Reality Bytes Part 4 -- Clarity

They talked about ordinary matters over dinner. Tiffany uncorked two bottles of fine white wine near the end of the meal and Alicia soon found her body feeling more relaxed and her mind freed of the terrible burden she had borne all week. “Come one, let me show you something,” Tiffany said suddenly, pulling her along to an unused bedroom. All four walls were bare and the floor was totally empty except for a small, black box lying in the center. “Show us design number one,” she intoned.

Suddenly, the room was completely furnished, with a fluffy four-post bed trimmed in white lace. Flowers and cuddly-cute animals adorned the walls in addition to the crowd of stuffed animals of all sizes and types. The holo-projection, generated by the box she had seen, flickered slightly every few moments, but otherwise presented a perfect illusion. “This is what I want if we have a girl,” she said. She laughed at Alicia’s shocked look. “No, I’m not pregnant, not yet. But I told you that Brad and I were going to work on it. What do you think? I know it’s a bit old-fashioned, but I want a girl’s room to look like a girl’s room.”

“Can I live here?” Alicia asked in mock-innocence.

“Only if you don’t mind sharing it with your niece. Come have a look at these drapes,” she said, leading Alicia over. “Aren’t they just perfect?” Alicia examined the drapes for a moment. The image decohered for a moment as her fingers passed through the boundary of the light projection.

Suddenly she was very aware of Tiffany standing close to her, could feel the heat from her body. She swayed slightly, fatigue and wine conspiring to make her head feel as light as cotton. A hand touched her shoulder ever so slightly, sending tingles across the bare skin. She could feel her heart beating faster, the flush of the wine deepening so that heat seemed to pour off of her. She didn’t dare turn around. But then, without quite knowing why, she did, and she melted in the gaze of her old lover. The hand on her shoulder moved to curl smooth, slender fingers around her neck. She closed her eyes, felt herself falling, the world spinning invisibly around her. The heat, closer now, soft breath against her cheek, an ache of anticipation and need in the pit of her stomach and in the depths of her sex. Lips pressed against hers, sending tingling teasing jolts down her spine. A mouth opened hungrily at the same time as her own, a sensuous, electrifying passion rising in her as their tongues met. She was connected to the person next to her, made stronger and more vulnerable at the same time.

A touch at her breast sent new ripples of pleasure across the front of her body. She felt herself begin to surrender, to sink deeper into blissful passion. And then, without warning, it all dissipated, the feelings as ephemeral as smoke. “We can’t do this,” Alicia said. Tiffany, still caught up in the illusion, pretended not to hear her. Her kissing moved to the lines of Alicia’s neck. “Stop,” she said more firmly, lifting her friend’s hand from her breast.

Tiffany stepped back, recoiled into herself, the desire fading from her eyes. “There’s nothing wrong with it, Ally.”

“No,” she said, smiling faintly, “there isn’t. But what we had is in the past. You have Brad now.”

“And what about you?” Tiffany pressed. “Who do you have?”

Suddenly, Alicia understood. “Does Brad know you planned this?” she asked.

Tiffany could see that the game was through. “Yes, he does.” She smiled wryly. “I think he got off on the idea, actually.” Then she looked at the floor. “I’m sorry, Ally, I—“

“I know. I know what you were trying to do. And I appreciate it, really I do, but you can’t make me forget about Adam like this. I don’t know how I feel towards him anymore, but I won’t be satisfied until I really know what he means to me.”

“I understand,” Tiffany said, nodding slowly. “You must love him,” she smiled again and patted her own behind, “to turn down a sexy piece of ass like this.”

“I just don’t go for sloppy seconds,” she shot back.

“Ouch. Hit me where it hurts. Now before things get really ugly, let's talk about the jaunt.” Tiffany put her arm around Alicia’s shoulder as they walked from the room, and it was the first time in years that they had been so close without an abrupt, awkward return to greater distance. Alicia knew now that there was nothing to be afraid of, that each of them truly understood both the depth and limits of their feelings.

Tiffany activated a wall terminal. “I want you to get a look at this, so you’ll understand what’s to come. This is a sensory deprivation tank.” The object depicted on the display was like a sleek, black metal coffin, but with a monitoring panel along one side. Alicia didn’t like the looks of it.

“Why do I need to use that?” she asked.

“Kinda scary looking, huh? Well, you and I are both going to be in VR space, dealing with an apparent hacker genius. Hell, he’s probably already using a tank just like this one. These will help even the odds by removing real-world sensations that might distract us.” She touched the screen and a diagram of a VR rig appeared on the screen. “The rigs we’ll be using are brand new Toshibas that will insert class five neural probes—“

“Jesus!” Alicia interjected. “Superconducting micro-probes?”

“Tell me about it. Expensive as hell, but we need them if we’re going to keep up with your boyfriend. As I was saying, the rigs will insert the probes not just into our frontal, temporal, and parietal lobes, but also the occipital lobe, thalamus and the cerebellum.”

“Occipital?” Alicia repeated. “You mean this thing’s going to stimulate our visual centers directly?”

Tiffany nodded. “No goggles. The optics wetware is still in beta-test and the software driving it is too sophisticated to run on a home terminal. But the cerebellum is what’s going to make a hell of a difference. The program we’re using harnesses the fine motor control of the cerebellum to give us greater agility in VR.” She caught Alicia’s thoughtful look. “Still ready to go through with this?”

Alicia raised her eyebrows. “Yeah, what else?”

Tiffany touched the screen again, bringing up two gray cubes. “A pair of Pacific Technologies microframes. One will be assigned the task of maintaining us in VR, controlling the rigs and acting as our node connection to the net. The other will be under the control of a friend of mine, who I’ll introduce you to tomorrow. Both of these machines, by the way, belong to my company, and if the board of directors knew what I was doing, they’d skin me alive.”

Alicia stared at the screen, hardly believing what they were planning was really going to happen. “When do we go in?”

Tiffany gave a long exhale.“Tomorrow night.”