Society of the Mind

running your business?'

Gray shrugged. 'My competitors aren't the problem. If they win I'll be the first in line to buy their products.' Again she waited. 'But there's another… struggle taking place. And the forces at work are…' He looked off into space, shaking his head.

For the very first time, Laura thought, he seemed vulnerable — beatable. 'You mean, like, dirty business dealings?' she asked. 'Bribes of government officials and that sort of thing?' Gray slowly focused on her, and after a few moments grew more composed. More guarded. He'd snapped out of his fit of candor and retreated behind a poker face.

He's stressed out, Laura realized. She wanted to press him for more, but not at the expense of widening the cracks that ran through the beleaguered man. She decided instead to switch to small talk.

'So what was it that you were doing in the exercise room this morning?' Laura asked.

She watched with a growing smile as the richest man on earth slowly blushed. 'Oh, you saw,' he said, grinning and sinking back into the cushions of his chair. 'It's a prototype of a VR treadmill. It's still too pricey, but most of that is the cost of server time on the main computer, which is dropping like a rock.'

'Is it a video game or something?'

'Well,' he shrugged, 'more an exercise machine we plan on selling to fitness centers, sports-training facilities, places like that.'

'And they'll all be hooked up to the computer?' Laura asked.

'The computer? Ultimately, everything will be hooked up to everything else. Every television, videophone, fax machine, home computer, stereo, arcade game, everything massively interconnected but none of it centrally run. That's sort of what began on a tiny scale with computers hooked up to the Internet. The computer, as you called it, is just taking the system to a new and higher level of connectivity. It coordinates the interconnections, but it's the off-board digital supercomputers we own or lease that do most of the heavy lifting. The neural network here is both our server and our interface with those several hundred separate computers. It's a buffer between the two worlds of humans and of computers. We tell the computer what we need done, and it tells the other computers what to do and how to do it.'

'Why doesn't it have a name.' Laura asked.

Gray appeared not to have understood her question. 'Pardon me?'

'The computer,' she said, stressing the article to show how awkward the use of the term was. 'Why didn't you give it a name like HAL or Andromedus or something impressive like that?'

Laura had asked the question only half seriously, but he seemed to consider his answer in earnest. He looked up at her through squinting, somber eyes.

'You don't like Andromedus?' Laura persisted.

She finally got a smile out of him. 'No, but keep trying.'

Laura relaxed in the soft cushions. They beckoned her to linger just a little while longer. The sun was warm on her neck, but the air kept her comfortably cool. She surreptitiously looked up at Gray, who seemed to be enjoying the moment as much as she was.

'You don't ever get your exercise outdoors?' she asked.

He shrugged. 'I can get more of a workout in the gym, so what's the point?'

Laura leaned her head back. The sun bathed her face in its radiant glow. The air was crisp and the sky was cloudless and blue — so clear that the disk of the full moon shone brightly high above. Why try to explain? she thought, turning back to find Gray watching her.

'But what were you doing on that thing?' she asked.

Gray stabbed a slice of melon and then smiled and arched his eyebrows sheepishly. 'Something I've always wanted to do. Playing pro football.'

Laura smiled in amusement at Gray's embarrassment. 'But who were you talking to?' she asked. Laura watched his smile slowly grow more strained. She was being too intrusive. 'And that music…' she said quickly. 'Is that what you like to listen to?'

He shrugged and scratched his face, still looking down. 'Not really.'

That was the extent of his answer and, apparently, of his interest in discussing the subject further. But if you don't like that music, she thought, why the hell was it blasting away? And how could you even hear it with all that stuff on your head?

The conversation had stalled. Laura tried to think of some way to revive it without assuming a prosecutorial tone.

''R' stands for 'virtual reality,' right?' Laura asked. It was another question, but questions were the only thing that came to mind.

Gray nodded, an odd look coming over his face. The corners of his mouth slowly rounded. 'Would you like to see virtual reality?' he asked.

She liked the sound of his voice, the look of his face when he smiled, but a little quiver passed up her spine from the cool air. Gray rose from his chair, but a weight seemed to keep Laura pinned in hers.

He stood there waiting. She got to her feet and joined him.

They went not to the exercise room but to the computer center. Laura was prepared for the 'duster' this time: her hair pulled back and her T-shirt tucked in at the waist of her jeans. Gray led her through the control room to a door she hadn't noticed before. First Gray, then Laura stared into the dark retinal identifier. The light flashed in Laura's eyes, and the door slid into the wall.

Beyond lay a long hallway. A series of closed doors were evenly spaced down its length. The first door on the left opened when they entered the corridor.

Laura followed Gray through the open doorway into a room.

Eight gleaming white compartments rose from the floor in two rows. They were shiny and cylindrical and domed at the top like stubby bullets — ten feet high and six feet in diameter. Everything in the room was bright white like in a laboratory or a clinic.

Gray stopped at a nondescript console near the end of the aisle running between the two rows. A flat membrane covered the console, and Laura raised her hand to feel its shiny black finish. A loud beep caused her to jerk her hand back. The dark membrane came alive in a checkerboard of bright light. Square mounds in the shape of keys rose like magic from the panel, each grouped by color and described with bright labels glowing from the buttons themselves.

'How did it do that?' Laura asked in a tone of wonder.

'Do what?'

'That,' Laura said, pointing at the complex groupings of glowing buttons.

'Oh, it morphs to the button configuration required for a particular mode of operation.'

Laura nodded, then asked, 'How did it know what 'mode' we needed?'

'The computer saw us coming,' was Gray's answer. He poked two of the buttons, which pinged lightly under his touch.

Loud hisses of air made Laura jump as first one, then a second of the bullets cracked open. Two thick doors parted slowly to reveal dark interiors.

'Come on,' Gray said, and he led her to the first of the compartments. 'These are called virtual workstations. They're older models, but they're a little easier to get into and out of than the new version.' Laura peered inside the dark chamber. Its black walls were featureless on first inspection, but when she looked closely she could see they were lined in a fine grill like the screens on Gray's televisions.

'It gives you three hundred and sixty degrees of high-definition visuals — from the walls, ceiling, and floor. The audio is mounted in planar speakers just behind the grills.' Laura stuck her head in, but she was unwilling to go further for fear the doors would shut behind her. Besides, there was absolutely nothing of any particular interest to be seen. She crinkled her nose at the strong smell of plastic.

Gray appeared at her side holding a shiny black jacket that looked like medieval body armor. Black sleeves made of stretch material hung limply beneath the semi-rigid frame. Thick gloves tugged down on the sleeves. 'This goes on over your head, and you put your arms through here like football pads.'

He stood there offering the sinister suit to Laura. Fat ribs fanned out across its surface into tubes of ever- decreasing diameter — rippling the fabric in a highly complex pattern. The jacket was clearly made of some high-