The Endless Frontier

Episode Thirty-Three: The Moon

2011-11-18T14:41:00.001-07:00

Five happy, healthy arrived for dinner at an elegant table. Gilded plates, cups, and utensils waited for them on a hand-carved hardwood table. A mound of mashed potatoes sill steamed, next to a plump pot of deep brown gravy. Centered among a host of other dishes was a large ham, struck with a knife all ready to carve. Above them the stars twinkled, fighting against the light of the brass lamps hanging from posts that circled the table at a comfortable distance. But none of the guests had eyes for the table and food. They were all looking at the earth.
There it hung in the sky above them with the stars, a blue orb covered in moving swirls of white and solid patches of green and brown, larger than anything any of them had ever seen before in the sky. Troy Lombardi was the first to break from the spell of the earth and test their new surroundings, jumping much higher, and falling much slower than he ever did on earth.
“This is fantastic! We don't even need spacesuits!” he said, doing three flips in a single jump. He landed on his back in a puff of gray dust causing the others to laugh.
“You're going to be dirty enough you wish you'd had one though!” laughed Jim, but joined in the fun with a flip of his own.
“Jim, be careful,” said his wife Susan, “you're going to get dust all over the dinner William prepared us.”
“No he is alright,” said William, “There is a sort of force field around the food table, the dust can't get in.”
“So much for being realistic,” joked Sarah, “A breathable atmosphere on the moon, force fields to keep the food clean, the three of you are back to your normal weights, and my guess is we couldn't possibly run out of food at that table, but we'll have to eat again anyway once we get out.”
With a smile, William added, “We won't get so full we can't eat dessert either,” causing another round of mirth.
By the time they got settled down for dinner—which was a task in its own right in lunar gravity—they were all covered in gray dust. Even Susan had bounded around a bit, but had refused to even try and flip.
“Well, William, I have to hand it to you. This was a wonderful idea—much better than suffering through a meal together in our weak bodies. Now that we've had a little fun, lets get to the serious business.” Here he paused, all eyes were on him and he looked at William. “How in the world, did I reach the horizon?” The general eyesight switched to William.
“Easy, when you told Dean about the horizon, he added new hard drives to the computer. One of the things I had changed about the computer was the way in which the hard drives are formatted. The Endless Frontier was incompatible with the memory he added.”
“Then how did Elizabeth install the memory in the first place?”
“I ran a program that re-formats them to meet the needs of my new system. If Dean would have run that utility his plan would have worked, but he didn't”
At about that time Sarah made the mistake of trying to pass the bowl of gravy. The low gravity wasn't quite enough to hold it in the bowl as she extended it toward Troy. The heap of gravy slid upward out of the bowl, then scattered into a thousand brown drops. Reacting without thinking, Susan tried to pull the bowl of punch out of the way as the drops threatened to mix with the drink. The attempt resulted in a much worse disaster much worse than the gray.
Taking advantage of the chaos, Troy launched the mashed potatoes high into the air, which were soon falling like snow, and a full out food fight exploded into being. When all the food had been majestically spoiled in the slow motion drama of low gravity, everyone was covered in much more food than they had been dust. Troy humorously took back his comment about the moon being a good place for dinner, and everyone had a good laugh.
After they had all settled down, Jim spoke, “When I reached the mountain peak the morning we got out, and saw the horizon way out in the distance I couldn't have been more surprised. I knew that even if we had been close, Dean would have added memory, so I with him knowing I didn't think we had a chance.”
“I'm just glad you found it,” said William. “If you hadn't of ran your guts out to get there Dean would have gotten away with the whole scheme!”
“Actually,” said Jim, “I didn't run at all. The closest bit of the horizon was a few miles out at sea, so I thought someone else would get out before me. For a few hours I was basically waiting to be rescued. I started hiking down the mountain fully expecting someone else to escape and release me. I thought Elizabeth and William were still on the boat, so after three hours passed and they hadn't crossed the horizon I realized something must be up. So I decided to get the horizon myself.”
“How did you do it though? Did you swim out that far?” asked Susan.
“No, I was still a few hours away from the shore as it was. I dug my way out.”
“What?” said Troy.
William exploded into laughter, “I should have thought of that. We couldn't have made it out of the Origin valley much faster. If you find a good spot, you'd only have to dig eight inches.”
“I think it was closer to a foot,” said Jim, “but I was ready to dig ten feet.”
“You mean I spent over two months on less than a foot of soil!” said Troy.
“Dirt takes a lot of memory,” said William, defending his creation. “And you never noticed anyway”
Some time later, after much lighthearted discussion Troy stood up from the table, “Friends, I must be off now. Lombardi Inc. didn't fare so well without me, and I am still trying to get it back together. How do I get out of here, William? I don't tell me it involves chasing the horizon.”
“Push the big red button on the phone.”
“Thanks,” he said and in a moment he was gone, and to William's delight, his clothes went with him.
One by one the others left, until William and Sarah were left alone. They sat for a time, looking up at the great blue earth. Then William knelt down and pulled a little box from out of his pocket.

THE END

Episode Thirty-Two: Return to the Portal

2011-11-18T14:40:00.001-07:00

William was running so fast that when he saw the horizon, he only saw it as a wall of blue as he came around out of a stand of trees, and then he was in it. The moment of nothingness seemed much longer than when he had come in. His mind was full of a thousand thoughts of what might be happening in the portal. Had the girls successfully subdued Dean? Or had he overcome them like he had Troy? If so, was he in time to get Dean himself?
The first thing he became aware of was laughter. Dean's laughter. His own weak body, the feeding tube in his mouth, the handcuffs around his wrists all came a moment later. As he put the pieces of the scene around him together, William felt his hope deflating.
“Did you hear that, Sarah?” mocked Dean. “She told me to give it up. She said the misery wasn't worth it. Do I look miserable to you?” He walked away from the bed with Elizabeth in it; she was now sound asleep. Dean was still holding the syringe he had emptied into her. Hoping to benefit from the element of surprise, William held still as Dean passed him.
“What do you think, Sarah, would I be happier in a world of fame and fortune? Or a federal prison?” Dean asked walking over to where she too was chained to her bed.
In response, she swung herself out of the bed and landed her foot squarely in Dean stomach. Dean seemed to have forgotten that unlike his other prisoners, her muscles hadn't weakened a bit. He doubled over in pain, the wind knocked out of him.
“Definitely prison,” said Sarah, standing to a somewhat awkward position; feet on the floor, but hunched over with her hands chained. “And I hope you enjoy it a long time.”
When he was able, Dean retrieved another set of handcuffs from the desk at the front of the room and began walking back toward Sarah, murder in his eyes. William decided to get in on the struggle and kicked at Dean as he went by. His foot caught Dean in the thigh, but it lacked sufficient force to do much. He fell out of bed in the attempt. The whole experience—the impact on Dean's thigh, the weight of his body on the edge of the bed frame, falling onto the floor, the handcuffs jerking his arms in their sockets, and Dean's return kick—were all more painful than William thought possible.
Elizabeth tried to take advantage of William's actions, by kicking out again, this time aimed at Dean's groin. Dean was ready for her and caught her foot while stepping aside. With one quick motion he pulled her around, back on the bed, and cuffed her foot to the other end of the bed. Elizabeth struggled, but it was useless. Dean laughed again, seeming to enjoy the sport.
Unable to bare the pain of having his weak wrists pulled by the metal, William struggled back into the bed. Stretched out as she was, she couldn't resist much as Dean put her to sleep. After dealing with her, he turned on William. “So, you finally got out. I'm glad I have real prison walls to hold you in from now on. What do you have to say for yourself?”
William didn't respond; he had nothing to say—not to Dean.
“How did the three of you, and Troy earlier get out? When Troy told me about making the computer run out of memory, I thought he was telling the truth.”
So that's how he found out, thought William.
“But I know it's a lie—look” he pointed over to the screen, where on the wall was projected the computers status: hard drives only sixty-one percent full. “I added a dozen hard drives, and they haven't hardly been used.”
Suddenly, William understood, but it did them little good now. He still refused to say anything to Dean.
“Fine—give me the silent treatment, but Sarah and your other friends will pay for this.” He picked up another syringe and twiddled it in his fingers, the bare needle going round and round. “After I kill Troy, Jim, and Elizabeth, I'll take Sarah out to the cabin as planed. Don't expect to wake up until, she is already in the death trap.” The words hurt William, but didn't say a word—just stared Dean in the eye, who kept getting nearer.
Suddenly Jim, who had been laying motionless on the bed across from William, sprang to life. Arching his body between one foot and his hands on the pillow, he thrust out with his other leg. The timing and placement was perfect; his foot shoved the syringe from Dean's hand and into his stomach, emptying it's contents.
For a second time the air burst from Dean's lungs, but this time accompanied by a sharp pain, then a dulling of the senses.

Episode Thirty-One: The Call

2011-11-18T14:38:00.001-07:00

Buzzz. Buzzz. Buzzz.
William decided to let it ring a few times. Every second counted. They were further along then he had hoped they would be. He guessed they were two thirds of the way up the canyon. Following behind Sarah, he plunged into the stream for the third time. This crossing wasn't as bad as the last one, it was wide and mostly shallow.
Buzzz. Buzzz. Buzzz.
In the deepest part he comically let the water cover the cell phone, just because he knew it wouldn't hurt it in the least. Although unfinished, it was intended to be the link to reality, and he had made it waterproof.
Buzzz. Buzzz. Buzzz.
“Aren't you going to answer that?” asked Sarah as they jogged along the gravel bank. William caught a hint of worry in her voice, and he wondered if Elizabeth had told her about Dean's threat before he started listening to their conversation earlier. Either way, he knew she was right. For all their sakes, he needed to answer the phone.
“Don't slow down for me,” he said, then dropped to a walk.
Buzzz. Buzzz. Buzzz.
He waited just long enough to be able to hide his heavy breathing. “Hello,” he said in an intentionally discouraged voice.
“Well, William, I gave you your hour and a little more besides. Are you going to help me now or do I have to kill some of your friends and torture another first?” Dean wasn't helping him waste any time.
“Tell me what happens if I agree. I want a specific agreement, not just an arbitrary I do what you say.” The girls were already out of his sight, but he continued walking, following their footsteps.
“Well, the first thing that happens is I take Sarah on a road trip out to a cabin I've purchase for this very purpose. I'll lock her up there, then come back for you. I've rigged the cabin to burn down with her trapped in it, if for some reason you prevent me from getting back there. With your cooperation we should get there in a few days without any problem, well before the trap springs.”
Although the plan sounded horrific, William was grateful it was complicated enough to take some time explaining.
“Actually, I misspoke. I won't take you to the same cabin. I'll take you to another cabin and lock you up there. After ensuring that Sarah will stay alive, I'll come back for the computer and things and we'll set up another Endless Frontier in the cabin. With you safely in it, I'll go and get Sarah and bring her to you. Back in the Endless Frontier, you'll be able to see her. For a few hours each day, I'll pull you out and have you work for me. On days you don't work for me, I'll take it out on Sarah, but hopefully we don't have to worry about that.”
“What about Troy, Jim, and Elizabeth?” asked William. Dean hesitated and William wondered if Dean had just hoped he would forget about them because he was worried about Sarah.
“I'll sedate Troy and take him when I take Sarah. Jim and Elizabeth will come with us, also sedated, when we go.”
“Would I be sedated?”
“No, I only want to make two trips, and I am certain with Sarah's life at stake you won't do anything foolish.”
William knew he was right. He reached a spot where he was was blocked by boulders and a small cliff. He could have easily climbed them with both hands, but with the phone he was forced to stop. They should be getting close now, he thought. “What happens after I give you the plans?”
“With as much money as I'll have after being able to sell the technology, I'll be easily able to afford a babysitter to watch over the five of you. You can live happily ever after, in your digital world.”
“Where did you get the money for those cabins? I remember a week ago you were worried about paying rent.”
Dean laughed. “Your friend Troy helped me on that one. Thanks to him I have plenty of—Hey, what—” The line died.
With a surge of excitement, William dropped the phone, scrambled over the rocks, and ran for the horizon.

Episode Thirty: The Chase

2011-11-18T14:37:00.001-07:00

Sarah awoke shortly after William got off the phone with Dean, but William was too distraught to talk. He sat on the hill looking down the river; tears marked his tired face. Elizabeth sat down with Sarah and unwound their bizarre situation to her. Although some distance away and with his back to them, William listened as Elizabeth told the tale, starting with Troy's grand vision of the Endless Frontier. A few times during the narrative, Sarah asked a question. William had missed her voice, and relished each word she spoke, but his rejoicing in her presence was poisoned by the knowledge that Dean had degraded her into a bartering chip. Her well being depended on his cooperation with the man who had robbed him of everything, twisting his masterpiece into a cage.
About the time Elizabeth was recounting the storm, Troy Lombardi appeared, standing on the Origin in the default clothing. Seeing William, he took a few steps in his direction before falling to his knees. William ran down the hill, concern for Troy let him forget his own problems for a minute. Troy was crumpled on the ground when William reached him. Troy's eyes were closed, but when William shook him, he opened them for a moment.
“The Horizon—” Troy whispered, then closed his eyes.
“What?” asked William, afraid to hope.
Barely audible, Troy said one final word before sleep enclosed him: “—open.”
Suddenly very aware of the camera mounted near them, William calmly picked Troy up and carried him up the hill. Elizabeth and Sarah hadn't noticed William's absence, but they both stopped talking and gave him their full attention when he appeared carrying Troy.
“What happened?”
“Who is that?”
William didn't answer them until he had fully passed the crest of the hill and knew that Dean couldn't see them. “The Horizon is open.” Elizabeth opened her mouth, forming a question, but William kept talking. “Troy must have gotten to the portal. I think Dean drugged him and sent him back in. If the three of us escape at the same time, I'm sure we will be able to overpower him. We went south and Troy went north; I think the quickest way out would be to head east: that ridge isn't has high. Elizabeth, I haven't been paying attention to time, how long do we have before my hour is up?”
“I don't know, maybe a half-hour, forty minutes at most.”
“I'll take the phone and talk to Dean when he calls—stall him as long as I can. He'll drug me before he pulls me out. Don't stop for me.” Even as he was talking William began walking, then when the girls followed he increased the speed to a jog.
As soon as they entered the trees they fell into line, William took the lead and Elizabeth held up the rear. There wasn't much of a trail, but the forest had only sparse underbrush, leaving the way forward mostly clear.
When William accidentally led them into the thick patch of brush, Sarah found a quick way through and took the lead, pushing the groups speed even faster then they had been going. Had they not been in the Endless Frontier, with a computer generated perfect fitness level, they never would have been able to keep going.
Running behind Sarah, William found himself admiring her. Dumped in a totally foreign world she hardly understood, exposed to torture of the most brutal kind, and finding a boy friend she must have given up on a long time ago and who had hardly even spoken to her, she was doing amazing well. With only a short explanation she was leading a charge through the wilderness on the faint hope of escape. Not having time to do anything about her long hair, she had tied it in a knot behind her head. Like everything else about her, he found that knot attractive.
As they ran up a grassy hill, William came up next to Sarah. “I'm sorry, you were pulled into this,” he said.
“I honestly can't say I'm glad to be here,” she responded quickly, “but I'm glad to see you alive.” Her voice dropped to a whisper that William could barely hear as they ran. “I never thought I would see you again.”
After about half an hour, the group had to slow down. They had reached the foothills and were all out of breath. As they walked William pointed out a canyon that he knew turned into the random horizon. He told the girls that would be the easiest route, but that they would have to cross a small stream multiple times as they ascended. “If we were on a Saturday afternoon hike, I would also mention the beautiful wildflowers,” he finished, somewhat surprised at the happiness he was feeling. They were going to make it! And even better, he thought, Sarah had missed him.

Episode Twenty-Nine: The Horizon

2011-11-18T14:36:00.001-07:00

Troy Lombardi awoke in tattered clothing with his back on the sandy beach. Nothing hurt. The wet sand was comfortably conformed to his body. After looking around the beach for a while he was able to find some of his gear, but not much. No tent, torn clothes, spoiled food, no canoe. He found some jerky, which for some reason seamed funny to him this morning. Meat in a world without animals.
He kept breakfast short, the quiet determination to go on hadn't left him, and he wanted to be on his way. For a short time he delayed, trying to decide if he should return to the remains of the lodge for supplies, or adventure into the wilderness with what he had. He decided to reach the top of the stairs and at least examine the next leg of the journey. If it looked easy, he would start out. If he felt like he would save time in the long run by getting gear, he would go back.
Once again Troy began to climb the stairs. As he realized that he was the only one who had ever actually climbed these stairs. The others had always gone off in other directions. He decided that he would call them the Lombardi stairs. And if these were the Lombardi stairs, the waterfall was certainly the Lombardi Falls, and the river the Lombardi River. These pleasant thoughts occupied him for most of the climb up. Near the top, he looked up and saw the clump of grass.
“This time,” he told the grass from below, “I'll reach you. I'll see what you see, when you look the other way.”
But to the north, there was nothing to see. At first Troy thought the ridge must immediately drop away, because he couldn't see anything beyond it, but the absolute nothingness of it shortly came into his full view. The landscape abruptly ended; only the sky continue on in a great blue sphere. Far below him, the sky turned black where stars looked upward at a blue sky.
“How?” Troy whispered to himself. Glancing back at the Origin Valley to make sure he wasn't dreaming, he saw that everything was in order; water appearing from nowhere rushed into the river at his left before plunging into the lake. Curious he picked up a rock and tossed it into the horizon, the moment it crossed over the line where the landscape ended, it vanished.
Then impulsively Troy threw himself into the void. Just like the rock, he vanished, or as he felt it, everything vanished—himself included. In the bareness of his thoughts, Troy had the wonderfully strange experience of gaining a thrill of hope after having believed all was lost. Freedom was about to be his.
Then reality hit him hard. Over two months of lying prone and unmoving had left his body weak. A feeding tube was jammed down his throat. He tried to move his hands, that were lying on the pillow above his head, but he couldn't. The room was slowly coming into focus, but his eyes didn't seem to work very well. After stretching his fingers a few times, he felt around with them and realized Dean had handcuffed him to the bed.
Slowly, painfully, he rolled onto his stomach and used his hands to pull out the feeding tube. His eyes were working better now, he could see the others one of which, to his surprise was Elizabeth. “What is she doing in there?” he thought. Another girl he didn't even recognize. He wondered if William and Jim knew about them. Using his feet he was sure he could hit the power switch on the white box under Elizabeth's bed, the one that housed the mind connection equipment, but he was certain that would only lead to his recapture.
The next closest was William; the head of his bed was against the foot of Troy's. Stretching as far as he could Troy was able to touch the white box with his foot, but not quite far enough to reach the switch. Unable to think of anything else, he kicked the box as hard as his weak legs would let him. Pain shot up his leg. Hearing a noise, Dean Senoma walked into the room, magazine in hand. Seeing Troy awake and moving he immediately stepped out of the room. When he returned a moment later, he was pointing a pistol right at Troy.
“How did you get out?” Dean demanded.
Not wanting to give anything away, Troy held his tongue—he wasn't sure if it still worked anyway. For good measure he kicked the white box a second time, but the only result was his own wincing. Dean walked over to the desk and shook the mouse. The screen lit up showing a window that was tracking the status of the computer's memory. It said sixty-one percent full.
“Something must have gone wrong with your connection. I should kill you now,” said Dean, “but William will want to see that you are still alive.” He waited for a response, but Troy wouldn't give one. “In fact, I think I'll send you back to the Origin right now. Perhaps having another one of his friends around will help him change his mind.”
Realizing he was about to be sent back into the Endless Frontier, Troy raised himself to his knees and stretched out his neck away from the pillow. His effort was rewarded as Dean cursed at the computer when it wouldn't connect. Seeing Troy's defiant effort he retrieved a syringe. In his weakened condition Troy couldn't put up much of a fight, but he did his best. In only a matter of moments, Dean had emptied the contents of the syringe into his arm. He lay back on the bed and drifted into the Endless Frontier.

