The Sapporo Outbreak (16 page)

"Alright Ben, leave it with me. I'll head in now. Hard to tell how long this might take, so stay ready."

"Will do. Thanks again big man." With that, Skinner hung up the call and sidled behind Santos as she trailed Sakura, Harper and Hill around the 'donut' desk.

Santos turned to Skinner. "Everything ok?"

For a second, Skinner lost his train of thought as he looked into Santos' big brown eyes, her black hair drifting over her brown skin.

"Ehm - yeah. Yeah. All good - just chatting to our Californian linebacker."

Santos nodded. For some reason, Skinner didn't want to mention Clark by name.

"How's he doing?"

Skinner responded lightly, "Oh fine, fine. He's off to practice his Hail Marys."

Santos nodded. Skinner had introduced her to the big detective a few months ago after a WhiteStar visit in Palo Alto. He'd looked her up and down, turned to Skinner and said, "Man - let me break it to you gently. She's so far out of your league even I'm not laughing."

Skinner had stammered something about 'just colleagues', and
that
was when Santos knew how he felt.

Santos was aware that Skinner considered Steve Clark to be hands down the best he'd ever worked with. She knew Skinner wouldn't waste the big man's time.
 

If Skinner was talking to Steve, he was on to something.
 

#

11am Thursday, Tanaka's Quarters, Sapporo (Minus 4 Hours)

Reclining into a deep red leather chair, one of a dozen dotted around a central open flame fire in his sprawling penthouse on the sixth floor, Tanaka replayed in his mind the deeply troubling update he'd just received from Mrs Lahm, Director of Operations in WhiteStar's Berlin centre.
 

After arriving in his luxurious apartment, Tanaka had returned an urgent call from the German director using the iSight network's VR calling service. As an image of the director floated a few feet in front of him, Tanaka listened quietly as the sombre middle-aged woman described the early reports of yet another random and vicious attack seemingly carried out by a member of the iSight 3 test team.
 

"There are several contradictions and gaps in the emerging reports Mr Tanaka, but as we understand it, this involves one of our more experienced testers. Someone who's shown no earlier signs of..." the director paused for a moment, "...agitation."

Impatiently, Tanaka interrupted.

"Tell me about this woman."

"Well sir, our files show her to be a mother of two young children - a work-at-home chartered accountant in her mid-thirties."

The director could hear Tanaka groan at the mention of children.

She continued. "The woman left the research centre fifteen minutes after a two hour game iSight 3 testing session."

She waited for any feedback from Tanaka but instead was greeted with silence. After a moment, she continued.

"Mr Tanaka sir, the reports are preliminary and have come through a friend of the company, I am afraid to say that it appears very likely that a little over an hour later after returning home the woman bludgeoned to death her husband and both young children. Police answering a neighbour's report shot her dead as she attacked them with two large kitchen knives. The local police have described the woman as appearing 'deranged and incoherent'. And sir, our source tells us that the skin around her eyes was
shredded
. Skin under her fingernails indicates the wounds to be self inflicted."

"What's happening there now?"

"The police have secured the area and forensic teams are investigating. It won't be long until we are contacted by the authorities. How do you want me to respond?"

Tanaka barked back. "Listen to me Director Lahm. Our position is clear. There is no evidence - absolutely none - that this tragic accident has anything at all to do with the game. If anyone suggests otherwise we will use all the resources at our disposal to protect our name. It's a coincidence - nothing more. The woman is one of thousands around the world testing the game every single day - so it's inevitable with such a large number that the occasional misfortune might befall one of our testers."

Stefani Lahm, WhiteStar's Berlin-based Director of Operations, had been a successful executive at a multinational Internet giant before Tanaka had lured her to WhiteStar with the promise of a twenty-million dollar bonus the moment iSight 3 reached half a billion users. Lahm knew the iSight franchise well enough to know that would happen within weeks.

