Skye is the Limit by Phenomenal Pen (detective books to read TXT) 📗

Chapter 4: Anima

Mr. Chase entered, looking more like a harried firefighter than a casual stroller. He was carrying a small aluminum briefcase.

<Imagineers,> Athena finally made her presence known from the ceiling, <please welcome Alexander Chase, General Manager of the Product Development Division and inventor of SKYE.>

The eyes of Chul-Moo, Lu and Ellie bulged, not only because they were in the physical presence of a celebrity but also because Athena had been with them all along. They put their heads on a swivel like people faced with a ventriloquist trick. Mr. Chase lowered his briefcase in a corner and then walked to the center of the room.

“I see you already started without me.”

<Yeah, and we were all getting on splendidly,> Zacharie said. There was sarcasm in his original voice but Athena failed to extend that to her translation.  

“I see you’re also making full use of Athena’s insta-translation. That’s good. I have to warn you though that, amazing as she is, Athena still isn’t very good with pseudo-anglicisms, metaphors, irony and so forth. So please keep your messages standard and, er, utilitarian for optimal interpretation.

“Having said that, I hereby authorize and request Athena to take an AV recording of our meeting from this point on and to act as my interpreter in your individual languages. Her real-time and multilingual translation services will supplement your already high linguistic aptitude. On the chair panels to your right you will find your Omni Ear Leafs. Kindly slip them on now. Except you, Jayla. Don’t worry about it. You won’t be needing any interpretation.

“Good, good. Now let me finally, officially welcome you all to Omni Systems HQ and to SKYE Beta, the project in which you will be participating. I and the rest of the Omni family would like to thank you for taking this big step. I can only imagine how you must feel seeing the world for the first time and standing under public scrutiny as winners of the coveted SKYE tickets.

“I hope you don’t think I’m just buttering you up when I say you remind me of me when I was young. In particular, I remember the day that Mr. Patel first asked me to work for Omni Systems. I was only fourteen then. And although I enjoyed playing computer games and designing my own apps, I knew that my accepting his offer would forever change my life. For better or for worse, I didn’t know then. The only thing I knew was that he had cracked open a door and offered me a glimpse of a whole new world of possibilities. If I didn’t take the opportunity, whether because of fear or immaturity, I knew I would regret it.

“And so here I am. And here you are. We thank you for your bravery, for your fearlessness, Imagineers. What you will be doing is not only the first experience of people your age, but the first experience of any human being ever. SKYE is the first gateway into the human subconscious. Your parents or your teachers may have described it to you already but this is history in the making. Not only will your names go down in history but you will also change the world – how humanity views information storage and retrieval, telecommunications, science, medicine, philosophy; the possibilities are endless. SKYE gives us that power.”

Behind and from above Mr. Chase, a wide audiovisual, touch-screen whiteboard lowered automatically. Mr. Chase then proceeded to write on it without any marker, with seemingly only his thought. In truth, Athena was doing it for him while using various sensors inside the meeting room and her deep-learning algorithms, following and anticipating Mr. Chase’s train of thought from his audio output, gestures, mannerisms, past presentations and so on. Athena also had the draft of the speech that she helped Mr. Chase prepare, from which she now deduced the most likely agenda.

“For your orientation, we will be covering three items. First, dream space rules. Naturally because, although we hate them, rules are there for our safety. Second, daily schedule. This covers the entire duration of your stay from Day 1 to Day 14, as stated in your contracts. Finally, I’ll be talking about – rambling about – compensation, NDAs and all the other tedious legal stuff. Any questions so far? Is there anything you would like to add here?”

After some hesitation, the star-struck Lu raised his hand.

“Yes, Lu.”

“Um, everybody keeps calling us ‘Oneironauts’. Does that mean we need to undergo some kind of simulator test? I don’t know, like, I imagine a giant swimming pool to prepare us for weightlessness, stuff like that.”

“Er, good question, Lu. Athena, where are we on constructing a giant pool?” Mr. Chase asked with just a tinge of facetiousness.

Athena answered with her usual razor-sharp logic.

<Checking blueprints for NASA-standard neutral buoyancy simulator… processing… processing… In order to meet the requirement of two hundred feet length and forty feet depth, we would need to break the carbon-fiber roof of the Omni Auditorium and place an identical one on top…>

The AV whiteboard showed Athena’s projections.      

<To our advantage, our auditorium is already clad in the world’s largest acrylic panels and they would be adequate to withstand the consolidated pressure of millions of gallons of water. A conservative estimate would place the end of construction at five years.>     

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