The Light of Other Days. Stephen Baxter

what?’

      ‘A Triassic crocodile. Which is beginning to notice you're there. Welcome, Ms Manzoni.’

      ‘Kate.’

      ‘Yes. I'm glad you took up my, our, dinner invitation. Although I didn't expect it would take you six months to respond.’

      She shrugged. ‘Hiram Gets Even Richer really isn't much of a story.’

      ‘Umm. Which implies you've now heard something new.’ Of course he was right; Kate said nothing. ‘Or,’ he went on, ‘perhaps you finally succumbed to my charming smile.’

      ‘Perhaps I would if your mouth wasn't laced with drool.’

      Bobby looked down at his own unconscious form. ‘Vanity? We should care how we look even when we're exploring a virtual world?’ He frowned. ‘Of course, if you're right, it's something for my marketing people to think about.’

      ‘Your marketing people?’

      ‘Sure.’ He ‘picked up’ a metal headband from a couch near him; a virtual copy of the object separated from the real thing, which remained on the couch. ‘This is the Mind'sEye. OurWorld's newest VR technology. Do you want to try it?’

      ‘Not really.’

      He studied her. ‘You're hardly a VR virgin, Kate. Your sensory implants –’

      ‘– are pretty much the minimum required to get around in the modern world. Have you ever tried getting through SeaTac Airport without VR capabilities?’

      He laughed. ‘Actually I'm generally escorted through. I suppose you think it's all part of a giant corporate conspiracy.’

      ‘Of course it is. The technological invasion of our homes and cars and workplaces long ago reached saturation point. Now they are coming for our bodies.’

      ‘How angry you are.’ He held up the headband. It was an oddly recursive moment, she thought absently, a virtual copy of Bobby holding a virtual copy of a virtual generator. ‘But this is different. Try it. Take a trip with me.’

      She hesitated – but then, feeling she was being churlish, she agreed; she was a guest here after all. But she turned down his offer of an intravenous feed. ‘We'll just take a look around and come back out before our bodies fall apart. Agreed?’

      ‘Agreed,’ he said. ‘Pick a couch. Just fit the headset over your temples, like this.’ Carefully he raised the virtual set over his head. His face, intent, was undeniably beautiful, she thought; he looked like Christ with the crown of thorns.

      She lay down on a couch nearby and lifted a Mind'sEye headband onto her own head. It had warmth and elasticity, and when she pulled it down past her hair it seemed to nestle into place.

      Her scalp, under the band, prickled. ‘Ouch.’

      Bobby was sitting on his couch. ‘Infusers. Don't worry about it. Most of the input is via transcranial magnetic stimulation. When we've rebooted you won't feel a thing…’ As he settled she could see his two bodies, of flesh and pixels, briefly overlaid.

      The room went dark. For a heartbeat, two, she could see, hear nothing. Her sense of her body faded away, as if her brain were being scooped out of her skull.

      With an intangible thud she felt herself fall once more into her body. But now she was standing.

      In some kind of mud.

      Light and heat burst over her, blue, green, brown. She was on a river bank, up to her ankles in thick black gumbo.

      

      The sky was a washed-out blue. She was at the edge of a forest, a lush riot of ferns, pines and giant conifers, whose thick dark foliage blocked out much of the light. The heat and humidity were stifling; she could feel sweat soak through her shirt and trousers, plastering her fringe to her forehead. The nearby river was broad, languid, brown with mud.

      She climbed a little deeper into the forest, seeking firmer ground. The vegetation was very thick; leaves and shoots slapped at her face and arms. There were insects everywhere, including giant blue dragonflies, and the jungle was alive with noise: chirping, growling, cawing.

      The sense of reality was startling, the authenticity far beyond any VR she'd experienced before.

      ‘Impressive, isn't it?’ Bobby was standing beside her. He was wearing khaki shorts and shirt and a broad hat, safari style; there was an old-fashioned-looking rifle slung from his shoulder.

      ‘Where are we? I mean –’

      ‘When are we? This is Arizona: the Late Triassic, some two hundred million years ago. More like Africa, yes? This period gave us the Painted Desert strata. We have giant horsetails, ferns, cycads, club mosses…But this is a drab world in some ways. The evolution of the flowers is still far in the future. Makes you think, doesn't it?’

      She propped her foot on a log and tried to scrape the gumbo off her legs with her hands. The heat was deeply uncomfortable, and her growing thirst was sharp. Her bare arm was covered by a myriad sweat globules which glimmered authentically, so hot they felt as if they were about to boil.

      Bobby pointed upwards. ‘Look.’

      It was a bird, flapping inelegantly between the branches of a tree…No, it was too big and ungainly for a bird. Besides, it lacked feathers. Perhaps it was some kind of flying reptile. It moved with a purple, leathery rustle, and Kate shuddered.

      ‘Admit it,’ he said. ‘You're impressed.’

      She moved her arms and legs around, bent this way and that. ‘My body sense is strong. I can feel my limbs, sense up and down if I tilt. But I assume I'm still lying in my couch, drooling like you were.’

      ‘Yes. The proprioception features of the Mind'sEye are very striking. You aren't even sweating. Well, probably not; sometimes there's a little leakage. This is fourth-generation VR technology, counting forward from crude Glasses-and-Gloves, then sense organ implants – like yours – and cortical implants, which allowed a direct interface between external systems and the human central nervous system –’

      ‘Barbaric,’ she snapped.

      ‘Perhaps,’ he said gently. ‘Which brings me to the Mind'sEye. The headbands produce magnetic fields which can stimulate precise areas of the brain. All without the need for physical intervention.

      ‘But it isn't just the redundancy of implants that's exciting,’ he said smoothly. ‘It's the precision and scope of the simulation we can achieve. Right now, for example, a fish-eye map of the scene is being painted directly onto your visual cortex. We stimulate the amygdala and the insula in the temporal lobe to give you a sense of smell. That's essential for the authenticity of the experience. Scents seem to go straight to the brain's limbic system, the seat of the emotions. That's why scents are always so evocative, you know? We even deliver mild jolts of pain by lighting up the anterior cingulate cortex – the centre, not of pain itself, but of the conscious awareness of pain. Actually we do a lot of work with the limbic system, to ensure everything you see packs an emotional punch.

      ‘Then there's proprioception, body sense, which is very complex, involving sensory inputs from the skin, muscles and tendons, visual and motion information from the brain, balance data from the inner ear. It took a lot of brain mapping to get that right. But now we can make you fall, fly, turn somersaults, all without leaving your couch…And we can make you see wonders, like this.’

      ‘You know this stuff well. You're proud of it, aren't you?’

      ‘Of course I am. It's my development.’ He blinked, and she became aware that it was the first time he'd looked directly at her for some minutes; even here in this mocked-up Triassic jungle, he made her feel vaguely uneasy – even though she was, on some level, undoubtedly attracted to him.

      ‘Bobby – in what sense is this yours? Did you initiate it? Did you fund it?’

      ‘I'm