He parked in front of his building and practically dragged her by the hand through the foyer and up to his office. Intense. Driven. Boldly innovative. The Spencer she’d once loved was still in there, and she was falling for him all over again.
It wasn’t until he and Hailey were standing in front of the simulator that Spencer realized he had traded all semblance of coolness for exuberant geekiness. When she’d said she wanted to see his work, a switch in him had flipped, and he was reasonably certain he hadn’t stopped talking since they left the restaurant. I have all the finesse of a toddler.
But WorkChat is a large part of who I am. Everything has always come second to this dream.
Even Hailey.
It wasn’t something he was proud of, but there was no rewriting history. Given a second chance to go back and do it over, he wasn’t sure he could have done it differently. He would have wanted to. He wished he’d been more aware of her needs. But could he have put her before his dreams? Not back then.
Will letting her experience WorkChat help her understand why I needed to get here or remind her that I chose it over her?
He looked at her, trying to gauge her mood. “It doesn’t look like much from the outside.” Spencer typed a code into the security pad, and the door swung open. Without any programs running, it wasn’t much more than a large empty closet. He shrugged. “It gets better.”
She stepped inside without hesitation and looked around. “Do things come out of the wall?”
“They do. It’s one of the limiting aspects of each simulator. In order for a person to be able to sit on a holographic chair, a physical object must be present. In the beginning, the physical supports are designed around the program. However, once the simulator has reached capacity for retractable physical supports, programs have to be tailored to match the simulator.”
“I think I understand,” she said slowly, then pointed to the vents. “Does that spit out water like a 4-D movie theater?”
“Something like that. A good amount of brain research went into our design. So much of what we see is actually a filtered view our brain processes from an overwhelming amount of stimuli. We see, hear, feel what our brain decides is necessary for survival. What we can’t see, our brain often fills in. Sometimes what’s left out of a simulation is what makes it most believable. Name a place you’d like to go. I might have a simulation for it.”
“Oh, I don’t know.”
“Anywhere.”
“Today or in the past?”
“Would you want to go back in time?”
She wrinkled her nose. “That’s a complicated question. I wouldn’t want to go back if it cost me what’s in my life now. But it would be interesting to see if anything was as I remember it.”
A younger Spencer would have plowed forward and shown her his projects, but Jordan’s program fit what she was wishing for. Hopefully, his friend hadn’t made any obscene additions to it. “There is a way you can, at least within the confines of my recorded life. Jordan took my old photo albums and created something you might enjoy. Stand close to me and try not to touch the walls.”
She smiled. “Is that what you tell everyone you bring here?”
“Usually anyone who makes it this far has signed a nondisclosure contract and has put down a substantial deposit. I’ve never brought a date here.” The pleasure that shone on her face filled him with warmth he wasn’t sure how to label. “Luckily, you’re a friend.”
Her smile wavered, and he regretted the stupid joke. “That’s right. Lucky me,” she said.
He wanted to say something to reassure her, but the rules they were following were hers. Not that he’d done well with keeping his hands off her or avoiding suggestive innuendos. He had, however, done his best to honor her request that they begin again as friends. “You might feel slightly disoriented for a moment, but it passes. Ready?”
“Ready.”
“Run photo album two. College quad background only. No isolation.” He put his arm around her waist to steady her if she needed it. The bland walls filled with scenery from their old college campus.
“Oh my God,” she exclaimed, gripping his side with one hand. She looked around in wonder. “It’s so real.”
“It gets better. Walk with me. The simulator was designed for one user. If you stay in step with me, the computer should read us as one and maintain the integrity of our location in space.” He took a step, initiating the floor to begin moving. She stumbled at first, but clung to him before matching her steps to his.
“Is this a photo or a video? How are we able to walk through it?”
“It’s actually a synthesis of every photo and video I have of the college campus. The computer meshes it all together and fills in what’s missing. Your memory or expectation of what should be there does the rest.”
“Wow. Just wow.”
They walked to where the images began to blur. “Jordan and I are debating if we should sync the program with media feed from the Internet. Doing so would eliminate the limitations of the experience, but it would introduce outside images into what is otherwise a memory database.”
They turned and began to walk back across the quad. “So you took all of these images?”
“I did.”
“How do you call up a picture of something specific?”
“What would you want to see?”
“Jordan?” she asked.
“Show Jordan Cohen.”
“There are three hundred two photos. Play through or isolate and merge?” the computer asked.
Hailey’s pace slowed. Spencer adjusted his stride to match. “That’s an interesting voice,” she said.
“We call her Riley.”
“Riley.” She shook her head. “Sorry. For a second there I thought—”
How could I have forgotten? Shit. “You’re not crazy. Riley utilizes artificial intelligence to expand the voice samples from our database. When I designed the software, your voice was what I had the largest sample of. Essentially, she guesses at how you would say any new word she’s introduced to, based on regional speech patterns.”
“That’s—that’s—”
“Incredibly romantic or creepy?”
Her smile returned. “Somewhere in between. My face isn’t on a robot anywhere in this building, is it?”
“No,” he said with a laugh. When she continued to look uncertain, he added, “I swear.” Then he thought of a caveat to his declaration. “Unless Jordan is working on something he hasn’t told me about.”
Hailey stopped walking completely and turned to look up at him. “I draw the line at robots.”
“I’ll tell Jordan.”
She smiled.
He did the same.
She placed a hand on one of her hips and said, “Show Spencer Westerly.”
“There are two thousand one hundred photos and seven videos. Play through or merge and isolate?” the computer prompted.
“You don’t want to see—”
“Yes, I do,” Hailey said with an impish smile. “Play through.”
The walls around them filled with one-dimensional images of a young Spencer in diapers. Each image remained for three seconds before being replaced by another, showing him ever-increasingly older. He was about to prompt the playthrough to end, but she was clutching his arm and exclaiming with each new image that was displayed something along the lines of “That is so adorable. Look at that. Aww.”