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  Well, what the hell. You couldn't do what Jace does, Dan told himself. The sonofabitch is brilliant. Who the hell else could produce a simulation that two people can share completely? These conflict games are his baby. Two people sharing a dream together. Or a nightmare. Nobody else has even come close to what Jace has accomplished. He's jumped light-years ahead of anything that anybody else is doing. A quantum leap.

  As he sat down to take off his shoes Angela came bouncing in. Dan noticed that she was already in her pink pajamas.

  "Mommy says dinner will be ready in five minutes and I can stay up and sit with you and Uncle Jace even though I've already had my dinner." She seemed quite pleased with her announcement, almost smug.

  "That's fine, Angel," he said. "How was your first day at school?"

  "It was real neat," his daughter replied, getting up on the bed and tucking her bare feet under her to sit cross-legged.

  "You liked it."

  "Yeah! I went to Mexico city and saw the Aztecs. It was terrific! They wore costumes made of bird feathers and they had these big tall pyramids and market places and ball courts where they played a kind of soccer and—"

  "You used a VR system."

  Angela nodded so hard her pigtails bounced. "It's awesome, Daddy. I was really there! With Mr. Muncrief."

  "Huh?"

  "Did you make that VR, Daddy? Is the one about the Aztecs one of the VRs you made?"

  "No, not that one, honey," Dan replied. "What did you say about Mr. Muncrief?"

  Her blue eyes were shining with happiness. "He was there, too. I saw him. He was one of the priests. He climbed all the way up the biggest pyramid, to the temple up at the top."

  "Mr. Muncrief?"

  "Uh-huh."

  "It couldn't have been."

  "I saw him. He was there, all dressed up in feathers and everything. He looked kinda funny."

  Dan tickled his daughter's chin. "You just thought you saw him, sweetie. He drove you to school and there was a priest in the simulation that looked something like him and you thought it was him."

  "It was him, Daddy! He even waved to me!"

  Dan smiled at his daughter. Twelve-year-olds and their imagination, he thought. But inwardly he wondered if twelve-year-olds might be too young for VR simulations.

  "Come on," he said, "let's see what Phil's doing."

  He padded in his socks into the baby's room, Angela trailing behind him, still chattering about school and Muncrief. His son was already asleep. Dan smiled down at Philip. Things will get down to normal pretty quick, he thought.

  For some reason, it made Dan feel almost depressed. The same furniture, the same routine. He realized that he had looked forward to Florida as a bright new beginning and the sameness he saw all around him made him feel as if nothing had changed. Nothing that was really important.

  At dinner, Angela rattled on about Indians and Aztecs and her first VR experience.

  "Hey," said Jace, "that's a game I cooked up, Angie. Did you like it?"

  Nodding, Angela told Jace, "I saw Mr. Muncrief in it!"

  "You did, huh?" Jace glanced at Dan.

  "Muncrief isn't in that sim," Dan said. Then he added, "Is he?"

  Very seriously, Jace asked Angela, "Are you sure it was Muncrief? Not just somebody who kinda looks like him?"

  "I'm . . ."Angela hesitated, "pretty sure."

  "Pretty sure?" Jace asked, grinning. "Or kinda pretty sure?"

  "Kinda pretty sure."

  "Kinda pretty sure, or maybe sort of kinda pretty sure?"

  Angela laughed. "You're talking silly."

  Jace laughed too. "Yeah. I'm a silly person. Didn't you know that?" And he stuck out his tongue at her.

  Angela did likewise.

  Susan said, "That will be enough from both of you. Angela, you can go brush your teeth now. Jace, finish your salad."

  "Yes ma'am," Jace said sheepishly. But the ghost of a smile still curled his lips; he gave Angela a sly wink.

  After Jace left and Angela had gone to bed and the dinner dishes stacked in the ultra-quiet dishwasher, Dan slouched in their old sofa, Susan beside him, blearily watching television.

  "Did your computer work okay?" he asked, eyes on the flickering screen.

  "Fine. Thanks for setting it up for me."

  "And the fax board?"