Episode Twenty-Eight: Sarah

2011-11-18T14:35:00.001-07:00

The cool smell of evergreen trees filled Sarah's nostrils. In a groggy state she felt the cot beneath her and tried to remember where she was. Filling her with fear, her memory slowly returned.
A man had called her, wanting to know about William. He said he was William's brother and wanted any information that might help find him. After telling him on the phone that she had already told the police everything she knew and that they were trying, he offered to take her out to lunch so they could talk about it. Unable to say no, she reluctantly accepted. She was tired of repeating how little she knew, wishing she knew more.
Lunch had been a ruse. Instead of taking her to a restaurant, he took her to a large office building, not saying a word the whole drive there even when she had tried to start a conversation. He just stared ahead and kept driving. In the parking garage below the building, after he brushed off her comment about there not being a restaurant in the building, she had demanded he take her home. He had been walking in front of her and turned around with a wicked smile on his face. She couldn't remember anything after that.
“Where am I?” she tried to ask, but the words came out jumbled and she had a hard time opening her eyes. Above her she could only see green, but in a moment a blurry face appeared above her.
“You are going to be alright Sarah,” the face said. She recognized that voice.
“William?”
“Yes, it is me.”
“What is going on? Where are we?” Her mind and senses were clearing quickly, but her confusion was mounting. She could tell now that her cot was under a green canopy and that William was the only one next to her. She tried to sit up, but still found herself weak. They were on a grassy hill top somewhere high in the mountains. “How did I get her? Where have you been?” William had a troubled look on his face. She could tell she was asking him too much all at once, but in her nervousness she couldn't help it. A sudden thought curdled her blood. “Are we dead?”
William heaved a sigh. “No, we're not dead. At least not yet.” He paused for a moment, then went on when Sarah kept looking at him in the eye, demanding answers. “We are in the virtual world I told you I was working on. We're being held captive—”
Elizabeth's voice shattered the air, coming from the bottom of the hill where she had been sitting alone. “No, Dean. Don't do it!” She jumped up and came running toward them. “William, if you don't help him, He's going to hurt Sarah!”
“What?” said William, visibly afraid.
Any answer Elizabeth may have been about to give was cut of by Sarah's piercing cry. She clutched her left arm protectively to her body and in a spasm tumbled out of the cot and onto the grass. William immediately dropped to her side and held her as she sobbed. After only a few seconds passed, Sarah screamed and tried to push William away.
“Sarah, what's wrong? I'm not hurting you.” William didn't know if he should hold her close or let her go. She responded to his voice but looked into space focusing on things he couldn't see. William wheeled on Elizabeth who had crumpled on the ground. Grabbing her shoulders and pulling her up to look her in the eye, he demanded, “What is Dean doing to her?”
“He is using a spliced mental connection with her. At any time he can play a recording to one of her senses that overrides the information being sent from the Endless Frontier.” Her words were strained and were broken by occasional sobs. “He can make her feel like she is burning alive, play recordings of starving children in her ears, make her see nothing but bullets and burning buildings around her. You have to stop him, William.”
William encased Sarah, who was now shuddering uncontrollably, in his arms. Great tears formed in his eyes and flowed without restraint. “Sarah, I'm sorry. I'm sorry, Sarah,” he whispered in her ears, not even sure what torment she was going through. She suddenly went limp in his arms, even her breath stopped.
William jumped and took the phone from where Elizabeth had let if fall, still open. “Dean stop it now. I'll talk, just stop.” He gasped the words out in heaving breaths.
“Okay, I've stopped it,” Deans voice was calm, like they were engaged in small talk over lunch.
William looked over at Sarah and saw her chest rising and falling, but still unconscious. “What do you want from me?” he asked.
“Plans and diagrams on how to construct another computer like this one. Then if I can't find someone who can build it, I want you to build me one.”
“Will you let Sarah go.”
“I can't have her run to the police.”
“Why should I help you? You want everything and promise nothing in return.”
“You and your friends can live happily ever after in the world you have created, otherwise I'll dispose of Troy and Jim, move you and Sarah to a better location where I don't have to pay rent. There I will play with Sarah's senses until I break your will, I'm sure that will be much quicker than breaking your will directly. In the end you will help me either way.”
William felt hollow inside. He was ready to die, but he couldn't watch Sarah suffer. “Please Dean, give me an hour. Just to think.”
“What is there to think about?”
“Only an hour. Just one hour.”
“I'll call you in an hour. If you don't answer, or I don't like your answer, Sarah will feel her back bend and snap, repeated every ten seconds for the next five days!”
Already broken, William openly wept.

Episode Twenty-Seven: The Deadline

2011-11-18T14:34:00.001-07:00

Buzzzz. Buzzzz. Buzzzz.
William felt the cold hard stone of the origin under him. Trying to relieve his aching head, he sat up and covered his hands against the bright light of the morning sun. I am alive, he thought. He remembered watching as Elizabeth lost strength and dipped beneath the waves. Pointlessly he had shouted her name. The urge to save her had almost given him the strength to dive after her, but he knew he was struggling just to keep his own head above water. Even in the freezing water, his arms and legs burned from the effort to stay alive. In the back of his mind he was aware that all the struggle was pointless, but the situation was just too real.
He remembered slipping beneath the waves, unable to wave his arms and legs any longer. Then heavy water water rushed in to fill his lungs as bad air burst out. Then darkness. I'm alive, he thought, almost disbelieving, I'm alive.
Buzzzz. Buzzzz. Buzzzz.
He only vaguely remembered hearing the first ring of his phone, but he ignored it a second time and looked around. A few feet to in front of him he saw Elizabeth, still unconscious in the default clothing. The pine forests and rugged mountains of the Origin valley surrounded him in all their majesty, but the sight only wearied him. He turned to look over his shoulder at the camera, wondering if Dean was watching him. A second woman lay between him and the camera, also with long hair and in the default clothing. Startled he jumped up and went to her. Kneeling over her he saw that this woman was Elizabeth. Then who was the first?
Buzzzz. Buzzzz. Buzzzz.
Cautiously walking over to her came to a horrible realization.
“NO! No. No. No. No No.” he cried. Behind him he heard Elizabeth stir, but ignored it. He ran to Sarah's side and gently shook her. She remained totally unconscious, barely even breathing.
Buzzzz. Buzzzz. Buzzzz.
“What have you done to her!” William shouted into the phone, speaking before he was even sure it had connected.
“Uhhh—William, where are you?”
Williams voice suddenly dropped cool and hardened. “What have you done to Sarah?”
“I didn't know you would be at the Origin this morning,” answered Dean weakly.
“I died last night, but that is beside the point. What have you done to Sarah.”
William's shouting fully aroused Elizabeth. She moved over to Sarah and seeing a patient her medical training kicked in. She became cool and collected and began to look for a pulse.
“William, I promise you she is fine,” said Dean. “I wanted to talk to you before you saw her, but I guess that it too late now.”
“Why is she here.”
“This isn't about her, William. It's about you. I need your help.”
“I don't care what you do to me. Why is she here!”
“I know you don't care about yourself. She is my insurance. You won't help me for your own sake, so I'm asking you to help me for hers.”
Elizabeth had grasped the situation the moment she had seen Sarah. A part of her tried to convince her that she should be happy about it. With Sarah here, William was sure to cooperate. But she had learned that it was that same part of her that had let Dean pull her into this mess in the first place. No, she thought, another victim. Sarah is another victim, and Dean is the monster.
William was still as stone for a few long seconds. Elizabeth could tell that he didn't want to believe what was happening, but was trying to deal with it anyway.
“Listen to me Dean,” he said. “A week ago, you were right. I was going to die before I helped you. But a few days ago your brother Jim changed my mind. He wants to live much more than I do, so does Elizabeth. I was going to help you for their sakes, but not now.” Surprised Elizabeth looked up at him, but he wasn't looking at her. “I love Sarah more than anyone in the world, but I cannot help you now. How many people will you trap before this is over Dean? A hundred? No Dean I'll let Sarah die with the rest of us before I have to breath each day knowing others are trapped because I assisted you.” With a finality she knew she could not contest, William threw he phone to the ground. The plastic casing shattered, and little pieces scattered.
Without a word, William put Sarah on his shoulders and began to hike over the hill toward the lodge. Elizabeth waited for a moment, trying to get a grasp on what had happened before following. She met he at the top of the hill where he had stopped.
“Where is the lodge?” she asked, seeing the wreckage.
“I have no idea,” he replied. For a moment the two of them stood looking at the wreckage. William came to himself first, setting Sarah down on the grass. He gathered a canopy and cot from the mound of supplies that had replaced the shed, wading through a bit of water and generally having to clear a path through the rubble.
Elizabeth sat down next to Sarah and waited for him to return. “What are we going to do now?” she asked him.
“You start working on the canopy. I'll get the cot set up so Sarah doesn't have to lie on the ground.”
“I mean what are we going to do about Dean? About trying to stay alive?”
“We can't stop Dean from killing us.” As he spoke William opened up the cot bag and began piecing the different parts together. “If he does, it will be on his own prerogative; I'll have nothing to do with it. Right now I plan to do what I can for Sarah. If Dean doesn't kill us, I'll start pushing the horizon again, unless I can come up with a better plan of escape. Regardless of the method, I will always try to get out. But I will not—I will never—don't even ask me to—bargain with Dean.”

Episode Twenty-Six: The Peak

2011-11-18T14:33:00.001-07:00

During the night as the snow deepened encasing Jim in his small hovel, the sounds of the storm were muffled into silence. In a few hours his own heat had comfortably raised the temperature, and he drifted into a deep sleep. He became aware of morning as a passage of time; the snow blocked the rising sun. Preparing himself to brace the storm anew, he used a hatchet like as an improvised shovel and hacked his way to open air.
The morning was still new. Blue sky was everywhere and the snow was dazzled by the light of a new sun. Jim saw that he had been closer to his goal than he thought. Less than a hundred yards up the ridge the peak was raised against the sky. Leaving his sleeping bag and pack, putting socks on his hands again to protect them from the snow, and reawakening his hopes that he might yet live through the day, he began to struggle through the waist deep snow toward the peak.
The air was abnormally warm for a snow covered peak, but perhaps the storm and snow were the true abnormality. The ridge he had been following came from the direction of the shore and at the peak joined another ridge that was still blocking his view. When he saw the land beyond pushing back the horizon he would see it all at once.
His heart began beating as he neared the peak, to the west he could see the mountain range sank into the ocean many miles away. To the east he could only see peak behind peaks and the plains next to the ocean. To the north, there was only a horizon.
When his eyes reached the same level as the peak, the whole world froze. He could clearly see that he was on a peninsula with an ocean on the north and the south, but the peak still blocked a wedged shape of the northern ocean from his view. The next moment he could move again and surged up to the peak.
He had found the horizon. A black void, an inverted triangle in the shape of the mountain that had blocked his view the moment the memory in the computer ran out, lay like a strange shadow in which nothing could be seen across the surface of the ocean. Jim guessed the computer had started trying to fill that void in with the land nearest him, because the north side of the mountain was solid and whole. A large band of ocean had also been filled in, but the void was there—just a few miles from the shore.
His mind leaped to William and Elizabeth. Their boat would reach the horizon long before he could—unless Dean was already talking with them. Perhaps Dean had already talked with them and taken them out! Then Troy, wherever he was must be close to the horizon. It would take Jim at least a full day to get down to the shore and a few more to make a boat. He would have to wait.
For a moment he considered the glade at the foot of the mountain, but now that he had seen the horizon he just couldn't let it leave his sight. After getting his things, he returned to the peak and began walking to the horizon—but this time, he could see it.

Episode Twenty-Five: The Storm

2011-11-18T14:32:00.001-07:00

Jim gripped the wooden handle of the large knife tightly as he hacked a path through the thick bushes. From a distance they just looked like tall grass, or else he would have gone around them. He didn't know what kind of bush they were, but their green tops were almost chest high and their stems were so intertwined that pushing through was impossible. A blister had formed and popped leaving his palm raw, but he figured it would be gone in a few hours. No point in slowing up; he grit his teeth and hacked at a particularly thick branch.
Two days ago when William finally realized he had to accept Dean's offer to prevent them all from getting killed, he agreed to do so on the condition that they continue looking for the horizon until the last minute possible. Glad for an excuse to get off that little boat, Jim had mentioned that it was a waste to have all three of them together when it only took two to handle the boat. As soon as they had seen land that afternoon they dropped him off.
Since that time he had accomplished nothing. From the boat they had seen gentle hills resting before a row of mountain peaks that hid the interior of the continent from view. Now he was two days into those hills. When he had looked from the boat, he hadn't realized how many there were. In two days he hadn't added a single foot of land to the computer's memory.
Tomorrow was the last day: the day Dean said he would kill them, unless William gave in. Jim didn't know what it would be like for him. If Dean did kill him, it would probably just be like it had been in the tree, a deep sleep suddenly overcoming him. Even if his body felt pain, he wouldn't know it with his mind in the Endless Frontier.
And if Dean didn't kill them, what then? He was hundreds of miles from the origin valley. He wouldn't see Troy. He would just be alone in a vast wilderness waiting. Waiting to die, or waiting for William to somehow get him out. Just like his family was waiting. Waiting for the news that he had died, or waiting for him to come home. Or just waiting never knowing.
He supposed that even if he spent the rest of his life pushing the horizon he would never see it. Dean would add more memory, or just put him to sleep and clear the memory every once in a while. Around noon he found a nice glade in a small canyon at the foot of the mountain. A large boulder had fallen there—or rather had been generated there—and had a hollowed out side. He imagined that with very little difficulty he could use some trees and brush and make a very good shelter.
“I told William I would chase the horizon until tomorrow,” he said aloud. “He'll never know if I did. What I do now won't change if he accepts Dean's offer.” He sat down in the shade of the boulder for a few minutes, enjoying the rest.
The whole time he sat there, he knew he wouldn't stay. He couldn't. But maybe tomorrow, he finally decided. Once he reached the peak, there would be no where he could go before tomorrow ran out. No more land for him to generate. Then he decided he could rest.
Shouldering his pack, grabbing a branch that would make a good walking stick, he faced the mountain. As he walked he noticed that the wind was blowing dark clouds over the summit of the peak far above him.
Following the small canyon where the creek came down, he made good time, but as he pressed onward the temperature began to drop. Soon he got out the coat he had packed. Another or mile or so up the trail snow began to fall.
White snow on green shrubbery and trees with green leaves. There wasn't an evergreen in sight. Jim wondered if the snow was some kind of glitch. Without a trail he frequently pushed aside branches and scrambled up cold rocks that left his cold hands raw. Determined to press on to the peak before giving up, he stopped again and put a pair of socks over his hands.
Darkness came early, hiding the peak from his view. Still he pressed on, though somewhat reluctantly. The trees he had been hiking among had vanished some time ago. The snow was up to his shins and he was bitter cold. Between snow, fog, wind, and darkness he couldn't see more than thirty feet.
Suddenly the ground angled downward and he almost tripped. He looked out into the flakes of white and darkness and wondered if there, less than thirty feet from him, the horizon waited. He was definitely on a ridge, but he didn't know if it was the ridge he had seen from the boat. He might still have miles before then. Too cold and tired to really care, he turned up the ridge and continued, resolved to stop at the first sign of a half decent shelter.
Shelter came in the form of a crack under a large boulder just under the ridge. It was dry under there, and slightly warmer. He shoved his sleeping bag in then barely wedged himself into it. He covered his head, that was still sticking out with his coat and used his pack as a pillow. It wasn't comfortable, but after a while it was warm.
The snow deepened around him. The wind howled. But his thoughts were of home which he didn't know if he would ever see again. And a brother, that was willing to kill him to make sure he didn't.

Many miles away at sea, the storm overtook the only boat. Soon the waves heaved against the sky, tossing the frail craft. William and Elizabeth desperately fought to keep the craft afloat, but to no avail.
When the boat finally capsized, they were both already exhausted. As he struggled to tread water, unable to find anything to hold on to, William shouted above the din of the storm, unsure if Elizabeth could hear him from even the short distance that separated them.
“Don't worry, we'll soon be back in the lodge. Dieing doesn't matter. Remember!” He couldn't tell if she heard, or hear if she responded, but both of them tread water for far longer than they thought they were physically capable of.

Episode Twenty-Four: The Breaking Point

2011-11-18T14:29:00.001-07:00

Three days after starting the lodge on fire, the explosions—that Troy still felt from the other side of the lake—stopped. The first night he had been unable to sleep; the ground shuddering with clockwork regularity. His short sleep ended when the wind shifted carrying the smoke from the lodge to his small camp, and forced him to get some distance.
Luckily the blasts had thrown many supplies along with debris into the lake, and he was able to salvage a canoe, a tent, and other supplies that had washed up on the shore a safe distance away. He returned to his camp at the base of the cliff and once again began to wait.
For two days he watched the continual stream of smoke and flashes of light with a sick hollow feeling, eating little. Nothing he did in this place worked. The deal with Dean fell through. Because he told Dean about the horizon they would never be able to reach it. Destroying the lodge hadn't messed the computer up a bit.
Early in the morning on the third day the small vibrations stopped. When the sun rose the sky over the south end of the lake was clear. After crossing the lake in the canoe, Troy examined the wreckage. A pool of water filled a crater where the shed had been, filled with pyramids of of supplies. Everywhere else was covered in the reappearing supplies in various stages of burnt and burning. The stench was horrible. All signs of the lodge were gone, covered in ax heads, cooking pots, backpack frames, tent stakes, and other non-flammable supplies where piled high above the kitchen where Troy was certain a fresh bag of chips waited at the exact spot the shelf had been. Only when the dynamite had blasted its way to the lake and let the water in, the chaos stopped.
His phone rang.
“This is Troy Lombardi speaking how may I help you,” he answered, dripping with sarcasm.
“Don't worry. I haven't forgotten our deal,” said Dean on the other end of the line. “I probably should since you destroyed all the cameras.”
Troy was relieved that he only knew about the cameras.
“Yes, Mr. Lombardi, I will get you out, but I've run into a financial problem trying to arrange the details of your transportation and placement. I need you to give me access to one account that will clear up that problem in advance. Just one bank account and all the passwords to access it. I'll collect the rest later after you have your freedom.”
“I don't remember all of the passwords. That is why I made the website that has all the information.”
“I only need you to remember the password for one account. Surely you can do that.”
Troy hesitated, the situation was totally in Dean's control. The only account he could remember was one he used frequently to satisfy his expensive tastes and buy luxurious gifts. Every week the bank automatically transferred a million dollars into it; by now it was over ten million.
“After what you have done to me, how can I trust you to keep your end of the bargain after you get some money. No, you can have the money, but I come out of here first.”
“You have no choice.”
“No,” said Troy. “If you want my money, keep the deal. You have already stretched it by delaying for days. I can't trust you for a moment. I'd rather you killed me than repeatedly be fooled into giving you money. I have learned I cannot trust you and do not plan to. Every chance you get you'll swindle money out of me and never let me go.”
“I am holding a syringe with cyanide in it right now.”
Troy sat down in the ashes. His palms were sweaty. After opening his mouth a few times he finally gave up trying to respond.
“Now. Mr. Lombardi,” said Dean, “I believe we were discussing your bank account. Don't you have something you want to tell me?”

