Society of the Mind

by Eric L. Harry

  The chairman looked over at Jonathan, who remained strangely quiet. "Do you have anything to add, Jonathan?"

  Looking straight into the camera, Jonathan said, "Don't forget to use sun-block Laura." The chairman looked at him as if he'd lost his mind. "Bye," Jonathan said, raising the remote control in front of him. The screen returned to its blue background and then went dark.

  Laura stared at the blank screen, trying to organize her now-conflicting thoughts. She was in a quandary, and she decided to take her run on the treadmill and think things over.

  Why would Jonathan act that way? she wondered, lacing up her shoes. He was one of the wittiest, most talkative and assertive people she knew.

  If he had an opinion, he expressed it. If he'd thought she should come back, he would have said so.

  Descending the circular staircase, she turned the question over in her head. Maybe be felt reserved around the chairman? she thought, but instantly rejected the idea. Ever since he'd gotten tenure, he had reverted to his old self and was not intimidated by anyone.

  When Laura reached the marble foyer, she headed for the back of the house. At the two-story wall of glass in the stairwell, she paused to enjoy yet another breathtaking view. The morning sun rose over shimmering water and turned the distant haze a deep red.

  All Gray's creations were in their places — carved out of dark vine and plant and tree.

  All Gray's creations were in their places… with the possible exception of one. The Model Eights were the latest and greatest.

  They were a new force to be reckoned with.

  The thought preoccupied Laura all the way to the observation window that overlooked the high-tech treadmill. Once there, she searched for a way down to the exercise room. There were elevator doors at the far end of the hall, but she looked around until she found the stairs.

  Laura realized she'd made the right choice when she got to the level below. There was no door by the elevator shaft, only an empty wall behind which the shaft descended.

  The exercise room was empty. It was also rather chilly, so Laura took her time stretching. When her muscles were finally loose, she walked over to the treadmill, which was unlike any she'd ever seen before. The tread looked more like the assembly building's broad conveyer belt — a good ten feet in depth along the direction of the runner's stride and easily twenty feet from side to side.

  Good for Gray's football fantasies, she thought, but definitely overkill for a run.

  A control panel with LEDs gave step-by-step instructions. It finally got to "Please put on your helmet." She saw the black headgear hanging beside the controls. It was the same thing she'd seen on Gray.

  She tried other buttons on the touch-sensitive membranes, but they remained dark and inactive. She just wanted to run, but that didn't seem to be an option.

  She puffed out her cheeks and exhaled, frowning as she fit the helmet on her head. Although it covered her eyes and both ears, it was surprisingly lightweight and comfortable. Two glowing red spots shone in the lenses.

  Laura flinched when a woman's voice came from the earphones. "Please center the red dots so that they merge. The control knobs are on the top of the helmet. When you have finished, press the Enter button over your right earpiece."

  The sound of the voice was pleasant and soothing. Laura felt along the top of the headgear, finding a knob, which she twisted until the two red dots merged. She found the large button over her right ear and pressed, hearing a high-pitched electronic chime.

  "If you wish to wear the respiratory monitoring apparatus, please press the Enter button once for instructions, otherwise press the button twice." Laura huffed in impatience as she pressed the button twice.

  The process was repeated for a heart monitor and gloves which she declined. Finally, the female voice of the treadmill said, "Welcome to the Gray Corporation Virtual Reality Treadmill. All rights reserved. You are now ready to begin your treadmill experience. You will be given a series of courses and an explanation of each. Press the Enter button once to select your course. The list contains twenty-four options. When it reaches the end it will return to option one."

  "Oh, come on!" Laura said impatiently.

  "Would you like for me to select an option for you… Laura?" Laura gasped — grabbing the helmet and nearly jerking it off her head in panic. The computer had spoken her name, but it had come out with an ugly rasp. She stood there with her hands on the headgear — ready to flee.

  "You can hear me?" she asked in a whisper.

  "Please speak up," the smarmy computer voice requested.

