Virtual Reality - Chapter 3
Aug 18 '04
The Bottom Line Chapter 3 by name, Chapter 3 by nature...
Please read the Prelude before you read this!
This chapterreally shows how naïve my writing was at the time, and just how much technology has progressed since then!
Chapter 3.
"Here's our pride and joy. Or mine, anyway, Mike doesn't like nuclear reactors much.", said Foster to Kalashni as he opened the door on yet another large room. The mansion seemed to be full of large rooms, thought Kalashni. From the outside, it didn't seem big enough for all of them. Perhaps it was an optical illusion. He didn't care much.
"Ta-dah!", shouted Foster as he pointed in triumph at what looked like a huge ball of flame behind a massive window, which Kalashni knew from experience was a Plutonium based nuclear reactor. But... there was something different about it, something he had never seen before. And you didn't work in the Soviet Nuclear programme without seeing some of the most advanced hardware in the world. The most advanced, he had thought. And you didn't normally go anywhere near a nuclear reactor without several layers of protective clothing.
He noticed that there were only two people monitoring the reactor's temperature, radiation and pressure levels. This too was very unorthodox. They had no protective clothing on either.
He also wondered at the way Hansen and Foster seemed so, well, informal really. With something of this nature, and especially this importance, people where normally very serious and talked only in the strictest professional manner. Or at least the Russians did. And, thought Kalashni, Western people are surely the same, when it comes down to it.
"Impressed, huh?", asked Foster, interrupting his thoughts.
"Well, yes, but a bit confused. How is it that we can come so near without protective clothing? I'm not going to go away with a half-life shorter than Uranium 235, am I?"
This took Foster somewhat by surprise. He had never read Hansen's files on the four men, and hadn't really expected the Russian to have a sense of humour. Even if it wasn't really that funny. But, thought Foster, I'd better laugh anyway. Which he did.
"Well, we have developed a totally new sort of shielding, for a start. It works on the principle of reflecting nuclei with a substance derived from lead...", began Foster, and then embarked on a full scientific explanation of the process.
Kalashni soon found himself totally absorbed in the workings of the reactor and the shielding, and it totally failed to register with him, for the time, that Foster must be a very highly qualified physicist just to be able to pronounce some of the words he was using, let alone being able to explain it.
It did not, however, escape Foster's notice that the Russian was completely and utterly engrossed in the reactor. Or that he was completely won over to the project...
Meanwhile, in Libya, Brian Donaldson was struggling in his mind over what to do. He had proposed that the military spent a bit longer, say two months, on planning and preparation for the attack on Tunisia. Two months should be enough for everything to be sorted out. Unfortunately, a certain General Kuldashi disagreed with him. Worse than that, a lot of the top-ranking officials in the Libyan army agreed with Kuldashi, most disconcertingly of all General Antreb. Antreb was second in command, in practice if not officially. He commanded no less authority and respect, almost, than Donaldson himself. Well, at least the person they thought Donaldson was.
'If I get the delay I want, it will give Mike a chance to get something going. But, they'll be suspicious maybe. What should I do?', he thought frantically.
"Commander, we need a decision now. Do we attack tomorrow, or spend more time planning?", asked General Antreb, but it was more of a challenge than a question. 'Are you going to oppose me, and the majority of the other Generals, by wasting more time in useless planning?', was what he was really saying, and Donaldson knew it.
"General, as you know, many battles have been lost as a result of poor planning. Although we have already planned the operation in considerable detail, I feel it would be ill advised to attack without some further preparation. However", said Donaldson, noticing with considerable relief that most of the Generals were nodding their head in agreement, "I leave the decision to the majority vote. There are fifteen Generals present, all of whose military experience is much valued. How many vote in favour of further planning?"
"How much longer will the planning take place for? I agree with the sentiment that we need a bit more time, but I feel that two months is excessive", said one of the Generals.
"If you vote that we do need more planning time, then we will vote on the length of it afterwards. Now, do we want more time?" As he said it, Donaldson wondered vaguely if this democratic line and giving responsibility in the decision-making would be seen as a good thing or a weakness.
Donaldson counted the hands. "That's nine in favour, so there are six against. I think that has been carried conclusively, gentlemen. How long, though? Does a period of one month seem reasonable?"
After some debate, it was decided that three weeks should be spent planning. But Donaldson knew that could be overturned quickly, if he was found out. Antreb and Kuldashi certainly weren't happy about his actions, but whether they were suspicious he couldn't quite fathom. They'd given him some very searching, thoughtful looks, but hadn't noticed anything amiss.
Donaldson hoped fervently that this would work. He didn't want his plastic surgery to have been for nothing.
Dave Marshall was in his element. He loved talking about computers, gourad shading, 3D object modelling, or in fact anything like that. Especially when he was talking to someone who actually knew what he was talking about. And he was talking to the worlds leading experts. In fact, he felt slightly awed by the knowledge.
Canning and Hansen had rejoined them, after Hansen had decided that Canning needed to know a little about the technology and methods involved in order to help him achieve his aims. Canning thought it was a ridiculous idea himself, but kept his ideas on the subject to himself.
