The Voting Machine

Virtual

"I want to show you something," Gina said. Then she sent me a link to a URL and a program began to download onto my desktop.

I clicked on the program and a virtual 3-D landscape opened up on my screen, like a scene from a high-definition video game. I saw a building in a city by a freeway. I recognized the place, even though the colors and graphics made it seem futuristic and otherworldly, with rainbow-colored skies and glowing silver clouds.

"This is the virtual reality portion of The Second World. I call it Passion World."

"This scene here," I said. "This is the headquarters on 190th Street where we used to work together in LA. This is the old neighborhood."

"I wanted to design a place where everyone in the company could come together in cyberspace."

"But why base it on the old headquarters? It's just an empty building now."

"It's not empty. Chet still has an office on the top floor. Besides, it's easier to create a virtual place based on a real memory."

An Aztec warrior walked in front of the building in Passion World. He was like an exotic hero out of mythology, draped in gold and decorated in eagle feathers. I tapped my computer and realized that I could control the warrior by moving the arrows on my keyboard.

"That's supposed to be me?" I laughed.

"I made you an avatar."

"You've got to be kidding me."

"We're just trying things out."

"But no one's going to use an avatar to get their work done. That stuff is for kids."

"The whole strategy of the Second World is figuring out the future, Temo. The kids today are the employees of the tomorrow. Besides, online avatars are already part of daily life in some parts of the world. In China, millions of people spend hours a day working as avatars on their computers. Americans pay them a few pennies an hour to play World of Warcraft."

A second figure stood by my Aztec warrior in Passion World. It was Queen Cleopatra, tall, gorgeous, and regal in her jewels and flowing Egyptian robes.

"So you made yourself the queen," I said to Gina, grinning into my screen. "How fitting..."

"You know it," she said.

Our avatars walked around the building in Passion World. One of the keys on my computer allowed my avatar to hover through the landscape like a superhero. We flew together on a guided tour of the virtual neighborhood she had modeled after area where the Passion building was located in LA.

"Did you do this yourself, Gina?"

"The programmers helped me out. They have setup wizards that help you create your own world for each company. You can set up different work groups and departments as cities or countries sharing the same world."

"But your employees are in India. Chet said next year they might be in the Philippines or Mexico. Why do you need a place online modeled after a building in LA? I thought Chet's whole point was that place doesn't matter."

"The idea of a place matters. It likes when people talk about America. It's the idea of what it stands for. People need to have location to help them imagine and remember. That's how our minds work. It goes back to the times when human beings wandered through the forests and caves. They had to remember where to get food and avoid danger. That was their most important mental activity. I learned about it in one of my psychology classes at Dominguez Hills."

"You're a genius, Gina. No wonder Chet gave you the promotion."

As she continued to lead me through Passion World, I noticed that she'd decorated virtual streets like Hawthorne and Artesia with restaurants where she and I used to go to lunch. I wondered why she would do something so nostalgic, taking the time to create specific locations that would only mean something to the two of us.

"You remember everything, Gina."

"Memories are the only thing that last forever, Temo. Everything else fades away."

It was a strange and melancholy thing for her to say. Our Aztec warrior and Egyptian queen shared an awkward moment in Passion World.

"OK," Gina said abruptly. "Enough fun and games. I have to get you ready for your assignment."

The avatars and the Passion World landscape disappeared from my screen. Gina led me through a series of instructions on how to create the training videos for the call center e-learning module.

"What do you want me to train them on exactly?"

"I want you to talk about every aspect of the call center job," Gina explained. "The people here don't understand life in America. Help them see things from the customer's point of view. Walk them through different situations. Explain the reasons why people don't pay their credit card bills. That won't be obvious to them. Then give examples of how you convince them to pay. They'll study the detail you put in these videos."

I shrugged. It was a totally new thing for me, using my computer to coach someone who was faceless, who I would never meet, living on the other side of the world. "I'll do my best."

Gina switched our computer session to a live video feed. I could see her face once again. She wanted to look me in the eye, the way she used to when we'd have a serious conversation. It still wasn't like seeing her face to face, but the barriers were breaking down. She was giving me some kind of signal. She was getting under my skin. This woman was still going to be a dangerous force in my life, just as I suspected, even though we were ten thousand miles apart.

"I always believed in you, Temo. I always will."

Another awkward silence, like the one our avatars shared in Passion World.

"How come you never friended me, Temo?" she said.

"Huh?"

"In Facebook, I sent you a friend invitation from here in India. You never responded."

I lowered my head from the camera on the PC so she couldn't see my reaction.

"Oh, um, you know, Gina, I've just been busy with Suzy and the baby and all."

"Remember, I told you once that I made all the wrong choices?" She said this once when she came to visit me in jail during the Employee of the Year murder trial. I wasn't sure why she was bringing this up now. "Choices about the life I wanted..."

I could feel my heart pounding.

"I let you down once, Temo. You were accused of a crime you didn't commit. I was too scared to help you. You know how bad I regret that, don't you? You were the one who helped me more than anyone. I felt so bad I wanted to die."

I knew this was the truth.

"I understand why you did what you did, Gina. You didn't have any good options. You did what you had to do to survive."

"What if I could make it up to you, Temo?"

"It's late here, Gina. I got to go. Let me work on these training videos and get you something in a few days."