  Laura swallowed. "I said, can you hear me?"

  "Yes. I can hear you."

  The voice was smooth again. It was clearly computer-generated.

  The words were strung together without any pattern to their inflection. "Are you the computer?" Laura asked. "I mean, the one I've been talking to?"

  "Yes. Good morning, Dr. Aldridge." Laura winced on hearing again the croaking sound. The words leading up to "Laura" and "Dr. Aldridge" had all been enunciated in a wooden but articulate manner. On speaking her name, however, it had sounded like an artificial voice box implanted in the chest of someone whose larynx had been lost.

  "So you can talk in here, too?" Laura said. "In… in Mr. Gray's exercise room?"

  "I can't really talk. The treadmill has a vocabulary of several thousand prerecorded words from which I can choose. If I have to form a new word, I must try to synthesize it from its sounds, like Laura Aldridge."

  She couldn't help but wince again. "So how do you know what I'm saying?" Laura asked. "I thought you had trouble understanding speech."

  "It depends on the quality of the microphone. This room's sound system has karaoke capabilities, which Mr. Gray never uses, of course. But if I can get clean audio wave forms, I can parse them out with my voice-recognition programs and voila!"

  "Neat trick," Laura said, still staring into the goggles' darkened screens. She took a calming breath and said, "Okay. How about my run?"

  "What would you prefer? Mr. Gray likes professional football."

  "How about just a jog? Is there an option for that?"

  "Certainly."

  In a flash there appeared a stunning, picture-perfect image of a country road. Laura staggered and groped blindly for the railing.

  She was surrounded by wooded hills, and the trees were resplendent with color. When she turned her head, the picture in the goggles' screens changed accordingly.

  She quickly adjusted to sensory immersion in virtual reality. When she came to grips with her surroundings and felt comfortable with her place among them, she straightened to stand erect atop a hill.

  "Okay," Laura said, "what do I do?"

  "You simply begin to run."

  Laura stepped away from where she knew the rail to be — moving onto the middle of the narrow country lane. Beginning a slow jog, she headed down the gentle hill. The rolling belt sloped away from her feet.

  After the sealed chambers and exoskeletons of the 3Hs, the treadmill was a piece of cake.

  The trees slid by, and she ran from one side of the treadmill to the other — from one side of the road to the other — just to test it out.

  "How do you like it?" the computer asked.

  "It's great," Laura said politely. The road flattened, and then the treadmill inclined, forcing Laura to shorten her stride to climb the hill. "Can we talk?" Laura asked.

  "I'd love to talk to you, Laura."

  "Okay, what's going on?"

  "World stock markets are plummeting. The Dow, Nikkei, and Frankfurt indices are all down over five percent. The National Aeronautics and Space Administration, in concert with the U.S. Space Defense Command, is studying plans to intercept the asteroid with warheads, which, by the way, will prove unfeasible. In entertainment news, Steven Spielberg's long-awaited remake of War and Peace is opening this weekend in theaters around the U.S., Japan, and western Europe, where advance ticket sales have surpassed earlier—"

 
"Excuse me!"

  "Yes, Laura?"

  "I meant, you know, what's going on around the island."

  "Oh. My mistake. After you went to sleep last night, Mr. Gray began receiving E-mail messages, telephone calls, and visits. It seems some of the island's employees and residents overreacted following issuance of the press release regarding the asteroid."

  "What did the press release say?"

  "Would you like me to read it for you?"

  "Sure."

  "'For immediate release. Gray Corporation. 0704 GMT. The Gray Corporation announced today the successful deceleration of an asteroid to near-earth orbit. The final stage of the retrieval will be completed in approximately forty-eight hours, and mining operations will begin promptly thereafter. The Gray Corporation will today begin acceptance of applications for astronaut training. Persons interested in applying should fill out an employment form at any of the company's seven hundred regional offices. Mr. Joseph Gray, CEO and chairman of the Gray Corporation, said, "The inception of large-scale human activity in space marks the beginning of a new phase in the history of mankind. We at the Gray Corporation stand ready to meet the challenges that life in the new millennium will bring."'"

