[Brackets] (41 page)

Casing nodded thoughtfully. “That’s a worthy goal, Tucker. Your intentions are good, and if that’s what you decide to do,
you will have my full respect
. But I want to open your mind to another possibility.” Casing leaned forward, a glint of yo
uth lighting up his eyes. “Tucker, you have rare talents. They’re relatively raw, and,
it seems to me
, not ideally utilized. What we want to do at our facility, it won’t be like any other place in the world. If you come work for us, I promise you, you’ll be able to reach a
measure
of
your potential that no other endeavor could help you achieve.”

“Doing what?” Tucker asked.
He still knew next to nothing about what Casing was offering.

Casing smiled. “Our research groups will have a unique organizational structure, and they’ll
be
compet
ing
to—” Casing paused, searching for the words. “The thing you need to know right now, Tucker, the reason you’ll be so good at this is because you’ll be
organized into
teams
.” 

Abby stepped
up behind them. Casing noticed and reached over to
pat
Tucker’s
shoulder. “Go ahead.
Don’t keep Noh waiting. I want to stay in his good graces.”

“This way,” Abby called,
gathering Tucker, Cole
, and Nera. Henry
had
elected to stay
close to the cookie platter
and talk to Rick. As they went to a small door in the corner of the room, Tucker looked back at Casing, who nodded back.
At that moment,
Tucker realized
with some astonishment
that
for the first time in years, he felt like his own future wasn’t entirely set in stone.

Abby ushered her group through the door and
up a wide staircase that led
to a smaller room on to
p of the
skybox.
As they walked up,
Cole whispered to Nera, “You know what’s weird? Just before the Final Four
while he was telling me about his brackets paranoia
, Perry asked
if I had ever been to Kaah Mukul. Now we’re going to meet the man who made it. Weird, right?”

Nera whispered back, “You know what’s weirder? If you write ‘Kaah Mukul’ backwards and translate
it
from ancient Mayan, it literally means ‘city of the gullible’. Could there be a connection?”
Cole
laughed
and
raced Nera up the last few steps. Nera won.

The room into which they emerged was as cluttered and
uncomfortable as the skybox beneath them was opulent. Black cables snaked around haphazardly between network servers and monitors. In the center of the room was a black swivel chair facing a
recessed
window that jutted over the arena. A shock of spiky hair poked out
above the chair
and hands holding controllers moved about rapidly on either side. Abby tapped the
man’s
shoulder. He put up one finger to ask them to wait a moment, and then, with a few twists of his wrists, he emerged from where he had been, removed his mask, and joined them in the real world.

“I’m pleased to meet you,” said Mr. Noh matter-of-factly
, looking
out the window
to
the clock counting down on the Jumbotron. “We haven’t much time.” He stood, somewhat shakily, and pulled out several face masks from an open box on the floor. “You may put these on. Here’s one for the girl also. You see how you can adjust it?” Cole didn’t, but Mr. Noh left little time for questions as he set up the three young people with folding chairs and controllers.

“Like this,” Tucker whispered, and Nera reached over to help Cole fasten the face wrap.

“All set? Good. Let’s go down
,” said Mr. Noh. Instantly, Cole’s visual field was clouded over in a gray mist, and he had the sensation of jumping off a high dive into a warm pool. When it cleared up a moment
later, they were inside a room similar to their
skybox, but larger and completely glassed in, almost crystalline in appearance.
It overlooked
a regulation-sized basketball court, devoid of players, fans, or life of any kind. Cole looked down and saw himself, rippling with muscles beneath armored blue leather. He tried to make himself turn around so he could find Nera, but he couldn’t
stop
running into the walls.

“Need some help?” At Nera’s voice in his earpiece, Cole’s muscular avatar turned too quickly and smacked into her.

“Uh, sorry,” he said. “These hand control thingies must
not
be working right.”

“Didn’t you ever have a game console growing up?” Tucker came over, another huge figure moving with the grace of virtual gravity.

“Well yeah, but this is a little different than Halo. Just give me a minute, I’ll figure it out.”

Cole got himself out of his sticky corner and turned to find
Myung-Ki Noh coming toward them.

“Welcome to the Montezuma Arena,” he said,
arms opening to the arena’s grandeur
. “Normally
this space is reserved for Ull
a
maball
, but the arena is closed for the day so I can work on integrat
ing the basketball game into the staging system
.
Please go to the window and watch
.”

The three went over to the seamless windows and looked down. In an instant
,
the court
was
filled with virtual basketball players from Nebraska and UCLA, and the mammoth stands filled with screaming fans. The
sounds came to their ears, and they felt transported back to the real game.

“Whoa,” Nera said softly. Mr. Noh seemed to like her reaction.

“
Aside from myself, y
ou are the first in the world to see this,” Noh explained. “Soon, every major sport
ing event in the world
will
be available in the Montezuma, viewable from any KM Center—
for an
admission price,
of course, and a
significant fee for the league involved
. A deal with the Premier League is already in place.
Soon,
Ullamaball will no longer be a popular
virtual sport among the host of real
ones.
It will be
the
most popular sport, because all sports will be virtual.”

