Life on Mars

Chapter Ten

Without warning, he felt an immediate rush of panic as the air was sucked from his lungs. His skin felt like shrink wrap as it tightened around his body. Then as quickly as it came, there was a release of pressure replaced by a breeze, a calming breeze like he'd been pushed out of an air-conditioned building onto a hot street. Then he could see, it felt like he'd opened his eyes, but they had already been fully open. They were both stood on what looked like a busy London street. Vic looked down at himself to see he was wearing a green silk two-piece suit with bright red shoes. A high collar shirt and garish tie hung neatly around his neck. Nothing she had said could have prepared him for the reality he was experiencing. Next to him was Bluu, he could tell it was her, but she looked different. She had on a dark business suit with her hair flowing down her back. It was a different colour too; it was much darker. 

She looked over at him. "How do you feel?" she said, smiling.

"Where are we?" he asked, looking around. Realising what was incongruent about the scene before him. Mainly it was colours, like when someone fools with the brightness and contrast on the TV. This was exacerbated by the people who wore clothes in an array of primary colours with equally bright hair. The fashion was wrong but other than that, he was standing in a London street. Actually, standing in a London street, he could feel, hear. Just like that hologram outside his window, only now he was actually in it. He touched a table at a cafe they were stood outside and he knocked on it. He smelled the calming waft of perfume as a woman brushed past him on the walkway, the smell of a city returned as she disappeared into the crowd.

"I created a simulation to help you understand. It's London; what do you think?"

"Amazing," he said. Bluu beamed with pride jumping up and then stopping herself, wrinkling her nose in a smile. He didn't mean the street or sim but just the reality of it all. This was reality in every way, but she clearly misunderstood his compliment and he allowed her to.

"I had a little help," she said, "but I'll tell you about that later." Bluu pointed across the road. "Let's sit there." Beckoning him over to a park bench on the other side of the street, she ran across and he followed, darting between slow-moving cars, having to dodge a speeding bicycle in the lane between them.

"This is a good simulation of what Lon-don may have looked like around 2045," she said, pointing around at the throngs of people and pronouncing Lon-don in two broad syllables. "We're not sure where you were at this time, but it was the next stage in the technological revolution," she shouted above the city bustle. "It was as a result of the light-age."

"The light-age?" He questioned, his heartbeat rising.

"Hundreds of years ago, even before your time, a man called Albert Einstein claimed..."

"Yes, I know Albert Einstein!" interrupted Vic excitedly. Bluu looked at him, raising her eyebrows. "You know, I didn't know him. I knew of him." Vic corrected himself.

Realising 500 years had introduced some misinterpretation, even in the same language. "Well, of course, he was a famous scientist, centuries ago," she continued. "He had put forward a theory on how light could possibly be treated as a particle, something unheard of in your time. By applying Planck's theory, it could..."

"It could be used to develop light processors," said Vic finishing her sentence for her. She trailed off giggling and squinted at him curiously. This was all so elementary to her, probably learned it all in school. Here she was trying to explain it to him, like explaining an iPhone to Faraday. She reverted to a more basic translation. "If light could be used in computer processors, then we would have optical computers. This idea was perfected around 2045 and was the beginning of a revolution in processing speeds and artificial intelligence."