VIRTUAL 
Copyright 2002 by K.J.Jekyll. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without the written permission of the author, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles, or reviews, that are deemed favourable.
This book is distributed subject to the condition that it shall not, by way of trade or otherwise, be sold, lent, resold, hired out or otherwise circulated without the prior consent of the publishing agent, in this case being specified as K.J.Jekyll, in any other form of binding other than that in which it is bound.
All the characters in this book have no existence outside the imagination of the author, and have no relation whatsoever to anyone bearing the same name or names. They are not even distantly inspired by any individual known or unknown to the author, and all incidents are pure invention.
This book contains the complete text of other versions and is marked this year of our Lord 2002 as "The Original". This copy supersedes any others as the original, but all other copies remain the sole property of the author.
References:
(1) Tart, C. T., Multiple personality, altered states and virtual reality: The world simulation process approach. Dissociation: Progress in the Dissociative Disorders, in press.
(2) Tart, C. T., States of Consciousness. El Cerrito, California, 1983. Originally published by Dutton, New York, 1975.
Produced in New Zealand, Christchurch, by K.J.Jekyll 
There is a line between life and death
just as there is a line, a very, very fine line,
between thinking and doing.
Thinking and doing, life and death,
is life in the thought or the action
and if it is in the thought, doesn’t that mean
that we are all virtually alive -
alive in a virtual reality
that just happens to encompass
a physical flesh and blood body.
So if you could copy your sentience,
place it in a another vessel - a computer,
part of a virtual reality program
wouldn’t that mean you were still alive,
even if it were only in a virtual existence
alive though, well, and living in - immortality...
Almost Reality
A Brief Introduction and Question...

This book is about virtual reality and life, a mixture of fantasy, reality, and what may or may not be in our future. Virtual reality or cyberspace, as some call it, is one of the hottest new technologies of our times, still largely in the laboratory, but more than likely it will be on the streets before the end of the century. The growth of the Internet is already proof of this. The promise that virtual reality holds is to banish loneliness, boredom and frustration, and coincidentally make some people very, very rich.
    Of course to every story there are two sides. Virtual reality brings with it a whole series of questions, about the industries and scientific capabilities it makes possible. It also brings with it, a set of questions about human uses of technology, particularly the technologies that don’t yet exist, but will. Virtual reality vividly demonstrates that our social contract with our own tools, has brought us to a point where we have to decide, what it is we as humans will become. We are on the brink of having the power of creating any experience we desire, and at the same time - the possibility of destroying the will to live normally. The first virtual reality pursuers realized very early on, that the power to create experience is also the power to redefine such basic concepts as identity, community, and reality.     Virtual reality represents a new contract between humans and computers, an arrangement that could grant us great power, and perhaps change us irrevocably in the process.
    So what is virtual reality?
    We have had tiny tastes of technologically generated virtual reality with us for years, for example - when we get absorbed in a TV show / movie, a favourite piece of music, or an eyes closed phone conversation. As we drift from reality, we tend to think of ourselves as being in the location shown in the video, or where our telephone partner is. Yet it is easy for this escape to be interrupted, it is not interactive, substantial nor vivid enough to hold our attention from distractions. Looking at an ordinary TV screen, the screen occupies about 6 degrees of our visual field. Our vision ordinarily takes in 150 degrees or so horizontally, plus peripheral vision, so we are immersed in the environment which surrounds the TV, even if the screen is the focal point. It can be seen then, that television is but a spark of promise to the forest fire that is virtual reality.
    As far as we as humans are concerned, taking the step from being in front of the television - into the screen so to speak, should be easy. Psychologically and physiologically, modern research shows that our brain automatically produces a sense of embodied self, i.e. self awareness, and that embodied self is considered as being at the location where our senses are. Untold millions of years of evolution have gone into hard wiring this focus into the brain, it is this programming that has made us the successes and failures we are. If someone throws a rock, spear, or axe in our direction, it is vital that our brain automatically calculates the trajectory of the object, decide that it will pass through the point where we are embodied, and gets us to duck, fast!  Creatures that don’t have an accurate sense of embodied self, when the rock is thrown or a predator charges, don’t react correctly or in time - and die...  It is this very sense of embodiment and programmed reaction, that will enable us to interface with a machine generated alternative reality - we are ready for it, and then again we may not be.
