The Endless Summer

Audio For Chapter

The Endless Summer

Something pulled on the fishing line hanging out of the Endless Summer. Ben opened his eyes. Sunlight was hitting him squarely in his perfectly designed face. He lowered his baseball cap and launched himself out of the deck chair towards his fishing rod. The luxury yacht wobbled a bit in response to the sudden movement. He took the rod out of the holder with a firm grip. But there was no tension on the line as he reeled it in. Nothing seemed to be hooked.

“Watson, come on, this can’t be realistic!”

“Well, all I can say is, that realistic is the selected setting.” said a ubiquitous voice in response.

Ben pushed the rod back into the holder and turned around.

“This is the third false alarm now. Either make them bite or not, but this setting is really annoying! Can we turn it off please?”

“Sure, the setting you are looking for is apparently called ‘child mode’, do you want me to activate it?”

Ben thought he heard a hint of contempt.

“Oh, fuck off.”

“Compliance.” Watson responded.

Ben took a deep breath. His skin was overly heated by the sun and he felt like cooling down a bit. Since he was already standing he went over to his cooler and took a cold beer. He opened the flip-top with a loud pop and took several big swigs. He sighed with satisfaction and wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. He looked around. Nothing but calm sea under a clear blue sky while a Bob Marley song played softly from the ship's loudspeakers. Ben was procrastinating. He liked to design virtual escape rooms and was pretty successful at it. His newest escape room was based on Mark Twain’s life. But this time it him longer than usual.

He took another swig and leaned on the railing. Damn, that sky was blue.

Working on escape rooms made him happy. But something else was making him happy too.

“Ah screw it, good things take time,” said Ben and threw his bottle overboard. It dispersed into a million green particles before it hit the water.

He went portside and then towards the bow of the boat where he found a beautiful young woman with golden brown hair laying face-down on a huge light-green towel. The olive skin of her back was glistening in the sun. A pink bikini laid crumpled-up next to her. It was so scant he almost missed it at first glance.

“Hey V, whatcha doin’ ?” asked Ben bored.

Vanessa turned her head and looked at him with radiating, emerald green eyes, “Oh not much, playing a game of chess against AlphaZero. But I am losing anyway. Wanna do something together instead?”

“Why do you keep playing against it ?”

She shrugged with a playful smile, “I don’t know. I guess I like a challenge.”

Ben nodded. He was still feeling a bit hot.

“Do you want me to turn down the sun a bit ?”

“No, I think it’s perfect!”, gleamed V., “wanna test your escape room?”

Ben shook his head, “Nah, its not ready yet.”

Ben thought of something else they could do.

“Want some sun lotion?”

“I would love some sun lotion.” Vanessa smiled brightly. Ben sat down next to her.

“Watson, you heard the lady,” said Ben sitting down carefully on Vanessa’s legs.

Orange particles started to appear and fly into Ben’s hand, quickly forming a plastic bottle. He opened the lid and squeezed some of its contents into his hand. He placed the bottle next to the fleeting bikini fabric.

Then he started to rub his hands together to bring the white liquid up to skin temperature before placing them on her back just below the shoulders.

“Mmh” moaned Vanessa, “That feels amazing!”

She closed her eyes and relaxed her head.

Ben smiled, savoring the feeling of her skin sliding, bending underneath his hands. It truly was indistinguishable from reality. After all these years he was still amazed. He couldn’t help but feel proud.

He massaged her shoulders, her arms, her sides and then her lower back. If he wasn’t mistaken her bottom had just perked up a little bit. He smiled. Oh no, not yet. He was in it for the long game today. He wouldn’t touch her more sensitive parts until she begged him, until she just couldn’t wait a second longer. He squirted some new lotion into his hands and then went back up to her shoulders. “Ben!” protested the woman, wiggling under his touch, “You’ve been there already!” She arched her back. But he was not yet ready to give in. “I think you missed a spot!” said Vanessa shaking her bottom, forsaking any subtlety she might’ve had before.

“Oh really and where might that be at?”, smiled Ben.

Vanessa bit into her light-green towel. “Oh never mind” she mumbled with teeth full of cotton. Ben rubbed his hands together. He was about to show some mercy.

