DataScape is the first short story I ever finished (in digital format anyway), it was however about the third or fourth that I started.
It’s unusual in that the title came before the story. Datascape just came to me one day and I thought ‘what a great name’. I first tried to use the name for my very first ever web site, even before hyperlands!, which was going to be about virtual reality and VMRL. The site never really got started. It was months after that the story it’s self started to form. And given the subject the title datascape fitted just perfectly. About two years later the story appreed in the form you see here
The story has been rewritten about 3 times, I lost track of exactly how many rewrites I did, and in any case I didn’t finish one version before starting the next one. But despite this the story has never really come out just as I’d like to see it. I think this story more than any other is really in need of starting completely from fresh…this might even happen one day!
The story had always had the same basic plot but the reasons for the plot and the dressing around it have varied considerably from version to version (see the afterword for details).
Download in PDF or ePub format
Read online part 1 below, (part 2, part 3 and afterword)
The guard finally opened the gate for me. It had taken over five minutes of security checks just to get this far. How long, I wondered, would it take to get into the main building that I could just see hiding behind a line of trees.
“Follow the signs to the visitors car park. They’ll be someone there to meet you”. The guard said gruffly. I followed the road heading for the visitors car park.
As I rounded a bend I got my first good look at the Information Industries International building. The whole building was glazed with silvered glass, making it a huge mirror that shone brightly in the early afternoon sun. The whole building was held up, or so it seemed, by six yellow frame work columns that rose out of the ground at the corners of this hexagonal building.
It was the sort of building that Prince Charles wrote speeches about.
I pulled up in the visitors car park, it was large with spaces for thirty or forty cars. Standing in the middle of it was an other guard.
“You must be Dr. Marshal’s visitor”, the guard accosted me as I locked the car. I looked around the empty car park “Ah yes I must be mustn’t I”.
The guard smiled, she had a pleasant smile and an attractive face. My opinion of the security arrangements shot up. “You’ve got some real security here what have you got in there, the crown jewels?”
“Knowledge is power they say. And we have lots of knowledge in there, or so I’m told”. As the guard approached the door to the building she produced a card and ran it though a reader by the door. The thick glass door slid open.
Once inside I was searched, first by metal detector and then by hand, then I signed in and was given a security pass and a quick lecture on were I was aloud and were I was not.
I had been to military installations with less security than this. It took a grand total of ten minutes from entering the building before I was cleared to continue.
The main entry foyer was huge but very light and airy. And it was filled with plants of all sorts, it was like a large green house. I said good bye to my escort, having totally failed in my attempts to get her phone number.
Standing by a large water fall in the centre of the room was a man smartly dressed in a shirt and tie. I looked at him, he looked vaguely familiar to me and he seemed to know me.
Good god it was Dr. Alan Marshal my old college friend and host for today’s visit. “Alan good to see you again”. We shook hands warmly. “Yes it’s been a long time. 10 years I think. But to look at you, IÕd think it was only ten days, you never seem to age”. I laughed.
“Flattery will get you every where. You’ve changed a lot. I didn’t recognise you out of jeans and those awful paisley shirts you use to were. You’re looking almost respectable”.
This was the first time I had ever seen him wearing a tie.
“Its quite a place you have here”.
“Yes were doing quite well for our selves”. He led me off down a corridor in to the building “And the security you have here is pretty intense”.
“Yes well unfortunately our clients demand such security measures”.
“The military you mean”.
“I can’t say”.
“Then it must be military”. We passed through another security check point before reaching the lab. Alan fished around in his pocket and pulled out a card, he went to insert it in to the reader on the door and then stopped.
“Before we go in it is important I explain some thing to you. The reason you are being aloud to see this is that our clients are shortly going to allow us to market some of the systems we have developed”.
“You mean they’ve been declassified ?”
“Something like that. Anyway our new formed marketing department think it is a good idea to rase the profile of virtual reality systems just before the launch. So you and a few other journalists are being aloud to see a basic system so you can write some articles about them. But it is important that no names are mentioned or specific details are given. You can quote informed industry sources and say you’ve seen an experimental mock up. You know the sort of thing”.
“You mean I’m going to become an official leak ?”
“Yes that’s the idea”.
The door open and we entered the lab. It was a large room filled with some of the very latest and fastest computing equipment available. A Cray 3 sat in one corner right next to a connections machine CM-4. There were a few other unidentified machines around the edge of the room and in the middle of all this, and linked to it, was a small grey cubical. “Wow!”
I exclaimed. “Doing well for you selves is an under statement”.
“Oh this old thing”.
Alan said in an off hand way. “This is nothing compared with our current state of the art system. But unfortunately this is all your aloud to see”. Alan led me over to a control desk just in front of the grey cubical.
