For autographed copies, Contact the Author: jfrazier@theworldbreaker.com

For business, marketing, and all other inquiries: jellis@theworldbreaker.com

Web-Help and Troubleshooting: jcasteel@theworldbreaker.com

J Frazier's Facebook Fan Page

BlueLightningTN (J Frazier) on Twitter

Blue Lightning Strikes (J Frazier's Weekly Blog)

Chapter One - A New World

Drake Stone felt himself drifting as if out at sea, just floating along in a vast expanse of empty darkness. The sounds of the outside world faded down like a radio dial being slowly lowered until he couldn't hear anything anymore... just a distant hum now.Sensations ceased and at first he felt nervousness creeping into his mind; even though he knew the process he was undertaking, the loss of feelings and sensations was still incredibly unnerving and no amount of preparation would have been sufficient.It was a brief uneasiness, however, for as soon as the sensations from the world had stopped, new ones began.

He could feel the weight of his body again -the pressure of his feet on solid ground, gravity sitting upon his shoulders. He had been lying down when he entered the simulation, so the change in his orientation was a little unsettling. All was still dark, but the soft sound of people talking in the distance could be heard, almost as though underwater or listening through a wall.And then the colors appeared.Like the dimness a person sees when they close their eyes almost shut, but still barely open enough to allow blurry shapes and colors - that's how they began. With a vibrancy unlike he had ever witnessed before, they faded into view from the prior darkness.The colors were so bright, so encompassing... so real that the old real seemed diminished now.He remembered the way he had felt as a teenager when he had looked through the eye exam machine for the first time and saw the world more clearly. He never knew how bad his vision was until he saw how much better it could be.And now, although his vision had been sufficient moments before, this new world made the old seem inadequate.With all his senses now back, and with an unparalleled clarity, the anxiety he had felt during his first ever transition into the virtual world was gone.

Just moments ago Drake had been lying down in a laboratory room, on a plastic mattress supported by a hospital bed frame beneath. He had been looking up at the bright lights in a white tiled ceiling while wearing a strange helmet resembling the first leather American football helmets - except this one was made out of plastics and had wires bundled out of it like a ponytail traveling into a computer system. They called it "Project Mirage," the system designed to be the first true virtual reality system. It wasn't available to the public yet, but it would be one day. However, although he was physically lying down, mentally he was in another world and not lying on a plastic bed with a strange helmet on... mentally he was standing in a beautiful, seaside gorge with colors so bright and vivid they looked better than any painting or video he had ever seen. And yet at the same time, his real body was indeed still laying in Sim Room A, and this new world was simply a creation of mind and machine. As one of the twelve original testers for virtual reality, Drake Stone was experiencing something no other person had experienced before him.

He saw others at their spawn points - they were looking down at the ground, moving about, and testing their new bodies (avatars with the likeness of their own, right down to the clothes they had selected).Drake did the same, naturally moving his legs, moving his arms, jumping, and testing for any vertigo or difficulty in manipulating the parts of the avatar.

"So far so good," he thought.

Up to this point it felt exactly like normal - well, actually better than normal.Nothing felt odd or out of place except his sense of taste seemed a bit off as his mouth had an odd, metallic taste, but otherwise everything was great. Looking himself over, he was still the same six-foot, three inches, brown haired Caucasian man he had been. He was wearing a gray shirt and jeans - typical clothes for Drake - although he had been in a hospital gown when he had entered the virtual world.The rest of the world might think the retro style of the 1950s was "in," but Drake wasn't a fashionista and comfort was his forte. Twenty-six years old with a plain haircut and day-old stubble - that was Drake Stone. Well, that and a sense of failure and lost hope that had come from a long road of high expectations met with broken dreams.

Suddenly he heard Shanti's voice loud and clear. He heard it both inside his head and it reverberated off the cliff edges as it roared ominously through the environment.Her voice was soft with a slight Indian accent, normally calming, but the voice of the communicator would need to be reduced for the future as she now sounded more like the voice of God declaring the apocalypse than the small, gentle woman she actually was.

"Okay, everyone, welcome to the new world. We know this is all very exciting, and keep in mind that we are monitoring all your vitals and everyone is in excellent condition.We also have visual of everyone in the VR and are prepared to end the simulation at any point should problems occur.As we said in Mission Prep, every precaution is being taken, and we are going to run through a methodical and cautious extraction, one at a time, before inserting you again and proceeding with our test. Again, we will begin with Nancy Kilpatrick and we will proceed according to the order provided.I will let you know if any delays are necessary, or if there will be any differentiation in the plan.Remember to simply perform either of the two exit commands if you feel uncomfortable at any time, or raise your hand and I will do my best to answer any questions you might have."

Drake looked over to Nancy's avatar to his right, standing calmly waiting for the extraction to occur.The researchers had selected her to be first in the extraction process. She was a middle-aged woman with some graying in her hair and wrinkles at the edges of her eyes due to her kind smile that she displayed readily.She was also totally blind.At least she had been up until this point. Inside the virtual reality, Nancy was expected to have sight - and from the look of shock on her face as she faded out, she had indeed just experienced vision for the first time.As planned, her avatar faded to nothing over the span of about a second, which appeared to Drake to be an unthreatening process.

Drake now had the chance to really take in his surroundings.He looked behind him to the grayish-blue cliffs that encircled the area, the sea to his left and a canyon of about five-hundred meters in diameter to his right. The ground was covered in bright green grass of various heights and the terrain was that of rolling hills; small flowers of an unnatural red and blue grew out of some of the tall grasses. A soft wind delicately moved the blades of grass back and forth while the sound of waves crashing on the shore provided background noise. By the sheer splendor of the place, the average person would have never guessed it was designed to keep all participants locked inside - it reminded Drake of being incarcerated in an impressionist painting.The cliffs surrounding the north area prevented any of the testers from exiting the gorge, and the sea to the south was impassable after a certain point due to invisible barriers which existed so that they would be unable to escape from the confines of the canyon.

No one else had yet been extracted since Nancy, but a large data chart floated over the ocean showing various status points, all of which appeared in green and indicated that everything in the lab was going smoothly. Heart rates and vital information for each tester were displayed on the window-like display over the deep-blue sea while virtual sea gulls darted back and forth behind it.

Drake watched as the others began rubbing the ground with their hands, pulling on the long blades of grass, and generally testing the new world to see if it matched the sensations they expected to encounter.Curiosity tugged at him as well, but being the adventurous type that he was, he chose something a bit different: Drake began to run.

He took off to the right along the wall of the warm grayish cliff.The light shone down on it and the virtual sun felt warm and wonderful. He ran without the encumbering restraints of normal physical limitations - he didn't run out of breath, his legs did not tire, and yet it still felt normal in every other way; it was not faster or slower, just a normal stride.His legs also felt perfect... no signs of the ACL tear to his left knee from college.

Mike ran up beside him.

"This is awesome! We're finally in, man!" Mike exclaimed with his Toronto-derived accent.

Michael King had been Drake's go-to guy since the first day of training when the testers all met. Out of the twelve, referred to within the company as T12, Mike had been the one with whom Drake found some real synergy. In his early thirties, Mike lived life on the edge, though he had calmed down since his college days (so he told Drake).Slightly taller than Drake, of mixed ethnic background, with a nice complexion and a great athletic build, Mike was a bundle of high octane fun.He feared nothing as evidenced by the fact that he rode a jetpack into work every day and routinely flew below the minimum limit allowed by the government. Constantly pulling pranks, cracking jokes, and generally doing anything that got a laugh, Mike didn't seem to need the attention, he just enjoyed life.He would often say his self-crafted catchphrase, "Carpe the day," as it reflected his exuberance and odd sense of humor. A mix of Latin and English, it meant "Seize the day," though Mike really liked the fact that it rhymed as much as its meaning.

Running along the edge of the canyon walls with Mike, Drake let out a happy yell.This was the day they had been waiting for.

"Watch this," Mike yelled, and Drake watched as he pulled away at a much faster pace.

"Ahhh," he thought as he realized that he had been running at the speed his brain was accustomed to running.

Pushing his feet down faster and consciously lifting them up as quickly as he could, he too broke off at a pace of what seemed like maybe thirty miles per hour.Unfortunately, physics still existed in the simulation, and so although his avatar was capable of some superhuman abilities, Drake soon discovered he had never run at thirty miles per hour, and with that quick realization and ensuing trepidation, he stumbled, fell first on his right shoulder, flipped over several times, and crashed with his back into the side of the rock cliff in front of him.

"Yikes," Mike grimaced. "You okay?"

Drake, whose rump was straight up in the air, and whose weight rested on his shoulders (which were firmly planted in the ground), began laughing.He laughed heartily, not because of any humorous aspect of the situation, but at the sheer joy he had just experienced. Though he had experienced the force of crashing on a speeding bicycle, he felt no pain, but instead only the physical, tactile sensations of hitting the surfaces he had ricocheted upon during his haphazard tumble. It was wonderful.

"This is better than what I thought" said Drake. "This is really just... it's just awesome!"

"No kidding!" Mike replied.

The monotone voice of Shanti was heard suddenly, as if she was reading a cue card.

"Mr. Stone and Mr. King, while we appreciate your enthusiasm for trying the limits of this new experience, we highly recommend that you cease with the recklessness and try regaining a more stoic attitude. Less running and more standing or sitting would be a very nice change.If that doesn't happen, you will not be respawned after being extracted. This is a test, not a game. You will stick to protocol. Thank you."