Stefani Lahm sat alone in her plush office on the fifth floor of the WhiteStar Berlin office listening to Tanaka twist and bend the truth. She shook her head mournfully as Tanaka spoke. Her hands were trembling. She felt as if she would throw up at any moment.
 

Four years ago Lahm had divorced her physically abusive husband, and since then balanced the life of a busy executive with single-handedly raising her daughter. Lahm had poured love onto her timid young daughter. Together they helped each other erase the emotional scars long after the physical scars faded away. Lahm had planned to retire on the money from the iSight 3 launch and dedicate her time to raising her daughter, travelling and healing together.

Until three weeks ago, everything was on track.

Until the bizarre suicide of an iSight game tester.
 

He was an electrician, in his early thirties and engaged to be married a few weeks later. He'd taken part in several game play scenarios without a break. He'd then calmly walked from the WhiteStar research centre, driven into downtown Berlin, over the pedestrian walkway and into the River Spree. Divers reported his set belt was unbuckled, but there was no sign of any attempt to escape.
 

"But sir, what about the incident three weeks ago?"

Tanaka sounded almost distracted in his response. "Incident? You mean the suicide? A tragic story of course, but it's the sort of sad incident that can strike anywhere."

The director started to reply, but Tanaka interrupted her immediately.
 

"I have notified Yui Sakura of this unfortunate incident. She will take the lead on all media enquiries. Other than expressing your sympathy, you are to make no other statement. Direct all enquiries to Miss Sakura."

Tanaka's image disappeared, the iSight meeting clearly over.

Stefani Lahm lurched to her side, grabbed the waste basket under her desk and vomited. She retched several times before finally, slowly, sitting back in her seat while dabbing her mouth with tissues.

Her teenage daughter had been a volunteer iSight 3 for the last two months.
 

#

11am Thursday, Level Four Systems, Sapporo (Minus 4 Hours)

Energised by their experiences in the visitors' quarters and the even-more remarkable lobby, Skinner, Santos, Harper and Hill were eager to see more. As Harper had mentioned to Skinner in the elevator, their enthusiasm to discover more was matched by their beautiful hostess's eagerness to get it all over with.
 

"She just wants to get this over with," Harper had whispered to Skinner while the elevator glided up to level four. "I get the impression Tanaka's dumped us on her, and she's trying to get this done in record time."

Skinner nodded. He didn't really care for the egocentric security guru, but time and again over the last 18 months he'd found Harper's read on people to be spot on.
I guess that's his real skil
l, thought Skinner,
that's how he sells - he knows what makes people tick.
 

"I get the same feeling Andy," Skinner replied. "I'm guessing she wants this little tour over fast - tonight if she can keep us moving."

"Fine by me," the tall man's arrogance returned in a flash. "I'm a busy man that's about to get a few hundred million dollars richer. Last place I want to spend my time is in some corporate show-and-tell."

Skinner sighed and turned his head to the front again. Ahead of him, Santos and Hill stood shoulder to shoulder while Sakura looked like a sprinter in her blocks, waiting to spring forward when the elevator stopped.

As they glided to a halt, Sakura walked out of the still opening doors and without looking back, said "Welcome to level 4, home to our security centre and virtualisation lab. Mr Harper, Doctor Santos, I suspect you may find this of particular interest."

As Sakura rushed forward, the small group followed quickly behind.

Sakura led the group out onto a brightly lit, cool open area. Unlike the cavernous lobby and spacious visitors lounge, this area seemed small. A little claustrophobic even. The ceiling seemed unusually low. As if to illustrate the point, Harper stretched up and touched the ceiling tiles as he walked in. Sakura looked on disapprovingly.
 

Directly ahead, a ceiling to floor wall of white stretched the entire width of the area. To their left (the east side of the building according to iSight) was a wide, staircase leading up to the floor above. Immediately ahead was a large semi-circular white desk, and standing (not sitting, Skinner noticed) was a broad-shouldered man in his early thirties. Wearing the same uniform as Tanaka's guards on the sixth floor, the man exuded a quiet authority.
 