    Cognitive simulation - mental model making, is one of the things humans do best. Some may call this day dreaming, or fantasizing, whatever it is - humankind has made it one means of getting what we want. We do this so well, that we tend to become locked into our own models of an imaginary world, and sometimes end up not being able to properly integrate into the world around us, or be able to tell the difference between dream and reality. Thus the saying, caught up in our own little worlds. So far this dreaming, fantasizing is relatively uncontrolled, raw in its nature, and as such not completely compelling nor addictive. But computers, now they are model making tools par excellence, although they are only beginning to approach the point where people might confuse their generated simulations with reality. Computation and display technologies are converging on virtual real simulation capability, and that point of convergence is important enough to prompt contemplation in advance of its arrival. The day computer simulations become so realistic, so capturing, that people cannot distinguish them from non-simulated reality, then we are in for major changes.
    To create virtual reality or cyberspace, you visually need to surround your virtual realty subject with a coherent visual space, that is controllable and interactive. This interaction is vital to give the feeling of presence, and of course reality. You don’t just see a canned image of some object in virtual reality, you can move around or through it. There are as many ways to achieve this, as there are ideas on how it should be achieved. What is proposed in this book is viable but not real, today, yet what is available today will be the building blocks for tomorrow’s reality. Today the virtual reality seeker wears a headset, this headset contains a position sensor, which constantly tells the computer what direction you are looking in. The computer then gives you the appropriate view, whenever and wherever you turn your head. This is effective but cumbersome, and therefore less than real.
    Virtual reality isn’t just confined to vision, it wouldn’t seem real if it were. In the simplest form, today, all the virtual body you have is an arm and hand, the most widely used device today being the Powerglove. In addition to a sensor which tells the computer where your hand is, in three dimensional space and how it is oriented, sensors in the glove indicate how much each finger and the thumb is bent. Thus at any moment, the computer knows where your hand is and whether it is pointing, making a fist, grasping, releasing, etc. This translates into a hand you see in virtual reality, a hand that     psychologically becomes your hand, because it does what you want, and matches your sensations.     Make a fist, you not only feel your hand making a fist, the hand you see in virtual reality makes a fist. Open your hand and turn it palm up, the virtual reality hand opens and turns palm up. Unfortunately this is not enough to provide a full illusion of reality, there are things such as touch pressure, temperature, texture sensing, weight, etc.
    Full body sensing suits are under development, though not yet commercially available. These will enable the computer to know the position of your arms and legs, and your virtual body will mimic all your major body actions. These suits though effective will only be a poor second best to a body’s real senses, a far better and more effective way would be to interface directly into the brain, where there can be no misinterpretation of effects. With nothing but direct interfaces, a user would not be able to tell if the light, smell, touch, taste, effect, was real or not, because to the brain at least it will be real.
    A practical application of virtual reality, in the field of research, is in developing new medicines, through molecular synthesis. The molecules literally seem to float in three dimensional space in front of the experimenters, as they push and pull on them from various angles, feeling when they resist union and where best to join them. Chemists who have worked with the system, find they can work about twice as fast as they could before. The first medical drug designed this way is now undergoing clinical trials.
    Consider an architect’s job, they have to have excellent visualization abilities, to internally simulate what a building will look like after it is complete. Quite often these abilities are sadly lacking, and the end result is less than was hoped for. Perhaps the architect is a good visualizer, but what about the client, do they share the same vision?  A computer sciences building in America was constructed in virtual reality before it was built, to assess the worth of such an aid. The people who were going to work in this building, the clients, donned goggles and walked on a treadmill, that told the computer how far they had walked, which directions they had turned in, where they were - what they should see. They virtually entered the building, walking along its corridors, looking out windows, judging light levels, space, entering rooms they would be using, and judging their suitability. Questions like, will my equipment be usable in this room, will the room have too much glare when the winter sun is low in the sky, these could be answered simply by placing the equipment in the room, virtually, and shifting the sun in the virtual world containing the virtual building, so it could be experienced what the light levels in that room would be like. A building feature was found to obstruct pedestrian traffic flow, this had to be altered and was, before the actual building was constructed. It would have cost hundreds of thousands of dollars to make these alterations, after the building was literally set in concrete, thus the cost of setting up the project paid for itself.
    Virtual reality can be used as either a powerful tool, or as a means to escape the often tedious constraints of the real world. It will have as many uses in our future as we allow it, but no one now can even guess as to the limits.
