The man gazed impassively at Harper as if he could shake his hand or break his neck and feel the same either way. Skinner and Santos exchanged delighted grins as they watched Harper stumble over his apology.
"No, not at all Mr Itou. Simply a discussion, everything's fine here."
The guard gave Harper the faintest of nods, before turning to Hill. "Is that correct sir?"
Hill glared at Harper, pausing a moment, enjoying the sight of the arrogant executive sweat.
"Yes, that's correct. I'm sorry for the disruption."
"Not at all," the iron guard replied, before walking back to his post outside Tanaka's room.
Harper and Hill moved to sit down, but before they could the elevator door slid open and the stunning Ms Sakura walked out. The group turned to watch her. Santos noticed that she'd changed into a shimmering, form-hugging dress. She's either out to impress - or distract. Either way, Santos glanced at the three men transfixed by the Japanese beauty, she's succeeding.
Sakura looked serene, and yet her tone was hurried as if she had other, more pressing things to attend to.
"Thank you for being so punctual." She looked at Hill, "I see you have chosen to use the iSight spectacles Mr Hill. Can I ask if they are operating correctly?"
Hill barely looked at their beautiful host before grunting "Yes. They're working alright."
Sakura officiously responded, "Please be aware Mr Hill, that unlike the self-powered lenses, your glasses will require recharging every night. Simply leave them on the iSight pad in your room, and the next morning they will be ready for use."
Hill grunted an acknowledgement of sorts, which Sakura ignored. Turning to address the remaining three, she asked "Can I assume you are all wearing the iSight lenses?"
Muttered responses and nods confirmed they were. Seemingly pleased with the state of affairs, Sakura swivelled - her long black hair whipping around her petite frame and as she turned she announced, "Please follow me for the start of your tour around the WhiteStar NOC. I am certain you will have seen nothing quite like this before."
#
The glass doors of the elevator silently opened.
On the brief journey from the sixth to first floor, Skinner had wondered about the folly of an all-glass elevator. It seemed a little ... unnecessary. When Santos had entered the elevator this time, she mentioned to Sakura how uncomfortable it made her feel to see six levels of empty lift shaft below her feet. Sakura nodded and with a flicker of her eyes and two hand gestures, the floor frosted - hiding the view below.
It felt to Skinner a little staged. As if Sakura had expected someone to complain and given her another reason to demonstrate the technology at work. It all seemed a little over the top. Skinner wondered why a savvy businessman like Tanaka would create such an elaborate decoration. His thoughts were interrupted as Sakura hustled the small group out of the elevator and into the main lobby of the WhiteStar Network Operating Centre.
Skinner was aware, somewhere in the distance, of Sakura talking. However just like his companions, his attention was taken by the scene in front of him.
Enormous leafy green palms - which Skinner now realised were almost certainly not there - stretched up into the open concourse, while thick vines crawled up the sides of the walls. On their right (iSight briefly indicated this to be the West), a dozen or so WhiteStar employees sat in armchairs dotted around a cafeteria. The chairs were arranged around a pond filled to the brim with Koi fish, water gently running down a small rocky waterfall and into the pond, creating an endless ring of ripples across the surface. Just like the visitors quarters, the experience felt more like a luxury hotel than the heart of a high-tech giant.
Curious, Skinner turned back to look at the elevator they had just exited, one in a row of three. As he'd already learned to do, he flicked his eyes high and to the right, and a transparent video suddenly appeared, floating in mid-air and showing the elevator move through a skeletal representation of the building. While the animation ran, the elevator's journey was explained in a crisp - oddly an English, Skinner mused, - accent.
The animation explained that the two banks of elevators - one on the north side, the other on the south - stretched from the underground car park to the visitors' quarters on the sixth floor. Skinner turned and focused on the set of elevators at the far end - south - of the lobby past the 'donut' desk and repeated the gesture. Another animation floated ahead, showing the southern elevators only move between the underground car park and the third floor.
Skinner looked straight ahead and the animation disappeared. He smiled to himself. He considered himself hard to impress, but this really was something. Skinner turned to Santos, and watched with amusement as she immersed herself in the same jaw-dropping experience.
Turning to his left (again, a brief floating message from iSight indicated this to be the east side of the building), a wide staircase led up to the floor above. Beyond the staircase, four rooms were lined up tight against the wall. The clear glass on the first and last rooms revealed large oval glass tables surrounded by at least a dozen white leather chairs. The glass on the middle two rooms was frosted white. The door to each room had large numbers etched into different strong block colours. Skinner could make out faint shadows move around inside room '1.1' (the dark red door).