Neither Drake nor Mike were very afraid of being kept out of the test - their fearlessness was one of the reasons they had been selected as testers for the VR experiments, and it was doubtful that the very reason they were selected would keep them out of their missions. Still, it probably wasn't a good idea to purposefully break any guidelines or protocol either. And although neither would have been bothered by others hearing what Shanti had just said, it was impressive to hear her voice inside their heads only and not in a physically audible way.Drake thought she sounded much less like a deity when she wasn't booming off the cliff walls.

A new voice suddenly echoed through the canyon, this time familiar to Drake as the lead medical doctor's voice coming over the airwaves.

Dr. Fennister was not a favorite of Drake, nor of many other people either.He had probably been the hall monitor from kindergarten through high school graduation, and the thousands of wedgies he had most definitely received had caused him to be a true prick to the world.Looking like a turtle, he was short and squatty, with bushy gray eyebrows, a bald head, and massive glasses that made his eyes look huge behind them. In modern times adults didn't wear glasses for vision problems, but Fennister did, and probably only did so out of some strange nostalgia.Drake didn't even know where you could buy glasses for vision.Fennister could have played the part of a very short Santa Claus at Christmas if he had ever learned how to smile... or could grow a beard.

The doctor was the medical supervisor of the project, and at the slightest issue, he would halt any progress being made to ensure that someone's hangnail wouldn't become infected and cause them to die. His neurotic disdain for any and all variables had led to more than one tester having to go through a full day of repeated medical exams.This level of attention for his patients might have been viewed as scrupulous care had it not been for his demeanor which shred any hopes for feelings of "care."It was well known that Fennister had a gambling problem and continued to work at his age only because of a nearly insurmountable debt. He didn't seem to like people very much, and he disliked any slight change in a person's perfect health even less.At his advanced age, he was probably ready for years of neurotic self-checks to make sure he lived throughout a minor eternity in order to assure the world his narcissistic wit would endure for additional decades to come. Thus his announcement to the testers came as no surprise:

"We have made the decision to disallow Nancy Kilpatrick to return to the simulation. The experience has resulted in a variance from homeostasis beyond the accepted range.The process will now continue as planned for the rest of you."

For Drake, what this certainly meant is that Dr. Julius Fennister had seen too much of Ms. Kilpatrick receiving any joy whatsoever.And because joy brought about some minor change in her heart rate or endorphins, or whatever the hell Fennister could find to give him an excuse to assert his power, he had decided to pull her from the simulation.At least, that's what Drake, in his loathing of the doctor, had already concluded.

"Jerk," Mike said.

"Yep..." Drake agreed.

Now removed from the simulation, Nancy was back in the real world where she had been blind since birth because of bilateral dysplasia in her optic nerve.Experiencing sight for the very first time was probably very emotional for her, and though she had remained composed while in the simulation, Drake assumed she probably couldn't keep it together when she returned to the real world and opened her eyes to a familiar darkness.Hopefully she'd do better next time since Dr. Fennister would likely remove her from the test subjects if she had difficulty on multiple occasions. The lead medical doctor would love to show his administrative authority in such a manner, and in Drake's opinion, as compensation for his very unthreatening physicality.It had been his experience that many of Fennister's actions solely existed in order to give Dr. Fennister greater merit for his own existence in the company.

Meanwhile, another tester, Garrett, who had been kicking at the small waves in the ocean, was the next to fade out. Garrett Berglund was a blond-haired moron... a short little gym rat who had been chosen almost exclusively because of his physicality and how that would come into play with the testing. Garrett didn't seem to know that, however, because his pride and narcissism increased equivalent to the growth of his biceps and chest. This time the procedure went smoothly and Garrett respawned back where he had originally entered the virtual world the first time (not the ocean where he had been when he was extracted) after being gone for about thirty seconds.Of course, his blonde pompadour hairstyle remained perfectly perched upon his head. He began flexing the muscles of his avatar, probably to see if it could possibly match his actual body. Drake thought it would be a wonderful prank if one of the developers could give him dipstick shaped arms the next time he spawned.

Of the twelve testers chosen for this very first experience of Project Mirage, Drake would be the last for extraction and respawn, while Mike would be the sixth. Drake liked being the last to experience extraction because for the first time in many months, he was able to feel a sustained joy. This new experience was exhilarating and different enough that, for however briefly, he could finally think about something other than Julie.

For the past five minutes, he had not thought about Julie... until now. And just now, he had realized that he hadn't been thinking of her.Dwelling always in the back of his mind, she hadn't been there for the past few minutes, and while her absence from his thoughts had been exhilarating, he strangely felt some guilt with not having her there - after all, she was often found in the recesses of his mind, taking part in an oft experienced replay of the worst night of Drake's life.Although she had now rejoined his thoughts, he could still enjoy the virtual reality.

He only wished he could tell her about it. Wouldn't that be wonderful? To go home tonight and to tell Julie about this new technology, this new experience, and to have the chance to hold her one more time.And then he was jerked back into his true reality - a reality he could not escape. Drake deflated as he thought how he would trade all of this just to wrap his arms around her again.He could lovingly embrace her and even if he couldn't say a single word to her, just to be able to put his forehead against her and to hug her with all the protection his arms could provide... that would be wonderful. And that he could not have... for Julie had left him.

Mike had been sitting down against the cliff wall, looking up at the sky.He turned to Drake who had been deep in thought.

"Well, looks like it's time for me now... I'll be back."

Thinking of Julie, Drake hadn't watched as Lin Xhiu, Maria Cielos, and Cynthia Giles had been extracted. Time had passed quickly as he had been reflecting... at this rate, with Mike being the sixth tester for extraction, it would take only another ten minutes or so for Drake to go through the process. He watched as Mike's 6'4", thirty-two year old resemblance faded in the same second of time it took for Nancy and Garrett (and presumably the others).He wondered if Mike could have ever imagined that this is what he would be working on back when he was recruited by the project lead during a chance meeting on a hike up Mount Kilimanjaro.Of course Mike the adrenaline junkie had accepted the offer of a job that promised to be like no other, even if he knew next to no details about it.

And what about Drake? Well, Drake was a twenty-six year old bust who had taken the job with little to no information simply because he had found himself broke and headed for inescapable debt.At twenty-five, he had made, in his mind, the worst decision he could have ever made, and tragedy struck.He lost Julie.And having lost his job in advertising after she had left, along with losing his chance to play basketball during his sophomore year in college due to a torn ACL, but mostly having lost Julie, he had lost his reasons for life. He still had his family and he still had his friends, but for the past eight months he could take little joy in any of them. He just replayed losing Julie over and over and over.He relived it in his dreams and he revisited it while awake. And so that man who was destined for greatness was now on the verge of collapse... at least, that's the way Drake Stone viewed it. And thus he had isolated himself from most of his world.

When a friend from college messaged him about a new job he might be interested in, Drake originally had little interest. But Matthus, who had been the top Information Systems graduate at PointeUniversity where Drake had played basketball, told Drake that the job was top-secret and might change his entire life... so Drake begrudgingly made the trek to Qualia Corporation headquarters in Orlando, Florida.He didn't really want a job at the time, but living requires money and Drake Stone had already burned through all his savings since he had found himself removed from the last job.

After passing all the insanely strange tests, he was accepted for a position he knew nothing about. At least the pay had been amazing - otherwise the weirdness of it all would have caused him to drop the offer. It wasn't until after he had been accepted and signed a book-worthy stack of non-disclosure agreements and medical releases that he was finally told he would be a member of the very first group of testers for true virtual reality.They made it sound like it would be on par with landing on the moon. He had wanted to roll his eyes at the audacity of the idea.Now he believed them.

Of course his family all thought he had truly gone off the deep end, or joined the CIA or the FBI, and they really couldn't be sure of which.He had suffered many setbacks in life, recessed into a full-on depression, turned down outreach from family and friends, and even contemplated suicide. He had never admitted the suicide to anyone outside his family.He argued with a god who didn't answer on a regular basis, and then became angry at himself for arguing with something he couldn't be sure was even listening. And now he had a job that he couldn't speak about, other than to say he had a job that he couldn't speak about, and he reported every day to an area that probably had greater security than Area 51.And if Area 51 contains alien life forms or UFOs or any other world-changing stuff, Drake wasn't sure it would be any more impactful on the world than what he was testing now. The place truly tipped the "weird scale" when they injected him with nanobots designed to interact with his brain.Yes, it was that bizarre.

Drake had prepared himself for what he was experiencing now. They had read all the books, watched the videos, listened to the lectures, and ran practice after practice after practice. And yet, even though he knew the virtual reality would feel real, he wasn't prepared for it to feel this real.It's one thing to know it will seem realistic, but then when it is just as real as real... that feeling just can't be had until you are in it. He understood it now.He had been walking back towards the ocean, and he was simply amazed that the virtual reality world seemed even better than anything he had ever experienced before. It wasn't just that the virtual reality world seemed real, it was that it seemed more natural and more pleasant than actual reality. This was a place where every sensation seemed to be more acute, and even his thoughts seemed to be clearer. He was most impressed with simply how much greater the mental processing seemed to be for him in this world - his mind was as active and awake as it ever had been.The potency of virtual reality could not be overstated.

Just then Mike faded back to where he had originally spawned.

"Is extraction like what we thought?" Drake asked.

"Pretty much," Mike answered with a shrug. "Just the opposite of going in."

