Virtual Eternity (the Serialized Novel) Episode 42 - The Minneapolis Hotel Part Two

This is Episode 42 of the serialized version of the novel, Virtual Eternity: An Epic 90s Retro Florida Techo-Pro-Life Love Story and Conversion Journey. These 52 episodes are presented here free for you every Friday. You can buy the paperback version from Mike Church’s Crusade Channel Store or at Amazon.

Or you can start reading at the Table of Contents: here

The Minneapolis Hotel Part Two

The next day, Saturday, I rose early. I anticipated activity at the facility today, at last, after ten weekdays of dullness. I arrived there before sunrise, but I took the last parking space. The workers here apparently stayed twelve hours a day.

Until my meeting with Mason, I considered Paula’s scheme at my desk. Her delightful abundance sickened me. How could I deny her proposal? My lifelong string of reluctant mornings would cease. I scrutinized her financial papers. I even phoned Europe to verify her account.

I would only need to entertain her, protect her, join with her in paradise. It was the El Dorado some French writer had described in a book summary I once read. Money lacked significance. The movement of the sun replaced time. All needs of the body were gratified, plushly. For fifty to sixty years, I would await death without any needs unmet.

I would leave Maureen to her orchard and to her sadness continually offered upward. She would find undeserving suitors, maybe, forcing herself not to marry, maybe until she could nullify our Marriage completely, but few would dare seek her out. I would leave her smile, her understanding, and my poetry.

At the appointed time, I burst into the conference room to face Macie Mason and her staff. Sixteen researchers in short sleeves and glasses stared

at me.

“Morning,” Mason said. “Have a seat.”

“Thanks for meeting with me again.”

“We’re here now to answer your questions. We’ve all worked on The Shroud. Except the ones that management refused, all the design decisions were made with the consensus of this group. Mr. Curcio liked a few of them.”

“You people work hard here. You must work sixty hours a week.”  Several of the group laughed. “Management even talked about mandatory sixty-hour weeks,” one said as he spun a pencil between his fingers. “We said ‘great!’ because that would cut our hours by 25%.”

“You guys work eighty-hour weeks?” I asked.

“Most of us work ninety.”

“I thought this facility was rated as having the highest level of automation in the country,” I said. “Don’t you have defined processes, automated tools, and measured results?”

“We lost half our people in the layoff, so that didn’t help,” one of them

said.

“Simply keeping up with our processes, learning the tools, and achieving consensus consume nearly all of our time,” Mason said as she pushed up her glasses. “Look, we need to press on. We were gonna help you understand The Shroud. The date for its release has moved up to next week.”

“What?”

“Yes. Mr. Curcio decided to forgo the usual marketing buildup and fluff. I’m sure this disappoints you. If you didn’t waste so much time here, you could’ve been working on your fluff. Apparently, they’ve sent out word on the Web to reach enough people.”

“That was my idea.”

“Anyway, it’ll be out on the server this Friday morning. People are anticipating it. They search for it every day.”

“I’m aware of the premise behind it. It’s a journey into the afterlife. What are some of the images? What makes it different? Are they adding a new product to this?”

“Of course,” Mason said. “That’s why you’re at this facility. Phase 4, THE SHROUD, if you will, isn’t only a series of images in the helmet like the other games. We’re progressing, Jonathan. It’s been Mr. Curcio who has guided us. We’ve only enacted his ideas.”

“That man has enlarged our minds,” one man said.

“Oh yes,” Mason said. “Today he’s Chief Software Engineer. In two years, he’ll be vice-president. Four years more, and he’ll surely be CEO. When that happens, he’ll see to it our grants are expanded.” She nudged her glasses again.

“Yes, I’m sure he will. But how does The Shroud work?”

“Not much we can tell you,” Mason said. “They funded us to produce a certain type of image known in artistic circles as the Grobel hexafractal. Look, Mr. Curcio is an artist. He met with us himself and discussed his needs. The Magic Helmets had our screens, gas nozzles, and processor boards implemented for the last six months. We are very proud--”

“Do you know what these images are supposed to do? How do they replicate the afterlife?”

“It’s not our business to discuss things such as this. They paid us to do this interesting work, not tell others. In fact, Ralph, Todd, and I studied the production of those images at our respective universities. I was an adjunct professor of visual--”

“Do they give the user hallucinations? Does the user see strange things within those grow-bell hecterfracals?”

“Hexafractal.”

“Whatever.”

“Look, this is our project,” Mason said. “We invented the special display unit for the Magic Theater and the software for the images. In Dakota, they write the software for the entire game. It’s going on the server in six days. Do you need us anymore, Jonathan? That took even less time

than I thought.”

“There’s a lot you haven’t considered. You must know how those images and gases affect people. You’ve studied them for years.”

