Meeting Of Minds

By Ben Chenoweth

Could virtual reality be used to explore the galaxy? Dave and his friend Jon think so. When they decode an alien message they discover a three-dimensional environment populated by virtual aliens with an invitation to join the Galactanet. But Dave and Jon can only take up this offer by becoming virtual themselves.

Things get more complicated as a hacker in the employ of a certain Dr. Werner infiltrates Dave's virtual reality system, causing mayhem. Soon Dr. Werner's machinations threaten the very existence of the Galactanet itself. Can Dave and his friends come up with a way to save the galaxy?

• Language: English
• Publisher: Ben Chenoweth
• Release date: Apr 13, 2011
• ISBN: 9781458111371

Ben Chenoweth

Ben lives in Melbourne, Australia, with his wife and two children. He has an interest in the intersection between theology and the arts, and to that end has written a play based on the life of Saul, a musical based on the Biblical book of Esther, and a novel that is actually a thinly-disguised commentary on the book of Revelation (as he says, "If others can do it, so can I!") For those who might be interested, he lists C. S. Lewis, Peter Shaffer and Neal Stephenson as his literary inspirations. A few comments about the books: "Meeting Of Minds" was written way back in 1994, so please be kind! It is my first novel, and it has clear influences: Douglas Adams' "Hitchhikers' Guide To The Galaxy" series, the TV series "Max Headroom" and Neal Stephenson's "Snow Crash" to name the obvious ones. "Saul, First King Of Israel" was written in 2001 as a way to put some of the scholarly materials I was reading as part of a Bachelor Of Theology into more of a popular format. But then I chose to write a play. Go figure! "The Ephesus Scroll" is the first novel in my Exegetical Histories series. The novel has two timelines and the action cuts back and forth between them, like Neal Stephenson's "Cryptonomicon". The first timeline is set in 93 AD, during the reign of Domitian; the second is set in the recent present (2005-6), mostly in St. Petersburg, Russia. Having two timelines is my way of answering two important questions about the book of Revelation: what did it mean for the people who first heard it, and what does it mean for us today? "The Corinth Letters" is the second novel in my Exegetical Histories series. This novel examines the context that gave rise to the books of 1 and 2 Corinthians, while also adding in romance, document forgery, archaeology, and descriptions of delicious Greek cuisine. "The Rome Gospel" is the third (and most recent) novel in my Exegetical Histories series. This novel covers the writing of the gospel of Mark against the background of persecution in the wake of the great fire of Rome. It also traces Mark's life, as he meets important leaders like Peter, Paul, his uncle Barnabas, Timothy, and an apostle who just happens to be a woman.

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Meeting of Minds

Ben Chenoweth

First published by Ben Chenoweth in 1994

This edition published on Smashwords in 2011

(www.smashwords.com/books/view/53406

Text copyright © Ben Chenoweth 1994

The moral right of the author has been asserted

Smashwords Edition, License Notes

This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

Typeset in 11pt Cardo (headings in Brisk) by Ben Chenoweth

Cover design by Ben Chenoweth

Author photograph by Michael Bottomer (Life Through A Lens)

www.ephesusscroll.com

[e-mail]

To David,

For friendship, and inspiration.

This is for you, and your sense of humour.

part one:

MeetingOfMinds™

MOM

Nothing which is at all times and in every way agreeable to us can have objective reality. It is of the very nature of the real that it should have sharp corners and rough edges, that is should be resistant, should be itself. Dream-furniture is the only kind on which you never stub your toes or bang your knee.

C.S.Lewis

before

Mom’s Place

He opened his eyes.

All he could see was white, like an expanse of pristine snow gleaming under a clear sky, an immensity of pureness that almost made him close his eyes again.  He found it impossible to judge depth; he could have been looking millions of miles, or just at a brightly lit ceiling.

And then, as if his eyes had adjusted to the lightness, he was looking at a brightly lit ceiling.

Alright, he thought.  I’m here.  Now what?

He was lying on what felt like a bed.  Quite comfortable actually.  It wasn’t too hard (or else, what’s the point of using a bed at all - you might as well sleep on the floor), and not too soft (which always left various parts of his anatomy feeling like they’d just run a marathon without stretching first or having a nice pleasant massage afterwards.)

He sat up, feeling a trifle dizzy.  The room shifted into focus, as he swung his legs over the side of the bed and placed his feet in the luxurious carpet.

Nice.  Trés chic.

A quick glance around the room showed that it looked remarkably like one you would find in any decent and upstanding hostelry in the better parts of town: plenty of space, expensive furniture that looked antique (but beautifully restored), pictures on the walls, walk-in wardrobes with brass fittings.  Presumably, one of the doors led to an en suite.  Lots of shine, taste and money was on view.  It was quite apparent that the interior decorators knew how to spell the word ‘opulent’, and had a good idea what it meant.