Mike suggested they try out the ocean to see how the water felt, so the two of them walked to the beach. When they arrived, they were met by Vanessa Hart, a beautiful young lady from the Virgin Islands - tan skin, Sandra Dee blond hair, and a killer body. She was, by far, the most attractive tester on T12. She always wore a slender silver necklace featuring a charm resembling a boat helm, and even here in virtual reality, it sat daintily around her avatar's alluring neckline. If Drake hadn't been in such a terrible place in his life, he probably would have struggled with Vanessa's beauty. As such, however, Garrett and Mike picked up the slack. Vanessa enjoyed the attention, though her intellect was high enough that she seemed to make a sport of dangling the carrot in front of Garrett without him realizing what was going on. She joked about it with Mike, all while doing the same thing to him, but not nearly with as much intention. Her wit was definitely part of her appeal.

"The water feel about right?" Mike asked her.

"It feels amazing," Vanessa said, her slender legs stretched out in the shallow water and her toes digging into the underwater sand.

Sure enough, Drake stepped into the water and immediately felt the sea in a way he had never felt before. The sensations were so crystal clear, as if his feet and toes, even his legs and ankles, had the sensory sensitivity of his fingers, except maybe better.The water felt cool as the waves crashed upon the beach and the foam rushed by his legs.The smell of salt was there, but oddly it wasn't quite right, and Drake thought he should mention that to the developers when the trial was finished.

"The salty air doesn't smell just right, does it?" he asked.

"I hadn't noticed it, but you're right," Vanessa replied.

"It's funny how you immediately pick up on things that are just a little off," he commented back.

They played around in the water a bit until Drake saw Garrett walking toward them.Rather than listen to Garrett brag and make poor attempts to impress Vanessa, he decided to just walk away - he couldn't stand Garrett's stupidity.

Walking away, he noticed Mbonte Itua fading out.That meant Lauren Grandstaff and John Durvine had already finished.

"That makes number ten," Drake thought.

Mbonte, who had now faded out, was a really cool guy. Originally in the Kenyan military, he was a dark black man with a thick accent and a super nice personality.He was very tall with a very deep voice, and had he not been such a wonderfully nice person, he would have made a great bouncer at a club. Fortunately, the gentle giant that was Mbonte never used his stature to intimidate, rather he could often be seen helping Nancy Kilpatrick navigate when her dog Carver wasn't available.

Dewey Gawer would be next, then Drake. In contrast to Mbonte, Dewey was pitiful - much different than any of the other participants in the trials. Drake tried not to mock him behind his back as most of the others did, but it was painfully obvious that he was only there because of how inept he was.This extreme would no doubt provide valuable data to the researchers. Unfortunately that meant he was much like one of those contestants on the reality TV contests in which some of the most terrible, insane contestants make it through to the broadcast level just so that the audience can laugh at their pathetic performances.

Dewey was like that when it came to life. He was short, very white, heavy, and kept a very ugly, sandy mustache that should have been trimmed much farther back. He wore thin button-up shirts that stuck to his gut, which slopped over the waist of his pants, always a pair of dirty khakis.Dewey usually smelled of coffee breath and body odor.Drake felt very sorry for him and had made attempts to show him kindness whenever possible, but still, it's hard to make conversation with someone who's always obsessed with microscope slides and ancient buildings.

After Mbonte faded back in, Dewey faded out and faded back in as well, and it was now Drake's turn.

Shanti's voice was in his head again.

"Mr. Stone, we are now going to extract you. Please stand still."

He stood in place and watched as his body faded and the virtual world with it; quickly the colors faded from vibrant to black, and the sounds and sensations faded out just as they had faded in before. For just a moment he was in total darkness without any sensations whatsoever, and once again it was unnerving, but less so now.He came to the conclusion that he would call the transitional blackness "the void," in case he needed to describe it in the future.

Just as he had expected, fuzzy dim colors began to come into view, and the sights of emergency room-like lights up above him came into focus.There, leaning in past any normal and desired personal space was Dr. Fennister shining a light into Drake's eyes.

"Dilation is good," said Dr. Fennister, his face so close Drake could clearly see every pore on his bulbous nose.

Drake could feel the neurohelmet once more and the cushioned bed as well.The transition from having been standing to suddenly being on one's back was not as disorienting as it had been before.

"Stand up," Dr. Fennister barked.

Drake stood and quickly did the muscular coordination test - walking, pointing, fingers to nose, etc.

"No signs of ataxia. How do you feel?"

"I feel normal... minus the hospital gown and brain helmet."

"Who was the president of the United States during the Civil War?" growled Dr. Fennister again.

"Abraham Lincoln."

"And what is your password?" Dr. Fennister asked.

Each tester was required to know their own password that they were able to make up - Drake had invented one just to annoy Dr. Fennister.

"Get me my Cheese Whiz," he deadpanned.

"What is the card you were shown just prior to entering the simulation?"

"Seven of spades."

Dr. Fennister smirked and nodded one time.

"Neural map look good?" he asked a young doctor sitting at a computer screen.

"All green," replied the doctor.

"Lay back down," Dr. Fennister said, followed by yelling to the scientists behind a two way mirror above them, "He can go back in."

Drake lay back down. Though his neural helmet kept the back of his head from touching the surface of the mat, it wasn't uncomfortable at all.

"Alright, Drake," the project lead's Tennessean voice began via the intercom, "we're ready to give you your objective for when you re-enter."

"Go ahead."

"Mr. Stone, that beautiful lush world you just saw... we'd really like it if you could break it for us. The programmers have attempted to make it impossible to travel past the boundaries of the area and I'd like to see you beat them. So when you go back in there and we start the objectives, I want to see you get out of the canyon. Can you do that for us, Stone? Can you crash the system?"

Purchase The Entire Novel

Chapter Two - The Broken Reed

"Please give us a thumbs-up when you are ready to re-enter," Shanti informed Drake over the intercom.

He obliged with the gesture, and then remembering Nancy (who had been disallowed to re-enter), turned his eyes to her bed, but she was no longer there. The rest of T12 remained where they had been. He hoped Nancy was okay and would be able to continue future trials - the chance to see for the first time was undoubtedly overwhelming. And while pondering that thought, suddenly the world went dim again and Drake floated off to the place he called "the void," which was now almost routine. Then, back came the colors and all other sensations again, and there he was in the canyon, back where he had started, with Mike standing directly in front of his spawning location and Vanessa beside him.

"Welcome back," Shanti said in his mind.

"We need everyone to walk to the beach please," Shanti said, now booming across the canyon again, and sounding yet again like God. "You'll see a green image of your face on the beach and that is the place you will need to stand."

"Can you turn your voice down?" Garrett yelled out.

Drake was happy someone else was thinking the same thing, although he would rather it not be Garrett. Everyone else had to have been thinking the same thing too, and that hope consoled him a bit.

"Yes, Mr. Berglund," Shanti boomed in again. "Is this better?"

"That's fine, thank you," Vanessa replied before Garrett could.

"You sound great," Mike offered to Shanti, enjoying the consternation his flirtatious nature caused to the petite, socially conservative young lady behind the communicator.

Now with less reverberation, Shanti's voice returned with no returning comment to Mike's adulation.

"We need everyone to walk to the beach please. You'll see a green image of your face there and that is the location on which you need to stand. Once you stand there, you will see the image of your face fill up with a green color, just as a meter would - when it is finished you will immediately need to begin your preset objectives. Upon completing your objective, please return to the symbol with your face where you will complete a survey. You'll notice the timer has now begun. Thank you and we will be monitoring."

Up in the deepest blue sky imaginable, a new green timer had appeared - it was just numbers without any physical object restraining the numbers... no physical box or framing or anything like that... just numbers. It was much like the health information that floated over the ocean as well. The numbers were now counting down from thirty minutes.

"Alright, let's do this," Mike calmly said, and raised his eyebrows.

He probably said that before he jumped out of airplanes or was shot out of cannons, or wrestled grizzly bears. He didn't actually get shot out of cannons or wrestle grizzly bears, but if he did, it really wouldn't surprise Drake.

"Then again," thought Drake, "he probably does wrestle bears."

Drake's task was simple: try to get out of the canyon. At Individual Mission Prep, he had been given all the information he needed. Researchers were curious as to how the human mind would respond to a world with less physical limitations and the unexpected ways a person in virtual reality would be able to break the system. Drake's goal in his first ever foray into VR was to try to get out of a sealed area.

The canyon had a cliff wall which was almost totally vertical and even hung out at the top edges in some places. It had an ocean to the south end which was the only opening, but even the ocean had an invisible wall-like barrier that passed from the end of the canyon wall to the other end of the canyon wall, and which traveled from the ocean floor to the sky. He had asked them at Mission Prep how far up it went, and after checking the computer, one had replied that it went ten miles into the air.

All the others went off to try out their objectives, as did Drake. Mike's objectives were meant to test how quickly his brain could adjust to his new enhanced abilities. He had already gone to the north end where Drake crashed earlier. Drake could now see an obstacle course that hadn't been there before, but while Mike would be using additional items, there would be no spawned items for Drake today - his only goal was to beat the developers at their own game using raw ingenuity. It had been their attempt to keep all the testers located in this one canyon; beating the testers now would be like escaping from a jail cell.

At first he tried the obvious. He went to the beach, swam out as far as he could into the ocean, and was impressed when he stepped on an urchin.

"Nice touch," he thought, though he felt no pain since pain was not allowed in the virtual simulations.

He finally reached the invisible wall about fifty meters out into the ocean. He felt the wall, which had the texture of smooth glass, and followed it all the way to the edge of the cliff. There didn't appear to be any seams or gaps that he could try to squeeze through. He swam down to the bottom of the ocean and dug in the sand, but the barrier seemed to travel far below the ground as well.

