Pygmalion
PYGMALION
“Reality is for poor people,” David said witheringly, though there was no one to hear him. He looked around. The grass beneath his feet was a fresh bright green, the sky above almost electric in its intense blueness. The sound of a nearby river came sweetly to his ears, its course hidden by a stand of trees more magnificent than any he’d seen in his life. The design team had really outdone themselves this time.
With a thought, he willed himself next to the river and trailed his fingers through the water. The vaguest feeling of cold pressed against his fingertips and he frowned. Even after years of trying, his team still hadn’t been able to achieve the feat of tricking the body into fully feeling the illusion their minds saw. They could achieve wonders visually, create worlds more perfect than any that had ever existed in truth, but touching those worlds... that eluded them.
He was not alone. A woman sat nearby. “Eve,” he breathed. The woman was his creation, formed after many drafts and hours of frustration. She was not his first try, but Eve was the closest to perfection he’d been able to come.
“David,” Eve answered, still smiling. David shivered. After much thought and not a little guilt, he’d eventually decided to apply the voice track of his late wife to his creation. Every time Eve spoke she sent pangs of remembrance and longing through him, but for reasons he’d hidden, even from himself, he could not bring himself to change it to a more neutral voice track. There were other traces of his dead wife in Eve; her dark eyes and hair, the dusting of freckles across the nose. Once, Paisley, his second-on-command, had found him here, staring at this near-replica of his dead wife, tears running down his cheeks. He’d sworn her to silence; bad enough to have Paisley’s pity, worse if the whole team knew his true motivation for developing the touch feature. They would think him sick, obsessed with the past when he should be anticipating the future. After that, he’d put a password on this virtuality, his sanctum, so no one else could walk in on him and his Eve.
Every night he lay awake, thinking of his wife and then of Eve. Afterwards, he would dream about them and in his dreams their faces melted together, and when he awoke he could not remember who he’d been dreaming of; his wife, or Eve. Shame threatened to fill him, but he ignored it. No real woman could ever match up to his wife, so wasn’t he justified in creating a woman he could love?
David stood. “I have to get back. If I have time, I’ll come back later.”
“I’ll be waiting for you,” Eve said sadly.
David disengaged from the virtuality. As he removed his headset, the sight of the stark white walls of his office came into view. Everything he could see seemed dull, somehow less vibrant than their virtual counterparts. He started to sort the paperwork on his desk; queries, letters, orders, progress reports... He didn’t look up until Paisley ran into his office, panting slightly.
“Dr. Sphinx says she thinks she’s done it! She knows how to connect touch with sight.”
David stood immediately. “Lead the way.”
-
Dr. Sphinx’s new virtual headset was far more complex than the standard model. It hung, suspended, over a chair. A long needle extended from the headset. David winced. He didn’t really want to think about where that needle was supposed to go.
Dr. Sphinx, his team’s head neural scientist, started chattering excitedly as soon as David entered the lab.
“You see David, you see! All that was required was a means to access the hippocampus, the brain’s memory centre, to tap into the brain’s own memories of physical sensation. The standard headset has been modified to-“
“Let me try it.”
Dr. Sphinx looked aghast. “David, the technology has not yet been refined. If it’s not perfectly calibrated, touch in the virtual world could completely overload the brain and cause it to shut down!”
“Let me try it now, Doctor.” He seemed half-crazed.
“David, you can’t!” the words burst from Paisley. David started. She never called him David, always “Sir”. “You could die!” She clutched at his arm.
“I’ll be fine!” David shook her off and sat down in the chair. The needle tip was a bare inch away from the back of his neck, ready to plunge upwards into his brain. Dr. Sphinx nodded reluctant permission and walked over to stand behind him.
“This may hurt.”
David closed his eyes and braced for the pain. When he opened them, he was in his virtuality. Eve was waiting for him, and with a prayer to any gods that might be listening, he kissed her.
He could feel everything; the smoothness of her skin under his hands, her rapid heartbeat against his chest, the texture of her hair. Tears streamed down his face. His team had done it, he had done it. He could touch her, his perfect woman.
He bent to kiss Eve once more, but she disappeared. An instant later, the pictures of stream, forest and meadow collapsed in on themselves and all that was left was...
-
His body jerked, and he released a primeval howl of pain. Paisley clapped her hands to her ears, horrified. Dr. Sphinx immediately disconnected him, avoiding his thrashing arms and legs, but his body continued to jerk and twitch. His head cracked against the chair, and he stopped jerking. Dr. Sphinx took one look at the unnatural position of his neck and closed her eyes.
Paisley slumped against the wall and slowly slid down it, to end up curled in a tight little ball at the bottom. Dr. Sphinx didn’t notice, already dealing with the ramifications of David’s untimely death. There were bosses to report to of the tragedy, paperwork to fill out, and a position to fill...