Immersion Online

Nathan woke up with a terrible headache, and the terrible noise didn’t help. He tried to ignore it and go back to sleep, but the traffic outside sounded like they were in the room with him, and even putting his pillow over his head didn’t help. He experimented with breathing through the pillow and was disappointed to find that he was breathing fine. No way around it, he had to face the day.

He opened his eyes, and immediately closed them. It was too bright, and light made the headache so much worse. And if the pounding head wasn’t enough, his throat wasn’t much better. It felt like sandpaper, and it hurt to try to swallow the little spit he managed to produce. He needed some liquid courage.

He flailed his arm in the direction of his nightstand, and sure enough, there was a bottle there, which he promptly knocked over. He managed to catch it just before it rolled off the table. A quick shake confirmed that there was still a mouthful or two remaining. He unscrewed the cork one-handed and quickly emptied it before tossing it away. He was pretty sure it was whisky, but it was such a cheap brand that it could easily be mistaken for something else. Like vodka. Or moonshine.

He opened his eyes again, and after some frequent blinking, he was able to keep them open. The sun was shining through the window, the rays clearly seen in the dusty air. Their angle indicated that it was midday. But what day was it? He wasn’t sure, and really, did it even matter?

He looked around for his wheelchair, but it was nowhere in sight. Fuck...

It took a couple of tries, but with some more flailing while rocking back and forth he was able to turn to his stomach. He crawled sideways until he fell off the bed, and then crawled into the living room where he found the wheelchair on its side next to the couch. On the floor beside it, he also found an empty bottle of gin. He’d give bad odds on it being empty when he dropped it, but the evening before was just a big black hole. As were most evenings these days.

He righted the wheelchair and pulled himself into it. Now being a bit more mobile, he could ponder the next step. He decided on a shower and painkillers. After the shower, he found some clothes that were clean enough, threw them on, and was ready to start the day.

It was a two-room apartment with the entrance, kitchen, and living space in the same room. The kitchen certainly wouldn’t impress anyone, and the living area contained a couch – for theoretical guests - a table, a tv, and a desk with a computer. That was it.

Normally he only left the apartment for groceries or rehabilitation training. He checked the calendar on the fridge, then the content of the fridge. He didn’t need to leave the apartment today. He briefly eyeballed a bottle of vodka but decided to wait and grabbed a bottle of soda instead.

He wheeled himself over to the table, found the remote and switched on the TV. His mobile phone was lying next to the remote on the table, but it was turned off – probably out of power. Nathan could vaguely remember some unknown number calling him repeatedly the day before, but he’d been in no mood to answer. Probably nothing.

He started surfing through the most popular new videos while drinking the soda, looking for something to catch his interest. He rejected thirty or forty videos before something connected in his head. In the thumbnail for one of the content channels, he’d jumped past there had been a familiar face. A face he hadn’t seen in two years, but which he’d never forget. He jumped a couple of videos back, and there, staring back at him, smiling, was John Moon.

He clicked in, and apparently joined a live stream of the channel. It was in the middle of a show, with Moon and a couple of other people. Moon was saying something, but Nathan wasn’t paying attention. He just starred while trying to understand his emotions.

On the one hand, he was glad that John Moon was fine and that he seemed to be doing all right. It made his injuries - his sacrifice – worth something. On the other hand, he felt bitter. Bitter that Moon was looking dashing on the small screen, answering questions and laughing, while Nathan was spending his days doing nothing and going nowhere. For what? What was it that Vincent character had said? Something about Moon changing the world? Why was he on anyhow?

Nathan opened the program info and saw that it was actually a rerun from a week before, of a cross between a talk show and news. He selected the option to start from the beginning.

After the intro, the cameras focused on a pretty lady in her middle years, who was standing in front of two comfy looking chairs with a small coffee table between them. There was also a large tv displaying the program logo behind the coffee table. The whole studio looked minimalistic but professional. She smiled as she started talking.

“Good evening. Very few know the name of John Moon, Founder, and CEO of Immersion Incorporated, even though those in the know have been talking about him and his company for a long time.” said the host while smiling and looking into the camera. “Well, that is about to change. We here at TechNews have managed to have him join us for his first tv appearance ever. Please welcome Dr. John Moon!”

From the side of the screen, John walked in looking very stylish in what probably was an expensive custom-made dark suit. It was easier to guess his age this time, and Nathan would say that he was in his late forties. He waved to the camera, greeted the host, and exchanged some pleasantries before he sat down in his chair.

“So first, let's talk a little about your background. You are a doctor, but are we talking medical or the Ph.D. variant?”

“Both. I am a Neurologist – although not a practicing one – and I also have a Ph.D. in electronic impulses and technology. This might sound impressive, but there is quite a lot of overlap between these two areas, and the combination came naturally as part of my research. Over the years I have also dabbled in quite a lot of other areas, of course.”

“You mentioned research, and as I understand it the company is based on your research, but what does that research entail?”

“Well, first of all, it would be remiss of me not to mention that although the original research and some of the early breakthroughs was done by me, I have been lucky enough to have the help of some of the brightest minds in the world. In fact, since we started the development phase, which has been ongoing for many years, we’ve had several thousand on the payroll, and every single one of them has been vital to what I am confident will soon be a very successful company.

“But to answer your question, the focus of the research has been the electronic signals that the brain uses to communicate with the rest of the body. More specifically we are focusing on understanding them, reading them, replicating them, and ultimately manipulating them. This is a gross simplification of course, but in practice, this allows us to dictate what the brain experience.”