Swimming back out of the ocean, he looked to the cliff wall next. If he could get on top of the cliffs, the invisible wall might not be up there... they may have simply went with the physical barrier of a stone wall to keep the testers inside. Unfortunately, the cliffs would not be easy to climb - they were as smooth as marble and nearly vertical. Out of curiosity, he jumped to see how high he would rise - if he could run thirty miles per hour, perhaps he could leap higher as well.

It felt great to not have a lingering leg injury, and with his first try he was higher than he could jump when he played basketball in college! He tried again, this time applying the same idea of pushing his body faster than he was accustomed to like he had when he had run before. Now his jump height was around three times that of his previous best - he had probably just jumped over eight feet into the air! With some further practice he was able to get to what he estimated to be around ten feet, but it was far less than what he would need to get over the approximately forty foot cliff edge.

Trying to think of what to try next, Drake spotted a location on the northwest side of the canyon. There, in a corner nook of the canyon walls, the edge was less vertical in a tiny area, just enough that he might be able to dash up it, and if he leaped at the very edge of the less vertical area, he might be able to get enough height from the run speed and leap that he could scale the canyon.

"Alright, here we go."

He took off running as fast as he could concentrate on moving his legs - pushing them down as fast as they came up and then pulling them up as quickly as he could once they hit the ground. He looked up at the timer floating in the sky as he raced across the terrain: "21:35". He was going very fast now, probably about thirty miles an hour again and the rock wall was approaching quickly.

"See ya', Mike!" he yelled as he passed by.

Mike wasn't a gymnast, but apparently his mind was catching on quickly to the new abilities in this world. Drake noticed through his peripheral vision that Mike appeared to be pretty adept at flipping through obstacle loops floating in the air. Drake didn't have time to watch though... he was now blazing across the terrain towards a quickly approaching wall.

He hit the side of the wall with his left foot and went almost straight up as he bolted across the less vertical area of the cliff - the ten feet of climbable rock went by very fast and Drake missed a good spot to leap from. Missing the jump, he dashed straight up into the air, before gravity returned him downward, back first, landing with a terrible thud. The force went throughout his body, and though it wasn't painful at all, it also wasn't pleasant. It actually knocked the breath out of him, which he really wasn't expecting. Lying on his back, he stared up at the sky in frustration.

After a moment of pulling for breath, he pulled himself up and dusted off; he was covered in dirt from the landing. Slowly he began the walk back to the beach to make another try. He decided that since he wasn't winded, he might as well run back to the beach... time was running out after all.

He made it to the beach and checked the time. "20:42". Off he went again; running at about the same pace, realizing that he hadn't quite figured out how to go any faster yet, and heading again for the sloped location of the canyon's wall. As Drake made it closer he consciously adjusted his footsteps so that he could hit the spot just right. It wasn't easy. He hadn't ever tried to adjust his footsteps at thirty miles per hour before, but without fear of pain he was able to pull it off.

As he went up the sloped section, he made about two steps and hit his right foot on the end of the sloped section just as it ran into the vertical wall of the canyon. Pushing up as hard and as quickly as he could, Drake flew up into the air. Not only did he fly above the cliff wall, he surpassed it by about ten feet! As he reached the apex of his lift, he could see the outside of the canyon - the terrain outside was totally flat, made of the same stone the walls were, and stretched on for as far as he could see. His entire understanding of the canyon now changed - it was in fact a bowl shaped indention in an endlessly flat terrain with a southern opening to a seemingly infinite ocean. He could see that the flat terrain outside the canyon simply dropped at a sharp ninety degree angle when it reached the perfectly straight ocean's cliff edge. The canyon was designed to appear natural only to those who experienced it from within.

Realizing that at his current trajectory he would simply fall straight down and back into the canyon, Drake (who was now traveling downward) made his body into a diving position like that of a skydiver's in an attempt to grab the edge as he fell. However, as he reached his hands out, there was the invisible wall again. He just barely touched the wall with his fingertips, but it was enough to cause him to flip backwards. His feet swung out and hit the wall again as his entire body was rotating back. Tumbling fast, Drake crashed into the ground and this time landed on his stomach. No pain was felt, but his breath was knocked completely out of him, and that was just as unpleasant as in true reality. It took him a full ten seconds to breathe in.

"Dr. Fennister is ready to pull the plug on you if you push your vitals again, Mr. Stone," Shanti said through his mind.

"Tell him to let me do my job," he huffed.

Drake put his head into his hand and ruffled his hair back.

"Well, what to try now?" he thought. "There must be a way to get out of the canyon. Something the developers didn't think of."

He reached over to a long reed rising above the grass. Pulling it out of the ground, he began dissecting it apart like a bored child in a little league outfield. Looking up at the timer it now read "17:20".

Lowering his gaze to the reed he had been mindlessly pulling apart, Drake had an epiphany. When he pulled that reed out of the ground, he pulled dirt up with it. The several times he had crashed, he had gotten dirt all over himself. This whole canyon was filled with dirt at the bottom. Maybe he could just dig his way out of the canyon... maybe the programmers didn't think of someone trying that? It might not be likely, but it was worth a shot. The thought of the dirt being one hundred miles deep came into his mind, so he decided that if he couldn't reach the end of the soil by the time the timer hit "10:00", he would have to stop and find a different means of escaping the canyon.

And so he began to dig. He chose the lowest place he could find in the canyon and he started digging there, right in the middle of the canyon.

Meanwhile, the other testers were all performing their various objectives. Vanessa was painting several objects with a psychedelic, color-changing paint; it seemed like she controlled the colors with her mind. Mbonte was attempting to solve a Rubik's cube which was about 10x10 in panels rather than 3x3 and which seemed to have different squares glowing in some undecipherable pattern. The cube was massive and floated in the air, a few feet above the ground. Cynthia Giles was working on some sort of memory game that involved her jumping on colored squares in a kind of Simon Says fashion. They too floated above the ground and had the look of glass flower petals held in place by some sort of force rather than physical attachments. And then there was John Durvine, who was hitting a volleyball-like object back and forth with various parts of his body. The ball flew back to him no matter how hard he hit it and without any string or other tether attached to it.

Drake, however, was digging a hole in the ground.

"Lovely," he thought. "When people watch a recording of the first-ever virtual reality simulation, they'll see everyone doing really cool things, and there will be Drake Stone. 'Oh, what's Drake Stone doing?' 'Yeah, he's digging a big hole in the dirt.' 'Yay, Drake!' 'Dig that virtual dirt, Drake!'"

Although he mocked himself, he continued to dig until he was eight feet down in loose black soil, which stayed uniformly the same texture the entire way through the dig. He was almost ready to give up. The timer read "10:53", and Drake was thinking of the researchers who were probably laughing at him and his virtual pit. He could dig at a very fast pace due to the lack of restraints that he would have felt in the real world, but digging at any pace is about as equally boring and ridiculous looking. He felt, and probably resembled a dog frantically searching for a bone. He was covered from head to toe in virtual compost.

Solid! Drake finally hit something solid!

Sitting in a hole deeper than his whole body, he had reached a solid barrier. This solid barrier was not the invisible wall he had dealt with earlier; this barrier was stone. Drake dug the hole wider... "8:19" the timer read up above.

He could now stand on the stone in his hand-dug hole in the ground. He leaped up so that he rose out of the hole and landed back in it, feet first, with a thud on the stone. As he landed he kicked his feet as hard as he possibly could.

Nothing.

He tried again, this time jumping higher and again kicking as hard as he could. He looked down, and yes, the stone had actually splintered in a few places from the impact. There was no way to know how thick the stone was, but it apparently was breakable. Still, if it was two hundred feet thick, jumping up and down wasn't going to do much... and even if he could get past this barrier this world seemed to sit upon, the invisible wall was probably below him somewhere. Yet he didn't remember seeing the invisible wall as a ceiling when he viewed the map of the canyon in his Individual Mission Prep, so why should there be a floor? If the reed he had pulled apart was destructible, maybe everything in this world was destructible in an effort to mirror the real world.

With time running out, he realized this was probably his last good chance at beating the objective. Drake climbed out of the hole and began running once again for the sloped area of the canyon wall. He hit it at his maximum speed and leaped at just the right moment. Up he went, but this time, he knew where the invisible barrier was. He pushed off the barrier with his feet as hard as he could. The nook that he rose out of featured an invisible barrier that rose out of the cliff edge so that the invisible wall rose in a nook-like manner as well. As Drake rose, he simply kept jumping from one side of the nook to the other as fast as he could, rising higher and higher.

Jump, jump, jump, jump. Higher and higher he climbed. Then, sensing the apex of this strange series of leaps, he looked to the hole he had dug, and pushed off one last time, except now toward the middle of the canyon.

He was many stories high now - probably twelve stories up as he lofted up and over the terrain of the canyon floor. In order to try for the best possible accuracy, he switched to a skydiver's position once again and attempted to land head-first straight into the hole. With great luck, he hoped he could slam into the material that was holding the canyon, break through, and thus escape the world the programmers meant to be impenetrable.

Drake screamed downward toward the hole. Whereas he would never have had such accuracy in the real world, in this world where his mind was so very clear and his coordination so perfect, Drake had placed himself on a collision course with the relatively small target. For just a moment he felt fear and adrenaline, even though he knew pain would not occur. Throwing aside his instincts, he plunged into the hole like a missile, performing an upside-down cannonball maneuver which he flailed outward at the last second into a two-fisted slam toward the rocky foundation. With all this force, he drove through the material like a bullet shooting through an eggshell, and passing through the material at terrific speeds, Drake saw only sky on the other side so that he shot threw into a never-ending blueness.

"Yeaaaah!" Drake screamed in sheer delight!