There was a little bedside table within arm’s reach.  On it, there was a telephone, a couple of books, and a glass of water.  He was never one to pass up an opportunity to browse through a book so he picked up one of them.  It had quite a long title: A Smug Little Treatise On The Value Of A Planned Political Economy, by a Scholar.  Very strange, yet somehow familiar.  Not quite what he would have expected to find in the circumstances (he’d been expecting a Gideon’s Bible), but still it could be useful.  For insomnia, for instance.  He opened it only to find that all the pages were blank.

Curiouser and curiouser, he thought, thumbing quickly through the book.  Ah, of course!  A product of the collapse of the Empire, brought on by the success of custom-built planets...  A subtle reference, but I sense your hand in it, Dave.

He put the book down next to the other one, which he now noticed was a Gideon’s Bible.  Without needing to open it, he just knew that John 3:16 would be underlined.  It always was.

He stood up with the intent to check out the pictures.  His first glance had shown there were two Picassos (looking disconcertingly genuine) and a print of M.C.Escher’s ‘Relativity’ hung upside-down, not that anyone but an authority would have known.  He was just going over to check, when the telephone started ringing.

Well, someone knows I’m here.  I guess it must be Dave, although I thought I’d meet him in person.  He leant over and picked up the receiver.

Ah, hello?

Yo, Jon!  How ya doing?

He recognised the voice easily.

Dave, I thought I’d be seeing you...

Oh, I decided to give you some time to adjust.  I’m real close to you.  Just down the passage.

Which passage?

The one outside your room.

Oh, I hadn’t got that far yet... this is a hotel, right?

Well, more a sort of reception area, really.  You wouldn’t want to materialise in the middle of a conference, would you?

No, I guess not.  So, this is MeetingOfMinds™.  I’d heard so much about it, but it’s even more impressive than I’d even imagined.  The carpet is amazing...

Yeah, I know.

Tell, me, asked Jon, What’s the ‘TM’ for?

It’s the abbreviation for ‘trade mark’.  You know, some sort of copyright thing.  I don’t know much about it, but I know our lawyers are always going on about it.  Look, let’s finish this now, and I’ll take you to the conference room itself.

OK.  Where do I go?

Out the door, turn left, and I’ll meet you outside my room.

Easy enough.

Right, be seeing you.

Bye.

He hung up.

Well, no point hanging around.  He walked over to the door, opened it, and stepped through.  Into an en suite.  It, too, was radiantly stylish while retaining a certain rustic charm, but it wasn’t the passage.  Backtracking, he tried the other door.  This time he found the corridor.

The interior decorators hadn’t limited all their time (or funds) to the reception rooms, for the corridor carried on the same fixation-with-wealth motif: more famous paintings lined the walls, the carpet was deep, every shiny surface gleamed, and antique electric light-fittings[1] hung from the ceiling.  The whole effect was spoiled somewhat by the man at the end who was wearing ripped jeans, a scruffy goatee that any self-respecting goat would have shaved off years ago, and a Mickey Mouse tie.  Dave.

Jon hurried towards him.

Hey, what took you so long? he asked Jon.

"Well, I thought I’d better check out the, er, facilities.  You know, the en suite."

Oh, right.  Well, what do you think?

Quite nice.  Polished...um...clean...button looked like it would work...

Not about the toilet!  I mean, what do you think of the whole set-up?

Oh, sorry... It’s great, I mean, fantastic.  Must have cost a fortune.

Looks that way doesn’t it.  Dave looked pleased.  We spent a lot of time making sure it was up to scratch.  After all, for us the appearance is everything.  As they say, beauty is in the eye of the beholder.

Well this beholder is impressed.

Enough chit-chat.  Come and have a look at the conference room.  It’s worth seeing.

Dave led Jon down the passage to a large double-door which he proceeded to open.  On the other side was a magnificent room, although calling it a ‘room’ was to diminish the impact.  It was more like a sculpture.  This would be what the United Nations Assembly would look like if they had the budget of a Steven Spielberg movie, Jon thought.  And the effects.

There was a huge circular table in the middle of the room, with a large hole in the centre.  Around the outside of the table were seats, indented slightly so that the whole thing, seen from above, would resemble a giant cog-wheel.  In front of every seat there was a computer console that included a keyboard, a mouse and a notepad (for a light-pen).  Jon sat down in one of the seats, and Dave sat nearby.

Well?

I’m stunned, said Jon.

Thanks!

It’s absolutely amazing...

Well, this is Mom’s place.  This is MeetingOfMinds™ (and don’t you forget the TM!)  This is what corporations around the globe pay through the nose to use for their board meetings.

It looks great.

Well, we tried to replicate what the United Nations Assembly would look like if they’d had the budget of a Steven Spielberg movie.

...And the effects.

Yeah.

How does it work?

Just like any other kind of meeting, except it takes place in virtual reality.  There are so many advantages.  For instance, the expensive décor costs as much as it takes to program in - and there’s no maintenance.

