Today half of the company’s employees are crowded into the reception area: managers, developers, testers, designers. They’re here because a highly anticipated delivery has finally arrived: a shipping carton the size of a large suitcase sits in front of the receptionist’s desk.
“Let’s open it up,” says Mahesh.
Ana and Robyn pull the tabs on the shipping carton, separating it into eight blocks of cellulose foam that hinge open. The resident of this custom sarcophagus is a robot body, newly arrived from the fabrication facility. The robot is humanoid in shape but small, less than three feet in height, to keep the inertia of its limbs low and allow it a moderate amount of agility. Its skin is glossy black and its head is disproportionately large, with a surface mostly occupied by a wraparound display screen.
The robot is from SaruMech Toys. A number of companies have sprung up to offer services targeting digient owners, but SaruMech is the first one with a hardware product instead of software. They’ve sent an example of their product to Blue Gamma in hopes of an endorsement.
“Which mascot got the high score?” asks Mahesh. He’s referring to the agility trials. Last week all the digients were given test avatars whose weight distribution and range of motion matched the robot body’s; they’ve spent some time each day wearing the avatars, practicing moving around in them. Yesterday Ana scored the digients on their ability to lie on their backs and then rise to their feet, ascend and descend stairs, balance on one leg and then the other. It was like conducting a sobriety test for a bunch of toddlers.
“That was Jax,” says Ana.
“Okay, get him ready.”
The receptionist relinquishes his workspace to Ana, who logs in to Data Earth from there and calls Jax over. Jax is lucky because the test avatar isn’t radically different from his own; it’s bulkier, but the limbs and torso have similar proportions. By contrast, the digients who grew up wearing panda-bear and tiger-cub avatars have been having more difficulty.
Robyn checks the diagnostics panel on the robot. “Looks like we’re good to go.”
Ana opens a portal in the gymnasium on-screen and gestures to Jax. “Okay, Jax, come on in.”
On-screen, Jax steps through the portal, and in the reception area the little robot comes alive. The robot’s head lights up to display Jax’s face, turning the oversize head into a bubble helmet he’s wearing. The design is a way of maintaining the resemblance to the digient’s original avatar without having to produce custom bodies. Jax looks like a copper robot wearing a suit of obsidian armor.
Jax turns around to take in the entire room. “Wow.” He stops turning. “Wow wow. Sound different. Wow wow wow.”
“It’s okay, Jax,” says Ana. “Remember, I told you your voice might sound different in the outside world.” The information packet from SaruMech had warned about this; a metal-and-plastic chassis conducts sound in a way that avatars in Data Earth don’t.
Jax looks up to face Ana, and she marvels at the sight of him. She knows that he’s not really in the body—Jax’s code is still being run on the network, and this robot is just a fancy peripheral—but the illusion is perfect. And even after all their interaction in Data Earth, it’s thrilling to have Jax stand in front of her and look her in the eye.
“Hi, Jax,” she says. “It’s me, Ana.”
“You wear different avatar,” Jax says.
“In the outside world, we call it a body, not an avatar. And people don’t switch their bodies here; we can only do that in Data Earth. Here we always wear the same body.”
Jax pauses to consider that. “You look this always?”
“Well, I can wear different clothes. But yes, this is the way I look.”
Jax walks over for a closer view, and Ana squats, elbows on knees, so they’re almost the same height. Jax peers at her hands and then her forearms; she’s wearing short sleeves. He brings his head closer, and Ana can hear the faint whir of the robot’s camera eyes refocusing. “Little hairs on your arms,” he says.
She laughs; her avatar has arms as smooth as a baby’s. “Yes, there are.”
Jax brings up a hand and extends a thumb and forefinger to grab some of the hairs. He makes a couple of attempts, but like the pincers of a claw vending machine, his fingers keep slipping off. Then he pinches her skin and pulls back.
“Ow. Jax, that hurts.”
“Sorry.” Jax scrutinizes Ana’s face. “Little little holes all over your face.”
Ana can feel the amusement of the others in the room. “Those are called pores,” she says, standing. “We can talk about my skin later. Right now, why don’t you take a look around the room?”
Jax turns and slowly walks around the lobby, a miniature astronaut exploring an alien world. He notices the window looking out onto the parking lot and heads toward it.
Afternoon sunlight slants through the glass. Jax steps into the sunbeam and abruptly backs out of it. “What that?”
“That’s the sun. It’s just like the one in Data Earth.”
Jax cautiously steps into the light again. “Not like. This sun bright bright bright.”
“That’s true.”
“Sun not need be bright bright bright.”
Ana laughs. “I suppose you’re right.”
Jax walks back over to her and looks at the fabric of her pants. Tentatively, she rubs the back of his head. The tactile sensors in the robot body are obviously working, because Jax leans into her hand; she can feel the weight of him, the dynamic resistance of his actuators. Then Jax hugs her around her thighs.
“Can I keep him?” she says to the others. “He followed me home.”
Everyone laughs. “You say that now,” says Mahesh, “but wait until he flushes your hand towels down the toilet.”
“I know, I know,” says Ana. There were many reasons Blue Gamma targeted the virtual realm instead of the real one—lower cost, ease of social networking—but one was the risk of property damage; they couldn’t sell a pet that might tear down your actual venetian blinds or make mayonnaise castles on your actual rug. “I just think it’s cool to see Jax this way.”
“You’re right, it is. For SaruMech’s sake, though, I hope the experience translates well onto video.” SaruMech Toys doesn’t plan to sell the robot bodies but to rent them for a few hours at a time. Digients will be given use of bodies at a facility outside of Osaka and taken on a field trip into the real world, while the owners watch via cameras mounted on micro-zeppelins. Ana feels a sudden urge to go work for them; seeing Jax this way reminds her of how much she misses the physical part of working with animals, and why working with the digients through a video screen just isn’t the same.
Robyn asks Mahesh, “Do you want all the mascots to have a turn in the robot?”
“Yes, but only after they’ve passed the agility test. If we break this one, SaruMech isn’t going to give us another one for free.”
Now Jax is playing with her sneakers, tugging on the end of a shoelace. It’s not often that Ana wishes she were rich, but right now, feeling her shoelace grow taut from Jax’s pulling, that is exactly what she’s wishing. Because if she could afford it, she would buy one of these robots in a heartbeat.
Various employees take turns showing mascots the real world; Derek usually takes Marco or Polo. His first idea is to take them outside, around the office park where Blue Gamma is headquartered, and show them the strips of grass and shrubbery that divide the parking lot. He points out the crablike robot that tends to the landscaping, product of an earlier venture in bringing digients into the real world. The robot is equipped with a stiletto-like trowel for pulling weeds, and its toil is purely instinct driven; it’s descended from generations of winners in an evolutionary gardening competition conducted in Data Earth hothouses. Derek’s curious about how the mascots will react upon hearing the story of the weed-pulling robot, wondering if they’ll identify with it as a fellow émigré from Data Earth, but they don’t show the slightest interest.