New York Nights [Virex 01] by Eric Brown Read Free Book Online Page B

reality bars in Manhattan. Kia had admitted that the Cyber-Tech experience was good, but it could be bettered. The public could be offered not only a greater verisimilitude when within VR itself but also a wider range of sites and venues.
     
    Anna was cleared by a security guard outside the double doors of the research chamber and waved through. She had asked Kia to get her a security pass so that she could do a little research for the last novel she had written. One of the minor characters worked in VR, and for the sake of authenticity Anna thought she’d better take a closer look at the industry. She had found the atmosphere in the chamber, and the work going on there, fascinating in itself, and had often made the excuse of research to drop by and meet Kia at the end of a working day.
     
    The chamber was an interior room and had no windows; far from appearing enclosed and claustrophobic, the chamber had the air of an open piazza. This was achieved by the placement, at intervals around the walls, of big flatscreens relaying vibrant images of strange landscapes and other worlds. A semi-circle of computer work-stations faced the screens, and a dozen casually-dressed scientists and technicians bent over the terminals or consulted with each other in hurried, frantic exchanges.
     
    Anna looked around for Kia, but there was no sign of her at any of the work-stations. Then she saw the jellytank. It stood between the work-stations and the flatscreens, raised on a plinth of steps like some kind of ceremonial coffin, lying in state.
     
    Kia was in the tank.
     
    She was naked, and the sight of her long, brown body, on display to whoever cared to look, filled Anna with a ridiculous sense of jealousy. She told herself that the scientists here had more to think about than the desirability of the naked body of her lover.
     
    She fetched a coffee from a machine on the wall, found a seat at the back of the chamber and settled herself to watch what was going on.
     
    Anna had wanted to experience VR when Cyber-Tech opened the first parlour on Madison Avenue a month ago, but out of a sense of loyalty to Kia she had never mentioned it to her lover. Mantoni had opened their own parlour a few days ago, and Anna planned to visit it with Kia over the weekend. She had read dozens of articles about the latest technological wonder to sweep the land, and wondered if she was letting herself in for a disappointment. All the hype surrounding VR suggested that the experience was indistinguishable from real life, but Anna remained to be convinced.
     
    In the jellytank, Kia’s long limbs were connected to leads which climbed through the jelly and over the sides of the tank. A sheaf of wires were jacked into her neural-interface, and they rose from her head like a shock of dreadlocks.
     
    On the largest flatscreen, immediately behind the jellytank, Anna watched Kia stroll through a fantasyland of rolling green hillocks, like a version of Heaven as Monet might have painted it. She was garbed in a simple blue smock, striking against her ebony flesh, and from time to time spoke, evidently reporting on what she was witnessing.
     
    Anna could hear Kia’s voice issuing from the nearest workstation. The techs were listening intently to what she was saying, adjusting their computers accordingly.
     
    ‘We have great tone in all the foreground representations here,’ she reported. ‘I’m happy with the analogue-sequencing. There’s still some background interference - check on the sub-routine in the G3x file.’
     
    Anna listened, smiling, and felt a strange sense of vicarious pride at the thought of Kia, her Kia, at the very forefront of this cutting edge technology.
     
    Six months ago, she had been upset and concerned when Kia told her that she was going to have a neural implant inserted in her skull. To Anna it seemed like some grotesque Frankensteinian surgery, and that Mantoni were merely using her as a living tool. Kia told her that she was