"Maureen McHugh - Virtual Love" - читать интересную книгу автора (McHugh Maureen F)

VIRTUAL LOVE
By Maureen F. McHugh
****

The thing I like best about VR is that you can do anything. Not just the obvious
things like murder someone or be an archaeologist in Peru, although thatтАЩs fun once
in a while. But just when youтАЩre hanging out, meeting people, you can be anything
you want. I have twelve different personas. Some of them, like Lilith and Marty, I
donтАЩt use very often, but I like to know that theyтАЩre back there and if I want to be a
vamp I can put on Lilith and go to a party, wear midnight blue sequins to show off
my fox red hair, drink virtual martinis тАФ did you ever taste a real martini? Jesus! тАФ
and sway my virtual hips all I want.

Being good in VR is a talent. When anybody can be anything, the competition
for attention can get pretty fierce. Everybody can have a perfect figure, perfect legs,
perfect hair, perfect lips, a wardrobe worth hundreds of thousands. YouтАЩve got to
have an edge and the really great thing, see, is that it isnтАЩt money and it isnтАЩt the
genetic hand that mother nature dealt you and it isnтАЩt the accidents of fate and
disease, itтАЩs really all mind. Out there, dressed as Lilith or Alicia or Terese, itтАЩs really
pure energy, just the pure flame of a mind burning like an electron candle. Electrons
dancing in the light. And who can tell the dancer from the dancer

Well, I can, baby, but you canтАЩt and thatтАЩs really the whole point, isnтАЩt it?

I have a VR system in my place. ItтАЩs not the best, itтАЩs a seated system, of
course. My gloves are second-hand. TheyтАЩre good gloves, British made, DNRs. My
helmet, I paid a lot for the helmet, you have no idea what that helmet cost. ItтАЩs a
Mitsubishi, not the most expensive but definitely high end. ItтАЩs light weight, and
thatтАЩs important to me if IтАЩm going to wear it for any length of time. I put on the
gloves and then the helmet and thereтАЩs this moment before the system kicks on when
everything is black inside the visor and thereтАЩs no sound in my ears and IтАЩm just
floating there, suspended in the pre-virtual darkness as if IтАЩm about to be born. Just
time to take a breath and then the feed hooks in.

IтАЩm in the dressing room. ItтАЩs a dingy little green room, like actors use to get
ready for a play. I can see the gloves on my hands, ruby red like the slippers in the
Wizard of Oz, but thereтАЩs no face in the mirror which is exactly right because I
havenтАЩt picked one yet.

Once in a while I go out invisible. ItтАЩs called lurking. When I was eighteen and
I first got full access to all the boards, including the adult boards, I used to do it all
the time. For a couple of years I didnтАЩt have a body, never talked to anyone. I was
just watching learning the local customs so to speak. I became a connoisseur of
peopleтАЩs personas. I could tell when the person was different from the body theyтАЩd
picked, when they were really just an eighteen-year-old kid who was trying to pass
for a thirty-five-year-old Cary Grant. What I really liked was watching someone do it
right, so you forgot that they werenтАЩt the person they had put on and then thereтАЩd be
a bit of stage business and IтАЩd think, тАЬah-hah, I see you.тАЭ Because that was just what
I would have done in their place.