“There are a couple different kinds of movies now. There’s old-style screen movies, and people still watch a lot of those because they are classics. With Vertebrane you can sit down or lie down and the movie plays through your vision system. You disconnect your eyes and all you see is the movie in that case. Or you can have kind of a picture-in-picture thing, where the movie is overlaid within the scene that your eyes are naturally seeing. That way you can go for a walk and watch the movie while you are walking. But all the new movies are immersive now. You not only see the scenes, but you also taste, touch and feel them. You are completely immersed in the movie. Many of these movies are interactive, and when they do that they’re kind of a merge between a movie and virtual space.” She said.
“Virtual space?” I asked.
“Immersive environments. Artificial worlds. Whatever you want to call it. We call it VS here” She said.
“How does virtual space work?” I asked.
“Virtual space is an offshoot of gaming.” She said. “You saw it in the U.S. to some degree — games got more and more realistic on the screen. Now imagine a game world where it’s not about screens and stereo speakers. Instead, you are completely immersed in the game world. It includes sight, sound, touch, taste and smell, and it is totally realistic. You essentially disconnect your brain from your real body and plug it into a virtual body in the game’s virtual world. Then people started creating virtual worlds simply for the sake of creating them. You can experience just about anything in virtual space now, and you can do it alone or with a million friends. You can be Neil Armstrong landing on the moon, or a cowboy in the old west or whatever.”
“What else can Vertebrane do?” I asked.
“You access the network through it. Basically you can access any fact, image, movie, song. You can also experience what someone else is experiencing — a person streams all their sensory data to you, and you both experience it simultaneously. It can be one person sharing the experience, or a thousand. Or you can publish an experience and other people can play it whenever they want. Vertebrane also exercises for you. And it records your entire life to the network, so you can go back and review things that have happened in the past and replay them. It can do all sorts of things.”
“Wait a minute. Your entire life?” I asked.
“Yes. Basically your entire sensory feed, along with all your muscle actions, get recorded every minute of every day. Then if you want to go back and relive something, you can. It’s like a complete diary of your entire life.” She explained.
“Is that public?” I asked.
“No. Well, sort of. There are the refs, but they are the only thing accessing it besides you, unless you publish something.” She said.
“The refs?” I asked.
“The referees. They monitor things and prevent problems.” She clarified.
“How so?” I asked.
“They are like referees in any sport. They watch things, and flag you if you break the rules or are about to break the rules.” She said.
“They watch everything?”
“The refs are robots. They watch your sensory feed as it is coming in and look for rule violations. For example, let’s say you start screaming obscenities at someone in public. The refs would flag that and detain you. It’s against the rules to scream at someone in public, mainly because no one wants to be around when it happens.”
“That makes sense. Did you say they can flag you if you are about to break a rule?” I asked.
“Yes.” She said.
“How can they know you are about to break a rule?” I asked.
“Let’s say you have picked up a bat, you are running toward someone and your muscles are getting the bat in position to swing it. A ref would look at that and say, ‘there’s a good chance someone is going to get hurt here.’ The ref would shut down the person with the bat.”
“Shut down?”
“It just disconnects your brain from your muscles and the ref takes control. Then you are detained to review the situation and retrain.” She said.
“That must really cut down on crime.” I said.
“You cannot imagine. And there is always a complete record after any crime is committed, so there is no question about innocence or guilt. Prosecution is trivial if you are guilty, and exoneration is instant if you are not. It’s a little creepy the first time a ref warns you about something. It is sort of like a lifeguard yelling at you at the pool for something you thought was OK. It’s embarrassing, at least to me. But then the ref explains the rule, you can ask questions about it and then you move on.”
“How often do the refs flag you?” I asked.
“It can be pretty often in the beginning, but I haven’t heard from a ref in over a year I’d say. It’s been a long time.”
“Where do the rules come from?” I asked.
“We make them. Everyone is involved. They’ll spend almost a week on that during orientation — it’s a big part of living here.”
“And what were you saying about exercise? How can a computer system help with exercise?” I asked.
“This sounds a little weird, but here’s how it works. The biggest problem with strenuous exercise is that it’s no fun. It hurts. But strenuous exercise really helps on the health side. People in the Australia Project are now living 30 years longer than people in the U.S., and exercise is a part of that. Athletes are OK with the pain, but most normal people have no desire to be in pain for an hour or more. So… someone figured out a solution. What you do is disconnect your brain from sensory input and watch a movie or talk to people or handle mail or read a book or whatever for an hour. During that time, the Vertebrane system exercises your body for you. It takes your body through a complete aerobic workout that’s a lot more strenuous than most people would tolerate on their own. You don’t feel a thing, but your body stays in great shape.”
“You are kidding me.”
“No, I am not kidding. It is fantastic to have a body that is working at peak athletic performance. You’ve got to feel it to believe it. I am in fantastic shape. Here, feel my arm muscles.” She offered me her arm, and she was surprisingly lean and muscular. I’d never really paid any attention to it, but she was in great shape.
“Let me see if I’ve got this straight. You disconnect your brain, and you — your brain — can do whatever you want on the network. Call, read, play games, whatever. Meantime a computer controls your body. So your body is essentially a robot. Is that right?” I asked.
“Yes, that’s right. Your Vertebrane system is driving your body. Meanwhile your brain is off doing whatever.” She explained.
“So who am I talking to now? Am I talking to Linda’s brain, or to the Vertebrane computer?” I asked.
“Ah. I see where you are going. You are talking to me. It’s against the rules to have Vertebrane drive your body like that when you are with someone else. That would be way too confusing. If I am with you, I am driving my body. The refs would flag it otherwise.”
“That’s reassuring.” I said.
“When we are together, you are always talking to me, myself and I. No artificial additives. What else would you like to know?” She asked.
“My God, I could ask you questions all day. It would probably be easier to simply get it myself and try the Vertebrane system out.”
“I’m glad to hear you say that!” she said. “We can have it done today.”
“Today? Are you kidding?”
“No. It’s minor surgery. You can be out in an hour and you won’t feel a thing.” She said.
“What??? How can replacing three vertebrae and having every major nerve fiber severed be painless?” I asked.