“This is the Datascape system”. He announced “In that cubical we can create some of the most sophisticated virtual realities in the world”.
I looked inside the cubical, there was some kind of harness hanging from the ceiling. And hanging from it was the familiar gloves and helmet that would let me interact with the virtual world in the computer.
“What’s the harness for?” I asked.
“Well we have found to make a truly realistic virtual reality you must be able to walk around it. See the floor, its Teflon coated. Very slippery stuff that. The harness is adjusted to just support your weight so it stops you from falling over. You walk, or try to anyway, on the Teflon. Sensors underneath detect speed and direction and a viola you can walk in your virtual world”.
“Very impressive”. I said in a nonchalant way. “There is just one thing I have to ask”.
“What’s that?”
“When do I get to play with it !”
It took about twenty minutes of preparation to get me ready for entry to the Datascape system. First I had to change in to a jump suit, while this was being done I had various sensors attached to my body. Then I was weighed very accurately and finally attached to the harness in the cubical.
I put the gloves and helmet on.
I was now totally isolated from the outside world. It was a slightly unsettling experience hanging there, with my feet just touching the floor in total darkness. The only sound I could hear was my own breathing.
“Com’s check”. Doctor marshals disembodied voice said, off to my left and just behind me. I jumped at the sudden sound in my empty, silent world.
Instinctively I turned to face him, but of course I couldn’t see anything. “Receiving me OK?”
“Fine”.
“Good. I’m just starting the program now”. As he said this a vertical board faded in to view directly in front of me.
“Welcome to the I cubed Datascape TM system” it proclaimed. Beneath this message was a button marked “log on”.
“Go on” Alan urged. “Press the button”.
“OK”. I went to press the button and then stopped, looking at my arm. It was a uniform dull grey colour and thick and muscular. I looked down at the rest of my body, it was similarly coloured and built.
The computer generated image of my arm moved in perfect sync with my movements and the movements were incredibly smooth.
“Very impressive isn’t it ?”
“Yes”. I reached forward and pressed the button.
The board faded in to blackness, then form the blackness a landscape faded in to view. I was standing on a flat plane. On my left side there were some low hills and on my right the plane dropped slowly but to some kind of sea.
Directly in front of me, about one hundred meters distant was a what looked like a Greek temple.
“Wow”. I said to my self.
“Try walking”. Alan suggested. I did. It was a very strange sensation at first. I felt my feet slip on the low friction surface and instinctively reached forward to stop my self from slipping over, but my eyes told me that I was moving forward.
“It’s a weird feeling”.
“Yes but you’ll soon get use to it”. I continued walking slowly forward, I noticed that the ‘ground’ that I was walking on was covered with a regular, tessellating pattern, the I cubed logo.
With each step I found myself feeling more and more confident. I was walking faster too.
I could make out more detail of the structure ahead of me now. It was open at the back and front with fluted columns supporting the roof on both sides. In the middle was a sphere on a dais. The sphere had the I cubed logo on it.
“What’s this then the company shrine ?”
“Not quite this landscape was designed by one of the younger members of the team. He’s in to these fantasy things”.
“So what do you use this system for if it’s not you’re current state of the art?”
“This is used to test the basic world interface systemsÉ.”.
“The what?” I interrupted. “Oh sorry, the routines that turn the raw data in to what you see, hear and feel. It’s a relatively simple system and we’ve got all the bugs fixed so any bugs in the programs show up nicely”.
I walked around the building looking at the details, the way the shadows deepened as I moved in the structure, the fine surface patterns on the marble, it was almost perfect. “How much computer power does it take to make this lot?” I asked.
“An awful lot.”
Dr. Marshals disembodied voice still came from right behind me. “Running at the moment we have a Cray 3 handling the virtual object database. That’s all the details of were you are in the virtual world, what you interacting with, what you can see etc. Then we have a very fast custom video processor array to generate all these amazing pictures, an other custom processor array for the sound. And a Vax 780/II controlling it all. About a hundred million pounds worth of computers”.
While he was telling me this I was running my hand over one of the columns. I could feel the ridges on it.
“Peitzo transducers and air bags”. Dr. Marshal answered my question before I could ask it.
“What can I say but very impressive. How…” I was about to ask how they planed to sell the system when I heard something. It was very quite and off to my left. I turned to face it, but could see nothing. “What’s that sound ?” I asked.
“Oh no!” I heard Alan whisper.
“What is it ?”
“Er…look Harry I think it would be a good idea to log off now…”. Alan’s tone had changed completely, he now sounded tired and more than a little worried.
“Is there a problem Alan ?”
“Erm’no”.
He hesitated. “To log off you lift your left arm and make the thumbs up sign and then select log off from the menu”.
