“What were they doing here?” he whispered.
Leksi frowned. “I hope we can take off with that weight inside,” he said in a lower voice to Barsk. “Move!” he yelled at the men. “Move faster!”
Chapter Eleven
Knowing what to expect didn’t make it any easier. In fact, the dread of what was to come always made things worse, in Dalton’s opinion. The hardest part this time was the breathing crossover, but eventually he was past that and Hammond had him linked to Sybyl, who was going to introduce him to the avatar form that Hammond’s team had crash-designed with the help of the computer.
Dalton had slept for two hours, if one could call it that. Hammond had given him a shot that had knocked him out for that time period. Dalton didn’t feel rested, but as they used to say in Ranger School so many years ago when he’d gone through that training, he could rest when he was dead.
Remembering Ranger School, Dalton’s lips curled in a slight smile inside the TACPAD and around the tube shoved into his mouth as he followed the instructions of Dr. Hammond. It was the same routine he had done the first time: focusing on the white dot, followed by moving along the grid line. What would his grizzled Ranger instructors have thought of this new form of soldiering? Floating in a freezing tank, connected to a computer? They would have liked the freezing-tank part— it seemed like every military school Dalton had gone through had always had immersion into cold water as part of the curriculum.
“Now we fit you to your basic avatar,” Hammond said, her “voice” filtered through Sybyl. “Are you ready?”
“Yes.” Dalton found this talking inside of his own head to Hammond very strange.
The grid lines disappeared. A stick figure replaced them after a brief blackout.
“This is you.”
“Lost some weight,” Dalton said. “This form has no mass at present, although once projected out of the virtual and into the real world, it will have mass out of the energy we will send using Sybyl.”
“It was a joke,” Dalton said.
There was a long pause.
“We will proceed. Sybyl will run you through a series of maneuvers to familiarize you with your avatar.”
Dalton waited patiently. He had no idea how much time had already elapsed. That was something he was going to have to ask Hammond— how could one keep track of time in the virtual world?
“Move your left arm,” Sybyl commanded.
Dalton tried to do as he was told, but he could feel nothing from his left arm.
“Again.”
They went through this how many times Dalton didn’t know, until suddenly he felt a painful twinge in his arm. “Hey!” Dalton yelled.
“You are getting feedback?” Hammond asked. “I can feel my arm.”
“You feel your virtual arm,” Hammond said. “Now you can move it. We have to make sure you have feedback before we allow movement. Now we will allow your nervous system to interact more fully with the form.”
Dalton focused on moving his arm forward. The stick figure in front of him slowly moved its right arm forward. Dalton felt his arm move at the same time. It was very confusing, since he knew that his arm had not moved in reality.
“Experiment,” Sybyl told him. “Practice.”
Dalton did just that for a while before he noticed something. “What about my hands?”
“We must start with the basics,” Hammond said. “This form is the barest outline of the avatar you will eventually employ. Tr y the other arm.”
Soon Dalton could move all of his limbs individually. Sybyl then tested him in much the same manner that she had with the grid lines. A light would flash next to one of the limbs and he had to move in the direction of the light. The computer would also rotate the figure left and right, so that he had to move forward and back.
As the practice went on, Sybyl started flashing lights in combination and at a fast pace. Dalton found himself totally immersed in trying to keep up. It was like when he had first learned martial arts, the practice at making all movements a routine, an instinct.
Hammond’s voice came back. “The goal is so that you can move the avatar as naturally as you move your own body. For example, if you were to do a forward roll, you would not be thinking how each of your arms and legs moved. You would do the roll. The avatar needs to be as much a part of you, so that you can move in combination in an unconscious mode. The major thing keeping you from that right now is the belief in your mind that you are not really the form you see. You must suspend your disbelief and believe you are looking into a mirror. But focus on what you feel, not what you see.”
Dalton did as she instructed and found that his action became more natural. It felt as if he were floating in the tank at scuba school, weightless and free. He rolled forward.
“Whoa!” Dalton yelled. The figure in front of him was tumbling and he felt like he was spinning out of control. With great effort he brought himself to a halt. “How do I know which way is up?” Dalton said. “I’ve got no feeling of weight. Even in water, I can tell direction by checking out my air bubbles. Here there is nothing.”
A red line appeared next to the figure, arrows on it slowly going by pointing up. “Orient on the arrows,” Hammond suggested.
Dalton did the roll again, but this time he focused on the red arrows. He did two complete revolutions, then halted himself.
“Very good.”
Dalton felt like he was gasping for breath, but he knew now that it was only a part of the virtual feedback.
“Now feet and hands,” Sybyl said.
Dalton found that more difficult. He had never truly realized how complex the human hand was and how many moving parts it had. The foot was also hard to master.
Soon Sybyl had him mimicking the act of walking, the stick figure moving jerkily along. One thing Dalton found disconcerting was the lack of resistance, particularly to his feet.
“Right now you might consider what you are doing walking in space, much like an astronaut, ” Hammond said. “As you may have noted you have no weight. You are acting against no object. You are totally free. It is important to learn this type of movement, first because it is the most strange for you and also because it is the way you will feel while you travel on the virtual plane.”
“Can I go somewhere?” Dalton asked.
There was a pause. “I must check with Raisor.”
“Why?”
There was another pause. “Because he’s in charge.”
“Forget it,” Dalton said. “You have completed this phase of training,” Hammond said. “We are pulling you out.”
“The fools will never succeed,” Feteror’s grandfather said as he stood at the edge of their glade, peering in the direction of the open fields. There was the distant heavy coughing sound of the Combine’s tractors working the land. Even in the virtual world, the State intruded, Feteror thought wryly. He knew he could delete the sound, but it was the way he had last been in the glade.
Feteror frowned. He had told his grandfather his entire plan and this was his response?