Disgusted with himself, angry at Dean, and more aware of his mortality than he had ever been before, Troy doodled with his fingers in the ash around him. For a few hours he watched the clouds, just as real, just as majestic, and just as unknowable as the real ones. The wind pulled and stretched, gathered and clumped them, slowly growing thicker and thicker. A drop of rain landed on the back of his hand. Another landed in the ash turning it to a bead gray mud. Sparse and irregular, moist spots began appearing.
Suddenly increasing in strength, the rain soaked his clothes and hair. Little rivulets appeared in the ash like the branches of a tree growing backward, many branches growing into larger trunks. Rising out of the receding ash, wire cages—the remains of cushioned furniture and mattresses—and shattered porcelain from lamps and light fixtures began to appear. The water and ash smeared against and soiled Troy as it passed him, then slowly began to clean. Clouds masked daylight. Thunder echoed around the valley walls.
With the elements raging around him, Troy felt himself washing away. All his ambition, pride, and fear gave way to the pouring rain that emptied his soul. Then, like the tangles of wire around him, he felt something stick, something he didn't know had even been there.

The water of the lake was rough, but Troy paddled on. The rain was cold now and struck his skin like nails. Visibility reduced and he would have been totally disoriented without a small plastic compass. He legs felt cold and raw. Twice he stopped to bail out water, but the second time did hardly any good. As he approached the North shore he abandoned the canoe and swam.
Water flowed down the stairs in little waterfalls, making the rock slick. Small rocks and sticks from rushing in the torrent ripped at his bare feet: he had kicked off his boots in the water. He ascended them carefully and purposefully. No longer would he wallow and fret. No longer would he let the impossibility of success torment him. He would go on. And when the end came, it would catch him chasing the horizon. Out in the world, where the businessmen still traded stocks, laborers clocked in hours, and the weatherman appeared on the news every night, no one would know. Lombardi incorporated would fall into someone else's hand, his giving up now or continuing to try wouldn't change that. Perhaps his father would know, but even that didn't matter. What matter was that he knew. He, Troy Lombardi, would never allow sorrow and fear ruin him. He would go on.
After he climbed about two thirds the way up, the wind shifted. Air from below thrust upward violently, throwing drops of water into his down turned face. He froze in his steps, then looked upward. The green tuft of grass stood over him, guarding the horizon. Unable to look down, he locked his gaze on the green grass and continued to climb.
A round pebble that he never saw, slipped underfoot and pitched him backward. His arms flung around wildly, twisting his body, trying to get a grip on anything. With his legs dangling in midair, he caught himself for a moment, but he knew his grip wouldn't hold. “I'll be back,” he told the grass, then dropped into the rain.

Episode Twenty-Three: Anguish

2011-09-10T19:25:00.002-06:00

William, Jim, and Elizabeth stood silently on the deck of the boat. Elizabeth still had the phone open in her hand. Jim sighed heavily and looked up at the sky. William's words, “he knows”, still hung in the air.
“What does Dean know?” she asked.
“The Endless Frontier isn't really endless. It will only expand as long as there is room for the new landscape to fit in the computer's memory. If the memory were full, the horizon would move away from us and we could walk into the void, triggering an emergency exit sequence. That is what we were really looking for. The edge of the world.” William spoke softly and slowly. “We only have three more days to look, and forty-eight percent of the memory to fill up. We never would have made it, even if he didn't know.”
“So why did you want me to have him reset the program?”
“Every time you start the program it opens a new file. I hoped there wouldn't be enough memory to fit the origin valley and the program would fail to restart, letting us out. Or, even better, the origin valley would barely fit. That way we could cross the horizon when Dean wasn't ready. It doesn't matter now. Thanks for trying to help.”
“William,” said Jim, speaking up. “I think you should accept Dean's offer.”
“No,” said William.
“He's right,” said Elizabeth. “The only way any of us have a chance at getting home is if you help him until you get a chance to escape.”
“Isn't Dean going to let you back out. You could easily pretend that we lied to you. I told William that we should lie to you. He is the one who wanted to give you a chance to really help us against Dean. Pretend you didn't know it was lie. He will still think he is on your side.”
“I don't think that will work. He was really cold with me on the phone right now, and he knows I'm considering going to the police. I think I've become part of the evidence that he has to get rid of. I think I have about the same chance of you getting out of here, Jim. William, you really do have a chance. And make sure that Dean will keep us alive as part of the deal.”
“I will never cooperate with Dean again,” said William. The tone of his voice was final.
“William,” said Jim, “please think it over. You don't actually have to help him at all. Tell he that you will help, then get help as soon as you can. No one would tell you it was dishonest to deceive him, think of what he has done to us. It is good and right to fight him back, even through deception.”
“I already told you, Jim. I will not even talk with him.”
“Do you want to die?”
“I would rather die with a clean conscience than live knowing I had helped that monster destroy more lives,” William shouted back. “I've already been tormented by knowing my dream has become a prison. All the good I've worked for he has turned to evil. I cannot trust him with anything, and refuse to give him another chance to take advantage of me.”
“What are you going to do then?”
The two men stood with less than two feet between them. After a moment of silence, William dropped his eyes, then looked out to sea. “I'm going to look for the horizon. If I have a million to one chance, I have to try. You taught me that. Perhaps Dean lied about the memory to get us to stop looking.”
“You know that isn't true.”
“I have to do something.”
“Call Dean.”
“I already told you—”
“I said, call Dean. If you really have to do something, do that. It the only chance we have.”
“I'm sorry Jim. I can't”
“You disgust me,” said Jim turning away. He stormed into the cabin and slammed the door.
William remained standing, looking at the cabin door, smoldering.
Elizabeth, who had shrunk away from the heated discussion and was sitting on the railing turned back to William. “I don't have any right to judge you, but do you know why Jim hates you?” she couldn't help the sarcasm that slid into her voice. “Because if you have your way, his children will grow up without a father.”
William exploded with furry, “I never trapped anyone in here! This is not the world I tried to make! I didn't even know Jim before his maniac brother threw him in here!” For the next few minutes the air was full of his angry shouts. Some were directed at Dean, some at Elizabeth, some at Jim for not understanding him, and others where at himself for not realizing what Dean was planning until it was too late. He paced up and down the deck, considered jumping overboard, in general acted like a caged tiger.
Elizabeth was surprised at her own calmness. She patiently waited for William to calm down. With Jim in the cabin there was no where William could go to be alone. Eventually he sat down on the far side of the boat looking out to sea.
“After we successfully made mind connections to mice, Dean and I went to a poor village on the other side of the world to test the equipment on humans,” said Elizabeth, coming up behind William. Caught up in his own grief, William was unable to form thoughts in a response to her sudden confession. “After we announced the price we were willing to pay for anyone willing to volunteer for an experiment we had a line of around a hundred people, but after the first few experiments they people of the village realized they wanted nothing to do with us. The first man's connection was only partial, and the input was a recording of a movie. Horrified at what he saw—we realized later it had been scrambled—he covered his eyes, but that only made it worse because the real world vanished, but the wild moving colors became more vibrant. He was lucky though, afterward everything was normal for him. In that village we left two men blind and a child who developed frequent seizures as a result of our failed mind connection, before the locals got together and drove us out at gun point.
“I was devastated. At first I refused to help Dean anymore. He kept preaching to me about the good of science and how although a few would be hurt until we got it right, the technology would bless millions in the future. Reluctantly I resumed helping him, but I never let him accept child subject.
“By the time we were back in the United States, I was having nightmares every night. If I had gone to the police then, I might have gotten away with only a little prison time fine, but I didn't. To cover our tracks we had to pretend it was a vacation. You can read the whole big lie on my blog, which is kind of funny because that is the only post I have made in the past year.
“Just when I had promised myself I would never get involved with that kind of thing again, Dean told me that Troy was going to discover our illegal experiments if we didn't do something to stop him. After that I just kind of became numb to it all, following Dean every instruction and praying no one would ever find out.” After her confession, Elizabeth fell quiet and watched the waves pass under the boat. The evening was coming on, and the wind was cool. Tears streamed down her face.
“Why did you tell me that?” asked William.
“I don't know. Maybe I just needed to say it to someone, and since Dean betrayed you too, I thought you might understand. He has ruined everything for me.”
“Do you really think I should pretend to help him?”
“It is better than giving up.”
They sat in silence for a long time.
“Fifty-two percent. You must have put a lot of hard drives into the computer.”
“Just eight.”
“That's it? What size?”
“I don't know. Large, but just ordinary one you could purchase on-line.”
“But that doesn't make sense. Even with eight commercial hard drives we would at least be around seventy or eighty percent. I can't believe my math is that far off.”
“Why does it matter?”
“Just. I wonder if maybe Dean is lying, trying to get us to stop looking for the horizon.”
“If you really think there might be a chance, I'll help you keep looking. I don't like who I have become, and if we never get out, I'll never have a chance to change.”
“And if we don't find the horizon by the time the week is up. I'll negotiate with Dean.”

Episode Twenty-Two: Guilt

2011-09-10T19:23:00.002-06:00

Troy fetched another bag of chips from the kitchen cupboard, plopped down into the large couch, and devoured it. Four empty cereal boxes leaned against each other on top of the fireplace, a fifth had fallen sometime earlier under the weight of the others. A pile of both chip bags and crumbs slumped next to the couch. Fifty-eight glasses—Troy had counted them—covered the small coffee table, most were empty, but some he hadn't bothered to finish before getting another one. An abandoned roast that was still mostly raw waited on the spigot to be cooked, but after the fire died, Troy hadn't bothered to get it going again.
After finishing the chips and adding the bag to the pile, he stood and paced the room. After a few minutes he returned to the kitchen and opened the cupboard again. A new bag of chips waited next to a box of raisins where he had already removed so many. Its appearance infuriated him. The billionaire took the bag and threw it out the window. He knew it was irrational, but he didn't care. As soon as he looked back there was another one in the cupboard. He tossed that one too. And the next.
Suddenly remembering he was being watched by cameras, he froze. Then began a hunt that lasted a few hours. He searched the rooms of the cabin one by one gathering all the cameras he could find and tossing them in the lake. Every camera time he pulled a camera off the wall and every time he threw one in the lake, his anger increased. By the time he couldn't find another camera he was storming through the lodge, ripping paintings off the walls and lights off the ceiling, wanting to spite Dean just one more time by destroying another camera.
Eventually his anger burnt itself out and he took an impromptu nap on a pile of furs. Waking up he just felt miserable. Whatever chance they had of getting out, he had ruined it. Over and over he wished he would have promised to tell Dean after he was out, but deep inside he knew it wouldn't have even mattered then. Dean wasn't going to let any of them out ever again. They were evidence that needed to be destroyed.
Seized by hunger he returned to the cupboard where he found yet another bag of chips waiting for him. Maddened by the sight of it, he flung open the cupboard door, breaking off one of its hinges, and hurled it out the window. The wooden door hung oddly on the remaining upper hinge, behind it was a bag of chips. The fire burning inside of him was suddenly doused by an idea. Here in the lodge's kitchen, the computer did more than just calculate physics: food appeared out of no where and the garbage can made anything thrown into it disappear. Perhaps, he thought, there was a way to mess things up and make the program crash.
Grabbing the perpetually empty trash can, he ran out to the lake and dipped it under the water. Immediately it began sucking up water like a pipe. Hoping it was at least forcing the computer to use some extra processing power he left underwater a few feet from shore. He knew it couldn't drain the lake, not with how much water came down the waterfall.
In the kitchen he attacked with the replenishing cupboards with an ax. After a time he grew a little more sensible and fetched a crowbar from the shed. Even after the wood had been removed, food appeared in midair where the shelves had been and began heaping up in great piles of boxes, bags, and haphazard piles, as new items appeared and immediately fell.
He fetched the trash can from the lake, pushed the top of the pile of chips, and place the trash can under the first new bag that appeared. Watching hundreds of bags of chips appear from nowhere and vanish into the oblivion, entertained him only a short while. His idea wasn't working.
The kitchen was now totally full of food and very difficult to move around in, so he took the trash can back to the lake where he thought it was probably doing more good. Then he went to each room on the second floor of the lodge and turned on every faucet in every bathroom and bathtub, plugging all the drains so they filled up and ran over. He took out a few light bulbs, stripped and crossed the electric wires, then turned the switches back on. All he got were a few sparks and the power died. Outside he found a fusebox. While looking for extra fuses in the shed he came across a box of signal flares and had a wonderful idea.
Three hours later, he dumped one last box of flares inside the lodge, splashed another bottle of kerosene around for good measure, and ate one last bag of chips. One the porch, where a trail of kerosene ended, he had placed a wax candle. Lighting the candle, he ran for the hill. Laying on top of the hill he watched as the candle slowly burnt down.
Whatever made the food appear in the kitchen, water appear in the pipes, electricity in the wires, and supplies in the shed had held up to Troy's manipulations so far, but this would far outdo anything William could have anticipated. Troy wondered what the program crashing would be like. Would a sort of black hole appear where the lodge had been and suck him up? Or would the whole program stop and everyone would wake up at the portal? What if it didn't end the program, just messed it up? Images of a strange convoluted world where he couldn't move and bags of chips appeared everywhere choking him suddenly filled his imagination, and Troy watched the last bit of candle burn away wondering if he would live to see the result.
The candle's flame reached the fuel, dashed into the house, and exploded into all directions in a deafening roar. Of the hundreds of flares Troy had tossed around earlier, only a small portion happened to be pointed at a window, but they the frequency of trails of smoke and flame that escaped the inferno trapped behind the wooden walls was enough to rival independence day fireworks. A huge pillar of smoke reared above the lodge. Flame poured from the windows.
Perhaps a flare burst through one of its windows, perhaps a flaming bit of wood landed on the roof, or the temperature might have just been raised high enough. The shed exploded into a ball of fire, sending a shock wave that would have thrown Troy off his feet if he had been standing. Only a moment passed before an equally loud and strong explosion rocked the ground again, and again, and again. Before his eyes, the lodge crumpled away from the blasts. Troy couldn't help but wonder if the bags of chips were still appearing in the inferno.
The anticipated crash in the program never came, but the blasts continued unmercifully destroying the peace of the valley. Troy guessed there was dynamite in the shed that, like the chips, flares, and other supplies, kept reappearing. Frustrated that the program ran on smoothly and unable to think of anything else that might possible add to the strain, Troy wandered into the woods looking for shelter.

Episode Twenty-One: Deception

2011-09-10T19:21:00.001-06:00

When Elizabeth awoke the next morning, she stayed rolled up in her blanket on the cabin floor pretending she was still asleep. All that day, William and Jim ignored her. They never entered the cabin and she never left it. Feeling betrayed by Elizabeth, William felt used. He had given her the benefit of the doubt and even allowed himself to believe that she was just another victim like they were, but now he new better. Both men wanted nothing more to do with her and would have set her on the first land they saw, but they didn't see land all day, and were unwilling to turn back: they had to keep pushing the horizon.
Elizabeth was miserable. Moving as little as possible, sleeping whenever her mind would calm down enough, then waking in trembles, she hated her predicament. Sometimes she would let herself fantasize about punishing them all, finding a way out of the Endless Frontier then trapping Dean in it before he could stop her, but the dream just made her feel worse. Over and over she now realized she had rationalized wrong into right and pretended that everything was okay, that she was innocent. William's sharp words shifted something deep inside her, forcing her to see who she had become.
Perhaps when Dean let her out she could run away from everything. She escape to a foreign country and live under an assumed name. She would get a common job, she had all the skills needed to be a secretary, and spend her free time working in a garden like her grandmother. Then, if she could only forget, life would be bearable again. Her grandmother had always had a quite smile and sure confidence about life, and Elizabeth envied her for it.
The day passed without incident, William and Jim took turns on watch and slept on the boats deck under the stars. Late that night, while William was on watch, he peered into the stars. To his surprise he saw the silhouette of a plane cross in front of the moon. The urge to signal it for help swelled with amazing force within him, but in only lasted a moment. The full moon and all the stars where just a illusions, and he—more than anyone—knew it. The distance involved made it totally impractical to actually simulate the moon and stars. The sky was simply an image, or more accurately a movie, added as a background to his vision. Somewhere in the many thousands of hours of film he had used to create a lifelike vision of the sky, a camera had recorded a plane crossing the sky. He thought of the thousands of errors like that he had found over and over again. Then he had a wonderful idea.

Please with himself, Dean threw the last few cardboard boxes into the trash. That should take them awhile, he thought. In the portal he looked at the four bodies that appeared to be sound asleep, each breathing slowly and rhythmically. William was the only one he cared about, but he cared about the others. That was the whole problem. He needed some way, any way, to get William to work for him.
The computer rang, signaling an incoming call. Hoping that it was William, finally giving in to his demands, Dean pushed the button on the keyboard to answer the call.
“Hello, Dean.” It was Elizabeth's voice.
“What do you want.”
“I need to talk fast. William and Jim are off the boat, but could be back any minute. This morning they finally told me what they are looking for. A few days before they were trapped in here, William was working on a papaya tree, but it still isn't finished. The last time he loaded the program with it, it crashed leaving a hole in the landscape. The hole has a funny effect on the physics that makes it is emitting light. They are on the boat sailing, hoping to find a tropical region where the computer will put a papaya tree and give them a way out. All we have to do to stop them is put them all to sleep again and I can remove the papaya entry from the landscape database. After we tell them what we've done they won't have a hope of getting out!”
Dean just smiled. “Elizabeth, do me a favor.”
“What?”
“Tell William the memory is at fifty two percent.” Before she could react, he pushed a button and closed the call.

“What did he say?” asked Jim. For the first time he was beginning to understand Elizabeth. After William explained the plan to him, he didn't think Elizabeth was willing to try it, but he'd been wrong. When William told her that if she was willing to help they had a good chance of getting out, she had accepted eagerly. Jim now realized that Elizabeth wasn't evil like he thought, just weak. Doing whatever she could to try and save herself.
She had looked pretty sorry that morning when she finally came out of the cabin after a whole day without food or water. Jim guessed she had cried most of the time. He still had a difficult time tolerating her, but after that phone call she had firmly committed herself to there side, and they needed all the help they could get.
If William's plan worked, Dean would reset the Endless Frontier again, giving them another full valley worth of landscape, and think he had them trapped. He would also probably pull Elizabeth out and hopefully this time she would really go to the police.
Elizabeth slowly put the phone down. She new something must be wrong. “I don't think he even listened to what I said. He just gave me a message for you William. He said the computer's memory is at fifty two percent. What does he mean by that?”
William and Jim both suddenly looked crestfallen. “It mean he knows,” said William, “and, we don't have time, even if he didn't.”

