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eyes, poking her ears, or shaking her arms.
Lucia opened her eyes and considered the shadows. What if she tried to go beyond the
limit of the simulation?
As she walked through the lab, her view of it changed, as if she crossed an actual room.
She could see behind and around objects. The perspective was a bit off, creating
distortions, but given the current state of the art, the accuracy of the simulation was
remarkable.
When she reached the shadows, the room blurred. Taking a breath to fortify herself, she
stepped forward
And submerged into darkness. No sight, touch, smell, sound. Nothing.
Lucia quelled a flare of panic. She lifted her hands to her head and felt the helmet.
Relief flowed over her as she maneuvered it away from her head.
Light flooded her vision. Instead of being across the lab, she found herself lying on the
chair just as Zaki had described. Although she still felt as if she wore the qamis, the
Jazari suit sheathed her from head to hand to foot. The screen of the Stellar-Magnum
showed the now-familiar fractured seascape.
She pressed her hand against her abdomen and breathed against it, using relaxation
techniques she had learned in her stretch-yoga class. After her pulse slowed, she got up
and changed from the VR suit back into her jeans and blouse. Then she went to the
workstation and restarted Zaki. He came up pacing across his office, his image
appearing in midstep.
"Zaki?" she asked. "I thought you always came back sitting at your desk."
He swung around to her. "I evolved. Are you all right?"
"Yes. Fine. What happened with the Jazari suit?"
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Catherine Asaro - The Veiled Web
He swallowed. "That wasn't the Jazari suit."
"It wasn't?" She regarded him uneasily. "Then what was it?"
"I'm not sure." He pulled off his turban and twisted the cloth in his hands. "It injected
you with a rudimentary form of nanotech. The molecules act on neural receptors. You
were receiving input straight into your brain. Sights, sounds, sensations, smells, tastes
all those sensations were produced directly within your cortex."
Lucia stared at him. "Are you saying I have a computer virus in me?"
"Not a virus." He had completely undone his turban now. "Nanobots. They're part
neurotransmitter. They also carry picochips, tiny computers that operate on quantum
transitions."
It was an eerie thought, that tiny machines in her body could trap her forever in a virtual
reality. "What made the simulation stop?"
"I'm not sure." He began to pace again. "Operation of the nanobots is tied to the suit.
Apparently they're too rudimentary to produce full VR simulations on their own.
However, they greatly enhance the suit's effect. Also, for direction and control, they
need the greater processing power of the Ultrajacs, which communicates with them
through the suit. So without the suit, they lose direction and fall apart." He stopped,
staring at his hands as if he had finally realized he was wringing out his turban.
Lucia could hardly believe it. "You mean these tiny robots inside me are little
computers?"
"Yes. Rashid designed them. The engineers at JI have been working on the technology,
but I hadn't realized it was this developed." Zaki looked up at her. "The nanobots have
enough memory within their picochips to remember a few simulations after they've
produced them. If any bots are still inside you the next time you use the suit, they can
download their data to the new nanobots the suit injects into your body. That way the
memory is preserved, so right away you get better simulation. In fact, once the bots
have a simulation recorded, they may even be able to reproduce a rudimentary version
of it without the suit."
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Catherine Asaro - The Veiled Web
She grimaced at the thought of being trapped in a VR simulation. "I'm not sure I would
like that."
"Well, it's only a theory. I've no idea how you would go about getting the bots to
reproduce the simulation without the Ultrajacs to direct them. Besides, the bots in your
body have probably already started to disintegrate."
She wasn't any happier with the thought of nanobots falling apart in her body than with
the idea of having them in the first place. "Can the debris make me sick?"
"It shouldn't." Zaki tapped his fingertips against his chin. "I can see why he hasn't made
any public announcements yet. If he gets this to work, it will be a revolution in VR.
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