    Reality has always been too small for human imagination. The desire to create an interactive fantasy machine is only the most recent manifestation, of the age old desire to make our fantasies palpable. Our insatiable need to exercise our imagination, judgement, and spirit in worlds, situations, and personae are vastly different from what the constraints of our real everyday lives allow. Perhaps the most important feature of human intelligence, is the ability to internalize the process of trial and error. When a person considers how to climb a tree, imagination serves as a laboratory for virtual experiments in physics, biomechanics, and physiology. In matters of justice, art, or philosophy, imagination is the laboratory of the spirit.
    States of consciousness like hypnosis, dreaming, meditation and drug / alcohol induced states, lack any form of control on the part of the person undertaking the journey. Virtual reality on the other hand answers this need, and will become an increasing part in our lives. Like in technological developments before it - the automobile, telephone, television, video, computers and their games, virtual reality is going to change our world in both good and bad ways.
    The advent of technology generated virtual reality could be the answer to our dreams, or a nightmarish hallucination that once entered is virtually impossible to escape. With the advent of affordable virtual reality, the result might be an increase in human freedom and power, akin to the after effects of the printing and communication technologies. Will virtual reality become a sordid sex machine, or a means of expanding our intellect, understanding and life experiences?  Which way it will go - dystopia or empowerment, it will depend in part upon how it is presented to the people, who controls the marketing, and how the public react to the unmasking of virtual reality compared to actual reality. The idea can be very frightening, that reality is merely a cognitive-perceptual construct, i.e. that a person’s perception of their life is indeed already nothing but virtual reality. People tend to react in different ways to the news that reality might be an illusion, depending on their personal emotional attachment to their brand of reality. Denial, cognitive dissonance, resistance, and satori are natural reactions to the idea that what we are living, what we think is our life, our reality, is nothing but a virtual illusion, exposed as a lie at last. There is really no reality, we are six billion souls all living in our own little worlds, interacting and agreeing this is real. But when it comes right down to it, reality is only real because we think it is, so if we enter virtual reality and think it is real, then why can’t it be?
Conversely reality can be thought of as a dream, nightmare, or empty existence, purely because of our state of mind. Surely then, if virtual reality is the more attractive proposition, doesn’t that mean it will be more real than an unwanted and failed supposed reality?
    So the big question then will be, how will mankind react to this option, if indeed we are given a choice, and secondly, what will we do about it, when the question can no longer be avoided?
Life is indeed short
if you can make it better -
no matter by what means
does that make it less precious -
does that make you more strange?
Chapter 1

Peter was fed up with it all, his job, lack of friends, social life - in fact he was fed up with every thing.
    To live outside some rollercoaster novel, film, fantasy, or play, one has to endure what is thrown at them, whether it be good or bad. Over the last few years his lot had grown steadily worse, and with one last final straw - suddenly his resolve had snapped. In a fit of blind rage Peter had quit his job, stating that they could stick their lousy money, job and conditions up the boss’s ass - sideways. Those he used to work for took it well really, possibly because the boss was very accommodating, and Peter had to admit that he’d had a good time, while it lasted.
    Three months further on the smile had faded from his face completely, with no one to lend him support, no prospects of finding a job, and no further income Peter was facing a bleak future. It’s not that he hadn’t squirreled away some money, but it was for emergencies and such unforeseen events, and wouldn’t last forever. There was the possibility of selling off a few of his now unneeded toys, but the sale of them would have to be for a very, very good reason. The dwindling of his reserves of money and possessions was like a sign, that everything he had attained was being lost, till all he would have left was himself - and a lingering death...
    Sitting in front of a blank TV screen, sick and tired of the crap dished up to the suckers every day, Peter thought of what else he might do to bide his time. The employment service would ring him if any jobs came up - not that he was particularly interested in one, still he had to keep up pretences. He had applied for and been granted a hardship grant, accommodation allowance, and there was some money neatly hidden from sight, so what could he do?  What he needed was a past time that would fill in his lonely hours, without gobbling up his finite capital. Despite his every endeavour though, he couldn’t think of anything that he hadn’t already tried that would excite him further.
    From this low point he began compiling a list, striking off the options one by one.

Drugs.
Sex.
Travelling.
Smoking.
Sports.
Criminal activities.
Working.
The list was a last ditched effort to find an answer to something not even he could define, escaping what his life had become. Even with this last ditched effort in mind, he couldn’t override the convictions of a lifetime, which had brought him to this crisis.
