Sunday afternoon found Aaron and me wandering into the community building, a structure that never ceased to astonish with its multifaceted innards. The first floor was basically a food court that hummed with life, where aromas mingled, music danced on airwaves, and a few community activities were available. Above it, offices sprawled across the second floor, including the bank where I had opened an account a few days earlier. Today, however, our destination was the third floor, a haven of communal working spaces and creative studios—a hive for minds like Aaron's.
"Sent the project over to Mason and Amelia," Aaron said, his voice tinged with anticipation as we approached the escalator. "Mason's all hyped up about seeing it in VR."
"Can't blame him," I replied, glimpsing the approval in his eyes. "Your work deserves more than just a flat screen."
The escalator carried us upward as Aaron fiddled with something on his glasses, and my thoughts ran away from me. A week ago, everything here would've seemed outlandishly foreign—the people adorned with full functional prosthetics, bodies illustrated with ink, piercings punctuating skin, and attire that screamed individuality. But today, I watched them with a sense of normalcy.
"Amazing how quickly things become ordinary," I mused aloud to no one in particular.
"Right?" Aaron chuckled, eyeing a passerby whose neon hair defied gravity. "Guess it shows how adaptable we humans are."
I nodded, my gaze fixed on a panel embedded in the wall. Approaching it, I uttered a polite "Please indicate that Eli and Aaron have arrived" to check in and watched as it lit up, responsive. When it completed my request, I couldn't help adding, "Thank you," aware of how absurd it might seem to thank a machine.
"Never change, Eli," Aaron grinned, clearly amused by my courtesy to the inanimate.
"I was raised polite," I shrugged, the words slipping out with a lightness. "Besides, who knows? Maybe they'll start being nice back," I joked, half-expecting the panel to chirp a 'you're welcome.'
Aaron explained that official final work needed to be done in places like this to ensure that all parties were recorded working on the project and demonstrated willing agreement to a cooperation contract. Something about the room monitoring system records the actions and interactions, along with all identifications and whatnot.
I only marginally understood it. What was wrong with a notary public?
The lobby area of the third floor was a hub of creative energy, buzzing with the chatter of artists and programmers mingling around holographic displays.
Among them, Amelia stood out, her slender figure sitting on a bench by the wall, doing something with her AR glasses. A trace of laughter rippled from her.
"Hey Amelia, you're early," Aaron's voice broke through, tinged with a hint of red cresting his cheeks.
Her hands fluttered, casting away invisible threads as she disconnected from augmented reality. Springing up with a grace that seemed choreographed, she greeted us, "Oh hey, Aaron, Eli. Yeah, I came a bit early."
"Did you hear anything from Mason?" Aaron asked, shifting his weight from the prosthetic leg to the other, curiosity etching his features.
Shaking her head, Amelia directed her deep brown eyes at us. "No, nothing direct. Just his messages in the group chat about wanting to see the project here." She paused, her gaze flickering to something in her AR glasses. "I previewed it with these. It looked good to me, but I'm sure you've done your due diligence. We are here just to triple-check and make Mason less paranoid."
With a confidence that felt foreign yet exhilarating, I added, "We actually used VR goggles to review it thoroughly. I couldn't spot anything that needed upgrading."
Her smile widened as if my words had painted strokes of satisfaction across her face. "Even better."
"Sorry, got stuck at work. I'm a few minutes late," Mason's voice cut through the hum of conversation as he ascended the escalator.
Aaron let out a chuckle, "Dude, you're the only one who cares that much about being on time." Mason blushed but didn't respond.
Amelia, already inching toward the door of the VR room with an air of impatience, turned her head and called out, "Ready?"
"Yep," came the synchronized response from Aaron and Mason. I trailed behind them, my pulse quickening with each step towards the room dedicated to virtual reality experiences. This wasn't like the deep dive, but it was more then the VR goggles we had at home.
I almost salivated at the memory of the deep dive experience.
The space was utilitarian, the stark white lines on the floor forming squares in a grid pattern that seemed like a blank canvas awaiting our digital brushstrokes. The walls were bare except for one, which cradled VR gear like a futuristic armory—goggles, gloves, and an assortment of plastic weaponry that promised adventure.
Aaron, without even asking if I needed help, plucked a pair of goggles and gloves from the shelf and handed them to me. "Don't worry, they get sanitized after each use." His reassurance was meant to comfort me, but it pricked at my newfound wariness. I wasn't worried about that till he said it.
