Bug Park by James P. Hogan

No doubt the effect was a result of the graphics, but the colors had a radiant quality that made the scene even more surreal. She was looking across a valley full of monstrous plants with impossibly exaggerated verticality, rising on the far side into a tortured, alien landscape of quarried rock bluffs and boulder-strewn ravines. Beyond was a green coastal plain, fringed by a distant sandy shoreline. Another mast rose from the far side of the mountain opposite, flying a pennant of white and blue.

At an intellectual level, Michelle knew that the mountains were just mounds, and the shore a matter of mere yards away from her; but the knowledge was overwhelmed by the torrent of raw, irresistible sensory perceptions flooding her awareness. The chasm of crags and gorges between the mound that she was on and another to her left had the impact of flying through a Rocky Mountain vista in a small plane. Trying to take in the gigantic tangles below was like gazing over the canopy of an entire Amazon of mutants. Stems of grass sprouting from below brushed the ledge that she was standing on, tubular, scaly trunks looking like leaning palm trees. She turned slowly to look in the other direction. And that was when she saw a real tree.

It was growing near the ledge from behind some heaped rocks below that looked like a part of Yosemite—probably no more than a foot or two away, but it seemed a city block. Its girth was as great as a football stadium’s, an immense, vertical panoramic assault on the senses, of rust-red ridges and jagged black canyons flowing upward in a column that defied comprehension; soaring away, shrinking, paralyzing the mind—an Interstate highway stood on end; then it exploded out into a green galaxy filling half the sky. Michelle stood, unable to thread one thought after another into a coherent string. Miles above, a bird detached itself from a branch, emitted a cry that reached her from a different universe, and disappeared beyond the periphery of her vision.

“Impressed?” Eric said in her phones. “Getting the idea now, eh?”

In a way, she was sorry that he chose that moment to speak. She had just begun to get the feel of losing herself in the experience totally. Until now, having the earphones had helped. By cutting out local sounds inside the house they suppressed her awareness of the room and the others in her vicinity, and made it easier to create the illusion of really being the mec. She imagined that there was probably a way to switch out the voice channel; but to ask about it just at this moment didn’t seem very gracious.

“It’s . . . stupefying,” she replied instead. “I know you told me. But it’s unlike anything I could have dreamed.”

There was a whine, sounding louder suddenly, and something whizzed by erratically overhead in a blur of wings. It was too fast to leave an image but seemed alarmingly big. Michelle changed her mind about wanting to be left to absorb her reveries in solitude. Suddenly she appreciated the anchor to reality that the sound channel gave her.

Ohira’s voice came in. “Do you understand better now what I’ve been telling you? This could be a sensation, worth millions. And it’s all thanks to Taki and Mister Kevin. They’re great kids, those two.”

Michelle had been so enraptured that she had forgotten about the boys. “Where are Kevin and Taki?” she said. “I don’t see them anywhere. I thought they were in the other couplers. Shouldn’t they have mecs out here too?”

“They’re on their way over,” Eric answered. “They’ve got several mec boxes scattered around down there. Explore around while you’re waiting. They’ll find you.”

Ah, Michelle thought to herself. So that was what the sticks and flags were for.

To her left, the concrete ledge ended at a slope of earth and rubble leading down. She began heading in that direction. The surface was not as flat as it had seemed, but pitted and lumpy, like rocks set in a swamp of frozen oatmeal. She moved carefully, placing her steps, and crossed a dark area discolored by what looked like scattered pieces of coal. Past it, she climbed gingerly over a finger of grainy, coagulated mud, and reached the slope.

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