    Drugs were for fools, this mind altering substance not only robbed you of your money, but it robbed you of your intellect - he had little enough of either as it was, without giving the rest away.
    Sex was fine, but searching blindly for or paying for it, with someone who was thinking about doing the washing or ironing, well that was just plain stupid.
    Travelling, an interesting concept yes, except he wouldn’t want to travel alone, what was the fun in that, and it did require quite a bit of money.
    Smoking, money up in smoke, he didn’t think so.
    Sports, if he could find a person or group of people he could get on with, and if he could regain some form of fitness, well maybe.
    Criminal activities were for those who wanted to eventually go to jail, become destitute, and gain a two hundred and fifty pound boyfriend - he thought not!
    Working, been there done that.
    As for the rest of the millions of activities he may or may not have partaken in, he didn’t have the guts to cut out his liking for alcohol, nor watching the odd video. These didn’t eat into his resources overly - and they sure helped pass the time. Nothing else sprung to mind for quite some time, and while he was grappling to find something that might even vaguely interest him, he thought of how he might finance an indulgence if he found one. There were a number of possessions that could be sold; some collections of coins, stamps, phone cards, and that sort of thing, they had provided and held his interest over the years till the speculators had made it too expensive to carry on with. These collections had to be worth some thing, but selling them would be like selling his inheritance, a last ditched effort.
    Then there was the car sitting in the garage that didn’t get much use, a left over from his youth, when he had been invincible, and had foolishly thought having a fast car would help him outrun his problems. The car had been fast, but his problems had been faster - he never did outrun them, and in a short space of time gave up trying. On today’s market such a vehicle would have to be worth between eighty five and a hundred thousand, depending on how long he was prepared to stick it out, and how keen the perspective buyer was. This sum of money would be more than enough to get him started on a new hobby, and at the same time lessen the burden of insurance, registration, safety checks, etc. The number of places he needed to go, the one or two, to pay bills and the likes, well they could be made by foot, bicycle, or at worst by taxi or bus. The loss of his job had been the turning point, all he had to do now was determine the nature of the direction, and the destination he sought.
~
Days, weeks, months passed in his solitude, an empty world apart from a number of books, a TV, stereo, and a phone that didn’t ring. During this time he was unable to come to terms with his future, what he could do, a new challenge that would relieve him from the worst disease of them all - boredom.
    He had to venture out into the real world now and again, the demands for food and alcohol preventing him from staying within his safe virtual world forever. Armed with back pack, bank books, library books, and a list of necessities, he ventured passed the door, that was for him the line between sanity and madness. Outside this door lay danger, in so many forms, he felt as if he should have insurance for even the simplest of expeditions.
    On previous journeys he had met with many dangers; people smiling, talking to him, begging for money, shoving, cursing - threatening. Yes sometimes the city could be very intimidating, frightening, even to a man in his mid thirties, that had once been a tower of self confident strength. It wasn’t that he was a wimp, he wasn’t a dwarf, nor unable to defend himself if the need arose - it was just that he didn’t like having to do so. Time and circumstance had worn upon him, building upon itself over and over till he had snapped. From then he had avoided people and situations involving them more and more, purely out of self defence. You could say that he had been hurt, there were no scars, but that didn’t mean they weren’t there.
    Leaving the building Peter found that it to be a beautiful sunny day, the air warm and inviting, while a light breeze kept the air from becoming stifling. As the sun hit his sweater, he felt as if he were being high lighted by a spot light, thankfully he was the only one who did. No one paid him the slightest attention, he gave thanks for this and pressed on. First stop was the newspaper offices, where he placed an advertisement for a no longer required sports car. From there it was but a short hop skip and jump to welfare, where he had to report from time to time, so they would keep on paying him enough to stay alive. Peter had no intention of telling them of his assets, plans to sell the car, spending that money on something frivolous like on an interest. After all welfare didn’t even know he had a car in the first place.
    The interview with some condescending smart ass went well, welfare was pleased to see that he was still struggling with his life, and that he hadn’t got a job, or become rich since the last interview.     Gleefully, the young man who did the interview, signed the authority for him to draw another cheque - and breath, no doubt feeling pleased at the same time that he wasn’t in such a position himself. Peter got the distinct feeling that the welfare officer would have been upset, if he had come into good fortune, if he did that would mean the welfare officer wasn’t as superior as he thought. It was a clear case of an employed person feeling superior to one who wasn’t, but who was the sucker that got up at the crack of dawn, wasted their lives doing something that they would rather not, hanging out for the weekend. As far as Peter was concerned if he could make it without working, well that was more like what life should be, rather than working himself into an early grave.
