Solar Umbrella (Book 1)

Chapter 19: Caught in a Landslide

THE ROOM RETURNED to normal. Parker had to blink several times to return his sight to normal.

"What in the...fuck?" he said to himself. The door to the simulator opened.

"Parker," Frank Williams began. "Hey, you're ok. Come out here, sit down and take a minute." He clapped Parker on the shoulder, as if to remind him that this was real. "It takes the brain a minute to acclimatise. Come. Have some water, relax for a bit."

Parker shook his head as he took off the haptic gloves and boots. He felt like he had accidentally napped for three hours in the middle of the day and was now paying the price. "Uh, ok. Yep," he told Frank. As the fog cleared, he wondered what the hell had just happened. The whole thing had been simulated? It felt totally real. Not like when you disappear into a good book, a movie or video game and allow your mind to sink into the story—this had felt real. This was light years past the simulators he had been in before. "What...what was that?"

"Pretty wild, right? You're alright to jump back to reality already? Quick reconnect," Frank said as he wrote something on his tablet.

Parker nodded. He felt his mind returning to normal, working in the here and now. "Reconnecting? Is that the verb?" he asked Frank. He felt...dirty. His logical mind knew he hadn't done anything wrong. There was no farm in space. There weren't any crew members. He knew all that, but his emotions hadn't caught up yet. "That was like nothing I've done before. I've never even seen anything like this. And, no offence, but...NASA has this?"

"None taken, I get it," Frank laughed. "Hey, you're the one applying. We don't offer the best in terms of money, but a lot of great people want to work for us. It sounds a little pompous, but people who want to make a difference work here. We had a team working on this for over a decade. It's doubly useful. We can use it for any sort of training at all and it's much cheaper than traditional methods over time. We can also use it as an interface for unmanned vehicles and probes—whatever. We just simulate a control room of sorts, and no one actually has to travel all over the universe. We've worked with trying to have people actually be the vehicles, but that seems a bridge too far. Had a guy barf until I thought his feet might come out of his mouth once. In any case, we're very proud of the work."

Parker shook his head in awe. "It's...I mean, it's incredible. I don't know what else to say. I understand now why no one wanted to talk to me about this part of the interview."

"Yes, we're keeping it under wraps for now," Frank told him. "Eventually, the secret will be out, but we're hoping we can package the system and the code before then. There's a lot of companies who would be interested and it would do wonders for our bottom line. In any case, this concludes your interview if there's nothing else you want to ask? I'm sure you want to get home and rest. I promise you'll feel normal shortly."

"No, thanks," Parker replied, still processing everything he had been through. The line between simulation and reality had become more defined. He still felt a little off, but he knew nothing had actually happened.

"I'll be in touch personally. Likely tomorrow or the next day," Frank told him as they stood up and shook hands. "Listen, I'm not promising anything, but with your education, experience and what I saw so far from your evaluation, I'm positive you're the type of person we're after. We'll have to see what departments are looking for someone with your skills. Finally, I don't know what simulation you went through, I'll be checking it out shortly, but they can be incredibly jarring. Remember, nothing actually happened. We strive for safety and planning here, but accidents do happen. Hopefully you'll never experience anything even close to the scenarios in the simulator, but we have to know how you will react under pressure in advance. Some people are built to do the planning and building, and we need those people. Others are built to actually go on missions and live the experience. We'll see where you line up."

Parker collected his stuff and headed for the door. "I look forward to the call," he nodded at Frank. "Thanks for your time." There was nothing left to do but wait.