The Artificial Mirage Read Free Page A

crouched on the unfinished concrete floor with his eyes closed. He felt granules of sand on his fingertips. He imagined an AR display of Lauren in a clear plastic version of her business suit walking through a pristine city of crystal and gold along a river of fire. It was there, but it wasn’t. He squinted in a vain attempt to hold onto it, but it was gone. He wanted to know what time it was when two women in completely different gray uniforms walked into his cell.
    “We are going to let you go, Mr. Charlie,” one of them blurted out.
    “Why?” he said.
    “We believe you are telling us the truth about the level of your involvement with Chi Capital Markets. You will have to appear in court. And then you will be deported.”
    “Deported? Why do I have to leave Vietnam?”
    The officer who hadn’t spoken and seemed to hold seniority pulled out a battered gray device from her left front jacket pocket and set it on the matte amber plastic coffee table bolted to the floor. It quickly flickered on and projected the camera’s perspective on the wall. She adjusted it until Charlie was centered in the frame.
    “Read this,” the other officer said as she projected a statement for Charlie to read to the left. His name and prison ID number appeared at the bottom of his image.
    “‘I understand that my employment visa will continue to be valid, but I am not permitted to leave Vietnam. I am permitted to search for any other employment during this time.’”
    “What will you do now? Your assistant has left Vietnam. Will you try to contact her?” She seemed to be following a scripted response.
    “Where did she go?”
    “We don’t know.”
    “What do you mean? If you know she’s left, then there’s a record of her ticket.”
    “Unfortunately, we do not have access to that information. We are not police. We are a private company specializing in financial problems. I am sorry, Mr. Charlie. Good luck.”
    “Who the fuck are you guys?”
    The officer who seemed to be in charge put out her hand and smiled. As Charlie prepared to shake her hand, she responded by laughing and slapping him on the back.
    “We are a legitimate organization. I assure you that everything you have told us will be archived and disseminated by the proper local bureaucrats…I mean…if that is your concern?”
    “No, that isn’t my concern. I don’t care who you are. I just want to leave. I’ve got thirty days. When do they begin?”
    “Now.”
    “Good.”
    The patience he had been practicing was replaced with a need for experience, any experience that didn’t involve fire hoses. An officer he had never seen before entered the room with a plastic shopping bag containing his clothes, wallet, AR glasses, passport, and phone.
    “You can change in the men’s room across the hall.”
    “The men’s room, eh? How come you’re not Vietnamese?” Charlie said as he looked up at her braided blonde hair tied up in a bun with black netting, still somewhat stunned not to be the tallest one in the room.
    The woman looked down at the two other officers with an unbelieving grin. “Because I’m Dutch.”
    “Oh yeah? Good for you. I’ll go change.”
    The three officers were waiting for him in the hallway, which was more brightly lit than anywhere he had been in the prison. There was a long hallway with white walls and brass fixtures and a gray carpet the same shade of gray as the walls of his cell. It seemed like it might have been a law office at one time. Maybe it still was.
    The four of them walked to the elevator up to the lobby level and through the large marble-floored lobby with a grand tile mosaic of Ho Chi Minh on the left wall and seven similar likenesses projected to look likeWarhol lithographs on the opposing wall. He was taken to a small room where his clothes and personal belongings were handed to him unceremoniously in a black plastic bag. He dressed quickly and turned over his uniform to the front office guard and signed in the space