“Of course. It frees them to their spirit. Look, we know how to make them. Like I told you last week when you rejected our offer to stay here, we know it makes people better. So, that’s all we need to help you with. I hope your stay here has been educational. We have too much work to do.”

The group of researchers together closed their spiral notebooks and stood. They filed out while chatting.

At my cubicle, my telephone blinked yellow. A message awaited me. My hands shook with longing for the voice of Maureen. As the voice began, my stomach dropped.

“Jonathan, this is Perry. We need you back here. They’re releasing The Shroud this Friday. We’ve changed your flight to Sunday morning, um, tomorrow. We have a full platter here. Plan on working tomorrow when you get back.”

***

It was Maureen’s turn to try to call that evening, for what she hoped was the last time for this trip. It was a nightly battle against schedules to reach each other at the right time. He had only left another two messages.

She tapped the phone buttons and stretched the springy cord to reach for a pen. She hoped to write down Jonathan’s return flight and time, finally, on her napkin of smudged hotel names and room numbers.

“Hello.” A girl’s voice?

“Um, sorry. I think I have the wrong room, I was dialing Room 220, Mr. Hannah?”

“Yeah, this is his room. He’s in the shower. Who’s this?”

“Who are you?”

“Paula. Who are you? Is this the wife? Classic.”

“What?”

Maureen panicked and smashed the phone down.

***

As I shut the door to my hotel room behind me and flipped across the little slider lock-tab, the feeling of having sensed the same things one year ago plowed me over.

“You’re late,” Paula whispered from underneath my sheets. “Things not working out well with your career? I have a way of making work seem like hell.”

“You broke into my room?

“Money persuades hotel people,” she said.

She smiled with the imperfect left-tilted grin of her voluptuous mouth. She crawled across the bed, jumped, and kissed me quickly.

“Wait, Paula. Let’s go to dinner.”

“Hmm. Okay. Let’s go to one of the cities. Let me tell you more about our life. I don’t think your old one will work for you.”

Her limousine stopped for us at restaurants, skating rinks, and shops in both wintry cities. We enjoyed her abundance for the rest of the day and night. I relished the ease with which we lived. As effortless as birds, we went wherever we wanted. We reveled in food, service, consumption, and accumulating. We ate sweet desserts and dishes at several expensive restaurants. We purchased clothes made by the most lavish designers for the new tropical life. We swallowed the finest wines and champagnes. We talked about our past erotic episodes; she talked about future ones. We laughed at our opulence and our distance from the common.

That distance, however, was small. Anyone could win these gratifications. Our delights were petty and indulgent only to the self. The people we joined in the restaurants were usually much older and commonplace. Without their ability to pay, they were bourgeois. Personal economies were the only factor in their happiness.

We stayed awake, with wines and coffees and champagnes and talk, until exhaustion overtook us, almost 24 hours later.

At her room, Paula pulled me close. “Isn’t this wonderful, Jonathan? Now you have no reason to go back to that confused life of yours: that tiny, ordinary wife; those impoverished finances; that agonizing writing. You certainly won’t return to that powerless career. You’ve made it to paradise, Jonathan. You’ll have no more worries. Be as you are. Enjoy life. Enjoy Paula, and we’ll be filled with abundance.”

As she unbuttoned my shirt and kissed my stomach, my longings passed before me. I abandoned Curcio. I had no chance of overturning the games. These were flights of fancy. But Maureen cried in me. That delicate flower wilted, by causing an undone melancholy in her. That was sin: to allow evil to burst into the world, to allow the innocent to agonize, to depart from what was good. Maureen suffered. I did too, when she did. My ideas would fall on the ears of the common and the rich only to die like their caviar that never became fish, like their champagne that they turned from fizzing energy to urine. To develop the ideas required Maureen. She caused them to hold care and to go toward at least one other. Paula caressed

and caressed.

I stepped back and fell on the bed. She crawled on top of me, but I rolled.

“What is it, Jonathan?” she asked. Paula was calm, as usual.

“I’m sorry, I can’t.” I buttoned my shirt and pants and limped out of her room.

***

By my room a few stories below, I saw a lump of clothes. As I neared, it turned into a human. It hunched over itself in front of my door.

“Harold? What are you doing?”

Greely looked up at me from the floor. His face was chapped. Caked blood stuck under his nose, which was askew on his face.

“What happened to you?” I asked.

“I’ve been here for twelve hours, off and on. I suppose I disturbed some of the guests. The desk clerk here did not prefer my waiting. We scuffled, and my nose could not dodge his punches.”

“Here, come inside.”

I lifted the tiny man through the doorway. He collapsed on the floor.

“Harold, they canceled my trip. The Shroud will be released this Friday.”

“Oh goodness,” Greely mumbled with his face in the carpet. “You should leave for Dakota.”

“What? Why? To do what?”

