“Fine. I put some gas in it at lunchtime.”
“Thanks. . . . I’m not sure how long I’ll be.”
Eric looked puzzled. “I thought you were away for a couple of days. Isn’t this the seminar on neurophysiology, or whatever it is—the one where you’re giving the presentation on DNC?”
“No, that’s next week.”
“Oh. I was planning on going back to the labs later. Doug needs some help with the new assemblers. I don’t know if we’ll be through by the time you get back.”
“I’ll see you when I see you, then,” Vanessa said.
“Yes. Have fun.” Eric turned to follow the others, and for an instant Vanessa’s and Michelle’s eyes met. Vanessa smiled politely, and nodded. But at the same time there was a coolness about the light in those hypnotic, blue-violet eyes that didn’t match the set of the lips—a distancing effect, as if they were not looking at somebody standing a few feet in front of her, but watching a face being telephotoed from a thousand miles away.
Michelle smiled back, striving to inject a warmth that she hoped would look natural. Just reflexive cautiousness, she told herself. A reaction to a strange female entering another’s family turf, probably not even conscious. That’s all there is to it.
Then Vanessa left. Michelle followed Eric downstairs after the others.
CHAPTER FOUR
Disagreement over the DNC interfacing had led to Eric’s decision to set up on his own. After the original micromecs were pioneered at Microbotics, where he had been head of research, a split of opinion had developed over which way to go with operator interfacing to best exploit the substantial applications potential by that time recognized to exist. Most of the senior management were for staying with the body-suit and force-feedback methods that they were familiar with—proven technology from the virtual reality industry. Eric, on the other hand, was convinced that a more fruitful future lay with perfecting the partly solved direct neural approach. When the decision went against him, he left and founded his own company, Neurodyne, to pursue his ideas independently. Now, Ohira thought that DNC would be the key to opening up a whole new market that the journal reviews and applications studies had missed completely.
The space they descended to at the back of the house was a mix of workshop and laboratory, with benches, tool racks, keyboards, screens, lumps of electronics draped in tangles of colored wire—the kind of thing that Michelle had come to expect by now. The windows along the outer wall looked out over the grassy slope leading down through trees to the inlet, where a boat dock was partly visible beyond a fringe of rocky mounds and bushes hiding the shoreline.
A large table supported an artificial geography of wooden plateaus, steps, and obstacles, which Michelle was now able to recognize as the miniature world of a mec testing ground, complete with several inhabitants. Some of them were bipedal, others more insect-like. In general, these were not as tiny as the ones she had seen earlier at Neurodyne. She remembered Eric saying that the models the boys worked with were older prototypes and test batches—precursors to the state-of-the-art models in the company’s laboratories.
She also identified DNC headsets and collars—distinctly lab-lashup variety in appearance, with connectors bolted to panels of hand-cut aluminum, and bundles of wires secured with duct tape. Three chairs decked with more gadgetry and wiring served as couplers. One was a regular lounge recliner with the footrest removed and foam rubber pads where most of the upholstery was supposed to be; the other two looked familiar in pattern, their associated electronics mounted on hinge-down trays at the back. Michelle moved some cables aside to read a half-hidden label attached to one of the seat backs: use seat cushion for flotation device. She frowned and looked at Kevin questioningly.
He shrugged and made an apologetic gesture, as if some justification were called for. “We got them from Boeing’s clearance basement. Ten dollars each.”
“You can’t beat that,” Michelle said.
Eric grinned at her and patted the headrest of one of the two airliner seats. “Okay, Michelle, you know the drill by now. Get yourself comfortable, and I’ll connect you up.”