Meanwhile, the canyon had been sitting on this foundation - never meant to be seen or tampered with - and with its foundation now shattered, the canyon's weight began causing the canyon to collapse inward into the cracked area. It poured through the widening expanse of its broken pedestal, dumping anything and everything into an infinite free fall. The tiny Drake-sized hole rapidly expanded, sucking in the rest of the canyon as it grew.

The other testers, who had mostly finished and had been watching Drake, were suddenly very amazed at all that was going on. They were especially surprised considering it was Drake Stone who had just destroyed the simulation. Most had seldom heard him say very much as he seemed to be quite introspective - a far cry from his demeanor before his life's ambitions were purged from his potential future.

Most were envious and wished it was they who had been tasked with Drake's objective. They stood and watched as the hole he had dug began expanding closer and closer to their locations. Mike, meanwhile, ran to the expanding vortex and leaped in with a full gainer, enjoying it more than anyone should.

"Carpe the day, baby!" he yelled as he back-flipped downward.

Dewey, in opposite fashion, scrambled to the ocean, frantically swimming away from this perceived danger. He pawed at the invisible barrier, trying to escape, but even Dewey was dropped into the abyss, as the entire canyon fell apart and crashed into an infinite fall.

Drake had escaped the canyon. He had broken the world.

Purchase The Entire Novel

Chapter Three - Never Goodbye

Slumping down into the cool dark leather of his prized Acapulco Blue, 1967 Ford Mustang, Drake let out a sigh of relief. What a day it had been! Entering a virtual world for the very first time had been exciting, but the results of the first trial had placed him in a sort of quasi-hero status among the researchers. They had built a very simple testing ground for the first virtual reality simulation, but he had beaten all their expectations by destroying the virtual canvas. Now sitting in the relic from his money-making days at the advertising firm, Drake could finally have some respite. Others may have enjoyed the accolades poured on him that day, but Drake was not a person who thought highly of himself. Not any more.

"Marvelous!" "I can't believe it!" "We got ourselves a real winner here, boys."

Those were the types of exaltations given to Drake when he was brought back from the simulation. The latter was spoken by Dr. Gary Riggs, a brilliant man from Tennessee who was especially revered in the company and who was now especially fond of Drake. That was an important point since Dr. Gary Riggs held the title of Project Lead for Project Mirage.

He was the most renowned neurophsycologist in the world. It was he, who along with his assistant, Dr. Anne Barber, had invented the concepts that allowed the neurohelmets to work. It was he who had developed the neural nanobots for Project Mirage. And it was he who had met Mike King on a hike up Mount Kilimanjaro and had made sure Mike was a part of T12.

He was of average height, slender, and featured an impressive amount of graying hair - his bangs were as thick as a teenager's. Drake had originally recognized the odd hairstyle from news photos and media stories detailing his efforts to quantitatively explain consciousness. Most of what he had known of Gary Riggs before he joined Qualia Corporation had come from his reading material in doctor and dentist offices.

And so when he pulled Drake aside to explain why breaking the simulation was such a great achievement, Drake felt compelled to really listen considering the expertise of the speaker.

"Well... here's the deal," he began. "These programmers and researchers, well, they kinda figured that you boys and girls would be real impressed with virtual reality - you know, bedazzled. Then you went in there and beat their lazy asses with that little trick you figured out. They weren't expecting anybody to dig into the ground, and then they really weren't figuring on you breaking through the foundation underneath there... they didn't even think to set it to invincible on their little software checkboxes."

When Gary Riggs talked, it was always with a slight smile and raised eyebrows. His forehead was probably wrinkled from always furrowing his brow, but you couldn't see through the black-turned-gray bangs. His accent and dialect would have suggested ignorance to Drake, but his Ivy League pedigree created an odd juxtaposition with his folksy mannerisms. Truthfully, Riggs had once hated the negative prejudice he received for his Appalachian accent, so he had embraced it rather than change it. The result was something akin to Andy Griffith's personality combined with Stephen Hawking's mental prowess.

"So now next time," he continued, "they're going to have to do a much better job of holding you guys in certain parameters. By letting you move your avatar at whatever rate your mind could conceive, you were able to do some pretty impossible stuff in there. Stuff they weren't expecting."

As Drake remembered the events of the day and the things Dr. Riggs had said, he turned on the car and listened to the soft purr of the engine.

"Time to head home," he thought.

Tomorrow would be another big day for T12. First they were to report in and receive neural scans to make sure nothing had changed - that the neurohelmets weren't affecting their cerebral cortex outside of the simulations. Later, they would be back in the canyon, this time with a few tweaks so that Drake couldn't wipe out the system. The developers would have liked to rerun the simulation that very same day so the testers who hadn't finished their objectives (due to Drake) could try again... but the white suits, headed by Fennister, wouldn't allow it. While tests had been run for the past six months to make sure everything was safe, and the chances of neurohelmets causing any kind of brain malfunction was nil, the white suits were extremely cautious.

In the post-sim Q&A, the testers had been asked all varieties of questions.

"What did it feel like?" "Was there anything that seemed odd or peculiar?" "Was there anything you found unpleasant?"

And there were at least another hundred questions of great variance bandied about by the white suits, then the researchers, then the programmers, and finally by the shrinks. Drake had told them about the smells not seeming quite right, but his friend Matthus from college - now one of the lead programmers - was able to quickly explain it.

"We've been having some difficulty with smells and taste - and the problem is that if we get a smell or a taste very wrong, it can be offensive. Very offensive. At some point in the future we'll be better enough to make smells and tastes just as realistic as they are in true reality, but we're not quite there yet. So for now, we'll try to keep them a bit muted."

When the programmers had their chance to ask questions, Drake watched a recording of his actions and lead the programmers through his thought process the entire way to the point in which he broke through the foundation. He was embarrassed about describing his thought process because, up until that point, everyone thought he was a total genius. None of them realized he was just desperately guessing about how to get out of the canyon and very lucky with his assessment. However, even after leading the programmers through his thought process, they were still just as impressed and took note after note in an effort to better understand how to contain participants inside a virtual world's perimeters.

And finally there was the press conference at the end of the work day. The only odd thing about the press conference was that there was no press. In truth, the "press" conference was just a way for Qualia Corporation to gather more promotional video for the time when Project Mirage would come out. As of now, however, nobody outside the building was to know a thing about the project and anyone who did say something about it would probably be sued into oblivion. Drake couldn't count the number of non-disclosure contracts he had signed when he first joined the company just four months ago in order to assure he would never speak of his work outside the walls of the Qualia headquarters.

The faux press conference was held in a smaller room at the bottom of Building Seven though the room looked huge on camera due to the way they positioned the shots. All twelve testers sat at a long, blue-clothed table, with Dr. Gary Riggs seated in the middle and Drake beside him. Dr. Riggs now enjoyed Drake's company very much and was proud of this tester who had "beat the system." A large red curtain flowed behind the table with QUALIA in its trademarked logo appearing, spotlighted, in the center. The appearance on video would certainly match any presidential press conference at the Whitehouse.

Dr. Stephen Alder, president of Qualia Industries, walked into the room with all the fanfare of a foreign dignitary. He shook each of the testers' hands and introduced himself. Rather skinny and unathletic, he was dressed in a sleek style which made up for his physical inadequacies. His bald head and stylish glasses were famous around the world. Qualia Industries, after all, was a leader in neurological medical research, and Stephen Alder was a rags-to-riches success story. The number of technological miracles that had come out of Qualia was innumerable and a marvel all of its own. Indeed, the company came into prominence when Dr. Alder's then-fledgling company was able to create a vaccine for Alzheimer's, and then kept its stocks soaring by excelling in nanotechnology.

After a few minutes of makeup and lighting adjustments, the signal was given and the cameras began recording.

"Ladies and Gentlemen," Dr. Alder began... "Today we have achieved a breakthrough that will change the way we humans experience the world around us. Today, Qualia Industries has created the first virtual reality simulation, and twelve of the men and women here at this table have been the first humans to experience a true virtual reality."

"At this time the world is unaware of the breakthrough which we have achieved. Today, we have landed on Mars without making a single newspaper headline. But you who are watching this, you now know what has happened on this day. And while the implications are staggering, while the challenges are vigorous, and while ethics panels will doubtlessly have a plethora of new debates to hammer out about all the aspects of creating and living in virtual worlds, Qualia Industries will continue pioneer in this industry, with the care it necessitates, with the hope it inspires, and with the promise that virtual worlds will one day revolutionize the human race in a tremendously positive way."

"At this time, marking this milestone in history, I would now like to hand the spotlight to a good friend and colleague of mine, Dr. Gary Riggs, the man in charge of Project Mirage."

The cameras focused on Riggs now.

"Thank you, Dr. Alder," Gary read from the prompters. "It's a real honor and a real privilege to be here and to be the Project Lead on such a vastly important technology. Today we acknowledge what we have accomplished here at Qualia and the progress which we are about to make. And, I would be remiss if I failed to mention the twelve people sitting here at this table who were the first to experience true virtual reality. Please stand as I introduce you:"

Gary began calling their names in order down the table as he continued to read the script from a teleprompter. Each stood and nodded at the camera.

"John Durvine... Lauren Grandstaff... Mbonte Itua... Michael King... Vanessa Hart... Garrett Berglund... Drake Stone... Nancy Kilpatrick... Cynthia Giles... Maria Cielos... Lin Xhiu... and Dewey Gawer."

Drake had always been impressed with the diversity of T12 and took notice again now as each name was called out in sequence.