    Dismissing welfare and its minions, as mere parasites, he continued on, next stop being the bank, where he would find the wealth to enable him to continue. At the bank he was treated with the same respect all customers receive, polite indifference. Peter was neither important nor bereft enough to be afforded anything, but minimal attention. Withdrawing his allowance he left the bank, amidst the idea that he would love to put them in their place - unfortunately they were but one of a long list of institutes and people, he would never be able to repay for their indifference.
    Peter never left any more money in his bank account than was absolutely necessary, the less the government knew about his financial status the better. To them he might have looked penniless, in wasn’t the case - it was the way he wished to keep it. Any excess money he had went into bonus bonds, hidden investments, or property, through lawyers who knew the benefit of saving him a dollar, receiving one or two in return for such a favour. Some people might have called this dishonest, or him tight fisted, hoarding amounts of money instead of spending them without a second thought. Peter’s excuse for this, was that if it all went wrong, or right, then he might leave behind something to bury himself with, or provide the funds to enjoy his newly found happiness. He figured on it being funeral money - but while the sum existed, it kept him from topping myself without a second thought, it was a symbol of hope, alas the only one he had.
    In the supermarket he picked out food, alcohol, and necessities for his meagre existence, avoiding any contact that might draw attention to himself. Here too Peter had had bad experiences. While the building was full of food, one of the basic requirements for life, the place always seemed a bastion of clinical judgement. Here many classes of people were forced to face each other, Peter felt that everything he did, every item he picked from the shelf was noted. Despite this paranoia he gathered his preferences from the shelves, patrolling the isles, maintaining a brisk pace. With one final effort he embraced the cue for a teller, watching, waiting, keeping to himself.
    Bags of groceries in hand, finally the ordeal was over, with a huge sigh of relief he made his way home. Fired with a perspective, the need to find a new interest. With this in mind he noted several stores along the way, that he’d ignored till now. One of these was a brightly painted retail outlet, across which window were splashed the words - escape the real world, with such a promise how could he resist finding the source of the boast. Entering the shop, bags of groceries in hand, he felt as if he were entering another world. The objects and subject matter within the shop while not completely foreign, was at least something he had avoided successfully, except when there had been no other choice.
    “And how may I assist you sir?” a less than genuine salesman asked, popping out from the midst of nowhere.
    “Oh I was just looking...” was all Peter managed.
    “Saw the sign on the window and was curious?” the salesman ventured.
    “Yes.” Peter was puzzled how he could know this.
    “You would have to be the hundredth person to come in today, because of that,” the salesman explained, “unfortunately it’s not a cheap promise to fulfil, and it requires a fair amount of time, patience and intelligence to make something of.”
    “Really?” far from being put off Peter was intrigued.
    “Yes, if you’re interested I will show you the machine and software, if you think you would be interested...” the salesman said with commission based hope, as if he had spoken these very words a thousand times today already, only to be greeted by a series of definite no’s.
    “Sure.” Peter stepped forward, eager to accept this invitation.
    “Here, let me take one of those bags, they look heavy.” the salesman offered, thankful no doubt for a break in the monotony of his job...
    Through the rows of computers Peter was whisked, from the main stream and cheaper models, to where the latest in technology sat, purring and halving in price by the day.
    “Do you know anything about computers?” the salesman asked how stupid and gullible Peter was.
    “Well, a bit.” he lied, not wanting to be taken advantage of, knowing at the same time, that he was almost completely at this guy’s mercy.
    “This is the very latest baby, it might look like an oversized desktop computer, but it is nothing like one. It doesn’t use home pc components, the design revolves round RISC and Powerpc technology, used mainly by big business. You can’t run DOS on this baby, only high end packages like UNIX, still that doesn’t mean you can’t have downward compatibility. Hardware wise it has 128 bit everything - including Alpha processors, it uses two duel staggered sets to make up the full 128 bit bus. It has enough ram to sink a ship, also across the whole bus, 512 meg I think, two meg L1 cache per processor, six meg of L2 cache per processor, an array of SCSI drives, a twenty one inch Trinitron monitor with a touch sensor screen. It is really well thought out, a high spec machine, yet the real beauty is that it’s infinitely flexible, produced by a new comer into the market, using all the latest components.”