Behind and to the left of the security guard, embedded in the centre of the large white wall was a narrow frosted glass door.

Sakura took a few short, hurried steps toward the man and entered into a quiet conversation in Japanese. A few seconds later, she turned to the group and nodded.

"We are about to enter one of the most-secure areas in WhiteStar. You will see several critical elements of the iSight game's operation here, but perhaps the most important is what we call the VCL ..." noticing Hill preparing to speak, Sakura quickly continued, "which stands for Virtual Character Lab." Hill demurred.

"This is the area in which we track and monitor the existing virtual population, and generate new 'virtual players' as the game demands. While much of this is automated, we find that adding a human element to some of the virtual characters brings a certain - integrity - to them."

Santos was fascinated. "What proportion of the characters in the game are generated by the game versus in the lab?"

Sakura seemed momentarily taken aback by the question. Almost impressed.
 

"This is a good question." Sakura paused for a moment as if to collect her thoughts. "Three years ago, more than half the characters were generated by this team. Today, thanks to the system's own artificial intelligence and input from experts such as Doctor Santos..." Sakura nodded curtly toward Santos, who - a little surprised by the acknowledgement - responded in kind, "... only one in twenty characters in the game have any human input. We find that is sufficient to retain realistic human behaviour in the game. In many ways it is a testament to the excellence of our artificial intelligence engine."

Sakura smiled inwardly as she watched the group whisper excitedly to each other. In the last few weeks, she'd quietly hosted some very powerful people. They had stayed in the same visitors' quarters and been given the same tour. Recent visitors had included the chief executives of some of the world's largest companies, marketing agencies and government agencies. Occasionally they would comprise nameless faces, men and women - groups that Tanaka insisted remain anonymous.

Men. Women. Old. Young. Eastern. Western. Everyone reacted the same way once they immersed themselves in the new iSight system. They were hooked. Sakura smiled as she recalled the grey old man, a corporate titan sitting astride a global top ten conglomerate, pleading with Tanaka to let him stay connected to the new game. She remembered the spiky, napoleonic marketing executive willing to commit to a billion dollars of advertising before iSight 3 had launched. All he asked was that Tanaka let him walk out of the building still connected to the new iSight system.

Tanaka had initially refused, claiming it wouldn't be fair to the others waiting for the launch. He would bend, twist - show them he could be persuaded. Eventually deals were struck, and some of the world's most powerful people remained went back to their boardrooms and penthouses, connected to and dependent upon the instant gratification of the iSight 3 system.

By Sakura's reckoning, Tanaka had already secured over four billion dollars - and the system didn't launch for another week. Sakura knew the money didn't really mean anything to him. It was simply a means to an end. No, for Tanaka the real value of the game was in information. He and he alone
knew
what the corporate titans, politicians and bureaucrats, were doing. What they looked for, what they passed by and what held their attention. Tanaka knew what they were thinking.

Years earlier, Tanaka had learned just how easily he could convince players to give up information in return for a little more game time, a little more access. It would start simply. Players would give their age and gender to register. Then they'd connect their social networks, so they could share the experience. Players would reveal their personal interests, sexuality and lifestyle choices in the way they played. The system would track where and when the player entered the game, and any changes in online behaviour. Before long, Tanaka had built up an unerringly accurate picture of the individual.
 

Of over 300 million individuals.
 

300 million consumers.

It was a database that corporations and governments spent enormous sums to access. And Tanaka was only too happy to take their money.

Sakura bowed to the security guard and walked toward the frosted glass door, which slid to the right, disappearing into a recess in the wall.

She turned and with a curt bow, "Please, follow me." And with that Sakura walked through the door and into the beating heart of iSight 3.

#

As he walked past the security guard and into the room beyond, Skinner was awestruck by the sight before him. He'd seen the technology operations in WhiteStar's other centres around the world and until today they'd all been identical. The same rows of 'racked' computers with mountains of neatly tied, brightly coloured cables flowing out from the back. Silent men walked quietly between the aisles, fiddling with cables or sliding some component in or out.