As the representative from the top floor of Corporate HQ, Velucci was the de facto chairman of the proceedings. “That’s all history now. Time’s running. What’s the recommendation?” he asked them. This kind of briskness had become routine. In the five minutes that they had been debating, the simulation had already moved into a new day.
“Too many uncertainties. Shut it down now,” Joan Sutton said without hesitation.
“I disagree,” Tyron said. “I say, send Harry back inside, maybe with you, Joan, to give a second opinion. We can still get a lot of mileage out of this.”
Morgen nodded. “I support Frank.”
“We can’t quit now,” Borth pleaded. “This is where all the backers get their payoff. It’s worth hundreds of millions.”
“What about the people in there who are being rerun?” Sutton demanded. “They’ll sue for every cent in the company.”
“We’ve got enough money to keep them sweet. We’ve got lawyers. We can handle that when the time comes,” Borth said.
Impasse. Everyone looked toward Velucci. He got a connection to Endelmyer at CLC’s Head Office on one of the conference screens, summarized the situation, and requested a ruling.
“Are they in any immediate risk?” Endelmyer queried.
“No,” Tyron answered firmly.
“We don’t know,” Sutton said.
“That’s pure speculation,” Morgen said.
“Any risk that we can positively identify,” Endelmyer corrected.
“No,” Tyron said again. This time Sutton remained silent.
“Is there evidence that they suspect?” Endelmyer asked.
“Nothing that Harry actually saw—only the SDV index,” Tyron replied. “But that was yesterday their time. That’s why I want to send him back in. Joan can go with him.”
“As ourselves,” Morgen interjected. “There isn’t time for messing around through personas.” Tyron nodded that he agreed. All heads turned back toward the screen.
“They knew what they were getting into. As Victor says, any objections can be straightened out afterward,” was Endelmyer’s decision. “Send Morgen and Sutton in. We keep it going.”
* * *
Corrigan and Lilly came out of the west end of the commercial court on Station Square and began walking quickly back along Carson Street toward Xylog. All thoughts of coffee and sandwiches were forgotten. Of course Sylvine reminded him of Zehl, Corrigan told himself. It was more than simply that they were both from Washington, appeared at short notice, and asked lots of questions. Corrigan had already tagged Zehl as an external controller coming into the simulation, and something in Corrigan’s subconscious had identified the same habits of speech, posture, and mannerisms in Sylvine. Sylvine was Zehl! It was the same person from outside, cloaked in two different identities. The difference was that this time, Sylvine hadn’t instantly come across as being somehow more “real” than the others around him. The animations were getting good. Stunningly good!
There was an anger in the forced pace of Corrigan’s tread on the sidewalk stones and the taut set of his face that Lilly had not seen before. It was an anger of the worst kind—the kind directed at one’s own foolishness. While he had been fondly living fantasies of glory and success, believing himself to be in control of his imaginary project in its imaginary world, somebody else, outside, was very much in control of the real one.
“They must have been setting it up since before Xylog was formed,” Corrigan muttered darkly. “Nothing like the scale of this was expected until way in the future. That was why I had such a hard time accepting it. Now I can see what’s been going on.”
“What? Tell me how you read it,” Lilly said.
“This is what Borth’s clients wanted all along—a simulated world that they could test marketing ideas in. And somebody told them they could have it. That was why the backers poured all that money in.”
“You mean Tyron and company?”
“It has to be. Borth’s no doubt in on it, Velucci certainly, maybe Endelmyer himself. I don’t know. . . . But they’ve got friends in SDC. There could have been a whole department working on this behind a security screen. They must have done it the way you said once: waited until I went into the simulation on a routine inspection, then invoked the memory suppression to make it permanent and concocted some story to say it was my own decision. That gave them total control. And they’ve been in control of everything out there for the last three weeks.”