Point of Contact

Jack’s words were cut short by the piercing screech of a falcon. He glanced up in the direction of the sound and saw the bird circling overhead.

“Sounds like a falcon, but I wouldn’t be surprised if it was a vulture.”

Dr. Tao said, “Hold out your hand so he can land.” She showed him her extended arm and hand, held flat and perpendicular like a karate chop, with the index finger on top.

Jack raised his right hand in the same manner. A moment later a golden-brown falcon swooped down, flapping its wings in his face to slow enough to perch. It was magnificently rendered. The sound of the beating feathers in his ears caused him to lean back, trying to avoid getting pummeled by the wings. The falcon’s claws tightly gripped his index finger.

“Glove haptics again.”

“Precisely.”

“I can even feel the bird’s weight.”

“That’s partly haptics, partly illusion — your brain fills in the details. It’s the ‘phantom limb’ effect.”

Dr. Tao’s avatar held up a hand and snapped her fingers. She disappeared, and Jack was standing amid the giant crescent dunes of the yellow Sahara. Windblown sand spattered in his headset.

In the blink of an eye, Jack was in the middle of a howling blizzard.

In the next blink, he stood on top of the Eiffel Tower, the gleaming City of Lights glittering in the dark below him.

“Can you load any video image into this system? Say, something like Google Earth?” Jack was actually thinking about the NGA’s Map of the World program. If Gavin could marry the MOTW to a virtual reality program like this one, The Campus could virtually plan missions all over the world without ever leaving their Virginia headquarters.

“In theory, any 2-D video can be rendered in 3-D, then deployed within a VR system. Streets, buildings, rooms, villages, space stations. It’s up to you. You can take a walk on the moon or along the ocean floor — anything and everything is possible. And if you don’t have actual footage, simulations can be created by digital artists.”

“Virtual travel, virtual education — I’m beginning to see the possibilities,” Jack said, admiring the dawn breaking over the Parisian skyline.

“Do you have a few more minutes, Mr. Ryan? There’s more.”

“Sure.”

Paris disappeared. Jack stood in the middle of a perfectly white room again. On his left wrist was a virtual heart monitor. The tip of his right index finger was a glowing laser scalpel. Suddenly, a beating human heart appeared suspended before his eyes, the beats thundering in his ears. He raised his left hand and touched the throbbing flesh, feeling the violence of its contractions on his palm.

“We can let new surgeons practice on a virtual heart instead of a real one. Care to try?”

Jack glanced at the laser, then the heart. He imagined gushers of blood pulsing onto the floor with each cut. “No, thanks.”

The white room turned black and the heart disappeared. Now the heart monitor on his left arm was a graphic artist’s palette for brush sizes, shapes, and colors, and his right index finger was a paintbrush.

“Try it.”

Intuitively, Jack selected a brush head — clouds — and a color. He dragged the brush through the air, leaving a trail of puffy, translucent mustard clouds. He ran the gamut of brush types — pencil points, duct tape, roller — and a dozen colors. Twenty minutes later he’d created a three-dimensional turquoise tree studded with purple fruit and surrounded by crudely drawn stars and birds and geometric shapes in a rainbow of colors. The art was crude and childish, but it was his, and he was surprisingly proud of it.

Jack laughed as he stepped into the middle of his 3-D painting, then through it, and spun it around before crouching down beneath it, utterly delighted and amazed.

“I think this is my favorite thing so far,” he said.

“Mine, too, actually,” Dr. Tao said. “But imagine designing a home, a new prosthetic limb, or a race car.”

“Or a weapon.” Lian’s voice spoke in his ear.

Dr. Tao said, “The strong emotional response the VR experience evokes greatly enhances the learning and memory functions of its users.”

“I get that now,” Jack said. He’d felt elation, awe, fear, and joy in the demonstration. Those emotional responses were real. That was the true power behind this technology. Jack saw the enormous potential of the system for combat training but also every other kind of creative human endeavor.

The simulation ended. Jack pulled off his goggles. Dr. Tao and Lian stood in front of him.

“Now you see why video games aren’t the direction we’re most interested in,” Dr. Tao said. “But then again, imagine how fun it would be to play soccer on the pitch with your favorite World Cup team, or a round of golf with your favorite pro teaching you the game.”

Jack looked at Lian. “You’ve got your work cut out for you. This technology is more valuable than all the gold at Fort Knox.”

“There are many ways for thieves to break in to steal.” She nodded at Park, glowering in the corner, his thick arms crossed. “My team is trained to prevent all kinds of corporate espionage.”