Netcast: Zero (3 page)

Hanna frowned. “Well, at least we’ve only got one more interview. These VM sessions are tiring.”

“I told you to set the opacity level to full, so you don’t have any bleed-through of the real world into the virtual space.”

“I can’t,” Hanna replied. “I get nervous not being able to see what’s going on around me when I’m in a public place. I don’t know how those people that practically live in V-space can do it.”

“Like all things, it takes practice,” Arielle said. “To be honest, I’ve never understood the attraction of V-space. I mean, it has its uses, sure, but it’s just not the same as really being there.”

“Come on, Ari. Don’t try and tell me that you don’t occasionally slip into V-space when you’re lying in a dingy hotel room. Put yourself back home in your own bed.”

“Oh, I use it to spend time with Sahmeed almost daily,” Arielle admitted. “But it’s still not as good as being there.”

“Graham Barnett,” Hanna mumbled, drifting off topic as she often did. “The name sounds familiar for some reason.”

“I’m not surprised. He’s been in the business for twenty-five years now. Most of it was for the major networks, like NCN World, and Global News Exchange. He even spent some time out in the fringe for NCN Galactic.”

“Then why the hell is he looking to work with us?” Hanna wondered.

“I was wondering that myself,” Arielle agreed. “From his resume, it looks like he hasn’t worked much in the last year.” Arielle looked at Hanna. “He’s ready to start when we are,” she said as she looked at her time display in the upper left corner of her own visual space. “We can probably finish up this last interview before we arrive, if you’re up for it?”

“I’m good,” Hanna insisted.

“You want to take a minute to look over his resume, maybe check out some of his clips?”

“I’ll do it during the interview,” Hanna replied. “You’re the one doing all the talking anyway.”

“Very well,” Arielle said. “I’ll initiate the next VM then.”

“Let’s get it over with,” Hanna groaned as she settled her head back against the headrest to prepare herself. She closed her eyes and remained motionless, in order to appear to be resting to the other passengers on the mag-lev train. It was better not to advertise to those around you that you were off in V-space, and would be an easy mark for thieves and assailants, although both were relatively uncommon on mag-lev transport networks.

Again, the view of the virtual interview office appeared in her mind as real as if she were sitting in the room itself. The experience was far better than it had been when she was old enough to receive her first implant. V-space, once a venue for gamers and training simulations, had matured into very realistic virtual experience. The higher levels even included the senses of touch, smell, and taste, assuming of course that you had the funds to pay for the experience, which they did not. However, as the final applicant’s presence joined the virtual meeting space in the seat across the table from them, Hanna couldn’t help but wonder if the lack of a sense of smell in this particular V-space wasn’t an advantage this time around.

Graham Barnett wasn’t the most unattractive man Hanna had ever seen, but he might have been in the top ten. His resume indicated he was in his mid forties, but she would have guessed a decade older by his appearance. Like most seasoned field videographers, his sense of fashion seemed to revolve around comfort and lots of pockets. In fact, he looked as if he might pick his control box up at any moment and dispatch a dozen orbs to start recording.

Hanna took curious notice of his hair, most of which sported various shades of gray, and stuck out in so many different directions that she couldn’t determine if it was styled that way or if he had just awakened and he hadn’t bother to run a comb through it.

“Good day, Mister Barnett,” Arielle greeted. “Thank you for meeting with us today.”

Graham Barnett said nothing, only nodding his head respectfully to acknowledge her greeting.

Message; Arielle: A man of few words.
Hanna tried not to smile as her mind sent the message. There was no response.
Message; Arielle: Of few combs as well.
This time, she smiled slightly, although she kept her eyes on the applicant.

“Tell us a bit about yourself,” Arielle began, “where you’ve worked, what stories you’ve worked on, that sort of thing.”

“It’s all in my resume,” the man told her.

His voice was rough, and he sounded like he wasn’t interested in talking with either of them.

“I just thought you might like an opportunity to expand upon your resume,” Arielle explained, “maybe tell us a few things that your resume doesn’t.”

