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Preston was standing in the living room of his apartment, miles away. Dressed head to toe in one of my haptics suit prototypes.
I was at home, wearing the other one.
“Harper… just… wow.”
He led me forward, toward the edge of the cliff. He did it slowly, trepidatiously. Watching his expression with calculated interest, I could read the fear in his avatar’s eyes.
“You don’t have to be afraid,” I told him. “You can’t fall.”
“Bullshit,” he answered nervously.
“I mean, you could fall if it were part of the program,” I continued. “But we could also jump off that cliff and fly if we wanted to.”
I felt him tense up. The micro mnemonic adapters in our hands reacted to each other, sending packets of data back and forth with near-instantaneous speed.
“We won’t jump,” I chuckled. “I promise.”
He relaxed, and I felt that too. Yet the thing I felt most was pride. The beautiful vistas and sunset skies were only partially mine; most of them belonged to a VR scenery program I’d bastardized long ago. But the important thing was that my haptics were working. And not just working, but operating at even better than expected levels.
For example, we could feel the heat of the sun on one side of our bodies, and the cool of the wind on the other. It was in the vibration of our footsteps, the interactions within our environment. Most of all, we could sense the newly-developed haptic surges against the surface of our skin. The subtle force feedback system I’d developed was responding to our physical nerve endings, registering every movement, every caress, every touch.
“This is incredible,” Preston breathed, still looking in every direction.
“No. This is only pretty,” I told him.
Reaching out with my free hand, I snapped my fingers and the scenery disappeared. The field of flowers dropped away, and the surface of an alien planet rushed up to meet us. The ground was lush with thriving, glowing plant life, unlike anything that existed on Earth. The sunset disappeared, replaced by an inky black sky that wasn’t a sky at all.
“Now this is incredible,” I declared proudly.
Preston gasped, reflexively letting go of my hand. We were in outer space, now. Ringed planets hovered above us, so big and bright they were borderline terrifying. I could see asteroid belts in the distance. Comets soaring, trailing dust. In every direction we looked, the sky exploded with a billion, trillion stars.
“Holy shit…” Preston choked.
I let him wander for a moment, touching things, stepping past flora and fauna that made no sense except to the programmers like me who imagined it in their minds. Eventually he turned around to face me.
“Harper…”
I responded by reaching out and running a finger down the length of his arm. He shivered, involuntarily. I both saw it and felt it, because I’d programmed my suit to deliver some of his own experiences.
This is insane.
I reached out and touched his chest. His stomach. The small of his back. The eyes of Preston’s avatar mirrored his own, growing larger and more saucer-shaped with every passing second. Eventually I slid a hand down his leg. Reversing the movement, I dragged the tips of my fingers up along the inside of his thigh..
“Eventually there will be haptics here too,” I said, gliding my hand over his crotch. Mechanically, I gave a light squeeze right where his balls would be.
“But… but I can feel it!” Preston gasped.
“That’s because I temporarily added some,” I told him. “You get some sensation, and your brain fills in the rest. I can’t bring it to market like this, though. Too much liability. That, plus I haven’t gotten all the bugs worked out.”
Preston stiffened again.
“So you’re saying I’ve got the alpha version of an electrically-dangerous haptic system somewhere down near my balls.”
I laughed. “Not dangerous, just experimental.” I stepped closer and squeezed again, this time a little less gently. A thrill of accomplishment shot through me, as his body reacted instantly to my touch.
“Why?” I whispered sultrily, sliding my face alongside his. At this proximity, my voice would register into his right ear only. “Don’t you like?”
“Oh… I like.”