John Durvine was an older man, close to seventy, with a white, short-cut beard and a pudgy stomach. He was very kind, very intelligent, and was always reading or playing chess during lunch. Lauren Grandstaff was a lady in her fifties, very opinionated, very liberal, very outspoken, and kept her hair died very dark. Around 6'7", Mbonte Itua was a huge man from Africa with a heart of gold. Michael King, of course, was Drake's friend with olive-colored skin and a passion for adventure. And Vanessa Hart was a beautiful bombshell at 24 years old, a collegiate volleyball player from the Caribbean.

Garrett Berglund was the early-thirties muscle man with the typical good-looks of any Swedish celebrity... but also as prideful and stupid as they come. Drake was Drake. Nancy Kilpatrick had little or no family, blind from birth, but was very nice... she was escorted in the real world by her dog Carver. Cynthia Giles was an African American mother and published psychiatrist, slender with braided hair, and a reserved thoughtfulness which was highly contagious. A Hispanic lady in her mid-forties, Maria Cielos was a struggling artist from Los Angeles with a tendency for biting comments. Lin Xhiu was a small teenage guy, probably eighteen or nineteen, straight from Hong Kong, and a professional video game player with oft-broken English. As for Dewey Gawer? Well, he was short, chubby, and very socially awkward.

Dr. Gary Riggs handed the microphone back to Stephen Alder.

"And so, to all of you viewing this now... this... is how it all began."

Dr. Alder finished the last sentence with strong purpose and dramatic effect.

"Alright, that's a wrap," called out the cameraman.

Everyone leaned back and let out a breath. It had been quite stuffy for the past few minutes.

"Thanks, guys," Alder said. "You're doing really good work. When they get this video put together with the rest of the video edits, it's going to look very nice. So keep doing what you're doing. And, uh, Drake Stone, where are you again?"

Drake raised his index finger, surprised that Stephen Alder was calling him out specifically.

"Not bad. I saw the video of your escape. Superhuman-esque. I liked it."

"Bye everyone. Do well," he called out as he walked out the door, escorted by several men in suits and one man who was either with the secret service or doing a very good impression.

And with that he turned and walked out of the room.

Everyone began climbing out of their seats. It had been a long day.

"Guys, I will see you tomorrow. Be here at the regular time. We've got an even bigger day tomorrow," Riggs concluded.

"Wow. The big boss is throwing out Drakey's name now," Mike teased.

"You're going to be famous," Vanessa flirted.

Drake was now a prize to be had. In the past four months she had never seen a side of Drake like she had seen today when he broke the virtual world.

Others came to Drake and congratulated him as well... it was the first time the testers had been together long enough for them to tell him. Lin Xhiu was particularly enthused about how the world had collapsed.

"It was just... wow... I mean... wow... you broke it like egg shell! I would have tried jumping out. I was watching you whole time. I was like... wow. He going to do it. And when you did... wow!"

Garrett though... Garrett was nowhere to be found. He had probably sulked off earlier.

Drake was one of the last ones to leave the room when Dewey Gawer tapped him on the shoulder.

"D-D-Drake... I - I... I just wanted to tell you that your actions today were v-v-very impressive. I c-commend you."

"Well, thank you, Dewey," Drake said, trying to convey a genuine feeling.

"Well, I - I - I, I just wanted you to... to know."

That was the end of the day and that was when Drake had gotten into the car, finally able to rest and reflect on it. And reflecting is what he had been doing for the past ten minutes. Deep in thought, he hadn't paid much attention to the ridiculous amount of security he passed through as he left the complex. He definitely had paid attention the first few weeks. There was security at the campus entrance, at the parking garage, at the door from the parking garage into Building Seven, and then again at the Project Studies door. But now he was pulling into a fast food restaurant and ordering a to-go pasta. He had been adrift in his own thoughts the whole way.

"Chicken fettuccini alfredo," he said into the audio box.

He thought about the grueling day upcoming. After a return to the canyon it would be another Q&A session with the medical team referred to as the "white suits," then the researchers, then lunch, then Q&A with the programmers and shrinks, and then possibly another VR session if the white suits would allow it based on test results. Being honest with himself though, Drake really couldn't wait to be back in the virtual canyon. It was the rest of the day that he dreaded. He dreaded dealing with all the people and all the questions. But being in that world where everything was more vivid, more real, more beautiful... well, that he could become addicted to.

He pulled out of the restaurant's parking lot and began rolling up the manual driver's side window. For the first time this fall season, Drake noticed the Central Florida evening air had become chilly. The cool temperature instantly snapped his memories back to that cold night in February. It had been one of those rare occasions when the night becomes so cold that it freezes in the Orlando area. That was the night he lost her. That was the night Julie was taken from him.

He drove along the roads, going back to his apartment, and although his mind was able to guide him along, his consciousness was somewhere else... his consciousness was back on February 12th, there with Julie at Tataki, their favorite restaurant. He replayed the events again in his mind. A successful designer for Precision Advertising, he would always take Julie to the most expensive sushi restaurant in the area. She loved it. He could see her hand now, holding the wineglass - white zinfandel, her favorite. Even if Drake didn't like wine, he still knew the types that Julie did. He could see her fingers, and he wished very much to hold those hands again.

"I'm sorry you're unhappy about me leaving for a month to go help people," Julie said sarcastically. "I know that you want to go, and I know that you can't go, but that doesn't mean that I have to stay here for you so I can be your shadow."

He could see her perfectly. Her eyes, large enough that he could see almost her entire iris... they were a beautiful green. Her dark, straight hair on her shoulders. She wore a black dress that night. Sleeveless. Her little black jacket was on the back of the chair... She had a ring he had bought her - a precious, precious ring he had given to her when she said "yes." The memory, though eight months old, was as real as a memory from a minute ago: probably more so. It was a true flashback, and not the first he had ever experienced. Not by a long shot.

"I don't want you to be my shadow, I just don't want you going somewhere without me there to protect you," Drake responded. He was struggling to impose his will on her, "knowing" at the time that it was for the best. He didn't want or like telling her what to do, so it certainly wasn't a habit, but this one time when he had a bad feeling about the trip he was doing his best to convince her to see his side... and to no avail.

Julie was ready with her rebuttle.

"I will be safe, and you know that. Peru is not a terrible place and it's only for one month. One month. We have already talked about this twenty times... do you really think I'm going to change on the night I leave?"

"I swear, you don't listen to a single thing I say... I ask you not to go to one thing, and you can't do it. You can't give up something for me just once, even when it's something important to me," Drake said.

"No, you're right. I can't when it involves me having to give up my dreams and my goals so that you can be a Neanderthal," she jabbed back.

The moment paused in his mind. The argument had become slightly heated. The waitress brought soups out to both of them. Miso Soup to Drake and Clear Soup to Julie.

"You know, maybe it should just be over if you care this little about me and if you think I'm a Neanderthal," he said.

He didn't mean it, but he was trying to push an ultimatum that would keep her from going to Peru. It wasn't that he didn't want her to go to Peru on a mission trip, it was just that he didn't want her going without him. He didn't want to worry about her. What if something happened to her?

"Well, maybe that's what you want," she whimpered, stung by his latest remarks.

His last sentence hadn't resulted in the desired effect. Instead of making her realize he was more important than the trip, it had hurt her. She was on the verge of tears now.

"I'm sorry, I have to go," she quivered.

"I'm sorry, I have to go"... those were the words that haunted him so often. She had left the restaurant... left him there... but she was the one who had felt abandoned. He had ordered a special sushi roll from the chef, a fried one to make him feel better, paid and left. She called twice while he drove home, but he didn't answer. He was angry. That night she boarded a plane bound for Atlanta. At the Atlanta airport she called him again and left him a voicemail.

"Drake. I'm sorry for what I said. I don't want it to be over, but apparently you do. I hoped that you would take me to the airport and see me off. I wanted this to be happy. I would have sent you messages as often as possible. But I guess that's not what you want. I guess I'm going to South America without you even telling me goodbye. I'll still try to get in touch with you when I land. I still love you."

He finally did tell her goodbye... but it was too late. He sent her a text message about two hours later when pangs of guilt struck and pulled on his heartstrings.

I'm sorry 4 the way I acted. Please call me when you land. I love you, I support you. Love Drake

But she never received the text message; her plane never landed. Instead it crashed into the Caribbean, southwest of Jamaica. The FTA was still investigating the cause. It didn't matter though. Julie died, abandoned by Drake, not knowing how much he loved her, and that was the way Drake felt about it. Sure, they had argued for months about the Peru trip, but now he wished he had simply let Julie be Julie.

He envisioned her sitting there by the plane window - he could feel her fear as the plane began to fall from the sky, and he hated himself so, so much. It was a pain that he didn't think he would ever be able to get rid of. He had all but stopped praying for help or hoping anybody could help him... nobody could. His only hope was for an afterlife in which he could ask her for forgiveness. That was it. There were no second chances for this mistake.

He pulled into the driveway... the entire trip home was a forgotten blur, taking backseat to the flashback that had taken over. He opened the door to his two-bedroom apartment.

"Hey, Julie. I wish you were here, sweetheart. I love you."

He called it out to an empty apartment. Tears welled up in his eyes, but he didn't cry. He couldn't let himself anymore. It was too difficult.

They had met in college... the Ellis Language building in the middle of Pointe University... third floor not including the basement. She had been in a required English class. He was a sophomore and she was a freshman. He was dating a girl he didn't want to be with anymore and she was dating a goofball who had followed her to college from high school. At that point Drake had been a hot shot. He was breezing through his classes with almost no effort, the star point guard for the basketball team, and surely on his way to playing professional basketball in Europe or maybe even in the NBA. Four months later he would tear his ACL during a game and lose his aspirations for professional sports. Sure, he had believed he could come back from it, but it just wasn't in the cards. He couldn't do it.