Marshall was in full flight right from the moment he started talking about the equipment. "The machinery itself is, of course, based around a computer, which has specifications that make even the best workstations look like pocket calculators. The CPU runs at an incredible 990MHz, and unlike many modern processors it isn't' `double clocked', but it runs at that amazing speed both internally and externally. The CPU is backed up by two RISC (Reduced Instruction Set Chips), also running at phenomenal speeds. The computer also contains three different types of DSP's (Digital Signal Processors) in it performing different tasks, each running at 660MHz. The video-digitising is handled by dedicated chips that can perform all sorts of tricks in real- time, and the sound chips sample at a higher rate than CD's or DAT's (Digital Audio Tape), at a whopping 70.5KHz, all in an amazing 24-bit resolution, also changing the voices, again in real-time. Then there's the 'VR interface', which is attached to the Libyan Commander's nervous system, which has taken 86,000 man hours to develop. I think I can say, without fear of contradiction, that it is the absolute pinnacle of cyber-electronics, as the electricians have dubbed it."
All of this went completely over Canning's head. It may as well have been Swahili for all he understood of it. He presumed the figures and statistics and everything to be impressive, but to him they were completely meaningless. He felt faintly foolish as, he knew, all of the explaining of abbreviations was solely for his benefit, no-one else needed to be told what DSP or RISC stood for. Without realising, he started to blush slightly, but nobody seemed to notice.
They were too busy being impressed.
"So when do we get to start using the machines, then?", asked Kershaw fervently. He had been itching to use the machines ever since he heard about them, and now that he was actually in the same room as them... well, it was just too much for him. He wanted to be on those machines now...
"In a way, you have already started. I mean, you both worked on the techniques for the texture-mapping routines, and that sort of thing, that we are actually using."
"By the way", put in Browning, "why did Hansen, um, Mike, I mean, say that it was only Brad? Neither of us said anything at the time, although a sidelong glance between us was enough to tell us that we both thought it was odd. I mean, Mike must know that it was both of us, but he must also have a reason to keep it quiet, and make the others think that it was just my friend here. Can you explain it for us?"
"Well, let's just say that Mike wanted to see how much common sense you had. You see, there's only so much he can read from those psycho-analysis files of his. In case you didn't already know, or hadn't guessed, he has files on all of you. But even that doesn't tell him everything. Even if he'd like to think they did, but Mike's far too sensible for that anyway. You see, every situation is completely unique, and so is the reaction. Even if exactly the same situation could be thrown at you twice, your reaction could be completely different, because you might be in a different mood, you have different amounts of experience in particular things, and your situation may be different. Even the time of day can have an effect."
"Oh great. Another psychologist. That's fantastic.", moaned Kershaw.
"Why, do you have something against psychologists?"
"Not especially, but we already have a couple of quacks here, and that's about all I can stand. I prefer computers to people any day. I can understand computers, but I don't think I'll ever understand people."
"I agree, actually. First and foremost I'm a technologist. But why did you say we have two psychologists? We only have Edward Canning, we decided not to get Thomas Hemmingway in the end."
"Oh, come on. It's pretty obvious that Mike Hansen, or whatever his real name is, is one of the funny people who poke around with people's heads."
"Is it?", queried Browning, looking extremely puzzled.
"Of course it is. Couldn't you tell?", said Kershaw, looking rather pained that his friend couldn't see it as he could.
"Er, well, not really."
"And then", continued Kershaw, turning to Dave Marshall, "when you said something about psycho-analysis cards... or files, whatever, it was even more obvious."
There was a short silence, and then Marshall, obviously wanting to change the subject, said, "Of course, we did for a short time try to improve on your techniques by using ray-tracing instead. In real-time. But we quickly found out that there just isn't a powerful enough computer in the world capable of doing that. Even with our technology."
Then they turned back to the subject in hand, and finally Kershaw got to experiment a bit with the complex machines that controlled the world that the Libyan lived in. And it didn't take long before he seemed to forget all about what he said about Mike Hansen being a psychologist.
Dave Marshall, however, remembered every word of that conversation.
And he wondered what Hansen would say when he found out.
In the headquarters of MeFitronix, the owner, Melissa Fitzgerald, was talking to Andrew Webber, her international market research manager. The company was hers in every sense of the word, for she had started from scratch and created a multi-national company to be reckoned with. Although she hadn't got the kind of connections and financial clout of MINE, that was about to change, she thought.
"So, Andrew, what do you think of that?"
"I'd say it was a bit needlessly sadistic, until I know the reason for you wanting it to happen. And I have a feeling that you're not going to tell me yet", he said with a wry smile. "I imagine you have some devilish scheme in mind, Mel, but I can't think what it might be. Nor do I really see what you can do to ensure that Libya actually will attack Tunisia, let alone how that would help us. We have no trade deals with either nation."
"That's true Andrew. At least no legitimate deals." Fitzgerald had that look on her face again, that look that Webber knew so well.
"Ah." There was really nothing more for him to say about it. He smiled at Fitzgerald, the sort of sly smile between two conspirators with knowledge that no-one else possessed.
He glanced at the newspaper that was lying on Fitzgerald's desk. The headline read, "Relations between Libya and Tunisia about to reach boiling point!" He smiled again. "Well, whatever it is you're planning, it seems to be going pretty well at the moment."
"Very well indeed, Andrew. Better than I'd dared to hope, in fact."
Fitzgerald was wondering how far to trust the man who was effectively her successor, albeit by her own choice. "It depends if he's willing to wait for me to retire, I suppose", she thought. Well, I don't trust him quite enough to tell him about my most covert operations. Yet, at any rate.
"Well, better get to work. Out of my office, now!", she said in a good-natured way, and he went out in mock terror. Fitzgerald stared after him thoughtfully, and after some time got down to business.
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