  "I haven't had a chance to try it yet," Susan replied. "Tomorrow I'll send out reminders about my Florida phone numbers to all my old clients."

  "Good."

  "I'll drive you to the office tomorrow," she said. "I need the car."

  "Uh-huh."

  "We can shop for my car Saturday, okay?"

  "I guess."

  "Or Sunday. Whichever you prefer."

  He let his chin sink onto his chest. The TV show was something about a woman lawyer dealing with sexual harassment in her office. Dan thought about flipping to a different channel but Sue seemed interested in it. "I'll probably go to the lab Saturday. Got a lot of catching up to do."

  Susan did not reply.

  "Jake's jumped a million miles ahead of where we were at Wright-Patt. Even the simple games I saw today are way out. The imagery is fantastic. Not like the cartoony stuff we were doing for the Air Force. I mean, you can't tell the difference from the real world, it's that good. They've beaten the time lag problem, Sue. Hell, even the kids on the staff are light-years ahead of me."

  "You'll catch up to them in a week," Susan said.

  "I don't know. You ought to see what they're doing. Jace is developing conflict games, games that two people can play in, against each other."

  "That's what he was talking about! I couldn't quite figure out what he meant by 'conflict games' and he was rattling on about it so fast. He's really excited about it, isn't he?"

  "There's a lot to be excited about, Sue. It's fantastic."

  "Angie said the same thing about the VR in her classroom."

  "Yeah, she told me about it."

  "How much about the Aztecs do they show the kids?"

  Susan's voice sounded troubled. "I mean, they did human sacrifices, didn't they? Do you think they're going to show that to the children? Cutting out the heart and all that?"

  "I doubt it. What do you think about her seeing Kyle Muncrief in the sim?"

  "I don't know what to think."

  Dan tried to make light of it. "Imagine Muncrief dressed up as one of the Aztec priests, in all those feathers and stuff."

  "How could that be?"

  "Just her imagination. Muncrief must've made a big impression on her."

  "Do you think that maybe she's too young to use VR?" Real worry etched Susan's voice.

  "No," he said flatly, hiding his own concern.

  "I wonder," she said.

  "The school wouldn't let the kids use them if they thought there would be any problems." Listening to his own words, he almost convinced himself of it.

  Susan murmured something that Dan could not make out. He turned his attention back to the TV screen although he had lost whatever interest he had originally had in the drama. His mind was picturing an Aztec priest cutting the heart out of a sacrificial victim. The priest looked like Muncrief.

  "Jace seems happy here."

  He felt his brows rise. "Yep. Just the same as always. I don't think he's even changed his shirt."

  Susan laughed. "That's Jace."

  "Yeah." Dan did not crack a smile. He knew that he had not told his wife the exact truth. Jace was different, somehow. The difference was subtle, only one of degree. But it was there. Dan tried to shrug it off. Just the first day; we'll get back to normal in a day or so.

  A commercial came on, showing a gleaming silver little convertible hotfooting along a winding mountain road.

  "Now that's some car," Dan said.

  "Not for us," said Susan. "I'm going to get myself something much more practical."

  "I can dream, can't I?"

  "I only meant," she said, worming an arm around his waist, "that convertibles don't mak
e sense here. The sun's too hot almost all year long."

  "Muncrief doesn't seem to mind the sun," Dan muttered.

  "He doesn't have two children to think of. And a wife with fair skin."

  He turned toward her. "Fair? your skin's better than fair. I think your skin's terrific." Dan traced a finger along the curve of her jaw, then tapped the end of her pert nose. "Wouldn't want that cute little proboscis to get sunburned."

  She heaved an exaggerated sigh. "I love it when you talk scientific."

  He broke into a grin. Leaning closer he whispered into her ear, "Testosterone. Estrogen. Penis. Coitus."

  Susan whispered back, "More! More!"

  "Fellatio. Cunnilingus."

  "Oh god!"

  He scooped her up in his arms and marched off to the bedroom.

