Page 26 of Mr. North
COMMENCING PROGRAM
LONDON BRIDGE
14%
The percentage at the bottom of the notification quickly spirals upwards, twenty-eight percent, thirty-nine, fifty-one, sixty-seven, eight-one percent. At ninety-one percent, Raphael North takes my hand. For approximately seven seconds, I am standing in darkness, holding hands with the most intriguing, sexy, fucking frightening man I’ve ever met.
And then…
There is light.
I’m looking up at Raphael, and my breath catches in my throat. “How are you…how are you so…perfect ?” I whisper.
Raphael’s amusement makes itself know in the slight twitching of his cheek. “Perfect?”
“Yes. You’re not…I thought you’d be some kind of avatar or something. But…it’s as if I’m looking right at you. At you . Not some computer generated image.”
He nods. “Old VR systems map a persons features. They map their height, their weight, the width of their shoulders. But this system’s different. It uses a series of cameras placed around the room, as well as tiny cameras located in your glasses, to compose an identical version of me. Every slight movement I make, every facial expression, every breath I take, every step. It’s all faithfully replicated and delivered into your VR feed in real time.”
“There’s no lag?”
“There is. The transfer of information takes time, of course. But the system we’ve developed for North Industries is so fast, the human mind doesn’t comprehend it.”
I’m blown away. I can’t even begin to imagine how long it’s taken to develop technology like this. I take a look to my left and a wave of vertigo hits me right in the gut. I’m looking over the side of a bridge, spanning a river, muddy and murky. The drop is minimal but so unexpected that my knees buckle a little from beneath me.
“Holy…fucking…shit !” I cannot believe what I’m seeing right now. Can not believe it. It’s not only Raphael that appears completely lifelike in this experience. The sky, the lazily flowing water below us, the people passing us by on the old, wide bridge. All of it, down to the tiniest detail, looks and feels so real. I say feels real, because I can feel the slight breeze gusting against my face, see it blow and tug at the hair of the passersby as they hurry on down the street. English accents fill the air as people chat with one another and talk into cell phones. A blast of cold air hits me as the clouds briefly travel in front of the sun overhead in the sky.
“Are you fucking kidding me?” I hiss. “How? How did you do all of this?”
He shrugs. “It wasn’t just me. About a hundred people have all worked tirelessly together to build these worlds. It’s taken a long time. A lot of blood, sweat and tears.”
“The gaming community is gonna lose its freaking mind.”
Raphael looks down at the ground, ruefully grinning. “The gaming community will lose their minds, yes. But that’s not why we created the program. We created to help surgeons train originally. Hours logged in OR rooms are vitally important to residents. Vitally important to the learning process. But the thing about learning is that accidents do happen. Mistakes are made, and lives are lost. With this program, a surgeon can spend limitless hours training in a very real environment. They can complete limitless surgeries, with thousands of possible outcomes. They can make the mistakes they need to make in order to learn, but no one gets hurt.
“We also designed the program with people suffering from disabilities in mind. People born with degenerative disorders or involved in accidents, unable to walk or move around for one reason or another, can in here. In here, they get to experience what it’s like to be able-bodied.”
The lump in my throat is the size of a golf ball. For a second, it’s hard to breathe around. “Why?” I ask. “Why do you do this? Every single technology you develop is geared toward the medical field. It’s all geared to helping people, in one way or another.”
I think I’ve asked the wrong question. Raphael swallows, his neck muscles even working overtime here, in this rendered, digital world. “Is there something wrong with wanting to help people?” he asks, his shoulders tight and tense.
“Not at all. It’s just…I guess it’s all very unexpected. Most people in your position are investing their money in exciting business ventures. I can see how something like this would make millions when used in certain ways, but medically? I don’t know how that would be a viable source of revenue.”
“It hasn’t been designed as a source of revenue,” Raphael says. “It’s been designed as a teaching tool, and an escape.”
“So all the money you’ve poured into this…?”
“Will unlikely be recouped at some point in this instance. But the money was spent freely. I went into this knowing there was a chance I wouldn’t get it back. If you make your peace with a potential loss outcome in the very beginning of a project, the actual loss, when it arrives, is much easier to bear.”
So…he went into this, knowing he would probably never make his money back? What the fuck? I’m hardly an expert on tech development, but I know this must have cost millions and millions of dollars to create, develop and put into production. Tens of millions of dollars. The amount of money Raphael was willing to kiss goodbye on this project is unimaginable to me.
“Would you like to take a walk? Explore a little?” he asks. He applies a faint pressure to my hand, reminding me that he’s still holding it. He’s probably worried about me walking into a wall or something.
“I’d like that,” I tell him. Even if I do end up walking into the walls, this is an experience I simply can’t pass up. This looks, feels, sounds and smells like another place entirely. The program is seamless. So convincing that I have to remind myself it’s all just a display on my glasses, fooling my mind into believing I’m standing in another city, in the middle of the damn day.
Raphael takes a right and heads toward the other end of the bridge, observing our surroundings as intently as I do. Makes me wonder if he’s been here before, in this simulation. As we reach the end of the bridge, I notice a fine grid pattern overlaying the road ahead.
“The boundary of the room,” Raphael tells me. “Put out your hand and you’ll feel the wall.” So much for my he’s-holding-my-hand-to-make-sure-I-don’t-give-myself-a-black-eye theory, then. He doesn’t even release me as I reach out with my left hand, and my palm meets with cool plaster.