After we donned the gear, the empty room flickered and transformed before us. Siloutes of our avatars materialized in the same relative space as we stood. It was smoother than the setup at Aaron's place. The technology here fine-tuned to a level that made the real seem like a rough draft compared to this crafted illusion.
A prompt from the system overlaid itself across my vision. "Please acknowledge that you know and will obey the rules." I scanned quickly over the summary; it was a digital litany of dos and don'ts designed to keep our virtual playground clean and controversy-free.
No capturing these moments for posterity—or liability. No sexual content, no shirking the responsibility of tidying up our digital messes. No physical fighting. And when we were done we were supposed to make the spacy tidy for the next users.
This wasn't the same as the deep dive place where anything went. It had even more rules and restrictions than the VR Goggles we had at home. The capacity must have been the only reason we went there instead of at home.
"Got it," I mumbled and tapped the acknowledgment button, solidifying my promise to play by the rules.
The other's avatars came into full crisp features. The gear we were wearing disappeared completely. Aaron, Mason, and I had default avatars, looking like animated versions of ourselves. Amelia's avatar looked human but had other badges, tokens, and accessories that made her look much more personalized. I stared for a few seconds before opening my cloud box.
I sent the outline and visuals of my proposed story directly from my phone to my goggles, making use of the seamless local connection. It was automatic and a bit unnerving. Aaron warned me that the system would have access to my personal cloud when we walked in and to put anything away that I didn't want to be made public.
"Ready, Eli?" Aaron's voice came through the speakers of the goggles and the ambient room at the same time.
"Let's do this." I was grateful that he took over launching what we worked on and did not let me flounder through the process.
With a few swift gestures from Aaron, reality rippled and reformed into fantasy. The stark grid dissolved into a tapestry of greens and browns, the fantasy forest sprouting around us. My breath caught at the sight; every leaf quivered under the caress of a digital wind, and each blade of grass swayed in a choreographed dance of pixels.
Yeah, this space was worth agreeing to regarding the rules and privacy violations.
"Wow," I whispered, hearing my own voice come in through the speakers of the goggles set just louder than the babbling brook.
Aaron adjusted the settings, going over the last edits we made. His quick actions showed he was comfortable with the technology, while I still had much to learn. I moved around, viewing the scene from various angles and even crouching to get a closer look at a patch of virtual moss that seemed almost real.
"Almost as good as that one time, huh?" Aaron commented, noticing my inspection.
"Close," I agreed, standing up again. "But there's just something about that full immersion...It is so much more real than just audio and visual."
"Got you chasing the dragon," he chuckled.
I looked around and saw Amelia and Mason fiddling with settings boxes in front of themselves as well. I felt out of place since I didn't even know how to open the settings dialogue box.
"Alright, let's run through this one more time before we call it a day," Aaron said, and moved us to the starting point of the digital panoramic, making me dizzy from the motion my eyes saw that my ears didn't feel.
The dance of light through the canopy above us was like watching sunbeams play hide and seek by the pond back home on a lazy summer afternoon. Nostalgia flooded my mind, making me yearn for my family.
Mason's voice pulled me from my reverie and sadness.
"Aaron, the way light filters through these leaves, is it generated in real-time or a loop?" he asked, squinting his eyes as if to catch the photons in motion.
"Real-time," Aaron replied, pride lacing his tone and face. "It's dynamically rendered. If you want to see the script, it's under environment, ambient, then lighting. Watch this." His hands danced in the air, manipulating the settings display in front of him. A tweak here, a swipe there, and the shadows under the trees began to shift subtly, as though the sun itself had taken a step to the side.
"Nice," I muttered, my gaze following the patterns on the ground.
Amelia squatted, popped up, ran over a few feet, and squatted again. "That's impressive, but can the light transition be smoother?"
"Let me tweak that, but it might cause rendering issues. It won't be a problem here, but it might end up being to hungry for distribution," Aaron said, his fingers moving swiftly through the options floating in front of him. After a few seconds, he struck an invisible key, and the scenario froze before restarting. When it came back, the light didn't just filter; it flowed, soft and serene, like honey.
"Better. Let's rerun this when we deploy to make sure it still is good." Amelia nodded, satisfied. Her attention then shifted to the waterfall cascading down a virtual cliffside. "But look at the water's flow."
Mason pivoted on his heel. "Seems a bit off. The spray looks like it's going too far out. And then falling too fast. Can you adjust that?"
