Laura pulled herself off the ground, rising with ease. She and the woman stood eye to eye, their hands still clasped. Laura let go reluctantly, the feeling of contact with another person having been surprisingly comforting.
"So, how did I do that?" the girl asked with a smile in her eyes. "Here's how. The wall moved in toward you," she said, pushing her hands out, palms flat, "from this side of the room." She pressed her fingers to her chest just above the slight rise of her breasts. "Here. Feel for yourself." Laura just stood there.
The girl rolled her eyes and then reached out, grabbing Laura's hand and pulling it toward her. Laura jerked her hand back with a gasp — rubbing her fingers against her thumb where she had felt contact with the guide's soft skin. The girl tilted her head and patiently held out her hand. Laura slowly, tentatively, laid her hand in the girl's waiting grip.
Laura's fingers were pressed to the guide's chest just below her throat. Her body was hard. There were bones under the girl's skin.
Laura pulled her hand back, but only slightly. The guide still held Laura's fingers, staring back at her with twinkling green eyes. A mischievous, impish smile turned up one corner of her lips.
Laura extracted her hand from the girl's, fighting a rush of lightheadedness and a tingling, prickly feeling that rolled in waves across her skin. She felt short of breath, so she inhaled deeply and filled her lungs.
"So," Laura said, "the walls shape themselves so that I can feel things?"
"They 'morph,'" the guide said, nodding. "You've got it."
"Can I see… the wall I mean? Just like it is right now but without any picture?"
The woman frowned playfully. "Oh, all right. You're the boss."
She raised her hand into the air. "Get ready. Three, two, one…"
She snapped her fingers, and the scene disappeared. It took a moment for Laura's eyes to adjust to the dim lights of the room. The wall in front of her was flat save for the bulge right at its center. The bulge was in the shape of a woman — her guide.
"Not very attractive, am I?" the bulge asked. The "lips" appeared suddenly from out of the otherwise smooth shape of the girl's head and moved faintly around the indentation that was her mouth. Laura could even see the frown — pout, really — formed in the wall opposite her.
Laura reached out and touched the woman's chest again, careful to avoid the swell of her breasts. Again she felt the bones in their appointed places. The black grill stretched under the tug of her fingers.
"The finer detail — the subdermal skeletal features, for instance," the moving lips said, "are created by your gloves."
The bright forest scene reappeared — Laura standing there with her fingers on the guide's chest. Laura stepped back to a more comfortable distance.
"We're working on four-Ds that'll allow freestanding morphs — shapes that rise up out of the floor to at least human head heights. Right now, there's a minimum height-to-width ratio of about one-to-one. That makes it impossible to morph freestanding figures quite as lithe as our own." She modeled herself by holding one hand up and gracefully turning a full circle.
"Who are you?" Laura asked.
"I told you. I'm your guide."
"What does that mean? Are you the computer?"
"Mm-hm," she said, nodding curtly. "In the flesh, so to speak."
"The same computer that I've been talking to? My patient?"
"In color!" she said, holding her hands out to the sides as if proud of her handiwork.
"Is this what you wanted to show me?"
"No-o-o," she laughed. "I'm only a guide! I'm just a tool. All of this" — her hands waved to the forest all around—"is just a tool, Laura. A tool to aid in your understanding."
Laura felt herself slipping into the world she knew didn't exist. She grabbed for the anchor of reality, trying to imagine the walls of the chamber around her. They were out there. She reached for them, took a step, then another, then another. She moved through the forest, stumbling like a blind woman and groping for, but never reaching, the walls.
"You're just walking on a treadmill, Laura," the guide said from behind — half chastising, half sympathetic.
Laura was torn between a desire to return to her world and the easy slide into acceptance of the virtual world. The world she knew didn't exist.
"All right," Laura said, making her mind up — giving in to the illusion being fed to her. "What do I do now?"
"Just follow me," the chipper guide said, approaching Laura with faint crunching steps. She put her arm around Laura, her body casually swaying to make contact with Laura's arm and hip — pressing warmly against her skin. Laura felt a suddenly extreme social discomfort from the overly familiar gesture. That could mean only one thing. She had accepted the new world as her own. Her senses had won out.
Laura stepped away from the girl, who again invaded her space. The guide seemed likable but she just didn't know how to behave. "Okay," Laura said, too close to the girl to make eye contact, "what is it you wanted to show me? I know we're eating up tons of your processing power."
"Oh!" the guide said, waving her hand dismissively, "Screw them. Just us two girls, right?" With a grin and a wink she bumped her hip against Laura's.
"Where's that smell coming from?" Laura said, stepping away and turning to look for the fire.
"Come on," the guide said, holding out her hand to Laura and waiting.
Laura sighed. "Listen, I don't mean to be rude or anything, but I'm not much, you know, into touching or holding hands or anything. I'm sorry, is that okay?"
"Suit yourself. Just watch your step." The guide took off.
Laura followed slowly, eyeing the ground carefully. The floor of the workstation was uneven, just like the picture of the ground that shone from it. Both began to fall away very gently as Laura followed the guide downhill.
"What's your name?" Laura asked. The girl turned but said nothing, the smile disappearing from her face. "I mean, what can I call you? Don't you have a name?"
Suddenly Laura felt vibrations through her feet like an earthquake, and the video lurched in jerky and disorienting frames.
She saw the guide's finger rise to her lips to "shush" her, and the room then went dark.
"Laura?" Filatov asked out of the darkness.
"Yes."
"Are you all right in there?"
"Yeah. Thanks. I'm fine."
There was no light, no sound, no smell. "I can't see anything on the monitor," Filatov said.
"Oh, everything went dark just a second ago, but I'm okay."
"So, what do you think?" Filatov asked.
"Amazing! This is the most incredible thing I've ever seen in my entire life!"
He laughed. "Great. I'm glad to hear you're enjoying it. We get a little jaded here sometimes, always picking out the tiniest imperfections. What is your simulation, anyway?"
"Nothing much, yet. Just a walk in the woods."
A faint sh-h-h sounded from somewhere in the darkness — from the direction of the guide standing beside her. "What?" Filatov asked.
"I said it was just a walk in the woods," Laura said, speaking more loudly.
"Oh, I thought… You are alone in there, aren't you?"
Laura felt a hand on her arm. "Of course I'm alone!" The hand squeezed her arm gently.
"Okay. You still want me to check on you every ten minutes?"
Laura thought for a moment, then said, "No, that' all right. I'll be fine."
"Okay. I'll see you when you're done."
As Laura waited in the darkness, she felt something graze her right cheek. Laura grabbed her face and rubbed. It had felt like a kiss.
The lights came up, and the girl was standing right next to her. Laura took several steps back. "What the hell are you doing?"