I lifted one of the VR helmets.
"So you think she hid the articles in the Second World?"
"Where else would she put it? You were the last person she trained to use it. And she modeled the virtual work space after the neighborhood you both knew so well."
"What happens if I go in and find it."
"Then we have details to feed to Juan Ricardo. We ask him for some proof of your daughter's condition, such as a video with the current time and date. They won't film her in the same location that they're hiding her. They'll have to move her. Then we'll know which safe house they are in. We'll have a clear chance to take them out. Once we have your daughter, I can fly your whole family out of the country from my private airstrip near Encinitas. I own an island in the South Pacific where we can refuel and go anywhere in the world. I have properties in the Maldives and the Marshall Islands, countries that have no extradition treaty with the U.S. Once you are secure, I'll hold another press conference revealing the full Articles of Incorporation, exposing Marcus as the leader of the criminal conspiracy known as Shiro, guilty of plotting the assassinations of Gina, David Stone and Zeke Legend, guilty of exploiting Secure Strategies to infiltrate the FBI to frame and abduct you and Abdul Shahabi. The allegations will set off a flurry of inquiry by the press, shifting public opinion. Law enforcement will have no choice but to refocus its investigation on the real culprits. You'll be exonerated and allowed to return to American soil."
"You sound so confident."
"Of course. It's easy to forecast how this will play out. The hard part is finding the articles. Are you ready?"
"Let's do it."
Chet called the others back into the room. The tall man in sunglasses typed a series of commands at our workstations while Larry looked on over his shoulder. We trapped on the helmets and plunged into a river of lights and color. At the end of a blurry tunnel, I was transformed into the Aztec warrior and Chet stood beside me as the ancient, bearded philosopher in flowing robes. We walked through the freeway underpass on 190th Street and Passion Headquarters loomed in front of us. The sky overhead was a perfect shade of LA gray.
"Where do we start?" he said.
"We go in the headquarters." Our avatars spoke to each other through the microphones in our helmets. We walked past two uniformed security guards in the lobby. Gina used to call them "actors", parts of the virtual world that were programmed to follow a handful of behaviors.
We took the elevator to the call center on the 6th floor. There were hundreds of phone reps chattering away, more actors disguised to look like my old co-workers. A red screen flashed call volumes and service levels overheard. Sitting in one desk was Olivia, the Pentecostal Christian who quit after she had a massive heart attack at her desk. Across the aisle was Roland, the doomed Employee of the Year candidate. Lenny, the cocky supervisor, preened in his office.
"She went out of her way to make this as life-like as possible," I said. "She must've used video footage of my co-workers. Charlie Park had cameras embedded everywhere after someone start stealing laptops from the floor."
I heard a voice behind me.
"She's late again today. You know how she doesn't make it in sometimes."
It was Roland, or it wasn't really Roland of course because he was dead. But it was Gina's version of him programmed as an agent in the Second World. Gina must've programmed the actor to say those lines when he saw me. "You may have to get her out of another jam."
"Let's go," I told Chet as Roland walked away. "I was wrong. It's not here. It's not in the headquarters."
"Where are we going?" Chet asked.
"A few miles from here."
You didn't need to walk in the Second World. So we glided, the way you might in a dream where they let you break the law of gravity. We hovered above the cars, flying west along 190th street to Hawthorne Boulevard. Then we floated north until we came to a complex of dingy, month-to-month apartments where Gina had stayed.
"This is where he tried to break-in."
"Tried?" Chet exclaimed. "He did break-in. That's what Gina said. That's what was in the police report."
Her apartment was on the second floor at the end of concrete balcony. I kicked her front door open. It was a mess inside: drawers and cupboards overturned; clothes and papers scattered across the floor.
"This is how it looked that night. She told everyone her ex had taken the graduation photo. But he hadn't. He never made it in the apartment."
I reached behind the dresser and removed the picture from her hiding spot.
"I was the only one who knew."
I flipped the frame, expecting to see the image of her in a cap-and-gown standing next to the mayor. Instead there was a message.
BREAK ME
I punched my fist through the glass and the walls around us began to crumble. We were bathed in a blinding light. Suddenly the world around us morphed into something completely different.