Episode Twenty: A Night Watch

2011-09-10T19:20:00.002-06:00

“Stratford,” Jim whispered forcefully, “your watch.”
Elizabeth raised a hand signaling she had heard. She had hardly gotten any sleep anyway with the rocking of the boat. Outside the air was cool, but wrapped in a blanket Elizabeth didn't mind it. She sat on the highest part of the boat, on top of the cabin next to the sail. That had become the official post of whoever was on watch. Most of the stars were blocked by clouds, and the moon was nowhere to be seen. Wind filled the open sail, pushing them forward and onward into the unknown.
She waited for about an hour, long enough that she was sure both Jim and William were asleep, then opened her phone and made a call to the portal. After ten beeps a recording of her own voice asked her to leave a message. “Dean, they don't trust me enough to give me any specifics, but whatever they are looking for is big. We are sailing on an ocean, and they constantly watch the horizons. They even put me on watch. William said as soon as I saw it, I would know that that was it. I'll try and call you tomorrow at about this same time.”
As she hung up the phone, William, who had been hiding in the doorway cabin, asked, “How's Dean?”
Startled by his voice, Elizabeth shoved the phone into a pocket and stood up in the same motion. “What are talking about?” she gasped, hoping he hadn't actually seen the phone and was asking the question rhetorically.
“I couldn't understand what you were saying, but the cellphone lit up your face,” he said. Unsure how to react, Elizabeth just froze. “We need to talk. Jim's a little uptight, so if you don't mind, we'll keep this quite and not wake him up.”
“What are you going to do to me.”
He held out his hand. “If you give me your phone, nothing right now.”
“And if I don't?”
“I don't want to hurt you, Elizabeth, but I won't let you ruin everything we are working for.”
She hesitated a minute then slapped the phone into his hand angrily. Dropping down to the deck again she put her back to him. After a minute she hear him sit down also. For along while they both sat there staring into the night.
“Is everything you said about Dean blackmailing you true?”
She didn't answer.
“Do you mind if I take a guess?”
She pulled the blanket closer around her, and glared away from him.
“I think what you told us is true. Except that instead of throwing you in here, Dean blackmailed you into spying on us. You hate Dean, but you don't know how to escape him.”
Elizabeth suddenly burst into tears. Everything seemed so hopeless. William's kindness to her only made it worse. She wanted him to be mean and cold like Jim. That way she could just spit in his face and hate everyone. “What do you want from me? I can't help you get out of here even if I wanted to. You can't trust me with your secrets. We both know that even though I don't have a phone right now, I could just drown myself and get another one.”
“You're right. I can't tell you our secret hope.” He paused. “I guess you just reminded me of someone, and I wanted to help you if I could.”
“I don't need help from you. Dean can't kill me, he can't even keep me in here for any longer than a week or so. Too many people know we work together. If I disappear, the police would investigate him.”
“Will you go to the police?”
“I can't, William, I'm just as guilty as he is. I don't want to live the rest of my life in prison.”
“Is life under Dean's hand any better?”
She couldn't respond. His suggestion that her life was already wore than prison made her angry, but she knew he was right.
“Sorry,” he said. “I shouldn't have said that. I guess I'm just wish you were on our side.” He stood up to leave.
“William,” she said, holding him back. “I won't let Dean kill you, any of you.”
Something in him snapped. “You have already let him kill all of us!” he exploded.
“What?”
“The only person I care about in the world is dead to me, and I am dead to her because of the Endless Fronter. I will never be able to marry Sarah. Never even be able to say goodbye.”
Every word struck Elizabeth's soul like a physical blow.
“Do you know why Jim hates you? Because if you get your way, his children are going to grow up without a father. He knows that right now his wife is crying herself to sleep ever night for worry over him, wondering what possibly could have happened to him. Troy doesn't know that you are in here, but I'm sure he feels the same way. He is certain his business if floundering without him. Don't you see Elizabeth, being trapped in here is the same as being dead.”
The cabin's door opened and Dean stepped out. “What is going on up here?”
Elizabeth was slumped on the ground with William standing menacingly over her. “Nothing,” said William hopping down to the main deck. “You were right though. She's nothing but a spy.”

Episode Nineteen: Interrogation

2011-09-10T19:14:00.004-06:00

Elizabeth struggled to keep upright in the canoe the whole trip downstream to the ocean. The darkness hid sandbanks, rocks, and logs that each in their turn battered the small vessel. She arrived at the shore cold, wet, and bruised. Not wanting to face the awkward situation of waking up Jim and William who must be on the boat tied to the dock, she lay down on some grass above the sand to try and get some sleep. Luckily she had thought to put the supplies she carried in a large plastic bag; the blanket was still dry. Exhausted, she quickly fell into a sound sleep.

The morning sun rising beyond the horizon to the east woke her, but she didn't care to get up. When she heard footsteps coming toward her from the beach, she sighed. She thought she probably would have been happier if they had just left without her. That way she could forget about having to spy on them.

“Good morning Elizabeth.” It was William's voice. “Breakfast is ready on board. We'd like to get an early start, so we'll eat just after we leave dock.” Elizabeth ignored him. After some silence William tried again, “Are you okay?”

“No,” she snarled unable to help herself. “I'm stuck in this stupid wilderness waiting to be killed. You don't trust me a bit, but frankly I don't blame you. I'm a wretched horrible person, so just leave me alone. You don't want me along anyway.” She sat up, but only looked at William's feet.

“Jim doesn't trust you,” he said squatting down to catch her eyes. “I haven't decided yet. I want you to join us for a while before I cast judgment. Last night Jim tried to convince me that you're spying for Dean.” He smiled. “But I kind of doubt that a spy would try and get us to leave her.” When Elizabeth didn't reply he added “See you on the boat,” and walked away.

Riding in the boat seemed surreal to Elizabeth. Sailing on a digital ocean in a digital boat with a digital body and being companions with men whom she had held captive for two months, almost felt like a weekend vacation. The sky and water were both clear. She didn't eat very much of the breakfast that William had prepared. Jim and he were talking at the front of the boat. It looked to her like Jim gave William some tips on how to sail. After a while Jim went down into the boats cabin, and William joined her at the back of the boat.

“We're headed for that small island out there,” he said.

“Is that where whatever you are looking for is?” she asked.

“No. We'll just stop there to talk. Jim and I aren't sure where you and Dean placed the cameras and we want to be sure and not have Dean watching when we talk to you. This boat was on the very edge of the preprogrammed valley. We've decided not to talk about anything important while were on it.”

“I can promise you there aren't any cameras here. We only put them in at the lodge.”

“We'll hopefully you understand why we can't trust you yet.”

“Personally, I don't understand why you let me join you at all,” she said, making William laugh.

The sandy island didn't have anywhere that the boat could come right up to shore, so they had to get out in waist deep water. Once on the shore, Jim lead them to the far side of a small clump of trees that grew in the center of the island. He hadn't yet said a word to Elizabeth and she could tell that William's kindness to her bothered him. The threesome stood silent for a moment, William looking at Jim with a this-was-your-idea look on his face.

“Well,” said Jim, turning toward Elizabeth, “What do you have to say for yourself.”

The abruptness of his manner through Elizabeth off guard. Conflicting emotions swelled up in her, threatening to cause her to burst into tears, but she pushed them back. “When Dean hired me, I thought I was getting an honest job. The chance of a lifetime to work with an expert in the field on a cutting edge project. What I didn't know was that Dean doesn't care about anything other than making a name for himself. When some legal difficulties came up, he sidestepped them at the expense of helpless people. At first I reasoned that some sacrifices needed to be made for the progress of science, but eventually I went along because I knew I was just as guilty as he was.

“When he talked to me about trapping you and Mr. Lombardi in the Endless Frontier, I refused. Then he admitted because he had spent Mr. Lombardi's money illegally, he was sure that eventually he would realize what we had done and we would both end up in jail. Feeling trapped and helpless I agreed. I see now that it just made things worse.

“Things were going fine, until the card Mr. Lombardi gave to Dean stopped working. Then when we tried to set up another Endless Frontier nothing we could do could get it to work. Then yesterday, when you refused to help Dean, I was surprised about his treat to kill you. I faced him when he came out, so he turned on me just like he did on you, Jim. Sent me into this virtual prison. I don't know why he didn't just kill me then. I'm just as much evidence as the rest of you. If we don't somehow stop him he will kill us all next week.”

“How do we know you aren't just spying for Dean?” said Jim. “He knows that we are looking for something. Perhaps he is afraid our plot will work.”

“If he were really afraid, he would kill you now,” she said. “The only one he wants alive is William.”

“He know that if he killed any of us, William would never work with him,” snapped Jim.

“Hold it you two,” said William, stepping between them. “Elizabeth, you know that we can't trust you. Jim, you know that, even if she is telling the truth, there is nothing she could say right now that wold give us proof, so lets drop that subject.”

Jim glared at both of them, but didn't say anything.

“Elizabeth,” continued William, “I need to know what changes you made to the Endless Frontier program.”

“A few days before the first run, I changed the function that triggers when the virtual body dies. After closing the virtual simulation, a fresh one now starts without disconnecting the mind connection. Two days ago, while you were all drugged I loaded a modified file of the origin valley that has additional cameras in and around the lodge. Other than that I haven't changed a thing, and Dean doesn't know enough about programming to have done anything without me.”

Jim and William looked at each other, trying to communicate without words. “Let's talk alone in a minute,” William said to dean. Then turning to Elizabeth he said, “If what you said is the truth, its good news. Yesterday you mentioned wanting to help us. The thing we are looking for requires constant vigilance. From here on out we need someone constantly scanning the horizon. We had originally planed on the two of us taking shifts, but we would appreciate it if you took one.”

“What will I be looking for,” asked Elizabeth.

“William, don't you dare tell her,” said Jim. “As soon as she knows she'll call Dean.”

“Don't worry, Jim” said William, “I won't give it away. I'll just say this. When you see it, Elizabeth, you'll know.”

Episode Eighteen: Bartering

2011-09-10T19:14:00.000-06:00

On sandy beach the north side of lake, Troy watched the flames of his fire dance in the wind. The moon added an eerie light to his already depressed mood; its rays reflecting off the lake's shifting surface. The beginnings of a gale added its howling to the waterfalls deafening roar. Troy Lombardi, unmoved by either the beautiful sight or the awful din, sat almost motionless on a piece of driftwood, facing the fire, stroking the stubble on his chin.
He didn't know much about computers and how they worked, and he had never filled up the in-box on his e-mail account. The simple PC in his office told him he could play music for a month strait without hearing the same song twice. A company he started had backed up most of the web with a computer that didn't even take up half of a warehouse.
William should have accepted Deans offer. They desperately needed someone on the outside, even if he was a prisoner. On the outside there was a least a hope of escape. By staying here, William sentenced them all to death, unless by some miracle they actually found the horizon. Even that was sketchy; Death had failed to get them out, would the horizon be any better?
Mr. Lombardi resumed pacing. His feet followed the trail they had left in the sand earlier, circling around the fire and along the base of the cliff then back along the shore. There had to be another solution.
Once during the night, he lay down trying to get some sleep, but his mind would not let his body rest.
When the sun came over the mountains he shouldered his pack and climbed the familiar stairs. Familiar stairs that were leading him to an unfamiliar place. A void that was yet to be filled. The grasslands of a few weeks past could be a jungle, a desert, or a glacier field. What land the computer generated didn't matter: only seeing it mattered, ensuring that computer was forced to use a little more of its vast memory.
How many horizons did they have to cross in the short time they had before Dean killed them? Maybe if they had another month, Troy admitted, they might make it, but six days?
As he climbed he stone stairs, Troy looked out over the tranquil lake on his left, the solid wall of the cliff on his right.
As he neared the top he stopped. Looking up he saw a tuft of grass clinging to the edge of the shear drop silhouetted against the clear blue sky. If those green stalks could look toward the north, he wondered, what would they see? From their vantage, those weeds could peer into the unfilled void, the escape that continually fled before his own eyes.
Sighing heavily Troy turned around and sat on a stair. His hand strayed to the cell phone still on his belt. It was his only link to the world, and it only connected to one person. He toyed with it, opening and closing it, turning it around in his hand. All the while his eyes were focus on the barely discernible rooftop of the lodge.
An idea that had been slowly forming ever since he learned Dean was running out of money began to clarify in his mind. He knew it was a long shot, but he was tired of chasing the horizon. He would tackle the problem his way.
Standing he began walking down the stairs, back to the lodge and away from the horizon. Later as the sun passed its zenith and began to descend in the sky; Troy, who was cruising across the lake, played with words, rehearsing in his mind different turns the coming conversation could take.
Once he reached the Lodge he went straight to his room and pulled a suit out of the closet. After dressing, he looked for one of the hidden cameras, finding one was much easier than he thought. He had only mildly examined his room before noticing a small white box the same color as the wall paint hanging just above a large painting. Standing on a chair he examined it closely and decided it was indeed a camera.
The multi-billionaire pushed the chair into the center of the cameras view and took a seat. In one swift motion he opened the cell phone, pressed the send button, and lifted it to his ear. The phone rang. Once—twice—a third time. Slightly impatient, Troy adjusted himself in the chair. After a counting over a dozen rings he hung up.
Not allowing himself to be disturbed by the minor set back, he found paper and wrote a note.

Dr. Dean Senoma,
I will give you $300,000,000 in return for my freedom. My plan ensures the exchange will happen with minor risk for both of us. Call me to work out the details.
Troy S. Lombardi

After placing the note on the chair, he pushed away his nervousness by visiting the kitchen. He spent the afternoon wandering around the lodge. In a half hour he found around thirty different cameras, most mounted on the walls like the one in his bedroom. He placed a few more copies of the note in front of cameras, so that Dean would see it even if he didn’t check them all.
Troy was still in the business suit when Dean called, sitting in front of the great fireplace trying to decide if it was cool enough to merit a fire.
Dean spoke quickly and with only a hint of interest. “I saw your message. What do you have to say to me?”
The suddenness of the question caught Mr. Lombardi off guard, but his rehearsed words were ready and he recovered quickly. He explained to a seemingly dead line how he had many bank accounts and other assets under assumed names worth about three hundred million dollars. Because he had been unable to keep track of all the account numbers and passwords he had created a personal website with a very strong encryption that contained all the information needed to access the money.
He told Dean that after he took him out of The Endless Frontier and transported him—even if it had to be in the trunk of a car—to a remote wilderness area, then he would tell him the URL and password to that website. While he was finding his way back to civilization, Dean could get all the money and use it to buy a new identity and cover his tracks.
By the end of this explanation, Troy wasn’t sure if Dean was still listening on the other end of the line.
After a moment of silence, Dean said, “You are a desperate man. How do I know you aren’t just lying to me about the money?”
A familiar excitement rose in Troy’s chest. He had expected the question and immediately responded. “Because if I am lying you can kill me. You will know where you dropped me off and where to find me. Especially if you drop me off somewhere without much cover.”
Troy knew it was a weak answer, but he had been able to seal business deals with less to work on. The wooden armrests of the chair he sat in were slick from his shiny palms.
“No,” said Dean, “That isn’t good enough. There are too many ways it could go wrong. Prove to me that I can trust you—tell me what William is looking for.”

Episode Seventeen: An Unexpected Meeting

2010-02-08T23:58:00.002-07:00

     Elizabeth's shoulders shuddered with the force of her repeated sobs. She pulled her knees up to her chest and let the tears flow freely. The computer had lengthened her deep brown hair, accurately duplicating the natural gentle waves. The added weight and feel of hair on her shoulders remind her of college days before she had cropped it short. But instead of feeling joy at the happy memories she was overwhelmed with pain.
   The faces she had tried to banish from her mind slowly crept from the dark corners of her mind and paraded before her: eyes without sight that search in vain seeing nothing, limbs that twitched and stabbed bereft of human control, and wide-eyed children who ran from her in fear. These and a host of others danced around the fallen citadel of her mind filling her empty soul with horror.
   In time the shadows faded, and her tears dried, leaving only husk of a heart remaining. Although the day was not cold, she lay spread eagle eager to feel the warmth of the sun. She lay there, no longer caring what happened to her.
   She was still there almost an hour later when William and Jim saw her from their canoes. They came after paying a silent visit to the lodge to get a some supplies. She didn't stir as they landed the canoes and approached her.
    When they stood at the edge of the origin William called out, “Miss Stratford, what are you doing here?”
   She lifted her head up for a moment to look at them, then resumed her spread eagle position. “Dean was afraid I was going to call the cops on him.”
    When she didn't bother explaining William walked over to her. His shadow fell on her eyes getting her attention. “Were you going to? Call the cops I mean.”
    Elizabeth put her arm over her eyes after glancing at him. “I wish I'd never seen the man. I hate him. But it doesn't matter now. I'm stuck here just like the rest of you. Without me Dean will have to do all the feeding and monitoring himself. He hates that kind of work. I don't think it will take him very long to decided to kill us.”
   “Why didn't you go to the police if you hate him?” asked Jim in a hard voice.
   Elizabeth sat up while she answered him, but kept her eyes lowered avoiding eye contact.
   “Blackmail—and no I won't tell you what he has on me. Things got out of control so quickly I didn't know what to do. At first I told him I wouldn't do it, but I was afraid. I agreed when he promised we wouldn't kill you, Mr. Lombardi. I almost went to the police when he captured you, Jim. But by then it was to late for me. No, I can't go to the police.”
   She closed her eyes, ran her fingers down through her hair and took a deep breath. When she again spoke it was through barred teeth. “If you laugh at me and spit in my face I'd understand. William you were right. There are hidden cameras all over the lodge. Dean and I heard what little you three said before going out on the lake. Dean knows you are looking for something, but he doesn't think you can do it in a week. If there is any change of finding whatever it is and getting out of here I am willing to help.”
   “Get yourself lost. Wander around out in the wilderness. That's all the help you can be to us,” said Jim.
   William gave Jim a cool look, then turned back to Elizabeth, “Give us a moment please.” He lead Jim a short ways away where they had a short but intense conversation. Elizabeth couldn't understand what they were saying, but it was obvious that Jim wanted nothing to do with her. When they were done talking Jim headed strait for his canoe.
   “You can come with us if you want, at least for a while,” William told her, “Jim and I want to discuss a few things, but would rather wait till we are sure that Dean isn't watching. You can come with us at least until we get out where the landscape is random and can't have hidden cameras. We'll talk it over once we get there. There are more canoes at the lodge. Get one and just head down stream.” Without waiting for a response he turned and left.
   Elizabeth could feel Dean's eyes on her as she gathered food and a few extra sets of cloths from the lodge. She knew that even if he wasn't watching right then that he would check the recordings. Before she left she looked up at one of the corners where she knew a camera was hiding.
    “They haven't told me anything yet, but they are going to let me travel with them. I'll hide my phone so they think I am on there side, but I'll call you when they spill the beans.”
   Even as she said them the words left a sour taste in her mouth. She left the lodge as quickly as possible.