  The first time they had made love Dan had surprised her with his fiercely single-minded intensity. Susan had known a soft-spoken, reserved, gentle man who had taken her to dinners and movies and picnics. Many nights they had talked for hours, usually in his car, often until the sun came up. Dan had told her all about his childhood in Youngstown, his work at Wright-Patterson, how much he owed to Dr Appleton. Susan had fallen in love with an earnest, shy, hard-working man who was almost a nerd in comparison to some of the men she had dated.

  Yet there was something beneath the surface, a smoldering drive that she sensed from the very first. When at last she decided to go to bed with him, Susan found that she had been more right than she had dreamed. In bed Dan turned into a different person altogether. All the inhibitions, all the cautions and modesty and self-effacements disappeared once he had his hands on her naked flesh.

  She saw the passion that he hid from everyone else, even from himself. It almost frightened her, at first, but then she realized that Dan was much more than the uptight engineer she had first imagined him to be. What she had taken to be shyness was actually something close to fear; Dan was not bashful so much as wary, always on guard, as if to protect himself against being hurt by the people around him. She began to see him as a coiled panther, every muscle tensed, every nerve straining against the dangers of the world.

  Except in bed. There he was a fiery passionate Italian who swept away all her doubts and inhibitions. It was as if the rest of the world disappeared and there were only the two of them with Dan concentrating every facet of his attention, every molecule of his existence on her and her alone. God knew what fantasies might be boiling through his mind; she did not care and did not want to know. It did not matter to her. He never said a word while making love, he did not have to. His hands on her, his tongue on her, his body hot and eager, inflamed her more than any words he could have spoken.

  Now, as they thrashed together on their creaking old springs and mattress in their new air-conditioned house, Susan remembered all over again how important sex was to Dan. It was his only release, his only moment to unleash all the tensions and angers and fears that he carried inside him. In a way it was a sadistic game they played: the more frustration and anger that built up in him during the day, the more passion he unleashed at night.

  Only once had Susan forgotten how vital sex was to him and it had almost shattered their marriage. She had never made that mistake again. Susan loved Dan Santorini and she knew he loved her. But it had taken long years of careful, deliberate consideration, day by day, to rebuild the trust in each other that they had almost thrown away.

  He could forget everything while making love; she could not. Even so he could excite her to a pitch of arousal that made her wish there was nothing to remember. He responded to her whispered urgings and she responded to his touch, his lips on her throat, her nipples, her clitoris until they both came and she had to turn her head away to bite her pillow so she would not scream and wake the children.

  Then Susan lay on the bed, sheets twisted and sticky, body sweaty and shining in the faint red glow of the digital clock on the night table, panting as if she had just run ten miles. Dan lay beside her. She could tell him retreating into his shell again. He got embarrassed afterward and the more Susan told him how wonderful he had been the more flustered he became.

  "Another triumph for modern science," she whispered, half giggling.

  Dan's only reply was a grunt. Because he was ashamed. While making love to his wife a vision of Vickie Bessel's face had flashed through his imagination. And then he found himself fantasizing about Dorothy. After all these years he still thought about Dorothy.

  He loathed himself for that.

  CHAPTER 7

  The door was always open so it was difficult to see the nameplate on it, which read: DR WILLIAM R. APPLETON—CHIEF, ADVANCED SIMULATIONS SYSTEMS.

  Despite the hefty title the office was small, almost threadbare. Dr Appleton's desk was standard government issue steel, painted olive drab, scuffed and dented from years of use. The two chairs in front of the desk were also old, steel frames with olive drab plastic cushions that were so hard they felt like concrete. The only other furniture in the office were rickety metal bookshelves packed with reports and journals and folders that threatened to spill onto the floor any minute, and a small table behind the desk chair on which sat a personal computer and a small row of hardbound textbooks. There was one window, off to the side, the only wall space that was not covered with shelving. It looked out on a concrete building that was almost identical to the one in which this office stood.

  Three men sat in Dr Appleton's office. Appleton himself was behind the desk on the creaking swivel chair, slim, slope-shouldered, paunchy, his receding hairline halfway up his scalp. He was in shirtsleeves, fiddling nervously with an unlit black briar pipe. His eyes were icy blue and behind the rimless glasses he wore they looked like a pair of pale moons gazing at the world.