Suddenly Watson started to speak, “I am terribly sorry, Ben, but a police officer is requesting access to your server.” A quick burst of adrenaline was followed by a huge wave of goosebumps starting on Ben’s shoulders and swiftly moving to his forearms.

“Oh Ben, you’re killing me! Don’t stop!”

“Vanessa pause!” commanded Ben with sudden seriousness.

Vanessa stopped moving and turned gray. Ben’s mind started to race. What could the police possibly want from him? He urgently searched his brain. He couldn’t come up with anything, but that hadn’t saved him in the past either.

“Ben?” asked Watson.

Ben felt like he could only move and think in slow motion.

“Ben?” asked Watson again.

Ben shook his head in an effort to shake off the bad memories that were sweeping over him. He forced himself to focus on the present.

“Yes, Watson.”

“There is a police officer requesting access to your server.” repeated Watson patiently.

“Ok.”

“Would you like me to grant her access ?”

“Wait,” Ben looked at Vanessa still frozen in place.

What would happen if he denied the police officer access? Would she come back? Should he ask if the officer had a search warrant? Fear crept over him. He wasn’t the type of person to play games with law enforcement. Not anymore. Then Ben had a thought, what’s the worst that could happen? He could always log out, right? His heart rate normalized a bit. I’m in control this time, he told himself.

“It’s a single person requesting access, right Watson?”

“Yes Ben.”

He started to wipe his oily hands on his dark blue swim shorts.

“Remove Vanessa and put me in a Hawaiian shirt.”

Vanessa disappeared into a million skin colored particles and a blue Hawaiian shirt with white flowers materialized on his upper body.

I am in control, Ben repeated in his mind. Let’s show some confidence.

“Watson, please grant the officer access to my server.”

“Compliance.”

Ben took a deep breath. Suddenly eight beams of blue light shot down from the sky and onto his boat. The beams formed a circle on the floor in front of Ben. Then a million light-blue dots appeared inside the beams quickly taking the form of a female person. Finally a slender young woman in her mid twenties, with a blond ponytail, dressed in a tight police uniform appeared in front of him. The seams and stitches of the dark blue uniform were slightly glowing.

“Star Trek beams and Tron uniform, you are my kind of officer,” said Ben smiling.

He reached out and after the police officer gained her bearings, she shook his hand with a bright smile, “Hello Mr. Kendrick. It’s good to meet you. My name is Sarah Walters, I’m a detective with the San Jose Police Department. Your personal assistant has received a copy of my credentials.”

“Hello Detective Walters, welcome to the Endless Summer! To what do I owe this unexpected pleasure?”

Sarah looked at her hand and rubbed her thumb on her middle and index finger. Ben blushed, “Sorry. Sunscreen.” he explained showing the oily palm of his hand. He really hoped she wouldn’t ask why he needed sunscreen in a simulation.

Sarah nodded with a smile, “Would you mind us taking a seat? It’s bit of a longer story.”

She rubbed her hands on her uniform. Ben tried his best to read her body language. So far she didn’t seem hostile.

“Of course. Watson, please spawn two deck chairs.”

A million silver and white particles appeared in random places and flew together two form two sturdy deck chairs.

Ben gestured for Sarah to have a seat. Sarah followed his invitation and Ben followed suit. The song “Is this love” was still playing in the background.

“Watson turn down the music please,” said Ben and the song quickly faded to a much lower volume. Ben looked at Sarah expectantly.

“First of all, let me say thank you Mr. Kendrick for taking the time. I can imagine you are not very keen to speak to police.”

Ben just smiled.

“The reason I am here today, is because I’m the lead investigator in the attrition cases.”

“Attrition cases?”

Sarah nodded. “Have you perhaps heard about three young women dying from attrition recently? Apparently the woman each dehydrated over the course of three to four days.”

“I heard a young woman was found dead in her apartment two days ago. Was that one of your cases?”

“Yes. Her name was Clarice.”

“I’m sorry to hear this. You said three?”

“So far, yes.” Sarah nodded, “And that’s also why I’m here today.”

He was taken aback, “I... don’t understand. Do you think I had something to do with this?” asked Ben.

“No, no! Of course not!” said Sarah quickly raising her hands, “But the thing that you probably haven’t heard is that all three woman were jacked in when they were found.”