Episode Sixteen: Disagreement and Division

2010-01-25T23:51:00.000-07:00

    While they were pushing the canoes into the lake Jim happened to see a pebble with a thin white band around it. He paused for a moment, pocketed it, then continued. Only a few minutes earlier Troy had shook him awake at the origin. His limbs and head were slightly sore from sleeping on the stone. He had quickly guessed that he was Troy Lombardi the famous billionaire, but he had been surprised at the man. Troy had been just as confused as he about how and why they awoke at the origin. He expected a confident man who never let himself loose control, but Troy just seemed weary.
    After a short conversation they agreed that Dean had probably done something to them and sent them back to the origin. It was an odd conclusion because they had no idea why Dean would act that way. Troy said he expected Dean to kill them any minute. Jim wondered if Dean knew about the horizon and sent them back to the origin to prevent them from finding it.
    When William told them that Dean had been to the lodge Jim wished he had been able to see him. There was still a part of him that wanted to believe Dean was somehow innocent. He felt that if he could just talk to him, maybe he could persuade him to give it all up. Another, more cynical, part of his mind reminded him that that is exactly what he had tried to do when Dean turned on him.
    The lake was perfectly still. The only ripples came from their paddling.   When William judged they were far enough away he turned and stopped his canoe with a few powerful strokes.
    “Dean reset the program because he wanted to talk to me. He can't get the program to work on any other computer because I altered the one we are running on now. He offered to set me free, if I will help him with the computer. I told him, no.”
    “What!” cried Troy, “you should have agreed. If you can get back into the real world you'd have a real chance at escape! You fool we never really had that big of a chance to escape and now that Dean reset the program we have to start all over, we don't even know how big the memory of the computer is. It could take us years to fill it up.”
    “Dean doesn't know it, but he actually helped us. At first I thought he just drugged me to pull me out of the program so he could put me back at the Origin where he reach me, but he reset everything; He had to to put the cameras in. That is why he drugged both of you.”
    Troy looked ready to give a heated reply, but Jim spoke first.
    “How does that help us?”
    “When the program resets it opens up a new file. The old one is still there in the memory, unless Dean deleted it manually. I don't think he even knows it is there. Now the horizon is close to us again, we didn't lose anything at all. In fact we gained this entire valley. But—well, it isn't quite as good as it sounds. If I won't help him Dean wants to have another computer expert examine the computer. But he can't have us lying around. If I don't help he said he'd kill us to get us out of the way. He said I have a week to change my mind.”
    For the past few weeks Jim the idea of death had flirted in and out of Jim's mind. He almost couldn't grasp the idea that Dean might kill him, but his brotherly vision of Dean was overshadowed now by one of a thief who had taken everything from him. Hearing a specific date of when Dean would complete the theft and take their lives kindled a new fear in Jim's heart. The threat of death by Dean's hand had never felt real when it was ambiguously in the future.
    “All the more reason to agree to help him,” said Troy, If you stay here it will be suicide. More than suicide: murder. Your life isn't the only one at stake. Lets go back to the lodge and speak to Dean right now. The sooner the better. You'll probably have a chance to bolt within a week, there is no reason to stay here chasing the horizon.”
    “I'm sorry Mr. Lombardi. I won't help him. I still believe we have a chance of getting out on our own.”
    “Suppose we do try. We'll give it a good effort. And if we fail and Dean gives you the chance to leave again will you agree then?”
    “I don't know.”
    “For heaven's sake why not?”
    “Suppose I can't escape. Suppose I let Dean scare me into helping him. How many people we end up trapped like us. Every night I lie awake and think of the horrible things Dean might do. I was so relieved when I found out that he hasn't figured out how to work it yet. I pray he never finds out, and I cannot help him. I would rather the three of us die, than hundreds suffer because of me.”
    Troy obviously disagreed and for a moment Jim thought he would launch into argument again. Instead he thrust his paddle deep in the water and moved away, heading north toward the waterfall. He never looked back.
    William slouched on the small seat as he watched Troy paddle away from them. He dropped his face in his hands and cried. Jim wished he could give him an encouraging pat on the back, but the canoes prevented that. When a few minutes had passed and William regained control of himself Jim spoke.
    “You are a good man, William. If we die, It won't be your fault. I would rather die here with you as a good friend than wait in here for years wondering what had become of you in Dean's control. Even if you agreed to help him, Dean wouldn't really let you go free. He would just lock you up somewhere else. You did the right thing.”
    “Thanks. We better get going. We only have a week, every minute counts.”
    “Well, it looks like Troy is headed north again. I guess I'll go east again. Maybe it'll be easier this time. Less trees would be nice.”
    “I don't want to go alone again. Why don't you come with me. I tried to sail the boat by myself, but it didn't work very well. I think we could go faster together on the boat than by ourselves.”
    Jim smiled, “Sounds great to me.”

Episode Fifteen: The Spy

2010-01-18T23:55:00.001-07:00

"Elizabeth," said William "I know that you can hear me."
    Elizabeth looked over her shoulder at Dean, who was just waking up, then back at William on the screen.
    "You heard Dean. You can hear me." William eyes wandered looking around the room not sure in which direction to speak.
    "If there is any mercy in you, please help us. I know that I am just a computer nerd who the world will hardly miss, but Jim is a family man. His kids wont have a father unless you help him. Elizabeth, please--"
    Dean pulled his hand back from the keyboard. "I don't think we have to worry," said Dean. "He'll think about dieing for a week and change his mind. He'll help us."
    "You don't really plan to kill them do you?" asked Elizabeth.
    "If he refuses our only other choice is prison: life sentences most likely. I'm not willing to do that. Don't worry, Miss Stratford, he'll come to his senses. He's not the kind of man to be a martyr. He won't like it, but he'll help us."
    "He smiled when his back was turned to you. I watched him hide it before turning back to you. I don't think he's as desperate as he acted. What if he has a plan to get out?"
    Dean turned and looked at Mr. Kilgore's body, sound asleep on the bed where he had spent the last two months. He stepped over to it and put one hand on the bed post.
    “The only way for the brain connection to terminate is if the computer stops sending it information, and there is no way to stop the program from the inside. If there was a way out, he would have done it by now. Turn the display back on, I'm curious what Mr. Kilgore will tell the other two.”
    Elizabeth obediently activated the camera.

    “—every word you are saying!” William voice was both loud and pleading. He stood up quickly and walked over to where Troy Lombardi stood in the doorway.
    Troy spoke in a soft whisper, “Is he here, in the lodge?”
    Jim, who was behind Troy, stepped in and cautiously looked around.
    “Not anymore, but there is some kind of hidden microphone or something. I'll explain what I know, but not here. Not anywhere close by, there could be dozens of hidden microphones all over this valley. We'll go out on the lake. There won't be any microphones out there.”
    Elizabeth changed from camera to camera as the three men made their silent way through the lodge and out the back. From the camera in the shed, Dean and she watched as they silently searched for microphones in the canoes before pulling them out. When they were out of hearing range and could only be seen by a camera mounted on the top of the lodge Dean broke the silence.
    “Bring up the recording of what Troy said before you turned the screen on.”
    They watched William finish his plea to Elizabeth. Afterword he sat down and appeared to be in deep thought. From another camera they watched as Jim and Troy came over the hill toward the lodge.
    “You should have put a few cameras over by the origin,” muttered Dean. Elizabeth wanted to mention that he had chosen the locations for the cameras—she had just put the code in for them—but didn't want to worsen Dean's already sour mood.
    They were able to hear a few snippets of their conversation, but it wasn't important. Jim was telling Troy the story of when Dean had first asked for help then turned on him.
    Dean sat up a little straighter and leaned forward when Troy opened the front door.
    “Hey, William, whats going on here did you find . . .” the rest of Troy words were covered by William's exclamation.
    “STOP! Don't say another word. Dean can hear every word you are saying!”
    A strange chill trickled up Elizabeth's spine. She switched the display to live time and looked for a moment at the three men, three small dots out in the middle of the lake. “They haven't given up yet. They still hope to escape.”
    “I don't think there is any real cause for alarm. We reset the program to get them back to the Lodge and install the cameras.   Whatever they were doing was completely undone. If they couldn't do it in two months, they won't be able to do it in single week.”
    “William seems to think otherwise, and he is the only one who really understands the program. And they are going to be in there for a lot longer than a week. Our agreement was to let them die naturally.”
    Dean gave her a long hard look. “Well if there is any hope of escape, we can't let them continue to try. I don't want to kill them any more than you, but were running out of options.   We have no idea what they are planning. We can only observe them when they are near the lodge, which is of no use now because they know about it. If you think William is so confident, wouldn't be better to just kill them now?”
    “NO!” Elizabeth jerked involuntarily.
    Dean eyed her coolly. “I'll make a deal with you. I'll put you in the Endless Frontier with them. You can tell them I turned on you when you didn't want to kill them. It almost won't even be a lie. Once they think you are on their side they will tell you their plans. Then you call me and I'll pull you out. We'll change the program to prevent them from ever getting out and William will be forced to help us. Jim and Troy can live happily ever after in the Endless Frontier.”
    Elizabeth couldn't respond. Her throat had constricted with fear. Dean stood and towered over her waiting for a reply. Without a word and under his gaze, she walked over to an empty bed and lay down. A few moments later she fell down weeping on the red marble of the Origin.

Episode Fourteen: An Offer and Threat

2010-01-11T23:50:00.003-07:00

    William lay destitute on the floor of a dim, barren shack. With all his might he strained to rise, but only succeeded in getting to his knees. His skin draped over bone, the muscle all but gone. Slowly, painfully he crawled toward the open door. Lumps of dirt gritted against his raw knees as he dragged them forward.
    Through the door he could see a carefully manicured lawn and fruit bearing trees. From the smell on wind he knew that somewhere nearby meat was being cooked over a fire. Hunger gnawed in his belly. Slowly he managed to make his way across the room and to the opening.
    To his horror a web of fine threads covered the doorway. In his normal strength he would have easily ripped them aside. Using a feeble hand he pushed against the treads and immediately knew it was hopeless.
    “Help,” he whispered through a dry throat. “Help me.”
    A glimmer of hope was born in his heart when he saw the figure of a man approach, only to die as he recognized the face.
    “William,” said Dean. “I need your help.”
    Everything lost its clarity as William's fuzzy mind tried to understand what Dean had said.
    “No,” said William, his voice suddenly strong. “Not you.” the grimly floor swirled up mixing with the wooden walls till it was all an unrecognizable blur. Suddenly he was no longer crawling on hard dirt, but laying on something soft and warm.
    “I'm sorry William. I was wrong to bring you into this, but I see that now. I want to take you out of this place,” said Dean.
    As the dream faded William recognized it for what it was. Immediately he snapped awake, sat up and looked around. He was on a couch in the large lounge area of the lodge, still inside the Endless Frontier. On a plush chair across from him sat Dean Senoma.
    “What are you doing here,” William snapped.
    “I've come to ask for your forgiveness,” said Dean. He bowed his head and ran a hand through his hair. “I don't know everything that has happened to you in here, but I imagine it has been less than pleasant. You are a man used to modern comforts exiled to a barren world of your own making. I am here to change that, to give you the freedom you deserve.”
    Dean's swift change from silent captor to repentant friend confused William. He wanted to believe it, but somehow could not. “No you're not. If you wanted me to be free you would just turn off your machine. Yet here we are.” He raised his hands and gestured at their surroundings. “I've suffered enough at your hands. Don't mock me with false hope.” He stood up intending to walk out of the room. He stopped suddenly after only a few steps away from the couch. The room was impeccable. The furniture was positioned exactly as he programed it in. There wasn't a speck of dirt on the floor or smear on the windows.
    “I wish it was that simple,” said Dean. “Please just listen to me, I promise I'll explain.”
    Unable to help himself William smiled for a moment. He waited till he gained control of his expression and returned it to angry before turning to face Dean, giving him a cool glare.
    “I made a mistake when I trapped you in here,” said Dean. “I see now that I was too proud. I thought the Endless Frontier rightly belonged to me and no one else. The greatness of my accomplishments seemed to justify me in securing my right to claim them, but now I see I was wrong. The Endless Frontier isn't only mine. It is ours. You and I.
    “After leaving you here, I began work at another location to set up another Endless Frontier. My plan was to secure the patents and sell the technology, but I needed a working demonstration model first.   No matter what we did, we couldn't get your program to run. My assistant Miss Stratford made the discovery that you altered this computer and all your programs utilize the improvements you made to handle the vast amounts of information and processing needed to run this incredible program.
    “Come back with me to real world and we can do it together. In a few months we will earn enough money to fund our own research programs and continue doing the things we love.”
    William almost said yes. He was sick and tired of the Endless Frontier and desperate to get out. But not as desperate as he had been a few days ago, and the more he thought about accepting Dean's offer the more problems he saw.
    “What about Troy and Jim?” he asked.
    Dean paused calculating his words carefully, “I want to let them go free, but there would be a lot of complications. They can remain here. This is what Mr. Lombardi wanted anyway, to live on the Endless Frontier. I'm sure Jim will get along fine too.”
    Suddenly everything became clear in William's mind. “You only regret sending me in here because now you realize you need my technology. You're not going to let me go free. You want me to be your partner in crime. I'll never help you Mr. Senoma. You turned my dream into a nightmare. Now you are asking me to abandon my friends. How many others will you toss into this prison just to suit your needs.” As he spoke he moved closer and closer to Dean and raised his voice.
    Mr. Senoma's face had turned stone cold. “Let me make myself perfectly clear. I need your technology. There are two ways for me to get it. First, you could come with me and provide me with it. I will reward you fairly, within reason, so I don't end up with legal difficulties. Second, I can hire a computer scientist much like yourself to examine this computer you have made and he will provide me with the technology. That means turning the computer off and destroying all evidence of this strange situation. And you, Mr. Kilgore, are part of that evidence.”
    “I will never help you.”
    “I'll give you one week to change your mind.”
    “You have my answer now.”
    “I will visit you again in one week.” Dean opened his phone, but before he could say anything William grabbed the phone and threw it across the room.
    “Miss Stratford,” said Dean calmly, “get me out of here.”
    The next moment Dean's clothing dropped into the chair, and Dean was gone.

Episode Thirteen: Unnatural Sleep

2009-12-28T23:46:00.000-07:00

    Sailing was much more difficult than William thought it would be. After three days on the boat he could still see the shore.   He pulled the sail around with the various ropes and tried to head out to sea, but never seemed to go quite where he expected. Sudden changes in the wind often turned him back, or sent him wildly off to one side.
    He had carefully copied the boat exactly from professional blueprints into the computer. Twenty feet long with a small cabin interior and a deep keel, it was a fine ship. He had tried to select a ship that could be maintained by one, but would also be comfortable for three or four.
    Shortly after a meager lunch, he stood behind the wheel and fought the wind. A strange weariness suddenly overcame him. He clenched the wheel for support. He was able to resist for only a few moments before he fell to the floor. His hands turning the wheel and sail amiss. He lay silently eyes closed on the heaving deck. His boat continued to push through the water, unguided.

    Troy Lombardi left the canoe on the shore of the lake reluctantly. It was a beautiful morning. He carried a large pack. The ripples left by the canoe drifted slowly away on the still surface of the lake. He thought of the canoe he left at the waterfall at the beginning of his first journey. It was still up on the shore where he had stowed it. There weren't even any animals to disturb it.
    The wilderness he had so long enjoyed seemed more foreboding now.
    He had enjoyed the few days of rest he had allowed himself: plenty of food, comfortable furniture, and a bed to sleep in. William must have done some programing magic with the food stores there. All the cupboards were always full, even after William had lived there a month. Every morning started with a hot shower and every evening he warm fire in the hearth.
    Green blades of grass brushed he hand dampening it with dew as he walked toward the mountains. The peak that he was headed toward looked barren and difficult to climb, but it stood higher than the other peaks. To his left a canyon cut deep back into the mountains. An ordinary traveler would have taken that route. Not nearly as steep and less exposed to the weather.
    It took him most of the morning to reach the foot hills. He wasn't excited to climb the barren rock under the beating sun and took his time amid the pleasant meadows and grass covered hills.
    Around noon he took a short rest for lunch at the base of the mountain, then began to ascend. Shorty after he resumed his journey, exhaustion filled his being. Without a second thought he dropped into the grass beneath a large tree and fell into a deep sleep.

    “Two down, one to go” said Dean. He handed an empty syringe to Miss Stratford. Miss Stratford only nodded and handed him the third and final syringe.

    Trees, trees, trees. Jim was sick of trees. He saw less land here than he did in the canyon. After about a hundred feet or so his vision was a solid wall of trees, and it had been that way for days. Under normal circumstances he would have through enjoyed the forest.     The trees had large trunks and because all the light was blocked by great leaves there was no shrubbery to impede travel.
    Jim had always relied on the sun to keep himself oriented, but now he often pulled out the compass to make sure he wasn't going in circles. For the first two days he moved consistently east, but once on the third day he was surprised to see that he was headed northwest. After that he carried the compass in his hand and looked at it frequently.
    Early one morning he stopped in his eastward journey. For the last few days he had made very little progress in land generation and he had a plan to change that. Where he stopped there was a large tree. Judging by the size of the truck he hoped it poked up above the canopy where he could see the roof of the forest. Many vines hung from the tree.
    He had to climb a vine strait up the first twenty feet to reach the lowest branch. All morning he slowly worked his way up the great tree.
    Soon he was high enough that a fall meant certain death, but he was determined to get above the other trees before turning back. He needed to see more land.
    When lunch time came he regretted leaving all his food at the base of the tree, but was able to find a few figs. He could see sunlight streaming down through a ceiling of leaves not to far above him. The truck of the tree continued upward through them.
    Using a mixture of vines and branches he continued upward. Unexpectedly his eyelids became heavy. Fearing what could happen if he fell asleep in the tree he quickly resumed climbing. His limbs seemed to be filled with lead. By focusing solely on one motion at a time he pulled himself up a vine while walking up the trunk with his feet.
    When his head was just below the leaves his feet slipped off the tree. He hung griping the vine legs hanging limply below.   This can't be happening, he thought. Where has all my strength gone? Using up the last of his energy in a quick burst he climbed strait up the vine. He head exploded into sunlight, and he glimpsed miles of treetops stretching off into the distance before he hands slipped off the vine. His eyes closed as he fell. The impact of many branches didn't awaken him from deep sleep.

    Dean lay on one of the empty beds. “Miss Stratford, I'm ready,” he said. “Send me in.”

Episode Twelve: A Reason to Live

2009-12-21T12:00:00.000-07:00

   “You know, William, this world you have created really is amazing, but there is something missing. Something I hoped to find.”
   Troy and William were watching the sunset from the lodges balcony. They sat at a table covered in remnants of a large dinner. Troy had his feet propped up on the table.
   “I never thought it would become a prison. I sorry things happened this way,” said William.
   “No, its not that. When I was climbing the stairs up the cliff became glad to be stuck here. I was off on an adventure with no time time limit. Finding time to explore had been one of my biggest worries. But being trapped, I had all the time I wanted. That feeling only lasted a few days. After that I was miserable. At first I blamed it on the lack of any animals.”
   “That is my fault. I haven't figured out how to make anything with a brain. They all just fall over dead when the program starts. So I left them out of this test run. I was hoping to work with Dean on it. He understands brains a lot better than I do.”
   Troy laughed. “I never thought I would miss flies and ants, but even they would be nice to have around. But it is more than that. I don't even know what I am looking for.”
   “At least you're looking.”
   Troy wasn't sure what William meant by that, so he just remained quiet.
   “A few days ago when Jim left, I knew I should go with him. Or better yet go in the opposite direction. But I am still here. I don't even have the will to try. Every night when I go to bed I think to myself, in the morning I will leave and chase the horizon. And then—well—here I am, still delaying.
   “I hate this place now. I've been working on it for years, long before you ever hired me. And now that it is nearing completion, a madman takes control of it and shows me what evil could be done. This is only the beginning of the crimes that can be committed. The possibilities for torture and brainwashing are almost endless. I wanted to open up a world of wonder and excitement. Instead I created a world of darkness and terror. I don't deserve to escape.”
   Troy took his feet of the table and put a hand on William's shoulder. “No, Dean made the terror. Even if you hadn't made the Endless Frontier it was only a matter of time before Dean hired someone to make a program for his machines. Most likely their program would have been much worse then yours, not even resembling reality. Dean is the criminal, not you.”
   While they were talking the sun had set. The sky was full of brilliant stars. Troy noticed a shooting star and marveled at how real the sky seemed. Soon he saw another streak of light across the sky. After a while they appeared more and more often. In his long nights on the plain he had seen shooting stars from time to time, but never as many as there were tonight. He watched mesmerized as the whole sky filled with them. Hundreds appearing one after the other randomly across the sky. There was enough flickering light that the forest shimmered.
   William began to weep, deep painful sobs. Confused at Williams reaction, and realizing that nothing he could say would help, Troy just stood gazing into heaven, but his hand remained comfortingly on his friends shoulder.
   Fifteen minutes later the meteor slowed and faded away. Williams voice broke the pervading silence. “Today is April third. Sarah's birthday. That meteor shower was for her. I thought by now I would be able to bring her here and we would watch it together.”
   “It would have been a romantic evening.”
   “I should have married her years ago.”
   “Why didn't you?”
   “I was afraid I wouldn't be a very good husband, too caught up in my work. Now, I'll never get the chance to tell her I love her. I won't even see her again. I've been such a fool.”
   The silence was painful. Troy wanted to end it, but had nothing to say. After a moment he turned and walked back into the lodge. He found his room and prepared for bed. So much had happened since he woke up that morning at the foot of the mountains. For a long time he lay on the bed thinking, sleep far from him.
   He heard a knock on the door. “Troy are you still awake.”
   “Yes. What are you doing?”
   William cracked open the door and peered in. “I can't wait for tomorrow. I'm leaving. I'll take a canoe and head down the river. There is a boat for sailing where the river meets the ocean. I think think that is the best route because a boat will cover ground faster, even if it doesn't take as much memory.”
   “I thought you had given up escaping. Has something changed, are our chances better than you thought earlier.”
   “No, it looks as bleak as ever. I guess, I just found a reason to live. Goodbye Troy.”
   “Wait, don't leave yet,” said Troy climbing out of bed.
   William opened up the door wider.
   “Which way did Jim go. When I leave in the morning I don't want to accidentally follow him. We need every square foot the computer will generate.”
   “East. Jim went east.”
   “I'll go west then. Good luck, Will.” On impulse they embraced each other for a moment.
   Later as Troy slept soundly, William pushed off his canoe and floated into the night.