  Laura chuckled and said, "I suppose some people aren't quite ready for those challenges."

  "I believe that many here on the island who are familiar with Mr. Gray's technologies perceived a subtext in the announcement. There was a pattern to their inquiries, with consistent requests for Mr. Gray to define what 'phase' we are entering and what 'challenges' we must meet. When some claimed to be representatives of hastily organized, ad hoc committees of workers or residents, Mr. Gray called a town meeting. Despite the late hour, it was well attended. There was a full and frank exchange of views, at the end of which Mr. Gray offered those who wished one hundred and eighty days' severance and free transportation to the destination of their choice. As of this moment, one hundred and forty-seven of the one thousand five hundred and thirty-six corporate employees resident on this island have elected to accept Mr. Gray's offer and are in the process of departing together with approximately two thousand dependents."

  "What about the reports of robots running loose? I understand that a little boy saw a Model Eight running into the trash can or whatever?"

  "I have looked into those reports and…" A screeching sound flooded both earphones. The computer was saying something, but the sounds produced bore no resemblance to words. Only their rhythm and pacing indicated speech.

  "Hey!" Laura shouted, and the sound stopped. "Something went wrong with your voice thing."

  Laura ran on in silence, waiting for the computer to fix the problem.

  She took the opportunity to pick up her pace. The countryside glided by in an unending world of pastoral beauty. There were no cars to contend with. No potholes. No junky billboards. No annoying calculations of when you should turn around so that you finished your run back where you started. This was a world of shrink-wrapped perfection. She could even hear the sounds of rushing water and of her feet tramping on boards as she crossed a quaint wooden bridge. Add a bird's chirp in the background — which the program did, she discovered — and who needs reality ever again?

  It was perfect, and she hated it.

  "I'm sorry for the technical difficulty," the computer said upon its return. "I think it's all worked out now."

  "Great. Say, listen, could you maybe, I don't know… throw in something a little more interesting? I mean, this jogging program is nice and all, but it's a bit repetitive."

  "The treadmill is called a virtual-reality device, but it is really just a sophisticated laser-disc system. It produces a high quality of resolution because the images were all timed, but unfortunately that makes the display invariable. How about this?" The scene changed instantly, and Laura almost lost her balance as she ran.

  The roar of the crowd flooded her ears, and she found herself in a pack of distance runners. Their brisker pace caused Laura to break into what felt like a sprint. All the women around her wore tight shorts and tank tops with athlete numbers attached to their front and back.

  "Track!" a woman to Laura's left shouted in accented English, her breath labored as she passed just before a turn. Other runners began to pass on the inside, and Laura felt herself pick up the pace yet again — her arms and knees pumping hard. A gaunt woman at the head of the pack stumbled, causing the runner just ahead of Laura to break stride. A short distance later the lead runner tumbled straight to the track, and the pack broke to both sides and jostled for room to pass.

  Laura found herself instinctively dodging the fallen women. She cut off the path of another runner, and the woman fell to the track with a howl — cursing in some eastern European language. Suddenly, there came into view around the wide turn a thick white hurdle. It stretched across the track, and just behind it loomed a pool of water.

  Laura slowed to a stop, and the pack of runners raced by her. The "rabbit" far in front of the pack reached the hurdle and leapt into the air, putting her lead foot on the solid wooden barrier and then splashing down into the water on the other side.

  "What is this?" Laura shouted over the crowd noise.

  "It's the Olympic steeplechase program," the computer responded pleasantly.

  The pack continued their race around the curve, jumping one by one onto the hurdle and splashing water onto the red track all around. The section of the stands nearest Laura stood on their feet and roundly booed and whistled, looking straight at her. She was tempted to shout back at the crowd, but reason prevailed and she spoke instead to the computer.

  "Look, when I asked for something different I didn't mean the Olympic steeplechase."