Having seen most of WhiteStar's other centres around the world, it seemed to Skinner that Tanaka had become quite enamoured with the soundproof 'smart glass'. It was everywhere. The smart glass could be switched from clear to frosted in an instant through the flick of a button, or - as Skinner was quickly realising - the blink of an eye. Tanaka's obsession with harshly minimalist design in his centres had always seemed a little odd to him, and often frustratingly counterproductive. In past visits to other centres, it had been a common occurrence for Skinner, Harper, Hill and Santos to find themselves hopelessly lost. However, now that he'd experienced the iSight system interacting with the building, Tanaka's determination to avoid almost all physical markings made sense. The iSight system layered on all the information traditional buildings had, but in a way that was remarkably personal.
Skinner smiled inwardly as he realised that every sign he'd read had been in English - he was quite sure Sakura would be seeing a Japanese equivalent. Very clever Mr Tanaka, Skinner allowed as he turned his attention to the centre of the massive open concourse.
A large, sleek circular island desk -Skinner thought it resembled a giant polished steel donut - dominated the space. Four young women - in typically precise fashion placed north, south, east and west points of the 'donut' - sat at large semi-transparent screens busily typing on unseen keyboards. Another woman - the supervisor Skinner guessed - stood in the very centre surveying the concourse.
Suspended above the centre of the desk was a 2-metre tall glass cylinder, around which flowed a constant stream of information, like a flight board in a busy airport or the ticker on a cable news show. The information included room schedules ('A/P Pre-launch team, room 1.4, 6pm'), animated charts celebrating the building's environmental footprint, spinning WhiteStar logos and - in a cheesy gimmick that made Skinner smile - a video of a young Asian woman bowing while WhiteStar welcomes Professor Skinner rotated around the screen.
Skinner glanced to his right and could see his colleagues panning left and right with a look of astonishment. He gently nudged Santos, who turned with a start.
"Feels like we've just walked into the future. I'm not sure I'm ready for this. The sign on my office is a piece of paper blu-tacked on!"
Santos half-smiled, her attention still caught by the scene ahead of her. While her eyes gazed up at the elaborate, 'virtual' trees, Santos replied "You know Ben, it's strange. I know those trees aren't really there, just like I know that pond doesn't exist. I know you and I are getting our own little greetings up there on that giant board. I know all of that - and yet it is so real that I accept it. I hate to admit it, but Andy might be right. It's seductive."
Skinner nodded, and a though
t occurred to him. He whispered "iSight off," and suddenly the colour and movement ahead of him disappeared. In its place was a cavernous, colourless space. The only sound was the low murmur of conversation. No trees. No pond. No dazzling graphs and charts. The marble tiled floor replaced by polished grey concrete. The bold door colours back to white frosted glass.
Skinner felt disoriented, anxious. He recognised the gnawing urgency to experience iSight again. He'd been sober for 724 days now, but he still remembered vividly what it felt like when the addiction took over. He knew the fear, the hunger, the shivering desperation. The loss of control.
Skinner could feel the panic rising inside. He knew how quickly he could be seduced. He had an addictive personality. It had destroyed his marriage and had very nearly taken his life. He'd worked hard to regain control, and a big part of that was recognising the warning signs.
"iSight on," Skinner whispered, and instantly colour and motion returned.
"Eva," Skinner whispered urgently. Responding to the urgency in his voice, Santos swivelled to face him.
Skinner lowered his voice to a whisper while glancing over at the others. "I need to ask you something."
Santos instinctively mirrored Skinner, glancing over at Harper, Hill and Sakura. Harper seemed to be holding court, having adopted Tanaka's habit of grandly waving his hands in the air. Sakura looked on impassively while Hill's seething anger bubbled away.
"What?"
"Professionally speaking, what sort of effect could an experience this realistic have on a person? I've been using it for less than an hour, and already I don't want to do without it."
Santos nodded grimly. "I feel exactly the same way. I'm not sure exactly what it is - whether its the level of realism or the fact it's so blended in with the real world. Probably both..." Santos nodded to herself, "...but whatever it is, this feels addictive."
Skinner nodded, a look of deep concern etched on his face.
Santos continued, "Worse than that, it seems to me there's a real opportunity for anyone using this system to disconnect from reality. Anyone with even slight tendencies toward mental disorders, paranoia, schizophrenia, would have real problems with this system."
"How badly do you think it could affect people?"
"It's really difficult to say. We'd need to run lots of double-blind clinical tests with lots of people over a long time."
"But what's your gut telling you?"
"Ok - speaking as Eva, not Doctor Santos, I'd say if the game offers the same level of realism and real world/virtual world integration as we've seen today, then we could see a whole range of paranoid and schizophrenic behaviour. And given how quickly you and I have become emotionally attached to the experience Ben, I'd say some of the problems could get pretty ugly."