Very neat.

Also, we can do a lot of nifty things for speaker presentations.

He pressed a button on the console in front of him and stood up.  And disappeared.

Dave?

Over here.

He’d reappeared in the hole in the centre of the table.

This is where people can give their speeches, or whatever.  The best thing is that everyone sitting around the table would see me talking directly at them, because each person’s vision is individualised.  As the speaker, I actually see everyone in rows.  It also helps if I want to use slides, videos or holovids.

He pushed some more buttons.  First, some spectacular photographs of waterfalls appeared, hanging in the air behind and slightly to the left of him.  Then, the photos started moving.  Then, suddenly, he appeared to be standing next to a real waterfall, splashing his hands under the flow.  As quickly as it appeared, it vanished.

Alright! cried Jon, and applauded.

Thank you, thank you, said Dave, bowing left and right.  You see, with virtual reality, many impossible things become possible.

I saw.

Oh yeah, and if it turns out the speaker is dead boring, there are games built into the consoles, as well as some books, movies, magazines and TV.  Just as long as you don’t laugh in the wrong spots, no one will know, because your view is completely personalised.

I’m getting sick of saying ‘amazing’.

I’m used to it, I guess.

And it gets used a lot?

What, ‘amazing’?

No.  This whole thing.

All the time.  We’ve got facilities for twenty of these conferences to run simultaneously with up to fifty people in each.  We can make even bigger ones, if needed.  And they’re all getting used on a regular basis.  Think about it, you can meet people here even if they live on the other side of the world, give or take a fractionally-small time delay.

Amazing...whoops!

Actually, we need to leave about now.  The Australian parliament is booked in five minutes from now.  When the menu appears, just choose QUIT.

Dave disappeared.

A number of words appeared in the air directly in front of Jon.  He reached forward and grasped the one that said QUIT.  The others faded away, leaving a message:

thanks

It hung in space long enough for him to read it, then gradually the conference room faded around him, leaving him in a smallish room painted completely with white.  He was sitting on a section of the floor that was raised from the rest at a comfortable seat height, wearing a light, rubberish jump-suit that completely covered every centimetre of his skin except for his face.

He knew where this was.  The room was known as a dynamic interface and was the engineering marvel behind the success of MOM™.  It was essentially a section of flexible flooring that could move in any direction with a variety of speeds, but that could also be deformed from below.

He stood up, and behind him the floor levelled itself.  Looking about him, he located the door, and walked towards it.  If the floor had been in active mode, he would have stayed very much in the centre of the room, but it was off, so he quickly had the door open and was through.

Jon stepped out into a sophisticated work-room.  A couple of cubicles like the one he’d just been in could be seen around the walls, and in the middle, masses of computers sat on benches.  Dave was already there.

Our main programming centre, he said, waving vaguely with his left hand.  Look, I’m dying for a bowl of ice-cream.  Let’s get into our proper gear and head to the café down the street.  Don’t forget the earplugs and contact lenses.  As he spoke, he took out his earplugs and put them in a receptacle.  The contacts followed.  Jon did the same.

Dave left the room in the direction of the changing facilities, with Jon close behind.  The lights automatically switched themselves off, and in the new darkness, the computers blinked a seemingly random pattern of lights that would have been almost hypnotic if anyone had been there to see them.

Café Java Jive

And another thing: computers.  In almost every movie with a computer in it, the people using them can do absolutely astounding things by pushing (at most) three buttons.  Dave was speaking about one of his favourite topics - scientific inaccuracies in movies.  It’s just unreal, in the true sense of the word.  For example, a six-year-old kid creates a three-dimensional model of his bedroom and his backyard - from scratch, mind you - and then animates the escape route of his pet budgerigar, all by pushing the spacebar a couple of times!  OK, that may be a bit extreme, but you know what I mean...

It was Jon’s turn.

"Yeah, I notice some things as well, relating to my own interests, I guess.  A good example is in Dances With Wolves.  There’s this white woman, right, who’s supposed to have been raised by the Sioux for most of her life.  However, when Kevin Costner shows up, she starts to remember English.  Fair enough, it is an important plot device, and saves Costner having to learn Sioux.  The only thing is, she speaks English really nasally.  Extremely so.  I guess the film-makers wanted her to sound different.  Anyway, the problem is the Sioux language is not the least bit nasal, at least as it is spoken in the film.  So there is no linguistic reason why she would speak English nasally..."

They were sitting in the café around the corner from the workshop of MOM™, and had just about finished their late-night snack.

I remember someone telling me, said Dave, noisily slurping the dregs of his milkshake, "that Arnie, in the famous motorcycle chase along a canal in Terminator 2, changes up gears at least fifty times without once changing down."

Hmmm, murmured Jon.  Makes you think...

Why?  What about?

Oh, I don’t know.  I was just thinking.

"Er,