Episode Eleven: Death is not the Answer

2009-12-14T13:25:00.002-07:00

   A blast of pain surged though Troy's body when he hit the ground then evaporated into nothingness. Sensing that his virtual body had sustained fatal damage the program immediately ceased sending information to his brain. Once again Troy experienced the void. The first time it had been enjoyable, his thoughts and feelings were ones of excitement and anticipation. This time he found his thoughts and emotions to be a chaotic mix of disappointment, fear, and regret. Anguish consumed him for the few moments he remained in the void.
   Like it had done before, the void vanished as his brain once again received information. Troy took one look around then fell to his knees and began sobbing—he was back at the origin, still trapped in the Endless Frontier. The tears were both of joy and sorrow: joy that he was still alive, and sorrow that he had not escaped. Minutes later when he finally regained his composure, he stood and tried to think rationally.
   Why did I come back here? he thought. William said that I would either truly die, or wake up in the portal. Well, I guess he was wrong.
   Troy went down to the stream and washed his face so that if William was still at the lodge he wouldn't know that he had been crying. He found William a short time latter in the main lobby of the lodge. He had various papers scattered all over the large wooden table. He was concentrating on some calculations and didn't notice when Troy walked into the room.
   “You were wrong,” said Troy still standing in the doorway.
   “Don't scare me like that,” said William, startled, “I thought you were a hundred miles away by now. I'm glad your back though. I thought I might never see you again. Why did you come back?”
   “If you had been right I wouldn't have come back at all, but you were wrong. I died, William. I fell off a cliff. The next thing I knew I was standing on the origin. I was expecting to die, or perhaps by a slim chance wake up in the portal and escape.”
   “That's impossible. The code I wrote turns off the mind bridge equipment. Are you sure you died?”
   “I jumped off a cliff, a big one. It was probably three or four hundred feet high. Just a moment or so after I hit the ground I reappeared here.”
   William sat thoughtfully for a moment. “I honestly don't know why that happened. It doesn't make any sense to me, but I'd rather think about it later. Some things have happened that you should know.”
   Troy walked in and had a seat across the table from William.
   “A few days ago another man appeared,” William continued, “His name is Jim Senoma. Apparently he is Dean's brother. According to him, Dean is running out of money and wanted help to hide our bodies at a different location. When Jim refused to help Dean turned on him and trapped him in here with us. Jim is afraid that Dean will kill us to hide the evidence if he can't get money fast.”
   “Where is he? Jim I mean.”
   “He left that day. He is trying to escape.”
   “Didn't you explain to him that the landscape goes on forever in all directions?”
   “Actually, he helped me realize that there is a way out.”
   “Go on,” said Troy.
   “The landscape ends just out of sight, right beyond the horizon. As you know the computer creates the landscape as you explore it. Well all that landscape is saved on the computers hard drive. There can only be as much landscape as there is memory in the computer. When the computer runs out of memory the horizon will stop moving. You would be able to walk to the edge of the world and step out into nothingness. The code I wrote for that scenario is similar to the code for death. You should wake up in the portal. But now I'm not sure.”
   “Why didn't you think of that in the first week when still had time?” said Troy in a moment of anger. “No, I'm sorry. I know you were trying. At least we know what to do now. You said Jim already left, chasing the horizon.”
   “Yes, he didn't waste a moment once he had a glimmer of hope. But as I said, I'm not sure if it will work anymore.”
   “Why not?”
   “Because, when you jumped . . .” William's mind froze on that word as he realized that it meant Troy hadn't fallen by accident. Deciding not to bring it up he quickly resumed talking. “When you died the sensation didn't cause your brain to stop functioning. Which means, according to the code I wrote you should have woken up in the Portal, but that's not what happened. You are back here. The code for the horizon is practically the same.”
   “Just curious, how much landscape can the computer hold before it runs out of space?”
   Humph. William waved his hand at all the papers on the table. “I've been trying to figure that out for days. The truth is I don't know. At first I thought it was more that we could ever explore in a lifetime, but my rough calculations have given me a little more hope. Depending on how many hard drives Dean's assistant connected, the total landscape could be anywhere from roughly the size of Ohio to as big as the entire continental US. It also depends on the kinds of landscape the computer generates. Ocean, for example only takes about half the memory per square cubic foot as rock. However, a complex structure, like a tree, takes more than double the memory of rock. Every time I try and figure it out I run into so many unknowns I end up getting nowhere.”
   “So, any day now Dean is going to kill us all, and our only hope is to force the computer to generate more landscape with the slim hope that we will actually fill the hard disk space. And even if we do, the horizon is likely to just send us back to the origin,” said Troy.
   “That about sums it up,” said William.

Episode Ten: A Lucky Stone

2009-12-07T23:44:00.000-07:00

   A drop of sweat rolled down Jim's clenched jaw. His fingers strained to maintain their grip on the quarter inch ledge above him as he tried to support himself with only one hand. His feet occupied a slightly better spot on the rock face, but the rock ahead looked smooth and impassable.
   It had been a slow and exhausting climb up the end of the box canyon. That morning when he saw the fifty foot wall of rock he had almost turned back, but the canyon had been long with cliffs on both sides. At first he hadn't noticed them. The mouth of the canyon was wide and the sides sloped up toward the ridges on either side. He had stayed at the bottom of the canyon mostly for the water. In his haste to leave he had taken a singe water pouch that he easily emptied each day. When he noticed the cliffs he recognized that he was in the worst place possible, and the computer was generating very little land, but he rationalized that he would eventually reach the peak that the canyon seemed to be heading toward and see the entire landscape from there anyway. The canyon proved much longer than he expected. Turning back now would mean days of wasted effort.
   Now clinging to the edge of the cliff he doubted his initial judgment. He had examined the wall carefully before making the attempt and knew there were no handholds near the top. Draped around his neck he carried a twenty foot length of rope. On the end he had tied a stick with two knives forming a crude hook.
   Using his free hand he pulled the coiled rope over his head and let most of it fall. The jerk of the rope on his belt, where he had tied the other end, surprised him and almost made him fall. Slowly he swung the hook in circles letting out a few feet of rope.
   A few days earlier he had gashed his hand on sharp rock. He had stopped the bleeding with a spare shirt, but he worried about infection. He started a fire to heat some water and sterilize the wound. By the time he had gathered dry wood, made some kindling, and lit the fire—all with only one hand—the pain suddenly vanished. Amazed he had removed the bandage, brushed the dried blood of his skin, and flexed his hand. It was as though he had never been cut. After that he no longer feared injury.
   This, however, was different. If he fell from this height and landed wrong he would die. William had been clear about that. With a great thrust he threw the rope toward the top of the cliff. As soon as his hand let go of the rope it snapped back to the wall stabilize his hold, but it was too late. One foot had slipped on the rock in the throwing motion. For a few tantalizing seconds he clung to the wall before his fell backward away from the wall. Instinctively he pushed of the wall with one foot turning himself to face his fall.
   He flailed his arms wildly searching for anything to grasp. Skin slid and tore against rough rock and bones creaked and cracked from seemingly random impact points as he tumbled. Finally he landed on the canyon floor chest first blasting all air from his lungs. The struggle to breath helped him ignore the pain enough to turn and lay on his back, his left arm was obviously broken, jutting out in the wrong direction. He couldn't feel either of his legs and didn't bother looking. When a breath finally came it came with pain. Broken ribs seemed to burst into flame with every heaving of his chest.
   He felt himself blacking out and feared that if he did he might never wake up. In his mind he focused on images of Troy Lombardi and William Kilgore laying in the portal and this time included himself on one of the beds that had been empty. His eyes were wide open, but his vision was narrowing and becoming fuzzy around the edges. He brought Dean's face to mind and tried use anger to hold back the darkness, but all he felt was an overwhelming sadness. As his eyesight vanished he thought of Susan and the kids. I must live, he thought, they need me.
   Hours later he awoke from his slightly uncomfortable position on the ground. His clothes were in tatters, but his body retained no mark from the fall. He hadn't noticed at the time, but in his pain he had tore at the ground with his good hand. There in his hand was a small stone about the size of a large marble. It was ordinary gray with a thin stripe of white around the middle.
   Lucky, he thought. That's what Michael would say. Michael had a bucket full of rocks he had collected from the neighborhood. Each for some reason had caught his eye and become the object of his awe. Michael would have loved this one. Jim pocketed the rock and looked back up the cliff. There hanging from the top was the rope were it had successfully snagged.
   That evening he watched the sunset from the mountain peak.

Episode Nine: The Loss of Paradise

2009-11-30T14:41:00.000-07:00

   Troy Lombardi awoke to another beautiful morning. He made his camp on one of the foothills of mountain range the night before. Green grass that stood higher than his chest covered the hill where he lay. Only a mile or so up the gentle slope the grass gave way to rock. The mountains themselves were very rugged looking, no life grew on their slopes.
   At the foot of the mountains lay a vast plain with rolling hills. There were occasional thickets of trees, especially along the river. These clumps of trees had provided good resting spots and welcome relief from the beating sun, as Troy made his way northward. His original food store had lasted only a week, but from time to time he would find fruit trees or berry bushes.
   After having an apple for breakfast from a nearby tree, he loaded his pack full of them. He didn't know what he would find on the other side of those mountains, and he wanted to be prepared for anything. At a nearby stream he filled his water pouch to the brim and began his climb up the mountain.
   The trip had been unique for Troy Lombardi. As a wealthy outdoor enthusiast he frequently took trips to extreme back country, but the grass covered plain proved much easier traveling that he was used to. The going had been easy and days long. Around midday he would find a grove of trees to rest in avoiding the hottest part of the day.
   By the end of the first day on the plains he wished he had a horse. There hadn't been any at the lodge, and he probably wouldn't have taken one anyway. It would have been difficult taking it up the stone staircase at the water fall.
   After lamenting the lack of a horse he began to notice other odd things about the endless frontier. At night when he lay in his sleeping bag he heard no noise except the wind. There were no crickets chirping in the night, nor frogs croaking in the nearby ponds. The next day he observed a lack of any animal whatsoever. No birds flying in the trees. No mosquitoes in the swamp he circled around.
   He realized that in his journeys animals had always been a sort of companion. Now he felt eerily alone. After the first week he despised the plain. Each day he would run for a few miles in the morning hoping to reach some variation in the landscape. When he had finally spotted the mountains in the distance it instantly became his goal.
   Having a goal, a visual object to aim at, soothed his frazzled mind. Out on the plains he could not seem to enjoy himself. Wandering without aim left his mind to wander. He wondered what had happened to Lombardi Inc. in the weeks he had been away. Without him there to sign the papers the business deals he had been working on had certainly failed, and who was now minding the frequent paperwork and reading the reports? He had no clear successor. What did the police think had happened to him? Certainly he was reported missing. Did they think he was dead?
   And behind all these thoughts lurked a constant anger: Dean Senoma. Over and over Troy planned his revenge, malicious plans to publicly humiliate and forever end his scientific carrier. One of his ideas included having William make a new program, one that had only barren desert with mirages of water that were really cactus beds. A normal trial and prison term seemed too ordinary and mundane for Dean's bizarre crime.
   All of his plans had one great flaw, getting out of the Endless Frontier. Once, before he had spotted the mountain, he stood on the edge of a river wondering how hard it would be to drown himself. He weighed in his mind over and over the possibility of death verses awaking in the portal. He had been there for almost a full hour before he moved on.
   Now as he made his way up the rocky slope he enjoyed the focus that came with the struggle. For hours he wound his way up the slope. Soon sweat drenched his shirt as the air was heated by sun-baked rocks. Once he fell and slip twenty feet or so down a gravel slope. The ordeal tore his shirt, exposing a large portion of his chest, but he didn't let the pain from his bruises and scratches slow him down.
   Instead of heading toward the lowest point on the ridge line where he could most easily cross, he headed strait toward the peak of the mountain. And by mid-afternoon he made his way up the final slope.
   The view from the top was beautiful. The far side of the mountain dropped away in a cliff a few hundred feet high. As far as he could see in that direction there were mountains of varying heights. He could also see a few wooded valleys and slopes covered in wildflowers. A clear lake had formed at the bottom of the canyon directly below him.
   At first he was overwhelmed with relief. He had feared that he would be faced with another vast plain equally boring as the one he had spent over a month to cross. There was a land worth exploring, he thought. Then an odd thought intruded his mind: the explorers in the old days would have thought that prairie a golden find, and these mountains a waste land.
   After the initial thrill of victory, the peak seemed anticlimactic. He sat down and bit into an apple. A slight breeze made the air comfortable. For a long time he looked out at the plain and back into the mountains. He couldn't identify it specifically but he felt something was horribly wrong. Eventually he came to the realization that the mountains would be just like the plain had been, long and wearisome. This was not the paradise he imagined it would be.
   The anger, augmented by the loss of his paradise, suddenly returned with overwhelming force.
   “Dean Senoma!” he shouted into the thin air as he struggled to his feet. “I will find you and make you pay or die trying.” Troy ran down a short slope and leaped off the edge of the cliff.
   As his foot pushed off the edge, a memory of his father sprang to the forefront of his mind
   Lombardi Inc. was still very new in those days and often struggled financially. That day one of their trusted business partners had betrayed them, selling his portion of the company to a competitor. Troy had angrily suggested a few methods of revenge. His father, however, had remained quiet and calm. It was that calm quiet face he saw now.
   “Troy,” his father had said, “Don't allow your anger to make the problem worse than it is. This will set us back a few years, but we will move on.” And with steady determination he had.
   It isn't the same, Troy thought to himself. I am trapped and desperate. But the feeling of disappointing his father didn't go away, and the ground came rushing up to meet him.

Episode Eight: A Way Out

2009-11-23T10:50:00.002-07:00

“There is one way out,” said William Kilgore, his moment of excitement faded and his voice turned dull, “but we probably don't have enough time. Dean will kill us before it works.” He stood up and turned to walk back into the lodge.
“Stop,” said Jim also getting to his feet. “I don't care if we have a million to one chance, we have to try.”
William sighed. He walked back onto the balcony over to the railing and pointed east where a line of mountains made the horizon. “Do you see those mountains?”
“Yes,” said Jim.
“Do you know what is on the other side of them?” when Jim didn't respond he kept talkin, “A void. Nothing. There isn't even a slope down the other side. If you step into that void the program will crash; but it isn't that simple, because as soon as you look over that ridge the computer will generate a new landscape and fill in the void. The horizon will extend and the void will once again be just out of sight. That is why it is called The Endless Frontier, the horizon just keeps moving away always out of sight.”
“Then where is our chance? You said we had a least a small one.”
“Although the program can generate an endless landscape, the computer has a limited memory. I just now realized that if the horizon was pushed back enough it would fill up the entire hard drive on the computer and stop. Someone could then step over the horizon and into the void. That would cause an error in the programs logic triggering an emergency termination of the program. In the emergency termination code is a line that cuts power to Dean's machines cutting all connections to the brain.”
“How far would I have to go to reach the horizon?”
“I don't know, some landscapes take more memory than others. If you walk in a canyon it would take a long time because the only thing calculated is the canyon walls, on a prairie you can see farther so more memory would be used. Standing on a mountain top, or any high place, will force the program to generate a lot of landscape. Even if you see it from miles away, the computer generates in great detail.
“To be honest I'm not even sure how much memory the server we are running on has. I altered all the CPUs and the main infrastructure, but I left behind all my hard drives when we moved it to a new building. Dean bought all the hard memory and had his assistant install them. As far as I know there might be enough memory to generate the equivalent of the entire earths surface and more.”
“But you don't know. Which gives us a chance. Where can I find equipment?”
“There is more than you could ever want in the basement. What you can't find there is in the shed outside—what do you plan to do? It could take years to find the horizon.”
“You see that mountain peak, I'm going to climb it. Then I will head east into whatever land the computer makes for me. I will travel along the highest routs I can find viewing as much land as I can. And when I reach the horizon I will escape.”
“Your chances of succeeding are a million to one. Dean is likely to kill us any day now. It will take you months at lest to find the horizon.”
“At least I will have a chance. By sitting here you are willfully choosing to die.” Jim turned in anger from William and stormed away.
William remained on the balcony. Jim's words stung him. The worst part was that he knew Jim was right. He had given up and was waiting to die. That is why he never really made progress on the water wheel. That is why he didn't go out into the wild himself. He was angry at himself for not caring, but still he sat there on the balcony, doing nothing.
About an hour later he watched silently as Jim appeared on the trail below and marched into the woods. It was almost dark, William thought he would have at lest waited till dawn, but there he was full of energy and determination facing the unknown. Jim never looked back. Never looked up to see if William was still on the balcony. Envy welled up inside William, for a month now he had sat practically idle at the lodge. He had taken a few walks in the woods and canoed on the lake a few times, but every evening he returned feeling trapped. Everything felt useless and hopeless. He envied Jim's courage and determination and was angered at his own inability to do anything.
He returned to the room he had made his own and climbed into bed, but that night he couldn't sleep. He lay awake looking at the ceiling made of wooden logs knowing the too were part of the digital illusion that had become his world. For years he had worked day an night on computer simulated reality. Time and time again people had hailed him a genius. If only they saw me now, he thought, they would know how weak I really am.
Out under the stars, Jim walked swiftly down the trail. A full moon shown down through the pines and gave him enough light to avoid roots and rocks in the path. He knew that he couldn't sleep even if he stopped and made camp, so he continued walking. Over and over the events of the past day paraded through his mind. Over and over he saw the look in Dean's eyes when pushed him into the room called The Portal. Jim liked to think that he was a calm man, but he felt anger now like he had never felt before. Fueled by fear and a sense of betrayal that anger propelled him onward. Even when the trail ended and he had to weave through the trees and brush, he pushed onward.

