The Words - An Autobiography

Name Change - Game Change

Telepathic Collaboration, Inc. continued to generate exciting innovations, one after another, most of which the world would never know, and to acquire small companies that had developed technologies that fit conveniently into our plans - two of which I was surprised to learn were the developers of very elaborate multi-player, virtual reality games. Now teams of our developers spent most of their work hours playing these games, which they'd immediately adapted to interface with their Magick Hats. Bob assured me that they weren't just playing. They were engaged in serious research.

Although never a stickler about how people went about their work, I was the boss, and people were instinctively nervous when I was around. Most of our young people seemed to work almost perpetually. If they wanted a break to relax and help them be more productive, that was great, although I thought buying a pair of companies that I discovered had cost us a good deal more than the total of all our other acquisitions for the previous two years seemed a bit extreme. But I knew my brother was not one to spend money frivolously since I still received regular ears full over how much I paid for my wife's company and how much she spent.

The developers were working on Virtual Reality services, which had been my original vision for the company, not just enhancements to the games – although there was that. Supposedly, they'd developed some very cool, intensely immersive stuff, including having sex in virtual reality and not being able to tell whether it was real.

I asked how often they had real sex as a comparison, and they all laughed. I had a point. But one of the developers outed one of their coworkers who'd supposedly had sex with one of our female engineers for research purposes only. Both swore they couldn't distinguish between the virtual and the real.

"Probably weren't doing it right," I countered and asked them to show me the virtual part. I was sure I'd experienced better sex than any of them were likely to have.

The team lead suggested I might want to wait until there were fewer people in that area of the lab. He didn't care anymore because they regularly watched one another's eyes roll back while having virtual sex. They had been playing a game where they bet whether one of them was having virtual sex or just strolling around 'The Virt.' That was the first I heard the expression - 'The Virt.' It was also the first time I heard its counterpart - 'The Real.'

I did return later that night, as suggested. There were still developers around who all cleared out to give me privacy. I thought that courtesy was unnecessary until fifteen minutes later, I had a flashback to the back seat of my car, shortly after my wife and I started dating, and realized I'd just come in my pants. I quickly returned to my office, where I had a shower and a change of clothes.

I returned to the VR development team the following day with questions. But they knew the first I would ask and told me, "Condoms," nearly in unison. They had boxes of them at their desks. Most wore them all the time now. The women on the team generally wore pads when playing so they wouldn't be embarrassed soaking through their underwear and pants. Someone should have warned me. Sorry.

The next day, I informed the VR development team that I was joining them. I had an idea. I wanted to create a portal to an empty Virtual World. I wanted them, us, to create a blank virtual canvas, to invite users, and watch what happened. My intent was for them to do whatever they could imagine in 'The Virt.' I wanted every one of them to participate in creating whatever came to exist there. They should be able to do anything they could in 'Real' life, including having sex and tasting food, and for the experience to be so 'Real,' it would be impossible to know the difference. So 'Real' they might forget that it wasn't. And I wanted them to be able to do so much more than was possible in the 'Real.' Whatever anyone could imagine.

My announced participation terrified most of the team. I was already twice the age of most, and, in their minds, people my age no longer had a clue about technology. But all of them were scared to death to be the ones to inform me that I was one of those who no longer had a clue. I told them to relax. I was easy to work with, ask Bob. No help there. Bob scared them to death too.