“Hey, it looks like there’s something going on there.” I pointed down to the line gathering outside the door.
“Let’s check it out.” Dylan held onto me as we rapidly descended to street level.
Just like he’d stated, I felt the suction recede as we got closer to the ground and vanish altogether at around three feet. Hopping off the board and setting it up against the other hover boards lining the pathway, we joined the people standing in line.
On the wall next to where we stood was a digiposter advertising a simul-viewing of the Rockfish Band concert.
“What’s a simul-viewing?” I asked Dylan as the line began moving.
He glanced over at the digiposter and got excited. “You’ll see in a bit.”
The building we entered turned out to be a club so dark I could hardly see anything until my eyes adjusted to the gloom. Barstools lined the counter to the right just beyond the stairs leading down to the open main floor. Along the edges of the club were booths each lit by small green lights. The intensity of the music blaring from the hidden speakers caused my heart to beat in rhythm with the melody.
“Dylan, are we allowed to be in here?”
“Yeah, it’s a twenty-one and under club on the first level. The adult ones are on the higher levels up. You get age-scanned before you can go up there.”
“Oh.” They could scan for ages in Oceania? Talk about creepy.
“It’s about to start.” Dylan ran into the center of the floor, which was quickly becoming crowded.
I pressed my way through the growing crowd to join him as the screaming intensified at the same time the internal speakers went silent. In front of me, five members of a band walked out onto the stage and started playing instruments I didn’t notice were there before. Girls in the club started shrieking so loud I thought my eardrums would rupture. Guys hooted and hollered as the music turned up and the lead singer began to sing.
I had never heard music like it. Everything sounded synthetic in origin, but I could see the band playing directly in front of me. I didn’t place the sounds as being techno, but more of a weird mixture of techno, pop, and electronic all wrapped into one.
Beside me, Dylan had already joined the fray of people jumping up and down to the beat and was clearly enjoying himself. Bobbing his head, he tugged on my sleeve trying to get me to join in. I couldn’t say that I hated the music, and, I was here to have fun, so I joined in. Before long, instead of simply pretending to be into it, I actually did start to like it.
Long before anyone in the club was ready, the music simply stopped and the people in front of me merely vanished. I stared at the spot where they were just a second ago in shock. “What happened to them?”
A girl to my left gave me a funny look as if I’d just said I believed in Santa Claus.
“It was a simul-viewing. The band plays somewhere else and their performance is simulcast in different parts of the city. We call it simul-viewing. It feels like the band is really here, but they aren’t.”
Once again, my mind was blown. Clearly, Oceania was leagues ahead of my world as far as tech went.
“Come on, there’s one last place I want to take you to before I have to return you to the above world.”
We left the club behind and went on foot this time. Passing blocks upon blocks of venues, we arrived at an almost featureless building. At first, it struck me as odd. The first story had nothing but doors spaced very closely together. Dylan led me down the side of the building, passing door after door with an occupied sign glowing above it. Finally, he found one labeled vacant and opened the door. Lights immediately flooded the black room with nothing in it but a keypad on the wall.
Confused, I furrowed my eyebrows as Dylan entered a code into the access panel. Out of nowhere two headsets appeared. Dylan took one and handed me the other.
“What is it?”
“They are VR headsets. You know—virtual reality. Put it on.”
I hesitated.
“Trust me, our entire entertainment system is held within the headsets. With these headsets you can do anything: play video games, watch an immersion movie, discover and explore another world, go on an amusement park ride, you name it.” Dylan’s eyes shined as he spoke. “Seriously, it’s really fun.”
“All right.” I put on the headset, which was more like a helmet with attached goggles. As soon as it was on my head, it shrunk into a tight fit and something made my head itch for a second, but then the feeling vanished. “Dylan, why did my head just itch?”
“Oh, well, that would be the connection probes.”
“Connection probes?”
“Yeah…in order to create your own games and movies, it has to link to your brain. Don’t worry, it’s completely harmless.” I heard some sounds, which I assumed came from Dylan pressing buttons on the keypad turned touchscreen. “I’ll link our headsets so we can experience everything together. I’ll set up the tour for the first time user so you can see how everything works.”
Patiently, I waited for the invisible screen in front of my eyes to come to life. Initially, green words expressing welcome flashed across the screen and faded in a few seconds.
“Hello, and welcome to the OVRR, which stands for the Oceania Virtual Reality Room, also known as ‘over’,” spoke an A.I., whose voice filled the room. “All commands received can be either vocal or via