    “So what makes it so special,” Peter’s head was literally spinning at all the figures, “to have you claiming, that I could escape the real world with this, thing?”
    “Well it’s not so much the machine, sure it is necessary to complete the package, but it’s the software and peripherals marketed by this company which is the break through.” the salesman produced a glossy pamphlet from nowhere. “Ah here it is,” indicating to the black and red sales blurb, “artificial intelligence and virtual reality, as near to the real thing as you can get.” he quoted, word for word.
    “Virtual reality?” it sounded like a game, yet it triggered off memories.
    “The state of existing in another plane, sort of like being in a TV program, except you can interact.” the salesman struggled to explain it in layman’s terms.
    “Virtual reality, that’s like the Lawnmower Man, Total Recall...”
    “That’s it,” the salesman congratulated him, “a place where you can escape to, be and do what you want.”
    “But you need to have gloves and a suit, special seats and all that sort of stuff, it’s hardly like the real thing is it?” Peter was going off the idea, even as they spoke.
    “Ah, that is how it used to be, this is the genius of the programmers of Virtual. Not only can you run this machine in the ordinary terms, but the software and computer is so revolutionary, so radical, the end result is nothing less than a miracle.” the salesman stopped as if to consider what had been done, acting out the part with theatre stage precision.
    “And?” Peter was becoming interested again.
    “Instead of using physical interfaces, you know gloves, suites etc., they have designed a system using implants...”
    “Implants!”
    “Nothing complicated, just sensory input and output couplings between the brain and the pick ups.”
    “Nothing serious but having your head cut open.” reaching at the same time for his groceries.
    “The implants aren’t vital, you can run merely with the normal suit, gloves, helmet, etc. that come with it, in fact you have to use these for the set up process. But if you limit yourself just to these, you will obviously lose a lot of the impact of the package.” the salesman held grimly to the groceries, not about to let a customer slip from his grasp without a struggle. “Granted there has been some publicity about this machine, and it has hurt the company,” he licked his lips and went on, “because of this we’re prepared to negotiate a discount.”
    “So what is the normal retail price?” there was no sign, that there had ever been a price tag on this thing.
    “Ah,” the salesman was reluctant to say, “they hit the market at fifty...”
    “Fifty thousand dollars!” Peter took an involuntary step back, aghast.
    “Yeah, but they’ve dropped a lot since then, and we are prepared to drop the price of this unit further, for the right person...”
    “In other words these machines are going off the market.” he read between the lines, the future for the company didn’t look good.
    “There is a possibility of that sure, but that’s the case with most computer companies, it’s just that sort of business. Maybe it’s ahead of its time, the market not ready for such things yet, or the price. All that aside it’s a good machine, and if you do find the software unsuitable, you can always use the machine for running other programs...”
    “So why bother buying this in the first place, at such a greater price than say that machine over there?”
    “There’s no comparison between this and a desktop home pc, you should know that by the specs.”
    “They are impressive, but what use is all that power, if you can’t harness it?” stabbing at the dark now, trying to maintain his cover.
    “It’s the software and attachments that make it special, apparently you can even have more than one user logged on at a time, imagine that...  I believe you may never see its likes again, certainly not at this price, and if you are trying to get away from it all - well this might indeed enable you to do that.”
    “Have you tried it?” Peter tried to get at least one straight answer out of him.
    “Briefly, but I suffer from claustrophobia, can’t put my head in the helmet for long.” he smiled crookedly, embarrassed about his weakness.
    “So what about the other people who work in the shop?”
    “There’s only the owner and me, he’s got quite a bit of dosh, he brought this thing for his son, unfortunately his son killed himself before it arrived. The owner was hoping this would help his son combat some sort of manic depression, who knows if it would of helped?”
    “So he wants to be rid of it?”
    “Something like that, it’s been sitting here for months, and every time he sees it, it reminds him of his son and his lose. He’s already dropped the asking price by over twenty five grand...”
    “Yeah but it’s still,” Peter looked at the series of prices, adding them together for a complete package, “twenty five grand, plus the implants, and setting up fee.”
    “Make a sensible offer and I’m sure he won’t turn you down.”
    “So how do I know this thing is going to do what is claimed of it?”
    “I’ll ask the owner if he will agree to a right of return, for say thirty days...” the salesman was assuming that Peter was going to buy it, was he?
(So there you have it, 22 pages of 270, a virtual world awaits us - will we be seduced into believing it real?)