I wasn’t really listening to him any more I was listening for the sound. It was still quite but it was getting louder. On the horizon I could see something moving, a dark silhouette against the azure sky. The sound was unlike any thing else I’d ever heard, it was like thousands of tiny snatches of sorts of different sounds being played at once.
It was getting louder all the time, the thing on the horizon was getting closer as well. The sound was coming from it. I stood there transfixed by the movement.
I could see what is was now. It was like some one had put a flawed lens over part of the landscape. Through it the image was twisted and distorted.
“…Log off now Harry”. I heard Alan shouting at me thought the cacophony. How did I do that, I couldn’t remember.
“How?” I shouted back. The thing was now a few meters away and it was still closing.
It was some kind of vortex.
Close up I could see unearthly shapes and forms within the twisting maelstrom.
“To log off…”
Suddenly a clear calm female voice cut though the wall of sound roaring in my ears. “…Raise your left arm make the thumbs up sign and select log off from the menu…To log off”. The voice continued.
I lifted my arm but my virtual arm was moving so slowly and jerkily. It stopped and dropped to my side. “You’re out of sync. Try again but more slowly this time”. The female voice said.
The din in my ears was now deafening. I lifted my left arm again this time my virtual arm moved too. Just before the menu came up I saw what looked like a face.
I only caught a quick glimpse of it before the menu came up in front of me. But it looked like it was leering at me form the centre of the vortex.
I stabbed at the log off button. But again I moved to quickly and my virtual arm dropped to it’s default position, by my side.
The menu began to twist as if it was being pulled in to the vortex.
It took all of my self control not to lash out at the log off button again. Ever so slowly I moved toward the button.
There was a blinding flash of light so bright that for a moment I was blinded.
Then I felt my finger hit the log off button and the noise faded.
“What the hell happened ?” I demanded as I was helped out of the cabinet. Still dazzled by the flash of light I could only just see and my legs were shaking so much I couldn’t stand.
I fell but I fell in to some ones firm grasp.
“I’m so sorry about this David. I was sure I had that bug nailed down this time”. I was led away from the cabinet.
My eye sight slowly returning I could see Alan’s concerned face.
“That’s a bug !” I exclaimed. “But it attacked me”. I was sat down by the console and given a strong cup of tea.
“Attacked? No no”. Alan said calmly. “Yes attacked. That thing came straight for me. It wasn’t random or erratic it came straight for me”. I almost shouted back.
“It’s a bug in the program, it has no intelligence. It’s some problem with the interface software, caused by your interacting with the environment. Just relax for a moment”.
I tried to but was still shaking. “But it came straight for me”.
Alan sat down by me on the desk. “As I said it’s a problem with interfacing two of the systems, the one that renders the image you see of the world and the one that actually creates the world. The problem is caused by you being in the system. So of course it’s centred on you”.
The lab door opened and three men in sombre grey suits walked though it.
“This is obviously a problem you’ve come across before”. Dr. Marshal nodded. “Unfortunately yes several times before and because this system is so convincing it has caused some real problems”.
“What sort of problems ?” I asked.
“That information is secret”. One of the men in suits cut Dr. Marshal off before he could answer. Alan turned around to face the man.
“May I have a word in private”. The man asked him and they walked off to the corner of the lab.
“Who’s he ?”
I asked the operator who was sitting next to me. “That’s Mr Bradford. He is head of security for our clients”. I recognised her voice, she was the one that I had heard over the noise while in the system.
Alan and Mr Bradford were having an animated conversation, with lots of pointing at me. “He’s not very popular then”.
“About as popular as a Rabbi at a PLO meeting”. Alan having finished talking to Mr Bradford left the lab. Mr Bradford walked over to were I sat.
“Dr. Marshal apologises but he has some urgent work to attend to, so this session must come to an end”. He said in a hard cool voice. “Yes very well but there are still a few questions I’d like to ask him if I may”.
“No you may not. Dr. Marshal has lots of problems to sort out and wants to get on to it right away.” From his tone I could tell that was goodbye and good riddance.
Mr Bradford and the two others looked on while the operator helped me out of the gear. The operator said very little while during this. She didn’t seem to pleased about what was going on.
I was led out of the lab by Mr Bradford with his two men in escort.
“I think it would be better if you don’t write any thing about our system till you have the whole story”. Mr Bradford said to me on the way out.
“After all there are many other journalists who would kill to have a go on this system”.
“I get the picture”. After that he didn’t say an other word to me.
Once out of the main gate I let my anger out and swore at the whole dam world for letting this happen. I went for my cars accelerator, but then I stopped.
Some one was watching me, I caught a glimpse of him in my rear view mirror, but by the time I had stopped and turned around he had gone. In the quick look I’d had of him (and I was sure it was a him) I didn’t have time to take in any detail but the one thing I could remember were his eyes, I felt the them boring right though to my very soul.
