Kevin Sawyer's life is anything but simple. Now reunited with an alternate universe version of his deceased wife, Jessica, the cybernaut must find a way to return the virtual woman to her proper place in time and space. To make matters more complicated, Kelly Cleaver, special science advisor to the President and a member of the DARPA oversight council, believes Kevin and his team are deliberately stalling the operational progress of Project: Virtual Man and is exerting pressure on a vulnerable team member to get the answers she wants. Since his first trip to Mainframe, Kevin and company have tried to keep the secret of the cyberverse among themselves, in an attempt to forestall a human invasion of virtual reality. With their secret on the verge of being exposed, the future of two universes hangs in the balance while the Virtual Man team decides what to do next.


DARPA Research Facility

Green Hill, West Virginia

Kellous Scott entered the conference room and came to an abrupt halt just inside the doorway. The room was comfortably large and boxy and enclosed a long conference table with black faux-leather swivel chairs. Sitting at the table was a pretty blond woman with a short haircut and angular features. Her blue eyes were glacial, and Kellous felt the hairs on the back of his neck stand on end when she turned their gaze on him. Like a deer caught in the headlights of an oncoming car, he was struck dumb with terror, but at the same time he was unable to articulate why he should feel afraid.

"Dr. Scott, I'm Kelly Cleaver," the woman said. "Do you remember me?"

"Of course," Kellous replied. "You're on the DARPA oversight council. I've seen you around here a lot over the last couple months."

"I'm glad you remember," she said. "It saves me time reintroducing myself. Please, sit."

"I'm sorry," Kellous replied, "I thought I was meeting with someone from HR."

"To discuss the renewal of your contract," injected Cleaver. "Yes, I know. You'll be discussing the subject of your continued employment with me, doctor."

An uncomfortable wave of heat worked its way out of Kellous' stomach and into his limbs. He felt like he was being backed into a corner by a vicious predator, and he had no avenue of escape. He sat down across from Cleaver, who had a file open on the table before her. Kellous sat on the edge of his seat, hands grasping the ends of the armrests, as though he were preparing to bolt out of the room at a moment's notice.

"You were only brought on to Dr. Sawyer's team a year ago, is that right?" asked Cleaver, looking at the file.

Kellous nodded. "That's right. Virtual Man was moving into animal testing and Kevin…I mean, Dr. Sawyer needed a medical expert to evaluate the health of the test subjects."

There was something wrong. Kellous could feel it. He again had the overwhelming fear of being led into a trap of some kind.

"You have an impressive resume here, Dr. Scott," said Cleaver, reading directly from the open file. "Pre-med biology at UCLA. Pathology, virology, and toxicology at Johns-Hopkins. Then surgical resident at Walter Reed for two years before being recruited into the Army's Medical Research Institute for Infectious Diseases." Cleaver looked up from the file and turned her inscrutable icy gaze upon Kellous again. "Forgive me for saying so, but to me it looks like your career took a detour when you came to work here."

"Technically, I'm still a researcher at AMRIID," explained Kellous, his throat uncomfortably dry. His voice took on a raspy, rattling quality. "I'm kind of on loan to DARPA."

"That's right," Cleaver said, as if realizing a detail that had escaped her. "You were hired to work for DARPA under a non-direct consultant contract, which gets renewed every year on an as-needed basis."

Kellous worked up enough spit to swallow then leaned forward, resting his forearms on the tabletop. "Ms. Cleaver, why are we having this conversation?"

Cleaver shuffled all the loose papers back into their file folder and closed it, pushing it aside so that there was nothing on the table between her and Kellous. Once again, Kellous felt her crystal blue eyes scrutinize him intensely, and he shifted uneasily in his seat. He thought he saw the faint outline of a smirk on her lips, but he couldn't be sure because of the atom bomb she dropped on him.

"Dr. Scott, I'm here to inform you that, unless you give me your full cooperation, DARPA will not renew your contract. I plan to ask Fraud, Waste, and Abuse to open an investigation into allegations that the personnel involved in Project: Virtual Man are attempting to defraud the U.S. government by actively sabotaging the operational readiness of their experiment."

Kellous felt his blood freeze, and his whole body broke out in a cold sweat. He tried to speak, tried to force a defense past his lips, but his throat, again dry as parchment, seized up and all that came out was a wheeze.

"As an individual under investigation by the Department of Defense," Cleaver continued, "you will not be allowed to resume your post at AMRIID, and you will not be allowed to seek employment anywhere in the United States until any culpability on your part can be ruled out." Cleaver leaned in closer. "And I can make that take a while."

Of all the questions racing through his mind, he could only utter one, the question that reverberated the loudest inside his head, the only question he really cared about at that moment:

"Why are you doing this to me?" he asked.

Cleaver relaxed into the black swivel chair. "I took a chance, really. I thought being a more recent addition to the team, you wouldn't have the same level of loyalty the others seem to have for Dr. Sawyer. The fact that your contract was up for renewal gave me leverage I couldn't get with any of the others."

"Leverage?" Kellous' voice rose to a frantic pitch and broke. "Why do you need leverage? What have I done to deserve this? I've never defrauded the government! None of us have."

"But you are hiding something," Cleaver countered. "I know Sawyer has made several trips through the digitization platform, all of which have been successful, but he keeps claiming Virtual Man isn't operational."

"It's not!" exclaimed Kellous.

"Then why does he keep using it?" Cleaver asked. "He's the mastermind behind quantum digitization technology. It doesn't make sense for him to keep risking his life if it's dangerous, which means it isn't dangerous, and you've all been holding the project back for some reason."

The jig was up! Cleaver was on to them! Kellous slumped backwards into his chair and let his vision go hazy as he stared up at the tiled ceiling of the conference room. She had him. Cleaver had him by the nads, and there was nothing he could do but cooperate, not if he wanted to keep working for a living. It had been a noble effort, he thought, trying to keep Mainframe and the cyberverse a secret from their government overseers, but they all knew they were on borrowed time.

Time's up, Kellous thought.

"Dr. Scott," Cleaver said, her tone softer and more conciliatory than it had been, "this is nothing personal against you, but I need to know what's going on with this project. If you cooperate, I promise to leave you out of the investigation. You'll be quietly let go by DARPA, and you can go back to your old job at AMRIID with a spotless record."

Kellous remained silent but covered his eyes with his right hand, his face twisted into a grimace.

"This offer is only good for the next thirty seconds," Cleaver added.

Something like murderous rage made Kellous drop his hand and sit straight up in his chair. He locked eyes with Cleaver and for the first time since entering the room, he didn't feel intimidated by her stare. Kellous had already made up his mind. He knew what he was going to do. All that was left was to reconcile himself with the fact that he had already made the choice, but the added pressure from Cleaver only made him furious on top of being angry and defeated.

"What do you want?" he asked.

Cleaver leaned forward again, turning the full force of her penetrating gaze on him. "Full disclosure."