Still, it was beautiful on the water.
“Amazing out here, right Jimmy?” my dad yelled over the roar of the airboat engine. We were skimming over the top of the kelp, gently skipping across the ocean swells.
“Look!” exclaimed my dad, pointing towards something in the water. He swerved the airboat and I looked down.
Dozens of sea otters had tied themselves up in a raft amid the floating kelp, chattering at us angrily as we passed. I saw a few heads pop up and down in the water around us and I let myself flitter out into their little bodies, watching myself watching them.
“They hang around near the floating reef systems!” he shouted over the noise. “They love it out here!”
We began to slow as we neared the edge of the forest and the kelp stalks became sparser. I was sitting on my dad’s knee, wearing little red shorts, a striped t-shirt and a Yankees baseball cap. My dad held me tightly against him with both arms, his warm hands on the flesh of my thighs, steering the boat with his phantom hands.
Unlike Mother, as soon as they’d arrived here my dad had worked hard at stretching his neural plasticity and early on had learned the trick of phantom limbs.
Today we were fishing with the dolphins and my dad knew it was my favorite. My smile would spread as we sped across the kelp, the wind and sun in my face, free like a bird. We didn’t really fish, but mostly just directed them using pssi control. At that early stage in the project we still needed help from the dolphins to herd the fish, and for me this was the best part of fishing—speaking with the dolphins.
“There they are,” said my dad as he cut our engine and our boat settled into the water, gliding to a stop. The open ocean was gentle today but my dad held me tight. Gulls wheeled high in the air behind us, waiting for signs of any fish we’d throw their way.
Off to the side of the boat, fast moving shapes sped towards us from the depths and with a splash about a dozen heads broke the surface. The air filled with the sounds of chattering dolphins.
The pssi system instantly translated for us. Wild dolphins had fairly weak skills at what we would call communication, and the system often had to guess what they meant. These, however, were uplifted Terra Novan dolphins and had a good vocabulary. Right now they were saying hello.
I smiled and waved.
“Hey Billy!” I cried. “Hi Samantha!”
They squeaked their hellos back. My dad let go of me and I rushed to the side to put my hand into the water to pet their snouts. The dolphins radiated affection. They were like the best dog you ever had, but huge and wet and much, much smarter.
The Terra Novan dolphins weren’t really working for us. It was more like they worked with us. They liked the excitement of the place and enjoyed the privileged access to multiverse worlds only possible on Atopia.
Terra Nova was another off-shore colony competing with Atopia. They were rumored to be creating monstrosities, tinkering with life itself, and the bobble-headed Terra Novans who appeared on Atopia from time to time did nothing to help with this image. The dolphins, though, were wonderful.
“Okay, okay everyone,” laughed my dad, “that’s a lot of love. Come on, we’ve got a lot of work to do.”
The dolphins shifted their attention away from me and to my dad.
“Today we’re going to be harvesting sardines, so we need you guys to go and corral a few schools into the tanker over there,” he explained, pointing to a ship floating a few hundred feet away. “Could someone go get me a sample?”
Samantha, my favorite, squawked and dove down into the depths.
“Okay people,” my dad continued, “let’s get this show on the road!”
The dolphins chattered their goodbyes and shot off, except for Samantha who popped back up with a sardine in her mouth.
“Thank you Samantha,” said my dad. He nodded to her and bent over to take the sardine, then turned back to his workstation, knife in hand, to begin the examination. Samantha and I waited, staring at him. He stopped and smiled, shaking his head slightly.
“Okay you two!” he laughed. “Go on and have some fun!”
Clapping my hands with glee, I detached from my body and snapped into Samantha’s, instantly rocketing off into the ocean. It was pure exhilaration as I felt her powerful sinews and muscles forcing us through the frigid waters, chasing her brothers and sisters into the depths.
Running with the dolphins had been the greatest joy of my life.
2
SHOWING UP IN person for the press may have been a mistake. My God, how my body ached, even with its pain receptors tuned all the way down. I probably hadn’t spent more than a few dozen hours in my own skin in the past year, but who would want to? Under siege by a frightening list of diseases barely held back by the magic of modern medicine, my body was as shrunken as an old pea left out overnight. Nearly a hundred and forty years old and I still wasn’t ready to give up the ghost.
Sighing inwardly, I started up the promo-world.
“Imagine,” said an extremely attractive young woman, or man depending on your preference, “have you ever thought of hiking the Himalayas in the morning and finishing off the day on a beach in the Bahamas?”
She was walking along one of our own beaches, a beautiful stretch of white sand near the Eastern Inlet.
“Pssionics now makes limitless travel possible with zero environmental impact!”
The girl paused to let us think about all the places we wished we could visit.
“You’ll never forget anything again,” she continued, forcing people to remember everything they thought they’d ever forgotten. “And you’ll never again have to argue about who said what!”
I looked out at the reporters, seeing their eyes narrow as they remembered some argument they’d recently had with their spouses.
“Imagine performing more at work while being there less. Want to get in shape? Your new proxxi can take you for a run while you relax by the pool!” she exclaimed, stopping her walk to look directly into the viewer’s eyes.
“Create the reality you need right now with Atopia pssionics. The promise of a better world and the life you’ve always wanted. Join up soon for zero cost!”
A short silence settled while I let it all sink in.
“So, how exactly is pssionics going to make the world a better place?” asked a stick-thin blond from the front row.
I carefully rolled my eyes. I’d never really liked ‘pssionics’—the baggage it carried created a constant battle to separate fact from fiction when talking to reporters, but then again, when had that ever mattered? The blond reporter’s name floated into view in one of my display spaces: Ginny.
“Well Ginny, I prefer to use the term ‘polysynthetic sensory interface’ or just pssi,” I replied, detaching and floating upwards out of my body to get their attention as my proxxi walked my body along beneath my projection. Nobody batted an eye. They weren’t easily impressed anymore.
“We’ve been able to demonstrate here on Atopia that people are as happy—even happier, in fact—with virtual goods as material ones. You just need to make the simulation good enough, real enough.” Everyone nodded as they’d all heard this before.
“I’ll give you an example.” I floated down and snapped back into my body, and a bright red apple popped into existence in my hand. “So here we have an apple, right?”
There was a general murmur of agreement.
“Since pssi also controls my neuromotor system, not only can I see the apple,” I explained as I tossed it into the air and caught it with a satisfying thwap, “but I actually feel like I’m holding it. It feels perfectly real to me.”