In the meantime, both he and Julie had broken off their prior relationships. He was twenty at the time and she was nineteen. He asked her out January 13th, the day they came back to school from winter break. Even though he had lost his dreams for professional sports, that wasn't important to her - what was important to her was Drake Stone. She loved him for him.

He had been so amazed by her... he had thought she was beautiful from the first time he saw her. She had walked into the classroom, blue jeans and a black shirt, and a wonderful smile. She would always come in and talk to someone new... he had to hide how much he liked her when she would talk to him. She was the cutest thing he had ever seen. Her hair curled out at her shoulder, and when she came in one day with her hair up... "wow." Whereas he had mentally mocked the guys who fell for girls so hard they depended on them, Julie took over his life. She was everything he had ever wanted.

He hadn't minded at all the day she came in teary-eyed because she had broken up with her boyfriend the night before. He had broken up with his girlfriend two weeks before as well, and for no small part because Julia Corrothers had been so alluring to him that he had realized how disinterested he was in his ex. Julie was 5'3", weighed 115 pounds, had an amazing figure, and her smile would light up a room. She had little wrinkles under her eyes when she smiled - he lived for them.

After he had torn his ACL he was depressed as much as he could be. He had planned to play one more year of college ball and then enter the draft. Instead he wasn't sure he would ever have another chance to play professionally at all. When he asked Julie out after winter break, and she said "yes," she became the thing that got him through the dark days. She didn't care about his basketball abilities; she only cared about him as a person. They truly fell in love. During the summer when the reality set in that Drake would never regain the movement needed to play at the level he had been, it was Julie who kept him going. When he wasn't on the team and turned down an offer to stay as an assistant, it was Julie who gave him new hope. Basketball had been his dream - now wherever Julie Corrothers was, that was his dream.

They were engaged during her senior year of college. He proposed at sunrise on the beach. She had wanted to be married the next year, but he put it off... it wasn't a fear of commitment to her, it was a just fear of mortality. Being married would mean the time of not being married would be over. Besides, she had to finish years of medical school to become a doctor, so why add marriage to the stress? Still, they were to be married the summer after he lost her after she had waited as long as she was willing. Four more months and she would have been Mrs. Julia Corrothers Stone (she preferred Julie). They had just passed five years of dating when the tragedy had occurred. He could not describe the pain he felt when she was gone. He would go to bed in the first few months clutching a picture of her in his left hand and in his right a pillow like it was her. He didn't mean to hold the pillow like that... it would just happen while he was asleep and he would awaken to the realization that he subconsciously had reached out to hold her. He had truly loved her, and he had truly let her down. Worst of all, he could not tell her... for that time had passed.

He had never known a man could hurt like he did during that time. The pain had been intense. The person he was there to love and protect had died alone and sad, and he had failed.

In the end, she passed away going on a mission trip to help the indigenous people of Peru. That was Julie, always helping. Her faith was important to her, but not in a loud and obtrusive way. Drake had grown up in a mildly spiritual family, but his faith had always been less steady. He had always believed in doing what was right and that was what was important to him.

"Right is right and wrong is wrong, that's what I believe," he would say.

His compass in life had been helping others, not hurting others, and living in the moment.

Drake's mind came back to his current surroundings. He sat down at the circular, cafe table in his kitchen. Checking the text messages on his phone he saw the usual "Call mom" message from his mother. Another said "Haven't heard from you lately, hope you're doing well." That one was from his little brother Dylan. And then a third message was there...

Enjoyed today. See me tomorrow for special assignment. Be @ work early. - Gary

Dr. Gary Riggs' number wasn't in Drake's contact list, but apparently he had grabbed it from Drake's personal information on file.

Drake walked over to the couch and laid back on it. He dreaded going to sleep because it would be more dreams about Julie. They didn't wake him every night like they once did. After it happened, after he visited the empty gravesite, when it really sank in what had happened, Drake would wake up every night in a cold sweat with the same dream. He watched Julie through the window of the plane, flying in a storm, and he watched as she called out his name as the plane began to plunge. It was terrible. Now he would wake up only about once a week in the cold sweat.

As long as he never had the worst dream again, he was okay. That nightmare was always watching as part of the jet sunk down in a greenish, dreamlike water... through one of the windows of the plane, Drake could see Julie's lifeless body, her hair flowing in the water. He would watch, calling her name out in his dream to the top of his lungs. Then her corpse-life face would look through the window.

"Goodbye, Drake," she would slowly mouth.

That dream had only happened a few times. It didn't need to ever happen again.

He had found a way to make it better though. By sleeping on the couch with the TV on, he always had somebody else in the room with him... somebody else to distract him from his thoughts. And he had TV series galore. He would just turn on an old, classic TV series and let it play all night long. That way there was always someone in the house with him. Sometimes it was "The Andy Griffith Show," sometimes the American version of "The Office," other times it was "Cheers." He picked happy shows with lots of people - nothing dramatic, no cartoons, and no death. That's what he slept to. He slept with other happy people in the room, because Drake Stone did not want to be by himself anymore.

Purchase The Entire Novel

Chapter Four -Something More

Drake awoke to another dreary day... no light outside and just the sound of a heavy rain hitting against the glass pane of his apartment's living room window. The TV played an old episode of "Happy Days"... the styles from the show looked remarkably similar to the styles of the modern world. Drake hated styles and trends - that's why he stuck with jeans and a t-shirt.

He lifted himself off the couch and groggily walked to the shower. No bad dreams had awoken him, but he didn't feel well at all, and that probably meant that he had dreamed dreams he couldn't recall. The hot water felt good as he turned on the shower... he made it especially hot today to really bring him back to life.

Climbing out of the shower, he went through the normal morning routine. For breakfast he grabbed some potato chips from an already-opened bag, then got out the necessary ingredients to make himself an iced mocha latte. It was the morning treat that he could always look forward to. After about thirty minutes of preparation for the day, Drake walked to the kitchen door to the garage, kissed the picture of Julie on the wall, and walked back to his baby, the 1967 blue Ford Mustang. The entire world was into the 1950's styles and trends again... hairstyles, cars, electronic designs... everything, but he didn't care - he had paid a fortune for the 1960's convertible when he was knocking down a killer salary at Precision Advertising and he loved that car.

"Americana on wheels," he always said.

Arriving at the Qualia Industries complex, Drake handed the entrance guards his identification.

"You are good to go, Mr. Stone."

He passed through the gate and drove around to the back of the campus. Building Seven was where Project Mirage took place - a project so shrouded in secrecy, no person outside the company was aware of it. That's what they said anyway.

Pulling the Mustang into the parking garage on the right side of the road, connected to the eight-story Building Seven, he drove it up to the usual spot. Up and around the ramps, he parked it on the third floor (fewer people parked there, and that meant less chance for damage to the Mustang), and he headed in. There weren't many 1960's Mustangs still on the road, and Drake wanted to keep at least one out there. Sure, there were plenty of replicas of the cars from long ago... but actual antiques? Those were far and few between.

Walking into the entrance lobby of the third floor, he swiped his key card through the machine, and placed his eyes onto the binocular-like eye scanner.

Security was very tight for Building Seven, where most of the top secret projects were developed. T12 had received much instruction about preventing any security breaches or information theft. There had been several introductory meetings in which they had learned the Russian government, an Argentine company called La Prisma, the Chinese, and several Middle Eastern rogue leaders would all love to have their hands on the technology being developed for Project Mirage. There had even been a few lockdown drills in the event of a situation occurring.

With his identity verified, the large metal door snapped unlocked and he passed through it. Beyond the entrance lobby, he walked to the elevator and pressed for the top floor. At the top floor he stepped off and walked down the hallway to the right, all the way to the last door labeled "Project Studies." Drake swiped his key card again, again had his eyes scanned, and once passing through, gave a polite "Good morning" to the secretary, Cheryl.

"You're here early, Mr. Stone," she said.

She was right. Drake usually reported into work at 8:45 am, but today he had arrived a full hour early. He needed to meet with Gary Riggs to find out about this special project he had mentioned in the text message.

"Has Dr. Riggs arrived yet?" he asked.

"Yes, he's already come through and is in his office I believe."

He took the hallway to the left and followed it to the first hallway on the right. Drake followed it all the way to the window at the end and looked for Riggs' office on the right side. His door was open.

"Dr. Riggs?"

"Hey, Drake, c'mon in here," he said from his desk, looking over data on his computer. "Glad to see you here this morning. Have a seat, have a seat. Can I get you a coffee? I was just about to call in one for me anyway."

"Sure," Drake replied - he couldn't ever have enough caffeine.

Gary Riggs' office was a very large room with two smaller rooms attached to the back behind his desk. The room on the left featured a window, just like the massive window on the left side of the main office room, both offering a spectacular view. That room on the left was a conference room - Drake didn't know what the room on the right was. The walls in the main room were covered with prestigious awards and diplomas. Dr. Riggs had a ph.D. from Harvard, a doctor emeritus from Oxford, another emeritus from Cambridge, and several medical journals featuring his work which were framed on the walls. The furniture was very contemporary... very sleek with a lot of glass.

"Yeah, I'll have a vanilla bean cappuccino and I believe Mr. Stone will have a... Drake, what would you like?" Dr. Riggs said into his earpiece.

"Just a regular coffee is fine, sir."

"Okay, so one vanilla bean cappuccino and one regular coffee... yeah, make it a Kona, give him something interesting today."

"You ever had Kona coffee, Drake?" Gary asked, obviously having finished his phone conversation.

"No, sir."