Skinner nodded slowly as Santos spoke. In his lateral vision, he could see Harper's monologue winding up, and Sakura glancing toward the two of them.
"Do you think it's possible that someone could immerse themselves in the game, perhaps in some of the crime and sci-fi disaster role playing elements, and lose it completely?"
Santos paused for a second before responding slowly.
"Yes. In fact I know it is. There are cases of this very thing happening, but they are extremely rare and almost entirely from people already predisposed to instability. Why? What are you thinking Ben?
Skinner's eyes lost their focus, as he gazed into the distance.
"I don't know what to think Eva, I really don't. But something feels very wrong."
#
10am Thursday, Tanaka's Quarters, Sapporo (Minus 5 Hours)
Itou scrutinised the scruffy, short, round man as he nervously brushed his right hand over his tangled mop of brown hair and smoothed down his unkempt beard.
Itou's thick neck squeezed into his crisp white shirt, his blue blazer and grey slacks struggling to contain the muscular man. He blinked once, and swept a finger twice in the air before refixing his glare on the portly bearded man standing before him. Itou looked offended by the unkempt man's presence.
"Mr Tanaka will see you now Doctor Becker" and with that the frosted glass door slid into a recess in the wall. Becker hustled forward, keen to get some distance from the guards, and walked through a corridor wide enough to drive his new Lexus SUV through.
At the end of the polished timber corridor, a cavernous penthouse spread before him. Enormous potted plants, green leaves and bamboo shooting upwards created splashes of green everywhere, while several oversize paintings of Tanaka's wife and daughters were dotted around the area.
Tanaka was sitting on a deep red sofa. Facing him on one of four large polished oak and white leather armchairs was an old Japanese man. To Becker, the old man had a distinguished air of authority, although his expensive pin-striped suit seemed to hang on him a little. It accentuated the shrunken form of the old man.
As always, Tanaka wore a black Armani single-breasted suit, black shirt with the top button open, and black patent leather shoes. With his dark skin, jet black moustache and goatee, he seemed oddly out of place in the light and augmented colour of the penthouse.
Becker waited patiently as the men shook hands. They then stood, exchanged low bows and with that the old man made his way past Becker, through the corridor and out into the visitors lounge. Becker smiled as the old man walked past, but the old man ignored the doctor - as if he didn't exist.
Bemused, Becker shrugged and turned to see Tanaka gesturing to join him. Becker walked over to Tanaka, now sitting again, and said "Mr Tanaka, I am so honoured that you agreed to meet me at such short notice."
Tanaka gave a tired smile. "Not at all Doctor Becker. The pleasure is all mine. Please - take a seat."
Becker slumped into the still warm leather armchair, and waited for Tanaka to speak.
Tanaka examined the man in front of him. This scruffy, overweight, hairy man was Tanaka's secret weapon. A true genius, the man behind iSight 3's most remarkable achievement.
"What can I do for you Doctor?"
Becker coughed nervously. He had worked for Tanaka for over three years now, and in that time the doctor had received only kind words of support - and enough money that he'd never have to work again. And yet Becker had never felt comfortable around the brilliant Japanese entrepreneur. Becker was a student of people, and something about Tanaka had never quite felt right.
"Mr Tanaka, I have come to ask your thoughts about my proposal."
"Proposal?" Tanaka waved his hands above his head questioningly.
"Yes sir, six days ago I sent you the results from our iSight 3 game immersion labs around the world. As you know we have been testing day and night for the last few months, and in the last few weeks we've started to see some ... anomalies."
"Anomalies?" Tanaka raised an eyebrow.
Becker sighed internally. Clearly - yet again - Tanaka had not read the report.
"Yes sir. A few of our research centre managers are suggesting that the virtual personalities are simply too lifelike. The managers feel that the virtual players are adapting incredibly quickly to the actions of the real game players and the scenarios inside the game. The result is that many of the human players testing the system in the research centre report being unnerved, disorientated and in some cases angry about their inability to separate the real from the virtual players. A few - at this point it's difficult to tell how many - have reported trouble separating the game from real life hours after they have left our research centre."
Tanaka let out an exasperated sigh. "So what exactly are you suggesting Doctor?"
Becker watched as Tanaka shuffled in his seat, clearly unhappy with the conversation.
"Sir, my recommendation is that we delay the release of the game by 8 weeks, so that we can more fully understand these issues and upgrade all iSight 3 virtual players."
"Upgrade? You mean make them less realistic don't you Doctor Becker?"
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