"Rajnar Vajra - Viewschool" - читать интересную книгу автора (Vajra Rajnar)

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Copyright ┬й2004 by Rajnar Vajra

First published in Analog, September 2004
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Ten, nine, eight: my classroom timer blinking away the final seconds. How I loathe what comes next! At
this point I always wish I could take Pink Floyd's old advice to leave kids alone. If those are butterflies in
my stomach, the bastards have claws. Three, two, one...

My scalp tingles in what the ViewNet bible refers to so casually as тАЬprelude to visual simulation through
direct cortical stimulation.тАЭ Prelude to nausea would be more honest. Suddenly the rear half of my skull
lights up internally as some electronic demon shoves the equivalent of two lidless eyes into the back of my
brain, forcing me to stare into blank brightness where no brightness belongs.

Of course my real eyes take to shrieking that they're still straddling my nose, still the boss of all things
optical, instigating a tug-of-war with the new bass-ackwards viewpoint. The room, as usual, starts
twirling despite its drawn shades and dimmed bulb. The trick now is keeping both my balance and my
breakfast. Not by accident, I'm sitting down.

Far too gradually, the carousel brakes and finally stops. I rub my jaw, which aches from clenching.

I hear that some people who've had no more training than me can see in two directions simultaneously
about now. But why risk a brain-hernia? It's easier to simply switch attention to and fro, from the scene in
front to the simulated posterior display: the тАЬoccipital subjective presentation."

If we're talking theory, an OSP is a fantastic idea, making use of the emptiness beyond the normal visual
field and placed so that you're not tempted to keep turning your head. The practice is something else. I
keep hoping that some saint of a technician will invent a way to put all needed information into a standard
тАЬheads-upтАЭ subjective display without essentially blinding the user. I also keep hoping the White Sox will
take the pennant again and the Bulls will find another Michael Jordon....

My stomach finally settles. Normally, the worst is over.
****
Monday morning of September 4th, 2034, the worst hadn't even begun. As the dizziness eased, I inhaled
a barrelful of air and pressed a blue-glowing button on the controller. My OSP split into six separate
rectangles, two rows of three. A 3D image of each of my new studentsтАФmatching their real faces and
bodies, not their proxiesтАФappeared above each section. Beneath these rotating forms were names, tags,
locations, proxy thumbnails, evaluation scores, and the first few lines of detailed, varied, but universally
rancid personal histories. I didn't need to scroll down and read on; I'd already done my homework.
Truly, I could've made do with nothing but the real-time images although names and Internet handles are
handy because bumping into my mid-forties seems to have dulled my memory.

Dr. Martin Robley, my supervisor, had suggested that I use Internet protocol and refer to these students
by tag rather than name. тАЬThat'll show them that you respect their choices, Bill,тАЭ he'd said, which
convinced me he hadn't bothered reading their files.