Page 16 of Mr. North
“Yes. I’m ready.”
“Good. You might notice a series of flashes. Tell me what you see.”
At first there’s nothing. I wait, holding my breath. The blackness envelops me, never ending.
“Nothing?” Raphael asks.
“No, not yet.”
“Okay, how about now?”
There’s an odd buzzing in my head, and then all of a sudden it’s like a light switch has been turned on. A bright blue light fills my vision. It’s everywhere—up, down, left and right. Bright, sky blue everywhere I look.
“Wow. I can’t see my body,” I say, looking down. “Everything’s just…blue.”
“And what about now?” The color instantly shifts to red.
“Red,” I answer.
“And…how about now?”
“Purple.”
“Good. Tell me the names of the all the colors you see as you see them. And be specific. Not just red, blue, green. What shade are they? What do they remind you of?”
“Okay. Everything is yellow now. The color of pale butter. Spring sunshine. Now, mint. Or aqua. The color of the ocean in Malta.” The color changes every five seconds or so, morphing from one hue and tone to the next. “Orange, the color of amber and citrine stones. Green again, Irish green, the color of emeralds and healthy grass. The color…the color of your eyes. Now pink, dusky, the color of rose petals and my favorite blush.”
God. The color of your eyes? What the hell is wrong with me? I wish that hadn’t slipped free. My mouth was moving before I could put a stop to it, though. Fuck. My. Life.
We continue on for another five minutes. Ten. I manage to find names and descriptions for so many different colors. My apprehension, along with my embarrassment, melts away as we continue with our game, until Raphael finally tells me it’s over. Disappointment floods me. I’ve never experienced virtual reality before, but I’ve heard amazing things about it. The landscapes and vistas created by Raphael’s company, North Industries, are meant to be the very best, most impressive graphics in VR. So, while the colors he just showed me were crisp, vivid and bright, I can’t help but feel a little cheated. How on earth does he think that was profound?
Raphael removes the VR glasses, and everything is still pitch black. I can’t even see the light coming from the computer screen. Panic grips hold of me, then, slamming into me with the force of a ten-ton truck. “Why can’t I see?” I ask. My voice is edged with panic. I reach out, my hands scrambling, and I find Raphael’s arm. “I can’t see. Oh, shit,” I whisper.
“It’s okay, it’s okay.” Raphael takes my hand, squeezing it. “The electrodes on your temples are disrupting the electrical pulses from your eyes to your brain, preventing messages from traveling down your optic nerve. That’s what the throbbing sensation is.”
“What? Why? Take them off!”
Raphael grabs hold of my wrists now, stopping me from ripping the electrodes from my skin. “Stay calm. Stay calm. Beth, listen to me. Stay calm. You’re not blind. Not really. It’s temporary. The moment I remove the electrodes, you’ll be able to see perfectly again. But first, I want you to listen to me.” His hands, locked around my wrists, are strong. I panic for a second, trying to tear myself free, but he holds on fast. Taking a deep breath, I force myself to stop fighting. This is going to be okay. This is going to be okay, Beth . I say it to myself over and over again.
“That’s it,” Raphael says soothingly. “You’re doing great. Now…the electrodes have a secondary purpose. While they’re blocking electrical impulses from your eyes to your brain, they’re also redirecting a secondary set of impulses directly from the glasses. The impulses are sending visual data directly into your brain, bypassing the eyes altogether. Do you understand what that means?”
“No, not really,” I say, swallowing thickly.
Raphael doesn’t say anything. He continues to hold onto my wrists, and I can hear his breathing, slow and steady, close to my ear. I can feel the warmth of it skating across my skin. “Think about it,” he says softly.
I calm my mind, doing as he asks. Despite being filled with the overwhelming fear that this change in my vision is permanent, the feel of him so close to me is strangely comforting. I turn over the information he just gave me in my mind, slowly making sense of it.
If the VR glasses can transfer visual information directly into a person’s mind, completely bypassing their eyes, then…
Then…
“Oh my god,” I whisper. “Oh my…god!” I sob, the sound choked and filled with emotion, echoing around the small room. “If you can do this…if you can transfer visual data like this into someone’s brain…”
Raphael lets go of me. Slowly he removes the electrodes from the sides of my head, from the base of my neck. One moment I’m drowning in darkness, the next I’m back in the dimly lit, small room, and Raphael is standing in front of me, a tiny ghost of a smile teasing at the corners of his mouth. He looks so different when he’s almost smiling. The tense quality that shrouds him falls away, and I see the makings of an entirely different person altogether, hovering there in the shadows.
“You can make people see,” I whisper. “This technology can make…the blind see.”
He nods slowly, and I cover my mouth with both hands. For some reason my eyes are filling with tears.
