Chrysalis

56

Logan’s vision blurred, then dimmed, as it had done during the original demo. But when it came back into focus again, he felt something must be wrong. Because he wasn’t in Neiman Marcus, being fitted for a shoe — but rather still in the cage, surrounded by all the same people. Outlines blurred slightly as the figures moved, like the combing artifacts of interlaced video.

“It’s not working,” he said.

“Why?” Wrigley sounded in his ear. “Because you haven’t gone down a rabbit hole? This isn’t a demo. Actually, I don’t know what the hell you’d call this. We’re going to be giving you instructions — as we figure them out — and you’re going to follow them.”

Logan glanced in Wrigley’s direction. Reassuring.

“See that door at the far end of the lab?” Wrigley’s voice sounded loudly in his ear.

“Yes.”

“Okay. Exit the cage and head through it.”

It was only now — as Logan stood up a little gingerly, opened the door of the cage, and began to move around the room — that the truly virtual nature of this new reality was driven home. Because he knew that in the “real” world, he was still seated. It was a strange, unpleasant sensation, as if someone was projecting a movie against the inside of his eyelids. Looking back, he had the truly peculiar experience of seeing his own self, sitting in the cage… but abruptly, the combing and jittering increased.

“Don’t look at yourself!” Wrigley warned. “Unless you want to end up a real guinea pig. That might cause a feedback loop we’ve never even simulated. Head for the door. And quickly. Remember, this isn’t a demo: it’s not going to be anything like the first time around.”

Logan tried to ignore the visual artifacts and concentrate on walking toward the door. Wrigley was right — even the sense of movement felt different.

He felt the floor beneath his feet, and the doorknob in his hand. He opened the door, stepped out, closed it behind him. He was in a narrow corridor, with storerooms to one side and labs to the other. This was obviously a back-office area, because it seemed completely deserted — with the rollout currently under way, it was all hands on deck in the primary workspaces. He felt a certain relief, now that he couldn’t look back at himself sitting in that cage.

“Walk down the passage and open the second door on the right,” Wrigley told him, his voice so loud Logan almost winced.

Following the directions, he stepped into an empty equipment space. “Why are you shouting?”

“Because of the passthrough.”

“What?”

“The passthrough, for God’s…” Silence as Wrigley got his impatience under control. “It’s VR terminology. Video passthrough controls how much of the real world you can still see, so you won’t bump into things. Audio passthrough does the same. I have the gain turned up because the farther we get into unknown territory, the greater the interference is going to be.”

“What kind of interference? Can I compensate?”

“A, I don’t know, and B, you can’t. Now: turn to your left. Do you see a door labeled keep closed at all times?”

“Yes.”

“Open it.”

Logan did so, to find himself staring at a veritable forest of cabling. There was an occasional thick trunk line, but the majority were slender: coaxial or the even narrower fiber optic. At about chest height was a service box, riddled on both sides by wires and cables entering and exiting.

He could hear voices from the prototype unit: conversations that, though sounding inside his head, were actually taking place in the lab. Then Wrigley’s voice returned. “See that metal box within all that cabling?”

“Yes.”

“I want you to reach out, open it, and put your hands inside.”

Logan opened it. “It’s full of wires.”

“Of course it is. You should see a thick blue one, striped white, with a plastic access port bisecting it.”

“Got it.”

“Okay.” A brief moment of conversation between Wrigley and Mossby. “Hold on to it tightly. This…this is going to feel a little weird.”

“What is?”

“You’ll find out. Look — just hold on.”

Logan grasped both sides of the little plastic port, feeling foolish. Nothing happened for about ten seconds except an increase of babbling from the production lab. Then Logan felt a strange sensation in both hands. His fingers were flexing of their own accord. A moment later, he realized that wasn’t quite right: the plastic port was swelling alarmingly.

And then he understood. In this virtual reality, he was shrinking — faster and faster.