“This has been the focus of many researchers, so what makes your research special?” the lady asked.

“In short, while others have increased the general knowledge of the scientific community through small breakthroughs here and there, we have achieved total success.” John smiled confidently while taking a small break to let that sink in.

The interviewer had a surprised look on her face. “Total success? In a theoretical capacity, or are we talking any practical application?”

“Very practical. As long as you are in one of our pods – and I believe we have a picture of one of our pods?” he asked someone off-camera, and the picture of a slick metallic pod showed up on the screen in the background. It was three meters long and could comfortably fit a person inside. Most of the pod was see-through, but at the end where the head would normally be there were a lot of cables and components. The pod was a bit wider at that end to accommodate this.

“There we are!” John continued. “As I was saying, as long as you are inside one of these, we are not just able to see whatever you are sensing; we can make you sense anything. We can make you see, smell, or even feel whatever we program.”

“That... that sounds too good to be true. I mean... the implications.” The poor host was truly rattled now. It looked like she felt she had lost control of the interview, and to be fair it had escalated fast. “So, you are saying this machine can read minds?”

John laughed. “No, no, no. It is important to understand the difference between what you are thinking, and what signals you are sending to or receiving from the rest of your body. The first is internal and the second is external, in relation to your brain. Although we have indeed achieved much greater knowledge of the internal signals in the brain, it is much too complicated to understand - at least at the current time.

“A good analogy is that if your brain is your computer and your body is the internet, Immersion Inc. is your internet provider. We can read the communication you are sending, reroute it to our servers, and communicate back. But we have no idea what’s on your screen,” John explained.

He got serious for a moment. “I understand that this technology, as revolutionary and wonderful as it is, can also be perceived as intrusive and frightening – and I can relate to that. When you cannot trust your senses, what can you trust? Right? It is not for everyone, and that is OK.”

“Ha, I’m actually a little scared myself”, the host admitted.

“And you should be,” John exclaimed. “Progress is scary! It is healthy to be skeptical. That being said, our pods are perfectly safe, and people will be allowed to see that for themselves.”

Nathan had forgotten all about his headache as he gave the TV his full attention. This sounded incredible, but he suspected it was greatly exaggerated. He was also a bit confused about how John was suggesting the general public would be able to verify that. Luckily, the interviewer focused on that next.

“On that note, I assume the reading part is more developed than the writing part so speak, so the most natural use of the pod seems to be at hospitals. It would give medical personnel a much better overview of their patients' symptoms so that they can diagnose potential issues easier, similar to MRIs and such. Is that the direction you will go? I guess what I am asking is how will you market the pod, and the technology behind it?”

“That is the million-dollar question, isn’t it? But to clarify, the write function is just as developed as the read function. It is even possible to have the one impact the other so that we change the write function depending on the read function. For example, if we read that you are trying to say something, we write back that you are hearing something.

“Again, a gross simplification, but the application of our invention is, in our opinion, limitless. You can use it for education, training, medical purposes, vacation, entertainment… As you can imagine we have done quite a lot of brainstorming on the subject, but I’m sure there are plenty of areas we haven’t thought about yet.

“There are four obvious bottlenecks, however. Let’s call them red tape, content, cost, and trust.

“Let’s start with red tape. In that box we have things like laws, regulations, policies, guidelines, and such. We are plowing new fields giving us incredible possibilities that we didn’t even know existed. The existing laws and regulations are simply not up to the task. Can we disregard them, then? Sadly, no. That is not how bureaucracy works. Before we can use our pods in hospitals or schools there needs to be a lot of changes in legislative areas. And before that can happen, there need to be test projects, committee meetings, lobbying, and palm greasing. It will take years.

“The next is content, and this is specifically for the write function. If we want you to experience walking around in Paris, we need to have the data to feed you available. It helps that we can record the sensory impressions from someone walking the streets of Paris, but there will always be a lot of variables that don’t match. So, we need the raw data, and we need algorithms to compute different scenarios in real-time. This can be relatively easy if you are sitting in a controlled environment – say an empty room - alone reading a book, or profoundly difficult if you are watching a simulated concert where all the other actors are also in pods. We have been collecting data and perfecting our algorithms for a decade already, so we have enormous datacenters filled with a library of sensory input, but there will no doubt be a need for more.

“Third is cost. As you might understand, research and development have demanded enormous amounts of funding. There are probably whole countries who’ve used less money than us over the last two decades. We have been on the precipice of bankruptcy several times but have managed to scrape by thanks to several investors who’ve understood our vision and potential. The downside of this is that we are expected to recuperate this cost. Our products and services will not be cheap. The production cost of the pod, for example, is around a hundred thousand, and the retail price will be even higher. The availability is also limited, but we expect the price to go down as we improve the production facilities.

“Fourth is trust. We believe our technology will be a paradigm shift on the same level as the personal computer and the internet, but for that to happen we need to be able to communicate what we can offer in a way that can be clearly understood. We need to provide experiences that can be directly compared to-and associated with-things our potential customers are already familiar with. And we believe we have found the perfect way to do this.”

John paused his monolog to take a sip from the glass of water in front of him. The interviewer had not been able to get a word in for some time, but to be fair she didn’t try very hard. She had probably realized that it was in the best interest of the show, and possibly also for her career, to just let John speak. If John was able to deliver on even a fraction of what he said he could, this interview would go down in history. As such, she played her part and asked the obvious question.

“How?”

John set his glass back down and waited just long enough to build suspension before answering. “By creating a game. It is with great pleasure I can finally announce our revolutionary new virtual reality massive multiplayer online game; Immersion Online.”