"Got it," Aaron responded without missing a beat. Another series of gestures, and the water obeyed his command, now gliding over rocks with natural grace.
"Watch the splash at the bottom," Amelia chimed in, pointing towards where the water met the pond. "It needs more woosh. Make the spray more variable and random. Range bubble from 100 pixels to 500 pixels weighted 65% under 200 pixels?"
I glanced at her and was shocked that she didn't even have a settings display open. She was working from memory and experience.
"Right," Aaron agreed, fine-tuning the effect with precision.
"Okay, but what about the deer AI?" Mason asked, his gaze fixed on a group of virtual deer grazing by the brook. "Can it respond more to our presence?"
"Like increase its sensitivity?" Aaron asked, confused, swiping through the menus.
"Maybe?" Mason shrugged.
"Actually," I interrupted, "they're already pretty close to real deer. You know. At least when it's not during hunting season." The words slipped out before I could stop them, and suddenly all eyes—or rather, avatars—were on me.
"You saw real deer in the wild? And hunted them?" Amelia's tone was a mix of disbelief, curiosity, and a touch of disgust, while Mason's avitar looked like he wasn't sure whether to be impressed or appalled.
"Uh, yeah," I stammered. I shifted uncomfortably, wishing I could disappear into the foliage.
"Anything else?" Aaron jumped in, redirecting the conversation away from my awkward admission. Thankfully, Amelia and Mason moved on without further scrutiny of my past. The three artists moved around the space, making fixes and adjustments here and there.
Eventually, Mason's, Aaron's, and Amelia's avatars stood still amidst the greenery, hands on hips, eyes scanning every virtual inch for flaws that no longer existed.
"Are we done here?" Aaron's voice cut through the serene backdrop, his avatar turning to face us with a sense of finality. "Ready to wrap this up with the NFTs and smart contract?"
I could almost hear the eager anticipation in his voice. Mason nodded, and Amelia gave a thumbs-up.
"Alright then," Aaron said. He called up the settings file with a swipe of his hand, and I watched as they each summoned their signature tokens—small glowing icons that danced above their open palms before sinking into the slots available.
"Let's see that contract," Mason said, and Aaron produced the document in question, hovering mid-air like a testament to our collective effort. Mason leaned in, his avatar's brow creasing as he pored over every line and clause.
I glanced through the text, my eyes catching on the profit distribution terms—"equal parts for each of us, and a shared quarter for ongoing costs and future endeavors." It was more than fair and forward-thinking.
"Looks good to me," Amelia chimed in.
"Same here," Mason grunted, always the one to take the extra minute, the extra look, to ensure perfection.
"Then it's settled." Aaron clapped his hands together. "I'm sending it to the cloud for formatting. Once that's done, it goes straight to the marketplace."
"Congrats, team," he beamed, and I felt a surge of pride swell within me. Another successful venture, another step forward in this strange, new world.
The virtual world faded away, leaving us in the stark white reality of the VR room. Amelia's voice broke the silence that clung to the space like a stubborn fog. "So what now? We still have time. Want to browse or just call it early and go eat?" Her eyes bounced from face to face, searching for consensus.
"Actually," Mason said, pushing his glasses up the bridge of his nose as if preparing for battle, "I'd like to talk about the next project. I've got some sketches on my AR glasses."
Aaron chimed in, a hint of mischief in his tone. "Eli and I actually wanted to talk about that as well. That's why I invited him here." He glanced at me with a grin.
Mason's lips curled into a half-smile, but his words carried a sting. "I thought he just followed you around." His eyes flickered to mine, challenging, testing.
Aaron shot back, quick as lightning. "Dick! Anyway, Eli, want to pull up the stories you worked on?"
Heat crept up my neck, and my fists clenched involuntarily. I reached out, tapping through the holographic interface that hovered in front of me. With a few swipes, the outline and illustrations Aaron and I worked on appeared, hovering in the air like fragments of a dream.
"Wow, that's gorgeous, Aaron, did you make this?" Amelia leaned closer, her brown eyes reflecting the colors of our creation.
"Yep," Aaron admitted, his usual bravado softened by pride. "I modified some AI images, but the inspiration and story are all Eli's."
Under my mask, a smile found its way across my face, feeling for the first time like I truly belonged. Taking a deep breath, I stepped forward, the virtual assets responding to my gestures as I began discussing my story outline. My hands moved through the digital canvas, painting the scene with vivid strokes.
This is the first time someone other than Aaron took any interest in my writing.