Episode Seven: Meeting of Prisoners

2009-11-16T12:34:00.002-07:00

Jim laid back on the hard stone and watched as the clouds passed by. He tried to convince himself that he was enjoying an especially vivid dream, but the serenity of his surroundings contrasted sharpy with the confusion that clouded his mind. Dean's words replayed over and over in his memory, haunting him. A faint hope remained that it was all a dream, and when he woke up both Dean's words and this strange stone in the wilderness would fade to a fuzzy recollection he could tell with humor over the breakfast table.
Suddenly he exploded off the ground and stood on his feet.
Am I dead? the thought scared him. Dean wouldn't do that; I'm his brother. The image of two bodies with tubes leapt to the forefront of his memory. He pushed up his left sleeve to look at his shoulder. To his horror, the three inch scar was gone. What will happen to Susan? Anna is only four, will she even remember me? Rachel graduates this spring. I have to be there.
Jim turned around slowly and examined his surroundings, pushing back the questions that he knew wouldn't help anyway. First things first—Where am I? There could see no sign of human life except the stone he stood on, just trees, mountains, and a lake.
I don't think I'm dead. He wasn't sure what heaven looked like, but he expected lights or music or something. And angels; there would definitely be angels, he thought. Origin. What does that mean? Who made this stone?
No amount of reasoning came up with any explanation of any kind. It must be a dream. There is no other way to explain it. This comforted him. Dreams don't make sense, so why bother trying to make sense of it anyway.
With a somewhat forced carefree spirit he climbed the grassy hill to get a better look at his surroundings.

William paced around the table he had moved to the balcony thinking hard. Occasionally he would pause and look down at the papers on the table. Sometimes he would sketch a few lines, adjusting one of the four different plans. Three days ago he had decided to build a water wheel. Mostly because he needed something to do. Now his resolve was ebbing. One plan was clearly the best. It was the first one he had drawn before he had realized he would have to make his own nails if he wanted to use any, or deconstruct the Lodge for nails. The lodge had saws, hammers, axes, ropes, working gloves, hand drills, and a wide assortment of other tools. Explorers don't use nails. They don't stay in one place long enough to want them.
The silence in The Endless Frontier bothered him. Without electricity he couldn't chase the silence away with music like usually did. The only sound was the wind in the trees and creek of the boards when he walked around.
He hadn't really noticed the silence until Troy left. For the first three days they had talked. At first they had wondered, then hypothesized, then argued. On the fourth day Troy woke up early and declared that it didn't matter how he ended up in The Endless Frontier; he was going to embrace his dream and chase the horizon. He departed with a canoe full of supplies, headed north toward the waterfall and staircase in the cliff.
William walked away from the table and sat looking out at the landscape. Everything felt useless here.
To his surprise a man appeared up on the hill coming from the origin. At first he thought it must be Troy coming back from his adventures; but the man on the hill was wearing a plain white shirt and a pair of jeans, the default clothes. This meant he had just come from the origin. The man was taller and had a broader build than Dean.
A thrill of excitement caused William to run down through the lodge and out the front door. After three weeks of isolation seeing anyone made him happy. The two of them met about halfway up the hill. They stopped a few feet apart and looked each other up and down.
“Hi, my name is William Kilgore. Welcome to The Endless Frontier,” said William.
Jim stepped back as though the words had dealt him a physical blow. “Are you the William Kilgore, the one that vanished over a month ago?”
“Yes! Are you here to get us out? I knew Dean couldn't hide us forever. Troy isn't here right now, but he took his phone with him. When he get out we can call and tell him the good news. What is your name by the way?”
“Jim. Jim Senoma. Actually I'm a little bit confused. You called this place the Endless Frontier. Where exactly are we? I got into a fight with my brother. I think you know him, Dean is his name. Well I think he drugged me and I woke up on the big strange stone on the other side of this hill.”
Jim saw the hope and joy drain from Williams face. “Well,” said William, “lets head down to the lodge. I'll explain as we walk.
Jim listened with growing dread as William explained what had happened. Jim asked questions from time to time, but mostly just listened. When William was finished he told him what Dean had said about not wanting to kill them, but that he was running out of money.
“Then we can only wait here to die,” said William. They were now sitting on the balcony looking out across the lake.
“There must be something we can do,” said Jim. “You made this program, there must be another way out.”
“Troy and I talked about that a long time. There is only one way that might work, but it isn't worth the risk.”
“Dean is going to kill us anyway if we just sit here. We don't have anything to lose. What is it?”
“Death—I wrote the program to pull you out of The Endless Frontier if your virtual self dies. But neither Troy nor I think it is worth trying. Dean, the expert on brains, would have thought of that and he doesn't seem worried that we will escape that way. I think you would die both here and in reality.”
Images of Susan and his kids kept floating through Jim's mind. He didn't know what he was going to do, or how he was going to try, but he knew he couldn't just sit there until he died. “Is there any bug or glitch in the program we could use to make it crash? Maybe we could get out that way.”
“I've tried for weeks to come up with something.”
“Is there an exit anywhere, a place where you walk through a door or something to get out?” Jim knew it was a silly suggestion. If it was that easy, William would have walked out that first day.
“None,” said William, but as that hopeless word hung in the air he remembered something. The thrill of hope he had felt when Jim appeared returned He stood up and looked Jim in the eye. “Wait, you're right. There is one way out.”

Episode Six: Another Victim

2009-11-09T12:02:00.006-07:00

“Police now suspect that missing billionaire Troy Lombardi may have abandoned his fortune and gone to live the life of a hermit,” said a voice mixed with static.

Jim Senoma turned up the car radio, so he could hear it above the rumble of his old truck.

“Mr. Lombardi is a professed outdoor fanatic and has been on trips into many of the worlds remotest areas. His personal secretary said that he has spent large amounts of money on a secret project he calls the Endless Frontier and that he once described it to her as the fulfillment of his dreams.

“He was last seen just over a month ago when he left his office after working for only a few minutes. He told his secretary that he had other plans and was going to take the day off.”

“Police investigation revealed that he has been withdrawing large amounts of cash, upwards of a billion dollars, in the last year. His secretary admitted that she is aware of at least one account that Mr. Lombardi uses under an assumed name, and suspects he has more. Officials believe that Mr. Lombardi may have used the money to construct a resort in secrecy to which he has now retired.

“A second, perhaps related, incident was reported yesterday. A local man, by the name of William Kilgore was reported missing by his landlord who had tried unsuccessfully to collect rent for two weeks. The last confirmed sighting of the man was two days before Mr. Lombardi's disappearance.

“Sarah Micheals, a friend of the missing man, who saw him last, suggested that his disappearance may be related to the disappearance of Mr. Lombardi. According to her Mr. Kilgore had told her on multiple occasions that he worked for Troy Lombardi. However, the claim has yet to be verified.

“You are listening to News Both Local and National on . . .”

Jim turned the radio off. He pulled out his cell phone and dialed while he waited for a street light to turn green. When the light turned green, he shifted the truck into gear and resumed driving.

“Hello,” said Dean, Jim's brother, over the phone.

“Hi Dean, how are thing going?”

“Fine.”

“I just heard a story on the radio about a missing William Kilgore. Isn't that the guy you mentioned to me a while back? The one that was going to do some computer work for you.”

“Yes, he was going to work with me, but he changed his mind at the last minute. I'm still looking for someone else to do it.”

“What do you think about Mr. Lombardi's disappearance. Piles and piles of money and poof—he vanishes into thin air. On the radio they were saying he might have just got up and left it all. To me it sounds fishy. Like someone knocked him off of something. What do you think.”

The line was quiet for a few minutes.

“Jim. I'm glad you called. I've gotten myself into a little trouble. I need your help. Could you help me?”

“Sure Dean, what's wrong.”

“I don't want to talk about it over the phone. Could you stop by sometime soon?”

“Sure I'm running a few errands for Susan anyway. I can get to your house in a few minutes.”

After hanging up the phone Jim pushed a little harder on the gas. Something was wrong with Dean. Jim had never hear that kind of quiver in Dean's voice before.

Twenty minutes latter they stood in an office building in front of a door with the words The Portal printed on it. Dean had been quiet the whole trip there. He had only told Jim that he wanted to show him something. Now in front of the door he turned and faced Jim.

“Do you remember when we were little and told lies to mom. How they always got bigger and bigger, till we ended up in real trouble—I've gotten myself into trouble like that now. Now it is getting out of control. I need your help before I end up doing something really terrible.” Dean spoke quickly. The words seemed to hurt him. His jaw quivered as he spoke.

Jim remained silent. He put one hand on Dean shoulders to give him strength to keep talking.

“I lied to you, the whole family. I didn't get the government grant. The money I've been spending comes from an employer who wants to remain hidden. He doesn't know it. But I used his money to do some illegal things. Then I got scared that he would find out and report me, so I took some more illegal measures to make sure he would never find out, but I didn't think things through enough. My lies have gotten more and more expensive. I'm running out of money.” Dean had his eyes on the floor, obviously afraid.

Jim thought for a long time. He decided he better learn more before agreeing to anything, he still didn't know how serious Dean's crimes were.

“Who is your employer?” asked Jim.

Dean jerked back from him. “Why does it matter to you? He wants to remain a secret.”

“Sorry. I'm just trying to understand. That's all.”

Dean relaxed again. “No, I'm sorry. I'm just so scared all the time now.” Suddenly he snapped up his head, “I don't want to do it, Jim. They've left me no choice!” he said in fiery whisper.

“What do they want you to do?”

“It doesn't matter what they want anymore. No one will ever find them, but I don't want to kill them, Jim. I have something here in this room that I need to hide.” He gestured to the door. “I need to use your cabin, I'm not going to be able to pay rent soon. I don't know how long, only till I find somewhere more permanent.”

Jim thoughts spun, trying to make sense of everything Dean said. The implications horrified him. Dean was contemplating murder. He already had something he was desperate to hide.

“Dean.” Jim paused searching hard for the right words to say. “I want to help you. I want you to be free from the lies. They are just like the lies we told mother. If you keep them hidden they will only get bigger. Let's go in to your office and use the phone to call the police. I'll be right here with you. If you end this now it will work out in the end. Don't let whatever it is get any bigger.”

Dean stopped shivering as Jim spoke. A inner resolve pushed back his fear. He raised his head and looked Jim in the eye. “You don't care about me do you. You're just afraid for yourself. I come to you for help and you just push me away. I don't care if the whole world is against me. I'm not going to give up, Jim.” The look in his eye sparked fear in Jim's heart, what had happened to his childhood friend.

Dean opened the door and pushed Jim into the room. Jim didn't resist; he knew he was stronger than Dean and could escape if needed. What he saw puzzled, then horrified him. Two people with multiple IVs and tubes connected to their bodies lay on beds. They appeared sound asleep.

“Troy Lombardi,” gasped Jim in recognition. He turned to Dean horrified.

At that moment Dean lunged at Jim. Jim felt a sharp pain on his arm. As Dean pulled back his hand he saw he was holding a syringe. Throwing Dean aside Jim ran for the door, but the drug overcame him and he collapsed just a few feet outside.

A few hours later when the drug wore off he awoke, lying face down on a hard stone floor. Pushing himself to his knees, he saw that he was no longer inside. All around him was a beautiful wilderness. On the stone in front of him was engraved one large word, “Origin.”

Episode Five: Trapped

2009-11-02T12:35:00.001-07:00

    William stared for a moment at the fallen clothes. He rejected the first thought that popped into his mind out and instead let himself wonder why the clothes hadn't vanished with Dean. He decided he needed to look over the program's code and see if he could make the cloths disappear when the person left.. He began trying to remember exactly how he had written the code and how best to change it, but that first terrible realization wouldn't go away.
    He grabbed the phone off his belt and made a call to the portal. After a few rings no one had answered. He tried to think of explanations for them not answering besides the obvious horrible one. Perhaps coming out of virtual reality had strange side effects and Elizabeth was focused on helping Dean. Or maybe Dean was excitedly telling Elizabeth about what had happened. Or the plan Dean had mentioned was some secret surprise that they were currently occupied with.
    In the more unruly sections of his mind where he was unable to control himself, things were becoming blatantly clear. Dean hated Mr. Lombardi for retaining control of the technology they developed. Dean had secretly loaded with the computer with Miss Stratford without telling him. Both Dean and Elizabeth had been acting strangely tense earlier in the portal. Dean had made sure that there was no other way out before having Elizabeth take him out of the Endless Frontier.
    After about thirty rings the phone slipped from his fingers and landed, still calling, amid the grass. He began walking over the hill toward the lodge, not really sure what he was going to tell Mr. Lombardi. At the top of the hill he could see Mr. Lombardi pushing a canoe across the sand toward the lake.   Five more canoes were still on a rack behind the lodge. The two story lodge was made of bare logs and had a wrap around porch and balcony. A brick chimney came up out of the wooden shingled roof.
    Mr. Lombardi had returned from the shore and was working on getting a second canoe off the rack when William reached him.
    “Back in the real world this kind of work would made my back hurt for a month, but here the work feels good,” said Mr. Lombardi before William could bring himself to say anything.    Troy realized something was wrong when Mr. Kilgore didn't give any response, he just stood there awkwardly.
    “Where is Mr. Senoma?” said Troy.
    “He had Elizabeth take him out of the program,” said William. “I called the portal, but they didn't answer. Either something went terribly wrong when he tried to leave, or they've trapped us intentionally.”
    There was a long pause where neither of them said anything. “Say that again,” said Troy.
    “Mr. Senoma left us here. And no one answered when I called the portal.”
    “Did he tell you why he was leaving?”
    “No not really. It was really strange he told Elizabeth the plan would work and to take him out. I don't know what he meant by the plan. But I'm worried because right after you left he asked me if there was any other way out.”
    “And what did you tell him. Is there another way out?”
    “No sir.”
    There was another long pause. Mr. Lombardi pulled out his cell phone and pushed the button to call the portal. William sat down wearily on the grass. Troy paced around, waiting for someone to answer.   After a long time Troy slowly closed the phone.
    “Let's go inside and find somewhere more comfortable to talk.” Mr. Lombardi helped William to his feet.
    They sat in plush chairs in the large lobby area of the lodge. On one side of the room was a huge stone fireplace with wood already prepared on the hearth to start a fire. There was a bar with a kitchen behind it various stuffed animal heads mounted on the walls.
    “How likely is it that something is wrong with the phone?” asked Troy.
    “Almost none. I've run simulations before and used the phones. They've never had problems before.”
    “Is there anyway to use the phone to call somewhere other than the portal?”
    “Only if someone on the outside connects the line for you.”
    “When I came to the portal this morning I told my personal secretary I was taking the day off. In a few days they will probably report that I am missing, but I rode a buss so there is no way the police will be able to follow my tracks and save us. I was too worried about keeping this a secret. Will they be able to find you?”
    “I work by myself. The only one who will notice I am missing is Sarah, a good friend of mine. But she is more likely to thing I'm on a sudden business trip than to call the police. My car is still at my apartment, Dean picked me up today. I guess if we are still here in two weeks the landlord will wonder why I haven't payed my rent. He might call the police. But even then they'd search my main office, not this place. Dean rented it, I'm not even aware of what the address is.”
    Troy slammed his fist into the arm of the chair. “Blasted secrecy. I never expected someone on the inside of the project to try and steal it all. What does the man want? I've given him plenty of money for his work.”
    “A few weeks ago he told me he didn't like you. You are funding the project and we were work under you because of that you own the technology we've developed. He was afraid that you would take it and not let him continue to develop his breakthrough in science. I didn't think he would do anything like this though.”
    Mr. Lombardi got up and made is way over to the kitchen area. “Let's just wait for a while and see if Dean gets us out of here. Maybe this is just an honest mistake. Will I find any food in this place?” He didn't wait for an answer but began opening cupboards.
    Mr. Kilgore didn't say anything he just sat thinking. Troy returned with a chocolate bar and sandwich for each of them.
    “Well we don't have to worry about going hungry anytime soon. There's lots of food here. But since you made this place, you probably already knew that.”
    “There is one thing that might get us out,” said William, “but I don't think we should try it unless we really get desperate.”
    “What is that?” asked Troy.
    “We could die—if we were to die, here in the virtual world, and if the experience of dying didn't shut down our brains, the program automatically bring us out of the Endless Frontier and we would wake up in the real world. But that is Dean's area of expertise. If did trap us in here intentionally it most likely means he knows we couldn't get out that way.”

Episode Four: Virtual Reality

2009-10-26T14:13:00.001-06:00

    For a few seconds Troy Lombardi felt nothing. Mr. Senoma's contraption intercepted all the communications to his brain and left it bare of all input. In this strange void, the clarity of his thoughts heightened, no longer distracted by a constant stream of information. This strange, momentary sensation ended as a wash of artificial information, coming from Mr. Kilgore's program, flooded his brain.
    Troy Lombardi stood in the center of a large circular stone platform, made from a single thirty foot slab of red and white marble. The word “Origin” was carved in letters larger than a man in the center of the stone, right in front of where Troy stood. Four arrows were also carved pointing to each of the cardinal directions. A large N labeled the arrow directly in front of him.
    A beginnings of a river flowed peacefully on his left, coming from a large clear lake. The smell of evergreen trees, from a thick forest just across the river, filled his nostrils carried by a light wind. Patchy clouds floated on a vast blue sky warding of excessive heat. To his right stood a large grass covered hill.
    Troy took a deep breath of the fresh air, then looked down at himself. He looked and felt great. The computer had edited out a few pounds and returned his youthful energy. It had also dressed him in simple jeans and a white t-shirt.
    He dropping one knee to the ground and felt the smooth polished marble with his hands. Then, on impulse, he ran and jumped off the edge of the stone. His body moved in perfect form without strain. The dirt and gravel ground under his weight and cushioned his landing. He felt the grime of dirt with his hands. The prime condition of his health was the only evidence that the entire scenery around him was fake.
    A sudden electronic ring burst from the cell phone on his belt. Startled he stood and wiped the dirt off of his hands. After a few more rings he answered it.
    “Hello,” he said.
    “Congratulations!” came Mr. Kilgore's voice over the phone, “You are the first man to experience full virtual reality.”
    “This is absolutely incredible,” said Mr. Lombardi. “I feel as though you dropped me in Yellowstone. This is wonderful. You should see this place. I don't hardly believe my eyes.”
    “We can see it sir,” said Mr. Senoma, “Well, at least a computer screens worth. I'm sure the full panorama is much more dramatic.”
    Looking back Troy saw a small camera mounted on a poll next to the origin. It slowly turned around surveying the valley then stopped and focused on him.
    “You two come in as soon as your ready. I'm going to go skip some rocks on the lake.”   Without saying goodbye he hung up the phone and picked up a particularly flat rock he had noticed earlier.
    When Dean and William arrived a few minutes later they found Mr. Lombardi knee deep in the lake with his pants rolled up and his shoes left behind on the shore.
    “Well, Mr. Kilgore, how does it feel to be inside a universe you created?” said Mr. Lombardi as he sloshed his way back to shore.”
    “I've seen so many maps and computer generated pictures of this place as I worked on building it that I feel right at home. The lake looks bigger than I thought it would now that I am standing next to it. But still, this all is so real. I have a hard time believing I designed it.”
    “I thought you said the landscape was random,” said Mr. Lombardi.
    “Once you get out of this valley it is. I wanted to establish a good base to explore from. There is a lodge with all the supplies you could possibly want on the other side of that hill. If you follow the river you will arrive at a shore line where a boat is waiting, just in case seafaring is in your plans. On the canyon wall on the other side of the lake is a huge waterfall with a staircase cut next to it in the cliff. That I added just for fun. Once you reach the top of the staircase, or the ridge-line of any of the mountains you see, or sail out to sea, you will venture into the frontier where no one knows what you will find.”
    “Ouch!” Troy jerked his foot out of the water. A small trickle of blood mix with water dripping off his foot. He stumbled onto dry ground and examined the small cut. Turning to Mr. Senoma he said, “Maybe, you should have left out the pain sensation.”
    “Pain is a part of reality. If I took out all the pain it would be just another computer game, not a virtual reality,” Dean said.
    “You're right I suppose. Without pain, there would be no fear, without fear there would be no need for courage. There would be no adventure.”
    “I did put a limit on the pain though. No matter what happens to you, a broken arm is about the worst thing you'll feel. Not fun, but it won't kill you.”
    “And any injury will be fixed by the computer after three hours, so you can continue exploring,” added William.
    Mr. Lombardi sat on the ground and began putting his shoes and socks back on. “Well we have a few hours before we have to be back in the real world. Let's go to the waterfall Mr. Kilgore mentioned earlier. I'd like to climb those stairs and see what the computer will generate for us.”
    “The best way to do that would be to cross the lake on canoes. There are a bunch over at the lodge,” said Mr. Kilgore.
    “Well,” said Troy, “lets go. You said the lodge is behind this hill?” Not waiting for an answer he began to climb it.
    Dean put his hand on William's shoulder stopping him from following Mr. Lombardi. William looked at him expectantly, but he didn't speak until Mr. Lombardi was out of sight over the hill.
    “Just curious,” said Mr. Senoma, “How do we get out, back to the real world?”
    “Eventually you will be able to use the phone to exit,” said Mr. Kilgore, “but I ran into some strange errors that I need to work out before I incorporate it into the main program, so that is currently disabled. Right now you just have to call Elizabeth and ask her to get you out.”
    “Is there any other way out?” Mr. Senoma's question was deliberate, seeking a specific answer.
    “No, not really,” William answered, “Why?” A strange dark feeling ran through his body.
    A smile formed on Dean's face. “Good,” he said. Then opening his phone he said to Miss Stratford, “The plan will work, get me out of here.”
    Dean Senoma vanished. The white t-shirt and jeans he had been wearing crumpled to the ground.