"Delicious stuff - kinda different, but it's always good for a little change in the morning routine. Comes from Hawaii. Unique taste, but it's pretty good."

"Alright then, I like anything new."

"Good, good," Riggs replied, still looking at the date on his monitor. "I hadn't expected you here this early. I'm just taking a look over some of the latest data we collected on the nanos."

"Nanos?"

"Yeah, the nanobots in your bloodstream," he clarified. "Here, take a look."

Dr. Riggs turned the monitor around so that Drake could see it. To be honest, Drake couldn't tell what in the world he was looking at.

"This is an image of a microscopic, neural nanobot like the ones we injected you and the rest of the testers with. They're what interact with your brain, along with the neural helmet to make virtual reality work."

"Oh... cool," Drake replied.

"I'm just looking over the numbers we've gotten in on their energy levels," Riggs continued. "The little guys live in your bloodstream and interact with your brain, so they feed off of your own blood sugar in order to maintain enough energy to function. So far, it looks like they're working exactly as they should. They're pretty important - if they were to run out of energy due to output overload, they'd shut down and we'd have to give you a shot of new ones for you to be able to go back into virtual reality."

"What would happen to the old ones?" Drake asked.

"Ah, they'd float away in your bloodstream, unable to keep themselves positioned in the brain's capillaries... eventually they'd be broken down by natural processes."

Dr. Riggs leaned back in his office chair, taking his gaze away from the data, pursed his lips, clasped his hands together and took a good look at Drake.

"Drake, you did good yesterday. Real good."

"Yes, sir, and I appreciate that, but I was just trying to complete my objective."

"And you did complete your objective, Drake. You completed it just fine. But here's the thing: we've selected twelve testers to start off with, right?"

"Yes, sir," Drake nodded.

"Well, those twelve testers were selected for various reasons. Take Nancy Kilpatrick. Nice lady, older lady, but we picked her because she's been blind from birth. She's never seen a thing. Yesterday we learned a lot from Nancy - we learned that sending in someone who's never seen the light of day into a massively, visually stunning world is too much. I suspected that and so did anyone with one iota of common sense. But we needed to verify. Nancy verified it. You following?"

"Yes, sir."

"Well, Drake, as time goes on some testers are going to either gain or lose importance for our trials. Someone like Nancy is useful now, but in a couple of weeks, we'll have really gained all the knowledge we can from Nancy. We'll give Ms. Kilpatrick a nice sum of money, keep her on at some menial position, and keep the non-disclosure agreements up on her so she can't speak a word to the press. Now you on the other hand have placed yourself in a very desirable position. You're creative... you've got good intuition and you cracked the world in a way the programmers didn't foresee enough to prevent. Literally. You literally cracked the sucker. Now that impressed a lot of people, Drake."

Drake was taking it all in, trying to find that fine line between cocky and fake that seems genuinely humble.

"I don't really feel that I did very much, Dr. Riggs. I was just lucky on a hunch. I didn't have any plans for how to break the system if going through the foundation hadn't worked. And to be honest, I didn't even know the foundation was there... I just hoped I could dig through the dirt and try to get out that way."

"Just call me Gary. Listen, Drake, I appreciate you being modest, I really do, but it's not going to get you anywhere in this world. You did good, and that's what we're going to go with. You did real good. Now what I've got you in here to talk about is something beyond what you've been working on, and which is a direct result of your doing 'real good.'"

"Drake, you thought the virtual reality world was really something didn't you?" he asked after pausing to sip a bottle of water.

"Yes. It was better than I thought. It felt even more real than sitting here in this office with you right now. I could see better, feel better..."

"Right, right, right," Gary cut him off.

"You could see better, smell better, taste better..."

"I couldn't smell or taste better. They need to work on that part," Drake said as he now cut Gary off.

"Okay, so they need to work on the smells," Dr. Riggs clarified as he took the conversation back.

"So here's the thing. All that virtual reality stuff you are doing is great. It's important. And Qualia Industries is going to take that thing and make bookoos of money off of it. It's going to be huge. Government will regulate the hell out of it. The government would probably already be regulatin' the hell out of it right now if they knew we were developin' it. Could be a dangerous thing, you know? You could let people feel pain in there and torture 'em night and day, and it'd all be in their mind. Wouldn't look cruel at all. You could take a mental patient and lock'em in there, in that neurohelmet, and you'd never have to deal with 'em again. They'd just be laying there, dreamin' away. Feed 'em, change 'em, and bury 'em when they die... that's all there'd be to it."

"So it's a big thing, Drake," Dr. Riggs surmised after another sip of water. "But, Drake... it's not the biggest thing - there's something more."

At that very moment the door to the office opened and a young lady from Building Seven's cafe brought in the two coffees.

"Thank you, Tanya," Gary said.

Drake took a sip of the Kona coffee. It was very strong, but very smooth. It definitely had a more unique taste than his standard.

"You like it?" Gary asked.

"It's not bad... it's pretty good actually."

With the young lady shutting the door to the hallway, Dr. Riggs continued on.

"Back to my point, Drake. The virtual reality stuff you saw yesterday and which your comrades will be working on for the next few years - it's a big thing, but it's not the biggest thing."

Drake raised his fingers on his chair to signal a pause. "So what is the biggest thing?" he asked.

"The biggest thing is when you go in there and you make whatever it is you want to make in that world."

"You mean like building things?" Drake asked, a bit confused.

"No. Not like building things," Riggs replied, then abruptly changed the subject.

"You ever been to Hawaii, Drake?"

"No, sir."

"Pretty nice place. They make damn good coffee too. Damn good coffee. Beautiful place. Beaches and sun, pretty girls, and some of the best joyride routes on the planet. Can you imagine that, Drake?"

"Yes, sir."

"So you can imagine it, well that's good." Gary continued. "Because that's kind of what the biggest thing is. You see, Drake... the biggest thing is when your brain tells our computer what you want to see, paints the picture, gives us the information, and then the computer just fills in the blanks. Like with Hawaii. You've never been there. Not a problem. As long as you can envision what you think it's like, and that's what you want to experience, the computer can take what you envision and then fill in all the pieces around it that are necessary for that world to exist as clearly as the virtual world you experienced yesterday."

"But with the right smells?" Drake joked.

"With the right smells. All the right smells that you want, in the virtual utopia that you make around you. That's the biggest thing... infinite possibilities, Drake. Infinite," he said before enjoying a sip of coffee.

"And you can do that, right now?" Drake asked.

Dr. Riggs leaned back in his seat, folded his arms, and nodded in a slow, confident manner.

"We will," he said. "We can now, just not on the scale that I'm talking about yet. But we're very, very close, Drake. We're reeeal close. Most of the programmers, developers, etc, etc... they don't know about what I'm tellin' you right now. Most people on Project Mirage know what you knew before and that's it. And that beats what the people outside of these walls know about, 'cause they don't know a damned thing about what we're doing. And that's the way it's going to stay for a while too - 'cause this thing is going to be golden. It's going to help people like you wouldn't believe, and it's going to make all of us a shitload of money and put us in the history books to boot."

Drake was excited about the "us" part of that sentence.

Gary continued, "You probably saw Vanessa Hart in the simulation today. If you're a man, you probably watch her a lot."

He paused and raised his eyebrows at Drake even more than usual.

"Well, if you were watching her, you undoubtedly saw her painting today. I got that objective in there. Slid it in and except for a few, most of the programmers, researchers, etc, etc, well they don't know the true reasons for why that was in there. Vanessa was painting with a single paint, yet she could change the color with her mind. She didn't reach out, she didn't get a different bucket, she didn't mix anything... she just had to desire that the paint change color on her brush and it did. We were mining her mind, Drake. She took the action to desire something and we gave it to her. We can't read her thoughts or her memories exactly - we don't have that ability. Even if we did have that ability we wouldn't use it since that could be a very hairy concept. But we can read her desire if she wills it like she would will her hand to move. That's what we can mine. And I could get into the specifics of how all that works and you wouldn't understand half the words that I say, but it's damn cool. Real damn cool. And it's the biggest thing we're working on. It's that big.

Drake was taking this all in.

"So basically you just give us a telepathic ability inside the simulation to create with our mind or change things with our mind, and once we get the hang of it, we can create whatever we like?"

"Pretty much. I mean, it's still basic. I got a guy named Zimmerman workin' on it right now... so far we use an interface that you control with your mind while you're in there, but we'll have it so that you can just wish something into existence one day. It's not like we're building universes from the mind. But it's going to get better and better. You'll see. We've just now perfected it to the point where the nanobots can handle the workload with the normal amount of available glucose in the bloodstream for their energy supply. Now it's off to the races."

"So what's this project called?" Drake asked.

Dr. Riggs smiled.

"I'm not going to tell you that just yet. But I'll tell you what - you continue to impress everybody and you show me that you can keep your trap shut about what I've just told you... then you'll be working on it. It's not completely off the ground yet. But you keep doing real good, and you'll be working in a bigger league. Understand?"

"Yes, sir," Drake replied.

"Oh, c'mon now... you've got to start calling me Gary. It's just Gary."

"What about Riggs? How about I call you Riggs instead? It's a little too informal to call my top boss by his first name."

"Okay," Riggs replied, "That'll be just fine. Riggs it is."

Riggs looked up at the clock behind him.

"Well, unfortunately I've got quite a bit of work to do before we get started in the lab today, Stone."

Riggs had obviously decided they would call each other by their last names now.

"Yeah, I guess I'd better get to work as well," Drake replied as he stood up from his chair.

As Drake walked to the door, he heard Riggs say, "Not a word, Stone."

"Understood," he earnestly replied.

Purchase The Entire Novel