“I don’t know,” Greely said as he bounced up. “But you must do something. You must leave soon.”

“Harold, I can’t even get into the building, much less meet Curcio. I have no official business. They won’t even let me in the parking lot, especially if I miss my plane home tomorrow. Why don’t you go? You should be the one to destroy it.”

“No!” Greely shouted. “I’m frightened. I couldn’t. Our people have not permitted me to try. They don’t trust me.”

“Why not?”

“Like the rest of us, I’m too old and weak to carry this out. I don’t have the strength to murder. Also, I lack the resignation to succeed when courage is needed. I have too often allowed myself to fail. I am a meek man. That is what we are supposed to be. I am too habituated to that. When danger approaches, I surrender too easily. This task requires pride. I never developed any. You’re ideal for this.”

“Because I can be prideful? Because I’m able to sin that badly? Because I could murder?”

“You are capable, if you’re motivated, if your ideals conflict loudly enough with Curcio’s, and if you have enough pride.”

“You need someone who seeks redemption?”

“We know your needs, Jonathan. You’re about to commit adultery with that woman, right? However, we must worry about The Shroud, now.”

“Harold, listen as I tell you again. We have no way to carry this out. All the motivation of a thousand sinners can’t break their security and their fences. Why are you here? You must know something that can be done.”

“Okay,” Greely said. “I may have one way into the building. It’s a long-shot.”

“Do you know how to get there? Can I drive?”

“Of course not. I’ll return your rental car and your Magic Theater equipment, so they’re not reported stolen. Trucks go in and out of our Dakota facility every day. If you could get on a truck, you could get inside the gates and on the loading dock.”

“That’s how I should get into the building?”

“I’ve watched the unloading for several weeks now. Of all the trucks that stop there, they only leave one unattended. It arrives once a week before the unloaders’ shifts at 3:30 a.m. The truck waits for the morning shift workers to unload. You’d have about thirty minutes to get out. Wear your company badge and dress in denims to look like a loading dock worker.”

“How do I get on this truck?”

“We have snags in this plan,” Greely said. “The truck is loaded at a distribution center six hours from here. Then the truck makes several deliveries. Its route is meandering.”

“Will it lead to Curcio?”

“Yes. It leaves on Tuesday at 1 a.m. The Dakota facility is one of the last stops. You’ll get there early Friday morning.”

“That’s a long time to be locked in a truck. I have no other way?”

“Not that I know. I’ve spent months thinking about this.”

“It sounds as if you spent a few hours. The rest of the time, you thought about persuading me to go. What should I do when I get to the facility?”

“You’ll need to figure that out on the way.”

***

After ordering another room for Greely from the snarling desk clerk, I returned to my room to rest for a few hours.

I was startled at times during that morning. Images of what was to come alarmed me. The room illuminated slowly.

Suddenly, a shuffling on the carpet scraped through my sleep. The room was grayer now, misty with the cloudy sunrise. A female shape silhouetted against the wall. I turned from this dream onto my stomach. A dream later, my skin crawled with titillation, emanating from my center and beneath. I rolled over to see the protruding female shape upon me with its smell of moist, flowery flesh and hair. Paula covered me. Her bouquet of delight filled me. Her tight, shiny skin met my lips, completing the aroma but desiring more joy. A damp smoothness radiated throughout my body. The blue-lit digital clock mixed with the morning gray to form a fog, as my eyes awakened to my dream. Paula had oiled her skin. She held the aroma and fleshy silkiness from our past. One pleasure demanded another and another.

“Jonathan, now you will choose the life of comfort, pleasure, and no unmet needs.”

I shook my head. I nudged her off and away.

“No, Paula. Your religion of abundance and contentment goes against what humans were created for. You and your sex and your enjoyments are distractions. We can only discover what God has lovingly revealed about reality and purpose, the True and the Good, and how we should live, by avoiding these distractions.”

“It’s not a religion, Jonathan. It’s real life.” She stood in the blue-gray light. “How could you deny a life like this? Look at me.” She slid her hands slowly over her shiny body. “Look at this lifetime of pleasure.”

I went to her and embraced her. I dug my fingers into her hard, slippery skin and lifted her onto my shoulder. She squirmed, but I held her all the way to the door. I set her down the hall, slammed the door, and flipped the slider tab.

In an instant of pity for Paula, I plucked a big towel from the prongs in the bathroom, flipped open the tab and door, and tossed it into the hallway. Instead of landing in Paula’s tanned arms, it popped against the wall. She was gone.

Blessed are the clean of heart, for they shall see God

Our Father, Who art in Heaven, hallowed be thy name

Next week: Episode 43 - The Truck

Copyright © 2022 Christopher Rogers.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced by any means, graphic, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, taping or by any information storage retrieval system without the written permission of the author except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to any actual events or localities or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.