lot of people did that, picked one setting, in order to have a common
experience, but Michaels liked his or Jay's imagery better. If you
could do it, then why not?
The bateau bumped against the pilings of the little dock, and Michaels
killed the outboard and hopped up onto the wooden planks. He tied the
boat up and started for the bar. From this angle, he could see the
name of the place: The Dewdrop Inn.
Oh, boy.
In reality, he was sitting in his office more than fifty years away
from this place, wearing ear and eye bands,
hands in skeletal sensory gloves, seeing and feeling the computer's
imagery, and he was aware of that on some level, though he had learned
to tune the 'real' reality out, as had most people who spent any time
in VR.
Normally, he would have had Jay or one of the other serious players
investigating this. But the truth was, he needed the diversion;
otherwise, he'd have to pack up and go home, and while work wasn't
always a cure for what ailed you, sometimes it was better than
nothing.
He ambled toward the juke joint. A swarthy, bearded man wearing
overalls, no shirt, and no shoes leaned against the wall next to the
entrance. The man spat a stream of chewing tobacco juice at a little
chameleon perched on a stump nearby, missed. The man smiled, showing
gaps in his mostly rotten teeth.
In VR, fire walls came in all kinds of configurations.
Well, yeehaw, Michaels thought. Welcome to the shallow end of the gene
pool, boy.
'Ain't open,' Overalls said.
Michaels nodded.
'Uh huh. Guess I'll have to come back later.'
'Reckon so.'
Michaels smiled and walked away. He retreated to the small dock, got
into his boat, cast off, and cranked the motor. Around the next bend
in the bayou, maybe three hundred yards farther upstream, he put back
into shore.
tied the bateau to a low-hanging willow tree branch, and hiked back
toward the Dewdrop Inn. He circled around behind it, being careful not
to let Overalls see him.
The back door was of unpainted wooden planks, crude, but solid. He
fished around his pocket and pulled out a skeleton key. In reality,
the key was a password provided by Dr. Morrison, but one couldn't
expect to have a coded keypad lock in this kind of scenario; it
wouldn't be appropriate.
The spring lock clicked open. Michaels quickly stepped inside and
closed the door behind him.
The inside of the place was pretty much a match for the outside, a
1950s backwoods bar. There were scarred wooden tables, beat-up
cane-bottomed bent back chairs, and a row of stools in front of a bar
that had seen decades of spilled beers and misplaced cigarettes. Two
big rectangular coolers marked with beer logos were behind the bar, and