A small jolt of energy flashed through Ben’s body. Finally he understood why she was here.

“Okay ?” He furrowed his brows.

“Wouldn’t you agree that this seems a bit odd?”

“What? That women need water to survive?”

“Mr. Kendrick, please.”

Ben looked down and to the side. He knew exactly what she meant of course.

“Ok lets cut to the chase. So there is one reason why you are here. You went to World Tree, got stonewalled and now you want some inside information of how this could be happening. Am I getting this right?”

“Yes. but I didn’t get stonewalled,” said Sarah quickly, raising her hands again.

Ben took a moment to collect himself and swallow the anger that was starting to build up in him.

“So why do you need me then?”, said Ben a little defiantly.

“Please Mr. Kendrick.” said Sarah looking at Ben with a steady gaze.

He dropped his head. And then looked up again.

“Fine…” he exhaled, “what do you wanna know.”

“Mr. Kendrick, I need to know if there is any way; any way a Neuropod could misbehave and cause the death of these women.”

“No.”

Sarah waited for Ben to say more, but when nothing came she sighed.

“Mr. Kendrick, could you please elaborate a little?”

“Look, you know all of this already. A user can log out anytime they want. No one can stop you from logging out. You can try it out for yourself right now!”

Sarah rolled her eyes.

“And when someone doesn’t log themselves out, the pod kicks them out automatically after 5 hours,” Ben continued, “That is nowhere near the time needed for someone to die by, how did you call it? Attrition? I mean of course, they could keep lying there, offline but jacked in until they die of thirst. But that would have nothing to do with the pod!”

“Yes you’re right, I am a user myself, obviously, so I know all of this of course. What I need from you is to learn something new! Something that I don’t know. Internal stuff. Stuff that maybe you think only you know.”

Ben thought about it, “Okay, tell me what World Tree told you so far and I’ll see what I can add.”

“Well,” Sarah felt her pockets and found her little notepad. She looked at it. “So, the NeuroPod is programmed using Rust, which apparently is the most secure programming langue on the planet.”

Ben nodded.

“Also the core code is public and heavily audited and scrutinized.”

Ben nodded again.

“Operating System Updates can only be issued by World Tree and they are only accepted by the NeuroPod if they are signed by World Tree.”

Ben nodded.

“Signatures use a private key that is protected by a hardware security module that sits inside a safe inside World Tree headquarters.”

Ben nodded some more.

“Every access to this private key is logged and I have received the logs and as far as I could tell, every access corresponded with one publicly available update.”

“Okay that part I didn’t know but I assumed it to be that way. Since that was the way it was designed and planned,” said Ben.

Sarah nodded, “So you are saying that not even you could modify a Neuropod?”

“Well, I can modify my own Neuropod, but only because I have physical access to its hardware. I can’t modify a Neuropod remotely. No one can but World Tree.”

Sarah sighed. She looked down, nodding her head deep in thought. Yet she didn’t seem surprised.

Ben leaned over and took a new bottle of beer out of the cooler and offered it to his guest.

She shook her head, “What’s the point?”

“All the taste, none of the side effects. What’s not to like?”, Ben shrugged then he opened his bottle with a pop and took a swig.

“Look… Detective Walters, my team and I, we knew that scrutiny on this device would be like nothing any other had ever received. Every hacker, every security researcher, every government agency from every country would try to hack the NeuroPod. So we went full on NASA mode to create software without a single attackable error. Everyone worked together on this goal and together we really pulled it off. I’m sorry these women are dying. I truly am. But I believe that the NeuroPod has nothing to do with it.”

Sarah nodded. She looked at Ben, “Yeah, I figured as much, but I had to take the chance.”

She stood up.

“Of course,” he assured her immediately, “Look, I am really sorry for these people. I wish I could help.”

“Yeah me too. But just in case, you think of something. Anything! Please do not hesitate to contact me. Your PA has my contact details,” she offered him her hand.

He stood up as well, “I will!” he said and shook her hand.

“Thank you for your time.”

“You’re welcome and good luck Miss Walters.”

Then the blue light beams came back and sucked her up into the sky.

And just like that she was gone again.