“I know, but I just want to see it all.” Dylan hopped once excitedly. “I feel like I’ve been waiting my whole life for this.”
The woman in the line to our right glanced over at us with a face that indicated she thought Dylan was crazy. Ignoring her, I asked the robot for two-day passes to the museum and swiped my omniphone over the meter to pay for them. The two tickets flashed on my omniphone, giving us passage into the museum. Following the line of other people to the entrance hall, we entered the arched doorway to the right of the ticket stations.
Instantly, we were transformed into a world very different from our own. The walls flashed a multitude of colors along with projected scenes and murals, narrated by voices of people long gone, but not forgotten echoing through the hall. At the beginning of each new voice, faces appeared to let the visitor know who was speaking.
Dylan spun around in amazement, striving to take it all in at once. Reaching out he touched the walls as if by making physical contact with them he would be connected to the people of the past.
Dylan and I were eager to learn more about our history and soak up as much as we could. Both of us lingered for much longer than the other visitors, who simply continued through the hallway after seeing a sliver of it.
Reluctantly, Dylan and I pulled ourselves away from the enchanting wall projections and followed the path of the other visitors into the next room. I’d seen other museums that had immersion portions, but the room we entered nearly knocked me off my feet. The space was so expansive that it must have risen directly to the ceiling where a skylight shone rays of sunshine down to the floor. Gazing up, I saw that the ceiling was dome-shaped, leading down to the circular room. Projected on the ceiling in thirty-second intervals were murals from the most famous muralists ever to live. Like in the previous room, they were all digital images, but unlike the other room, the quality of the pictures appeared as majestic and detailed as the Sistine Chapel must have been the day Michelangelo painted it.
At long last, I pulled my enamored gaze from the ceiling down to eye level. Around the circumference of the room were stools placed beneath low-hanging counters with VRI helmets and headsets on them.
“Welcome to the Hall of History. Here you may take a journey through any point in time of American History that you wish,” announced a female voice that echoed through the space. “All you have to do is don a VRI—or Virtual Reality Immersion—helmet and press the controls on the console to begin your adventure. If you wish to take your journey with someone else, you may use the headset to connect with them. Just sync the headset numbers to the same channel and you’ll be on your way. Enjoy your experience and if you have any problems, let one of the attendants standing around aid you.”
“Allie, take one of these and put them on. They say these will give you a virtual tour of history.” Dylan’s face beamed brightly as he stretched the tether on the VRI helmet as far as it would go, gesturing for me to hurry and come sit by him on the console.
I eagerly complied, taking the helmet in my hands and gently placing it down over my head. Securing it, I felt the pressure squeeze snuggly on my skull and the pulsators start to warm up. I couldn’t help but think that these pulsators were outdated compared to the headsets of the OVRR on Oceania. They could only connect your sensory organs to your experience; it didn’t allow you to make your own experiences in-situ. Either way, this would still be fun.
With a smile growing in the corner of my mouth, I snapped down the visor to the helmet and picked up the headset in front of me. Feeling on the side of the helmet, there was a knob next to my ear; I turned it and attached the earpiece to it. Next, I adjusted the microphone piece to the front of my mouth.
The screen blinked to life and a robotic voice asked, “Who do you wish to link with? Choose the number on the screen that corresponds to the number on your headset.”
Oh great! I’d forgotten to check the number on my headset.
Dylan saved me when he called out, “Hey, tune your headset to channel 5, that’s the one I’m on!”
“Okay,” I replied, speaking five into the microphone.
“Complete. You are now linked to all other headsets on channel 5. The program will start now.”
The connection screen disappeared and the visor began to dance with the same images from the entrance hall. An obviously human female voice announced from within the headset, “Are you ready to take a tour of 500 years covering the best and worst moments of our nation’s history? You will see the bad…you will see the good. You will see the moments in history that defined us as a nation—from the birth all the way to the present. Are you ready to start your journey?”
Two different options appeared onscreen: start your journey or create your own experience.
“Which one do you want to do, Allie?” asked Dylan through the headset.
“I don’t know.” Speaking to the VRI, I asked, “What is create your own experience?”
The choices disappeared and in its place came an animation of what the VRI was describing. “Create your own experience is where you can choose a particular event in time to explore more thoroughly. Or you can choose from a series of events in time and create your own journey through time.”
The same choice screen returned, waiting for us to make our decision. Before I could press anything, the choice on