  Lieutenant Colonel Ralph Martinez was also in shirtsleeves, starched and ironed so crisply that their creases looked razor-sharp. His blue Air Force jacket hung neatly from the back of the chair on which he sat. Martinez was a fighter pilot, a veteran of air combat in the Middle East, a commander of men. He was built like a welterweight contender, compact and solid, with square shoulders and a flat midsection. His face was square too, the blunt plain swarthy face of a man whose ancestors had toiled in the sun for generations before him. His eyes were the rich brown of the earth, steady and reliable. His lips were set in a tight belligerent line. Yet there were lines around his eyes and mouth that showed he knew how to laugh.

  The third man in the office was a physician and neurophysiologist, Chandra Narlikar: smaller in stature than Dr Appleton, darker of skin than Lt. Col. Martinez. He looked extremely uncomfortable. "But according to your own records, Chandra," Appleton was saying, "Jerry was in perfect health."

  "Not perfect. I never said perfect. Not that."

  Martinez said, "He was certified for flight duty, wasn't he?"

  "Yes of course," Narlikar said hurriedly. "He had a slightly high blood pressure but it was not sufficient cause to ground him."

  "And he died of a stroke." Appleton made it half a statement, half a question. His voice was soft, almost a whisper.

  "Yes indeed. A massive cerebral hemorrhage. A stroke, poor fellow."

  "And there was nothing to indicate that he was at risk?" Martinez asked impatiently. Almost angrily.

  "Nothing at all," said Narlikar.

  "His high blood pressure?" Appleton suggested.

  The physician shrugged his slim shoulders. "It was well within normal range. Not as high as the colonel's here, in fact."

  Martinez snorted. His blood pressure had led the medical staff to take him off active flight duty, a fact that infuriated him—and drove his pressure higher.

  "So let me see if I can put all this together," Appleton said slowly, leaning his elbows on his cluttered desk top and steepling his fingers. "Jerry had no significant health problems. He flew the new simulation and suffered a stroke that might have happened to him anyway. Is that right?"

  Narlikar nodded unhappily. "It could have happene
d in his home, at his desk, anywhere. Many stroke victims are felled early in the morning in their own homes. Nine a.m. is the time when strokes occur most frequently."

  "You're saying the simulation had nothing to do with it."

  Narlikar started to reply, then hesitated. At last he said, "I cannot rule out that factor. You must understand that there is a great difference between a diagnosis and an explanation for the causative factor. He suffered a massive cerebral hemorrhage; that we know. What caused his stroke is unknown. We have no way of knowing."

  Martinez looked at Appleton. "No way of knowing," he repeated, more than a hint of disgust in his voice.

  Dr Appleton said, "I don't see what else we can do about this. There's nothing new to add to what's already been reported. Jerry Adair suffered a stroke while he was flying the new simulation and we have no idea if the simulation played a part in causing the stroke."

  "It wasn't the simulation," Martinez insisted. "It couldn't have been. How the hell could a simulation give the guy a goddamned stroke?"

  Appleton shrugged.

  Turning to the physician so abruptly that Narlikar actually flinched, the colonel demanded, "Do you think that a simulation could scare a veteran pilot to death?"

  "I— I am told it is a very realistic simulation," Narlikar said.

  "But it's only a damned simulation!" Martinez insisted. "Jerry's flown real combat missions. He's been a test pilot, for chrissakes. He wouldn't be scared in lousy sim. He knew it wasn't real."

  Appleton said mildly, "We tried to simulate all the physical stresses, remember. You insisted on that, Ralph."

  "Yeah, yeah. So we made the g-suit squeeze and we tilted the simulator and rolled it around in response to the pilot's control forces. So what? We couldn't put in the real g-loads that you'd get in actual flight. The simulator doesn't give you the accelerations, doesn't punish you the way a real flight would."

  "I doubt that the physical stresses of the simulation were sufficient to cause Captain Adair's stroke," said Narlikar, with the slightest of stresses on the word physical.