The three
just stared for
a moment.
“So, t
hose are all the real players, right
?
Are all the people around them real
,
to
o
, and you just kind of…beamed them in there?
”
Nera asked,

“Yes and no,” said Mr. Noh. “We have small holographic cameras placed around the court to capture everything.
F
or now
, the people in the stands,
are from the first tier only,
and
each captured individual has been
cloned
several times to fill the arena. This is superior to simply populating the area with
generated avatars
because the live footage gives a sense of the spontaneity of the crowd movements.”

Nera became curious. “So, were we in here?”

“Perhaps. Where were you seated?” Nera indicate
d their seats. Noh turned to a
virtual control panel bes
ide the window, and all at once
the players and crowds were moving very rapidly in reverse.

“We are here now at the last play of the first half,” Noh said, stopping the footage. “You may be in luck since you are seated so close to the court. It becomes a little less certain as you get higher.
And…” Noh
zoomed and modified dexterously
and finally homed in on two people, Cole and Nera, hunched forward as the final seconds ticked off. “There you are.” Noh clicked one last time, and the images of Cole and Nera were suddenly in six different locations in the arena, as i
f part of a large kaleidoscope.

“Cool,” said Nera, waving to one of her selves.

“Uhhh,” Tucker looked on incredulously, “so, you want everyone to come to these virtual games instead of going to games in person? Isn’t the game always going to be better live?”

Mr. Noh stuck out his chin. “Not for much longer,” he enunciated confidently. “You saw those experimental displays down
below
? That is another phase of the same project. For years, people tried to use virtual worlds to
either
replicate the real world or
to
create worlds that are completely fantastical. What no one understood until Kaah Mukul was that
this technology
could be used to merge
reality and virtual reality to enhance all sensory experience
.
In
ten years, no one will be able to tolerate a
n unmodified
sporting event. They simply won’t offer enough stimulation.”

None of them spoke as they looked at each other with a shared sense of skepticism.
Nera said, “Mr. Noh, this is very impressive. But why are you showing it to us?”

“Because I wanted to have you here, in the city, to explore a mystery with me,” Noh said, shifting into a more contemplative tone.
“
You see, this whole phenomenon with your brackets seems to be
intricately
tied to Kaah Mukul
for reasons which are still unclear to me. Consider these improbabilities.
First, I ma
d
e contact with Dr. Casing
, who wants to use my technology for some custom applications
.
Then, my staff dr
ew
my attenti
on to the success of the bracket of Mr. Lynwood, formerly one
of
our most successful but deeply flawed Tribal War gen
erals. Further investigation cross-checking KM accounts with registered bracket names
le
d us to find
a link with a
potential client,
Dr. Faulkner, who confirmed to me that he was u
sing his bracket to subtly
showcase
a complex
outcome predictio
n system, which I may still buy
.
Mr. Lynwood’s bracket, it turned out, was actually set by Dr. Faulkner’s system without his knowledge.
”

Cole and Tucker looked at each other. Some of the events of the Final Four now made some sense.

“
But the connections did not stop there,” Noh continued,
“
Mr Lynwood was also unwittingly involved in a city-wide simulation of a political scenario that the Chinese government wanted to test.
That simulation eventually led to my involvement with negotiations between the Chinese and my own government. Those negotiations prompted us to find a way to discreetly make contact with the ambassador of Thailand, who was indisposed in the United States. Through a chance conversation with Dr. Casing, I discovered that he had a potentially useful contact already established in the city of Lincoln.
And who was that contact
? Why,
it was
Mr. Barnes,
a
third
perfect
bracket holder.
By this time last week, I felt there was some strong connection between these bracket holders and Kaah Mukul that I had yet to fathom. You might imagine that I was unsurprised when I discovered that the bracket hol
ders would all be coming to
Washington on the very same weekend that I had long been planning to visit. After Saturday’s events, I knew t
hat I had to bring you here to offer any further insights into the deeper meanings of our connection. Which brings me to you, Cole Kaman.”

Cole,
who’s
mind had wandered during Noh’s lengthy explanation, looked up. “Me?”

“Yes, you are the one that may be the key to this mystery. You have never been to Kaah Mukul, obviously. You seem to have no connec
tion with any of our operations
or with any of the other bracket holders. You have never crossed my path until now. I can only conclude that you have some connection that I have failed to discover, or that your connection is fated to be established in the future
. What do you think? Can you enlighten me?”

“Uh…I don’t know.
I have no clue. I just filled out a bracket.” Cole uttered,
looking
at Nera and Tucker for help.

Noh stepped away and looked out the window at the basketball court.
Tucker cleared his throat
.
“Well, Mr. Noh, this has been really, really cool
and interesting
, but I think the game is about to start, so we should probably be headed back now
, if you’re finished with us
.” Noh acted as though he didn’t hear for a minute, while the others stared awkwardly.