Graham’s eyebrows raised slightly and his facial expression soured as he shifted in his chair. “Look, I need a gig and you need a videographer. Now, since I’m more than qualified for the kind of work you’re doing, you must be wondering why someone like me is applying to work for someone like you.”

Message; Arielle: Whoa, nice attitude.
As usual, Arielle did not respond.

“Someone like us?” Arielle wondered aloud.

“You’re both pushing thirty, and you have yet to land the dream job you both probably talked about since secondary school. You haven’t taken any pop-news gigs either, which means you’re holding out for something respectable… for whatever misguided reasons you might have. You only have four applicants because, no disrespect intended, you don’t have a lot to offer a videographer worth a shit. Luckily for you, I don’t need much in the way of compensation. I’m basically just bored.”

Message; Arielle: This jerk has a lot of nerve.

Reply: Quiet!

“Yet, the question still remains, Mister Barnett,” Arielle replied. “Why would someone with your experience have to seek employment with two small-time operators like us?”

Hanna never ceased to be impressed at her friend’s ability to remain calm and confident in the face of people like Graham Barnett.
Message; Arielle: I bet I can answer that question.

Reply: Enough, Hanna!

“I suspect were I to dig a bit deeper into your employment history, I would find my answer,” Arielle continued. “I just thought I might like to hear your side of things.”

Graham smiled. “Well, let’s just say I’m not the easiest person to get along with, and leave it at that.”

Message; Arielle: I find that so hard to believe.

“I would like to add, however, that I always do get the shot… even if I am a bit of an ass at times.”

“I see,” Arielle said.

Message; Arielle: Please tell me you saved little Alex Nielan’s resume.

“Oh, and one more thing,” Graham continued, “I have all my own gear.”

Arielle’s left eyebrow raised. “Legally?”

Graham smiled. “Yes, legally. Bought and paid for. Receipts and all. Touché, by the way.”

Arielle smiled back. “FI?”

“Targon 1200 series. Back stacked, twenty-four units, four separate POVs. Better than being there, they say.”

Hanna glanced at her friend to see if she was drooling. She looked back at Graham, who had a satisfied look on his face. He knew that such equipment was out of their leasing budget.

“But don’t worry, I’m not going to charge you FI rates. I don’t need the money. Like I said, I’m just bored.”

“I thought videographers always retired to the tropics?” Hanna said.

“Tried that,” Graham admitted. “Sucked.”

“Thank you for your honesty, Mister Barnett,” Arielle said. “We’ll let you know our decision later today.”

“Actually, you’re going to hire me now,” Graham told her. “You see, the first two guys you interviewed have already accepted other gigs, and didn’t bother to tell you. And that kid Alex, well, let’s just say you’d be lucky if he didn’t break your leased gear. Of course, I don’t mind sitting here for a few minutes while you two talk about it amongst yourselves.” He looked around the room a moment, smiling broadly at things Hanna and Arielle couldn’t see.

The message
Audio: Participant 3: Suspended,
flashed in Hanna’s visual space. She turned to her friend, still seeing her sitting in the chair next to her in the virtual meeting space instead of in the mag-lev train. “You can’t seriously be thinking about hiring this guy?”

“You got any better ideas?” Arielle replied.

“The guy is an ass.”

“An ass with Targon 1200 series Full Immersion rig. That kind of quality, combined with a few good stories, might be just what we need, Hanna.”

Hanna looked at Graham, who was wiggling about in his chair as if dancing to some unheard music, smiling in all directions and making strange, happy facial expressions. “Look at him, Ari. Christ, I think he chose a titty-bar as his virtual meeting space.”

Arielle looked at Graham as well, and sighed. “Well, at least I won’t have to worry about you sleeping with him.”