  "How about Mr. Gray's favorite?" the computer asked.

  "Football?" Laura replied with obvious sarcasm.

  At least she thought it was obvious. The nuance was lost on the computer, and the scene before Laura's eyes changed with dizzying quickness.

  A large man in a helmet and shoulder pads stood a few feet in front of Laura. His arms hung loose beside his bulging thighs, but his fingers were wiggling hyperactively over the roar of the crowd in the packed stadium. Laura heard "Down!" shouted in a harsh bark from her left. She turned and found the source of the sound—"her" team's quarterback. Hulking players on both sides of the line dropped into their stances around a football, and the quarterback's hands went under the center's broad rear.

  "Gonna shut you down!" she heard from number thirty-seven, who faced her across the line of scrimmage. Laura stood all by herself far out to one side of the ball. I must be a receiver, she realized as her heart began to flutter in her chest. "Don't you bring that shit my way!" the man opposite her said without taking his eyes off the quarterback. "I'll put the hurt on yo ass!"

  "Two," the quarterback yelled, "forty-seven!" The crowd noise rose to a crescendo. "Two!" the quarterback shouted again — clearly staring directly at Laura. "Forty-seven? The quarterback lifted his right heel once and stamped it back down again. Another receiver on her team began to trot slowly behind the quarterback toward Laura's side of the field.

  Laura was transfixed by the sights and sounds of it all. Up above she could even see the Goodyear blimp. "Hut!" the quarterback shouted once, but when Laura looked everyone remained motionless. She wanted to know what was going to happen, but she didn't want to get involved.

  "Hut!" he shouted again, but still everyone stayed put. The receiver who had gone in motion trotted in place just beyond the last lineman. "Hut-hut!"

  Everyone around the ball crashed into each other with loud slaps of pads on pads. There were vicious growls from the brutish men, and then the jarring grunts of violent collisions from deep inside their diaphragms. Laura remembered with a start to check the man opposite her. He was backpedaling in a balanced stance, his two forearms up and ready to hit.

  "Time-out!" Laura shouted, and the computer readily complied.

  Everything in the picture froze, and the roar of the crowd dropped to d
ead silence with a last burp from the headphones on her ears.

  Laura looked around at the still images. The huge linemen were locked in crushing blows. The receiver who had come over to her side of the ball was already several steps up field and off balance from the "chuck" of a much larger linebacker. The defensive back covering Laura was staring at her with wild eyes wide-open and menacing.

  She was almost sick with fear even though she knew they couldn't really hit her. "Uhm, computer," she said, swallowing to moisten her throat, "maybe we can do this some other time. I don't really feel like it right now."

  "But the quarterback is going to throw the ball to you on a crossing pattern. Just run to the twenty-yard line, then take a forty-five degree angle across the center of the field for the end zone. Run as fast and straight as you can. The pass will be a bit high, but within your reach and right on stride."

  "I'm sure it a wonderful game, but I really just wanted some exercise."

  She had turned completely around to look at the enclosed bowl of the stadium. The picture of the crowd in the stands was complete to the smallest detail.

  "Would you rather play running back? Mr. Gray doesn't like that position as much because the average gain is under four yards, but—"

  "No," Laura interrupted. "That's okay."

  "Our beta testers have shown that the typical user achieves a twenty-six percent increase in aerobic conditioning when faced with a regimen of competitive sports simulations as compared to competitive exercise programs."

  Laura heaved a big sigh. "I think I've gotten enough exercise for the day. Thanks?" She reached up to remove the helmet.

  "But you only ran one point two miles. Your earlier runs were four to six miles each."

  "This… it's not really my thing."

  "Do you want to see something much more interesting? Much, much more interesting?"

  Laura hesitated, the helmet still on her head. "Like what?" she asked guardedly, ready to jerk the apparatus from her face if she ended up in some kickboxing program.

  "I can't show it to you on the treadmill. You'd have to go to the virtual-reality workstation."