Chapter Twenty Eight

"The children discovered the virtual environment and immersed themselves in it with fervor. For them this artificial world was fairy tale, adventure land and superhero world all wrapped into one flexible and forgiving package right at their fingertips, a place that could be anything they wanted."

"They came up with ways to use it that we would never have dreamt of, so at home with the programming and the controls that all but sister Roberta had trouble keeping up with their upgrades and suggestions. Once they discovered this world it became their world, just like Terra Two became ours. They knew all the shortcuts and hidden access ways and could wander blindfolded through their virtual maze. The parents went after them looking for doors to walk through only to see the kids pop in and out of walls, tree clumps, ponds, and the most popular - clouds as they moved from one space to the next."

 

Sarah showed up out of thin air in the middle of the field, dressed in her work overalls and beaming with joy. She had just attended a virtual reality live feed of a bioengineering conference in Christchurch, a very exciting event to which she was thrilled to have been invited. For all practical purposes it was like being there, thanks to sister Roberta's creative brilliance. A similar device in New Zealand mimicked her every move making the interaction seamless.

She was delighted to see her college friends and some of the professors. She had a few years on them as far as cellular repair was concerned and most of her friends were a decade or so older, but in glorious shape.

"How was it?" asked Seth, smiling. Sarah saw that she and sister Roberta have been waiting for her to return so to speak. The cloaking bubble allowed her the comfort of talking to air and soybean bushes without feeling absurd, since she knew nobody could hear or see her.

"Exquisite, you should see CAHS's new bio-pattern development labs, they created a dodo bird for this particular event, a real one. They didn't know what sounds a dodo bird makes, it being a mythical creature and all, so they gave it the vocal chords of a crested crane, it somehow seemed appropriate. We spent the entire conference trying to tune out the screeches so we can focus on the presentation. I tell you, the best day of my life!"

"Why did they pick a bird and not a plant, it's a horticulture school?" asked sister Roberta.

"More interactive. They had numerous plant exhibits too, have you ever imagined a terrestrial elk coral? It was huge, bright yellow and had bird nests between the branches. You know, living on Terra Two desensitizes one to weirdness, I should have gasped at the sight but it looked like it belonged, so I just acknowledged its presence next to the chestnut tree. The weather was so chilly I shivered all the time, I am not used to temperatures in the seventies anymore."

"You should have told me before you started", sister Roberta eagerly interjected, "I could have adjusted the temperature to your comfort range, you were not actually there, you know? Next time I'll disable the ambient component."

 

***

 

"How many times do I have to ask you not to leave the virtual reality compilers on?" Seth asked a rambunctious group of children who were playing in several environments at once and forgot to turn them off upon getting bored. The kid environments were open to all brainwave scans for simplicity and easier monitoring, so there was no telling when you were going to enter one if you didn't know it was there. Seth got especially annoyed when she stepped into a muddy jungle without warning, to be welcomed by a noisy group of imaginatively designed creatures, but this time she had to find her way out of an underwater adventure through a malachite mine and fall to her exit atop a massive waterfall.

"That's it, I've had it!" the leader snarled. "I am revoking all your VR privileges for a week and I want to speak with your parents this afternoon. You will all meet me in my office", she managed to utter before she stepped onto a secluded beach covered in conch shells.

It was an interesting fact of life that the leader, who was way into her hundred and twenties by now, looked the same age as the kids' parents, so the little ones had no understanding of the toll one hundred years of repeating the same request can have on one's nerves. Seth had mellowed with age and a combination of wisdom and wear softened the sharp thunderbolts of her eyes. The wise pondering gaze was the only true measure of her age.

The children were watching sheepishly as she came out of the bubble, significantly more irate than she was when she got in.

"Parents, now!" Seth boomed, sliding across the glass floor without a sound.

It took a while for the children to garner enough enthusiasm to get back home and confess their fifteenth VR occurrence that week to their progenitors and by the time the small penitent group of parents and guilty offspring was gathered in Seth's office the latter was in much better spirits.

"Please, sit down", she said, affably. "The children are of course grounded for a week, but that is not why I asked you to come here." Seth got up and touched a lit display on the virtual compiler. The room decor changed to Sarah's herb drying shed.

"We figured since the children are spending so much time in these environments they might as well go to school in one. Of course there would be no difference between Sarah's real shed and the virtual ones so we would like both yours and your children's input to make it more exciting. Some components are not open to discussion - the chemistry equipment, the curriculum, the standard tests, the environmental requirements - temperature, lighting, ventilation. The rest is open to creativity and interpretation."

The parents pondered the option unsure how to approach it but the children jumped at the chance with gusto, coming up with the most unlikely modifications containing but not limited to using live seahorses as stirrers, running the entire simulation upside down, having the chemical reactions sing cute little jingles when correctly balanced, making Sarah look like a blue Russian cat, having three dimensional models of organic molecules made of colorful hard candy float above their heads, chasing each other around the lab on high speed chairs and of course the oldies but goodies sound making whoopee cushions, randomly falling water balloons and flying zombies.