* * *

Hanna sat in the epidemiologist’s office next to Arielle, scanning the net in her personal visual space as she prepared for her interview. Everything she could find showed that Doctor Benarro was one of the top epidemio
logists on North America, and had served multiple terms as chairman of the Global Disease Control Organization. Finding little of interest in his bio, she instead turned to reading more about the Klaria virus. However, everywhere she looked revealed the same, rather useless and uninteresting information. Transmission vectors and rates, mortality rates, outbreak patterns and locations, all the usual stuff that one might find when researching any average outbreak. The only thing that she could find that was unique to the Klaria virus was that, as of yet, no one could figure out how it was moving from place to place. There had been several mutations over the past year, since the first case was reported in the small Slovenian village for which it was named. Yet not once had they identified the method of transmission. Airborne, bodily fluids, even vector transmission; all had been tested each time the virus had appeared, but never had the results been the same. The method of transmission seemed to change at random, which made positive identification and outbreak control very challenging tasks.

Hanna called up a map. The world map filled her visual space. It was covered with small red dots appearing at various cities around the world. She checked the legend on the map, which read ‘Locations of reported cases of Twister Virus.’ She remembered that she had last used the map to display the locations at which the Twister virus had struck, in preparation for her last interview with Professor Dantmore.

Using her mind, she commanded the map to display the locations of all the reported outbreaks of the Klaria virus. The dots shifted to their new locations a split second later. However, many of them did not. She checked the legend again, noting that it read ‘Locations of Confirmed Outbreaks of the Klaria Virus.’ She commanded the map to return to the display of the Twister virus locations, watching as the dots shifted back to their original locations. Again she commanded the map to display the locations of the Klaria virus outbreaks, however, this time, she commanded it to include all suspected Klaria outbreaks as well. Even fewer of the dots shifted this time. She then commanded the map to overlay the locations of the Twister virus using green dots. The result was a world map covered with dots. Some red, some green, and some, where both the Twister and the Klaria viruses had appeared, were yellow. What surprised her most was that more than half of the dots were yellow.

Message; Arielle: Hey, look at this,
she commanded, assembling a quick animation of the merging of the two maps and sending it to her friend.
Message: Could this be something?
Hanna watched her friend’s face as she studied the changing maps in her own visual space.

Reply: Yes. It’s called a coincidence.

Message: That’s got to be at least sixty percent, if not seventy,
Hanna argued.
That’s one hell of a coincidence.

Reply: Perhaps, but it’s still just a coincidence.

Another version of the same world map appeared in Hanna’s visual space, sent to her by Arielle. In addition to the green, red, and yellow dots already on the map, dots in blue, orange, lavender, and magenta also appeared, one by one, making the map nearly unreadable.

From; Arielle: Outbreaks of biological viruses in the last twelve months. The Larken virus; the Pellar virus; and two different varieties of Occella. Maybe Twister caused them as well?

Message: Maybe.
Hanna replied.
Maybe there
is
something there? Maybe they’re
all
connected.

Reply: Hanna, that’s ridiculous.

Message: I’m not so sure. What about our implants? They’re connected to our brain, right? Could there be some kind of side-effect?

Reply: Don’t you think they would’ve thought of that, Hanna? Besides, implants have been in use for centuries now, and never with any side-effects.

Message: What about all the fatigue cases? The separation and differentiation problems?

Reply: Not the same thing, and a far cry from a virus.

Message: What about our health nanites?
Hanna asked, refusing to give up on the idea.
Our implants control those now as well, don’t they? Could they be causing the Klaria virus?

Arielle cast a disapproving glance at Hanna from across the small waiting area.

Reply: The health nanites repair tissue, Hanna. They don’t create diseases. You’re reaching, looking for a sensational headline. Stop it.

Hanna cast a stubborn expression back at her friend.
Message: But what if I’m right?

Reply: If you’re right, then we’d all be sick. You, me, and the other eighty percent of the Earth’s population that have implants and health nanites. Hell, Hanna, the entire sector uses health nanites, even the fringe worlds. If your theory were correct, it would have swept over the face of the Earth in hours, maybe even minutes. It wouldn’t be a bunch of isolated outbreaks. Besides, the village of Klaria isn’t even connected to the net, remember? They’re technophobes, remember? All about tradition and simple lives and such.

Hanna sat thinking for a moment, refusing to give up her argument. If she were right, she would be breaking the biggest story in history, bigger even than when the first FTL probes had confirmed hospitable, Earth-like worlds in the Tau Ceti system more than four hundred years ago.