try 'corporate officers,' or 'CEO,' or 'president,''" said Rosa.
None of the corporate officers, nor any of the board of directors, was named Gund. The president of the company was a Mr. Gus V-i-l-l-f-a-r-e-l-s-e. (Cameron didn't know how to pronounce the name.)
When, at Rosa's prompting, they searched the word "founder," all they got was the standard information. GundTech was founded on the work of a child prodigy from Norway, whose aptitude for math, biology and physics had broken new ground in computer theory and opened the door to practical virtual reality and artificial intelligence. As Cameron recalled the story, the boy was protected from public scrutiny in order that he might have a normal life. Cameron had an idea — more of a hunch than an idea, really. He hid the screen from the view of Sparks and Rosa as he tapped in V-i-l-l-f-a-r-e-l-s-e and entered the search command.
"Whatcha putting in?" asked Rosa.
Cameron raised a finger in her direction and said, "Just a sec." He examined the readout. Along with the expected "president of the GundTech Corporation" came something unexpected, something very interesting.
Villfarelse, Norwegian
means aberration or illusion.
"You're Mr. Villfarelse, the president of GundTech," started Cameron hesitantly, "but you aren't, too."
"That doesn't make sense." Rosa objected until Cameron showed her the readout. "Then he really is an IHT character or an AI? GundTech is run by an AI!"
Sparks laughed at the idea. "No, as I said, I'm real enough." He turned to Cameron and put a hand on his shoulder. "Now Miss Costas has no way of knowing my name," offered Sparks, "but one would expect someone to whom you've extended a helping hand would remember."
Cameron's eyes widened with realization — and shame — for he had failed to remember the gentle giant who had pulled him to safety in the streets of Paris. He turned to Rosa. "The logo... It's not a G. It's not a G for Gund! It's two Gs!" Cameron looked at Sparks who was nodding with approval. "Rosa, I met him in your Time Tag game. When I was trying to find Marie Curie. Remember, I told you about the carriage. Rosa, meet Mr. Gundersen, Gustav Gundersen — a man who likes puzzles and whose sense of humor, I suspect, came up with the idea of the 'Red Tape'." Cameron watched Gustav's eyes closely as he stated his assumptions, growing more confident as he went. "He was the man in the shadows at our interview."
Rosa's eyes went wide with amazement. Gustav wagged the admonishing finger at her while acknowledging Cameron's assertions with a nod.
"And, if I'm right," Cameron concluded triumphantly, "he is the man who invented the multiCom and the IHT."
"Guilty as charged," said Gustav, extending his hand in introduction towards Rosa.
"¡Mierda!" She offered her hand in kind. She was struck by the firm yet gentle grasp of this extraordinary man.
"Merde, indeed!" He shook her hand and let out a hearty laugh — something, he realized, that he seldom did any more. "Pleased to meet you, Miss Costas."
"R-Rosa...p-please call me Rosa, Mr. Gundersen."
"Only if you call me Gustav, or Gus, as you Americans sometimes prefer."
"I can't wait to tell my friends that I've met..."
"No, Cameron," said Gustav, becoming serious once again. "You must tell nobody except your parents — not even your sister at the moment. My closest friend has only just learned my true identity. I do value my privacy, which I won't have much longer, so let me enjoy it while I can."
"We promise not to say anything," said Rosa.
"I knew that my judgment was not misplaced. I've been monitoring your progress because of something I've been working on, a very special project. And I have a proposal that I hope you and your parents will consider."
"A proposal?"
"Yes, Cameron, I would very much like the two of you to be a part of a this project. I'm positive you're the two for the job."
"Us?" It was more of a statement of Rosa's amazement than a question.
"I warn you, it will involve travel and take quite a bit of time… uh… maybe your entire summer vacation, but you will be compensated handsomely for your effort. If you agree, your GundTech reps will arrange for you and your families to come to Oslo in a couple of weeks. We're having a news conference then, and you'll all be my special guests. I need to explain what I'm planning to your parents. I need to get their approval in person. It's much too sensitive — too important — to be done with the IHT."
Cameron and Rosa looked at each other for a moment, then turned towards Gustav. "Sure." "You bet!" they said together.
"Even your reps and most of my staff know nothing about this project, so don't breathe a word." Gustav Gundersen smiled broadly. "Just one more puzzle. To exit this program, just say where you think you are." He reached into his pants pocket and withdrew an old fashioned chronometer — a pocket watch. "By the way, Cameron, I admire your choice of IDOs." Then, with a wink, he vanished.
The white light fractured into shimmering bands of color. They were inside some kind of protective sphere. It was like being inside a rainbow. Slowly, the colors began to blend and melt, transforming into the most unique and special object in the solar system. It was a ball of blue and green and brown and white.
"Earth," said Rosa. The program continued.
Rosa and Cameron zoomed towards a vast area of blue, which was speckled with white wisps. They fell through a white haze of water vapor and plunged beneath the surface of a warm, life-giving ocean. They saw fish, sea-plants, turtles and whales. The ocean became dark. In the distance they could detect rifts and vents of molten lava, boiling the water at the ocean depths. As they got closer, they saw that, even here, there was life. Giant tube worms and other creatures seemed to thrive in this hostile environment.
"The ocean floor," said Cameron. No response.
"The Pacific Ocean," said Rosa. Nothing.
They rushed up from the depths at a dizzying speed and burst from beneath the waves to a vision of blue skies and puffy clouds. They leveled off a few feet above the ocean swells. Their protective bubble raced towards an outcropping of land that rose from the expansive body of water. It was a sandy beach warmed by the rays of the nearby star.
"Hawaii?"
They hurtled onward and were overwhelmed by a wall of green.
Green — a color not seen anywhere else in the solar system as far as Cameron could remember.
Green — the color of plants.
Green — the color of life!
The land was covered with plants of so many types it amazed the young explorers.
"The Rainforest!"
Still, they went on.
Among the plants were animals of every shape and size. Everywhere they looked there was life! This most special place could only be one planet.
"Earth," Rosa reapeated, with the same result.
Cameron turned to Rosa with a knowing look on his face. He reached out and took her hands in his once more. "Home," he said with a good feeling in his heart. The program froze, and the lush green that had engulfed them dissipated. Cameron was looking at the image of his best friend on his wall mounted multiCom screen. They were just two creatures in this world that was bursting with life.
"See ya in class tomorrow, Rosa."
Rosa sighed, and smiled. "See you tomorrow."
The multiCom screen dimmed to black.
– End Chapter Nineteen –