Episode Three: The Portal

2009-10-19T11:31:00.000-06:00

    Mr. Lombardi smiled as he waited for the elevator to reach the thirty-second floor. Eight months ago, when work began on the Endless Frontier, he had been confident that they would succeed. However, the fast progress absolutely surprised him, especially Mr. Kilgore's work. William worked around the clock and regularly sent detailed reports of the progress he was making.
    Mr. Senoma, on the other hand, seemed intentionally vague in his infrequent reports. Dean spent a lot of time and extra money on lavish living. Mr. Lombardi had been tempted to draw the line when he took a six week foreign vacation that cost a few million dollars. But now, sooner than he ever expected, The Endless Frontier was ready for testing.
    He easily found the room where Mr. Senoma and Mr. Kilgore were waiting for him. At Mr. Kilgore's suggestion the words “The Portal” had been printed in large block letters across the door.    Troy expected heavy medical equipment with lots of wires and tubes, but the Portal was deceptively bare. Six beds, three lined up against the left wall and three on the right, made it look more like a dormitory than a portal to a virtual world.. At the front of the room Mr. Kilgore sat at a desk that was empty except for a keyboard and mouse, both wireless. A projector mounted on the ceiling cast the screen on the front wall. That was all. The walls were newly painted white and the floor cold tile.
    “Good morning Mr. Kilgore,” said Mr. Lombardi. “Doing some last minute adjustments I see.”
    William Kilgore turned around stood to welcome Mr. Lombardi. “Good morning. I'm just double checking the equipment. We set it up here last week, and I wanted to make sure that everything is still running fine. Mr. Senoma just left to pick up his assistant Miss Stratford. She will be the one to operate the computer since you wanted the three of us to go in together.”
    “I hope she is as trustworthy as Mr. Senoma claims. I want to keep this project low until it is ready to reveal to the public.”
    “Mr. Senoma doesn't seem to like the secrecy.”
    “That's because he's never dealt with big businesses. If word of what we were doing got out there would be all kinds of attempts to steal our technology. Not to mention random groups that would somehow think what we were doing was wrong and try to get legislation passed to stop us. Believe me. this is best this way.”
    “Anyway, have a seat.” Mr. Kilgore waved a hand at two other chairs near the desk. “I need to get this finished so that we can start as soon as Mr. Senoma gets back.”
    Miss Stratford wore a neat business suit and high heels that clicked loudly against the tile when they she and Mr. Senoma walked in. Troy was surprised to see that her smile was strained as they greeted each other.
    “Miss Stratford, come take a seat. I'll show you how to run this thing,” said Mr. Kilgore.
    “That's alright, Mr. Senoma showed me the controls yesterday, after we finished setting up the mental connections equipment”
    Mr. Kilgore gave Mr. Senoma a questioning look.
    “Don't worry,” said Mr. Senoma. “We didn't use any of the equipment. I just ran the program dry like you did when you showed me the controls the other day.”
    “Well,” said Mr. Lombardi after an awkward pause. “If I didn't know that you two were both geniuses. I would say the whole thing is a joke. There is nothing out of the ordinary in sight, yet you tell me that this room is a portal into a virtual world.” He said the words with an air of excitement.
    Mr. Kilgore pushed a few keys on the keyboard closing the program he was checking and bringing up the desktop. “What you don't see, Mr. Lombardi is the large computer server in the other room. Top of the line, the best money can buy, with a few improvements by myself.” The picture on the desktop was of a small jungle covered island on a warm summer day. There was only a single Icon, labeled “The Endless Frontier.”
    “What about the equipment that will connect this wonderful computer to my brain?” said Mr. Lombardi turning to Mr. Senoma.
    “Wireless brain connections,” he said. “Under the head of each bed you will notice a somewhat large white box. The equipment is in there.”
    “Impressive,” he said as he crouched and examined the closest box. “Enough talk. I came here to become the first man to experience a complete virtual reality. What do you need me to do?”
    “Give me a moment to get the program up and running, then all you have to do is choose a bed and lie down. The computer will do the rest,” said Mr. Kilgore as he loaded the program. “Oh, one more thing. The cameras you see in the corners of the room have been recording your every movement. The computer will analyze the video and create a virtual model of you. You might want to turn around a few times and stretch so that there is enough video to make an accurate representation.”
    Mr. Lombardi followed William's instructions as he continued to talk. “Once you've entered The Endless Frontier, you will see a camera nearby, that is how we will see you. You will be able to communicate with us through a cell phone you will find on your belt.”
    Dean and Elizabeth stood off to the side watching Mr. Lombardi as he stretched. Their apparent lack of excitement bothered him. He could tell something was making them nervous, but he determined not to let their problems ruin his moment of glory. After stretching he did a few jumping jacks and jogged in place.
    “It's ready,” said Mr. Kilgore.
    Troy lay down on one of the beds nearest the computer where he could still see the screen. As he did a message popped up. “Mind detected. Do you want to establish a new connection?” Mr. Kilgore clicked the yes option, and Mr. Lombardi felt the world vanish around him.

Episode Two: Preparations

2009-10-12T11:44:00.003-06:00

    Dean Senoma hung a few feet above the floor. Wires covered the harness that held him and extended to sensors placed all over his body. Through sound proof headphones, he heard Mr. Kilgore ask him if he was ready. After a moment of hesitation, he slid the opaque glasses from off his forehead down over his eyes.
    “I'm ready.” Dean braced himself, but for the moment nothing happened.
    “Where would you like to go?” Mr. Kilgore's voice asked. “I could drop you of in a desert, or a mountain, or I could set you in a blank location and let the computer randomly create something for you.”
    “Mountains sound nice.”
    “Mountains it is.”
    Compound lasers came from lenses in the goggles and filled each of his eyes with a full panorama image. An entire three dimensional landscape appeared before him.
    “The computer is calculating all five external senses, even though the only feedback you are getting is sight and sound. I'm still working on the internal ones, but that doesn't change anything in this demonstration,” said Mr. Kilgore.
    “This mountain sure seems real.” Dean moved his legs in walking motion, even though they hung in air. “You were right Mr. Kilgore, walking without feeling the ground is very strange. In fact the mountain seems more real than I do right now. I feel like a ghost.”
    “Try not to fall over, it is hard to move correctly when the computer 'up' is different from the 'up' your body feels.”
    Dean walked as best he could up the mountain slope. Mr. Kilgore had set him some two hundred feet under the ridge on a barren slope that overlooked a forest. He could hear crunch of gravel as he walked, but felt nothing push against his feet. He did fall down a few times. Which proved more difficult than he thought. Eventually he learned to ignore the gravity he felt and pay attention to which way looked up. When he stood still he almost believed the valley below him and the peak overhead were real, even the sound of wind in the trees was accurately present.
    “How did you create such a realistic setting,” said Dean. “The detail surprises me. Each rock is different, unique. I can hold them in my hands—even though I can't feel them—when I throw them they bounce against each other with all the expected clatter. It's amazing!”
    “Lots of physics equations.” Mr. Kilgore laughed. “The real achievement is actually in the computer hardware and software logic. I have figured out much more efficient methods to transmit and process data, allowing for more information to be used in real time simulation. The sheer about of information being processed as you walk around that mountain is staggering. Everything from air pressure variation around the rock you threw to heat generated from its impact on the dirt is calculated into the equations.   Its all just information running on wires.”
    “I've almost reached the ridge, I'd like to look over it before . . . whoops!” Deans arms instinctively reached out and braced to catch himself when he misplaced a foot and fell yet again. “This will be much easier once we connect it directly to the brain and get the whole sensation. I feel like a fool waving my arms and legs around feeling nothing.” Out of curiosity he put his hand behind his head and felt the thick rope he was hanging from. Strange, he thought, to feel reality and see a virtual imitation.
    When he was on his feet climbing again he asked, “What's on the other side of that ridge?”
    “Nothing.” said Mr. Kilgore, “at least not yet.”
    “When you invited me to come for this demonstration I thought you said you were done with the landscape and world creation. Mr. Lombardi won't be happy if his frontier vanishes into nothingness. He wants it to be endless.”
    “I could never make an endless landscape. But Mr. Lombardi won't be able to find any end in it, and you won't either. The moment your head goes over the ridge the computer will extend the landscape beyond your sight and fill it in randomly. I created databases and information files that allow the computer to make the landscape itself. The edge will always be just over the horizon, and never in sight.”
    A few moments later Dean leaped onto the ridge hoping to see the nothingness.   After slopping down for a few feet the mountain dropped in a shear cliff away from Dean's feet. Below lay a vast grassland dotted with lakes. A glimmering sea could barely be seen on the horizon. At the same time Mr. Kilgore heard a momentary hum come from the supercomputer next to him signaling that an unusual amount of information was being processed.
    “Wow.”
    “So,” asked Mr. Kilgore, “What is beyond the ridge?”
    “The Endless Frontier. Just like you said. I've seen enough. Get me out of here so we can work out the details of how to connect this program into the human brain.”

    A few hours later Mr. Senoma closed his laptop and slid it into his suitcase. Mr Kilgore was still examining charts on the table. It had taken longer than both of them thought it would, but the project was moving along.
    “What we are doing will completely revolutionize the world. This is big enough for the history books,” said Dean. “The improvements you've made to computer processing alone make modern computers look sluggish.”
    “That doesn't mean I'll make the history books, computers have improved drastically over the last few years and will probably continue to do so, leaving mine in the dust. I'll be a forgotten step along the way. But you, on the other hand, have pioneered new ground. The stuff you are doing is entirely new. Your understanding of the brain and how it functions is unprecedented. Technology that comes out of the work you are just beginning not only revolutionize human interactions with computers, but will also be turned to medical use helping millions. You'll be the famous one.”
    Mr. Senoma looked at the ground for a moment then looked up at Mr. Kilgore. “I hate that Mr. Lombardi just sits there in his office doing nothing, yet he's the one who will make the money with our creation. Everyone will give us a nice pat on the back, then pay him to use it. He'll gain even more control over the business world than he already has. And we won't even be able to work on our own discoveries without his permission.” Mr. Senoma was angrily pacing the room.
    “I'm sure he'll want us to continue working for him. We'll both be richer than kings with the reward he promised and he'll give us all the money we need to keep working. Were not like his other business ventures that he squeezes every penny from. This is his dream, his hobby. And I think he'll keep us employed as long as we want.”
    “You don't know that. He could dump us off and pay someone else to continue our work.”
    “Mr. Lombardi isn't like that. Besides with a hundred million you could start your own research facility.”
    “He will own the patent. I can't do anything unless he lets me. Its all in that fine print stack of papers he gave us. I shouldn't have signed it.”
    Mr. Kilgore finished putting all the papers a binder and snapped it close. “You worry too much, no one can replace you. Your the best mind in the entire medical field.”
    Dean opened his mouth, but closed it quickly. Mr. Kilgore, he realized, didn't care. He was willing to let Mr. Lombardi walk way with it all. Grabing his suitcase he quickly left the office.
    After Mr. Senoma left Mr. Kilgore sat for a while thinking about what Mr. Senoma had said. Mr. Senoma is just in a bad mood, he told himself, everything will work out fine.

Episode One: The Plan

2009-10-05T14:02:00.003-06:00

    Troy Lombardi, multibillionaire and sole owner of Lombardi Inc, leaned forward in his plush office chair and smiled broadly at the two men seated on the other side of his desk. His office was an odd mixture of a corporate office and a wilderness cabin. The full wall window behind him looked down on the lesser skyscrapers of New York City. On one wall hung the head of a large moose mixed with many framed certificates. A stuffed muskrat occupied a place next to the laptop on the desk itself.   The room expressed the disposition of its owner quite accurately.
    “Gentlemen,” he said, “thank you for making time in your busy schedules to come talk with me. Before we get to the details of why I have asked you two men to come here, I have a few thing I would like to explain.” Reaching into his gold striped black suit he pulled out two objects and laid them on the table. The first was an old, worn compass. It was a simple model, the kind that can be purchased for only a few dollars. The second was a hand-held computer. Pointing to it he added, “Waterproof, high powered GPS. It contains topographical maps of the whole world.”
    Mr. Kilgore leaned forward and examined them. He wore a deep blue suit that other than needing the help of a lint brush portrayed him as a confident able man. He noticed the initials T.L. written in permanent marker among the scratches, nearly worn away from use. Out of habit he pushed his spectacles higher on his nose, even though it really didn't improve his vision. Mr. Senoma, less interested, remained sitting, unimpressed.
    “These two instruments, represent different eras of exploration,” said Mr. Lombardi. “The compass was used by daring men who ventured into the unknown. They were the map makers, the trailblazers. They boldly paved the way before them, often at the peril of there own life.
    “The GPS represents the modern era. Explores who now venture into the back country armed with knowledge. They are not really on a journey of discovery at all. They have a specific destination and a planned route. As they travel they do not subdue the wilderness, but seek to harm it as little as possible.
    “I am an adventurer at heart and I year for the old frontier. The modern back countries of the world weary me. Even space, the so called 'final frontier,' is more like the back country. Robots and computers map the way before, and a single trip takes years of planning. That is hardly a frontier at all!
    “The frontier is lost, gentlemen. We, the human race, have overcome it. It was a glorious achievement, but the glory did not come from a final declaration that we had mastered the world. The glory came from the effort of each man who boldly faced the frontier and conquered his piece of the unknown. That glory is now gone.
    “I have called you here to my office because I believe that the three of us have the means necessary to create a new frontier. This new frontier, unlike the old one, will never run out. It is to be an endless frontier.
    “Mr. William Kilgore, you have a doctorate in Physics and another in Computer Technology, but more importantly you have made incredible progress in computer simulations that mimic reality. You have the potential of making the first fully comprehensive virtual reality. Up until now you have been held back by lack of funding and equipment, in my employment you will lack neither. You will create a program that mimics reality and expands into randomly created wilderness infinitely in all directions.
    “Mr. Dean Senoma, esteemed brain surgeon and leading researcher on the central nervous system. I will help you will continue the work you have already begun in manipulating the central nervous system to artificially simulate the senses. Once you have developed a system that will allow all senses to be supplied to the brain artificially and at the same time intercept all the brain's commands to the body so that they can be fed back into a computer, all this without harm to the patient, we will connect your system to Mr. Kilgore's program and the Endless Frontier will be born.
    “The Endless Frontier will allow the adventurers of humanity to fulfill their passion and bring in a new era of exploration, combining the best of both previous eras of exploration. Men will face an unknown and untamed wilderness that they are free to discover and subdue without having to fear for life and limb.”
    Troy Lombardi voice had slowly heightened as he spoke. The last two sentences were spoken with a sense of triumph, as though the Endless Frontier had already been completed and the victory won. He paused in silence, eyeing the two men in front of him.
    William Kilgore had a far off look in his eye. Others might have mistaken it as disinterest or lack of attention, but Mr. Lombardi had an unusual knack for reading people's faces—which had helped him build his fortune and business empire—and he knew that Mr. Kilgore's eyes were unfocused because his mind was whirring with activity, thinking of the possibilities and already working on overcoming the many problems and obstacles of such a bold project. Mr. Lombardi knew that he had earned Mr. Kilgore support.
    Dean Senoma, on the other hand, was still skeptical. His eyes, small and shrewd, returned Mr. Lombardi's gaze. “Employment you said? What are your terms? I am a busy man with many potential employers for many projects.” His confident pose let Mr. Lombardi know that he anticipated much and would bargain for more if given the chance.
    Very few people knew the true extent of the Lombardi estate. One of Troy's favorite parts of being wealthy was proving it. With a large grin on his face he reached into his desk and pulled out two black credit cards with gleaming gold lettering. After tossing one on the desk in front of each of them, he explained, “For the duration of the time you work on the project you may use these to support yourselves, they have no limit: elegant parties, Caribbean cruises, and whatever else you want. When you complete the project to my satisfaction I will reclaim the cards, and any properties purchased with them, and give you each one hundred million dollars.” Then placing a stack of papers and pen in front of each of them added, “Here is the long winded, fine print version of the same offer.”

    Fifteen minutes later, Troy Lombardi sat alone in his office. Out of his desk he produced a thin paperback novel and commenced reading it for the fourth time. As the mountain man in the story climbed up over the ridge of a mountain top and beheld the yet undiscovered frontier, Troy looked out across the overpopulated city and in his mind's eye it became a virtual wilderness, one that would never end.

Introduction to The Endless Frontier

2009-10-01T22:15:00.002-06:00

I first had the idea for "The Endless Frontier" in the Philippines as I served as a missionary for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. For a few months my assignment included many hours of driving and office work which left me plenty of time to think. My companion at the time was Adam Griffiths. Because of all the driving time we talked about a wide range of subjects. I don't remember exactly how the conversation came about, but we created the character Troy Lombardi and began to make a story for him. In that time we developed most of the characters and the basic plot, but not much more.
A few weeks ago I decided to create a blog to motivate me in my writing and invite others to enjoy a novel as I wrote it. I went through my mental catalog of story ideas and selected "The Endless Frontier." Starting on Monday October 5, 2009 I will post an episode of "The Endless Frontier" to this blog each week. If I stick to my current outline, the novel will be completed on March 29, 2010.