WELCOME TO THE FUTURE
A (W.T².F.) Sunday Series

–Short Story Time–

“Come on in!” Jess exclaims as she sees it’s Andy standing on the other side of the door.

They shake hands and he steps in to her office, not quite knowing what to expect. She said it would be a surprise, and refused to offer any hints. He takes a seat in the guest chair and after the pleasantries she asks him if he’s ready.

“For what?” he asks, but she just shakes her head and passes him a VAR* headset. He notices the controllers are missing, but she says he won’t need any with this new headset. At that, she sets up the correct window on her holographic computer so that she can see what he sees in VR live on the screen.

When the headset is activated, Andy’s surprised to find himself in a kitchen. He watches with confusion as the kettle begins to boil, as the stove begins to preheat and as the lights dim and brighten. Then, his view changes to another section of the house and this unusual pattern continues where anything with power is activated and then deactivated. Even the car in the garage is turned on and off, the windows are rolled up and down, and the automatic lawn mower begins to do its rounds in the yard. When the sequence of clips ends, Andy is slightly confused and removes the headset.

“Isn’t it amazing?” asks Jess, and he admits to his confusion. She quickly explains that she was able to control all these motions with her mind via a chip implant in her brain. Combined with a new form of neural lace, she can send basic commands to any compatible technology. The home simulation he experienced in VR is just one of the many basic tests that they are running to establish the capabilities of the brain chip.

At the moment, she can only send very basic commands. The chip tracks her brain waves as a positive or negative reaction, and this reaction is communicated to the device she has in mind. There will have to be safety measures too, she explains, as no one wants to dream of the car in a hot pursuit and waking up to find the car gone and a hole in the garage door.

Andy laughs and congratulates Jessica on the progress. Personally he’s not ready for such an implant yet, but he’s glad to see Jess in good spirits. Then, they dive into all the other ways this type of mind to machine communication can be applied. It would really change the future of nearly every job and so many aspects of life if objects can be controlled through thought. It’s not the type of telekinesis he had imagined from all the sci-fi books of his youth!

A (W.T².F.) Series

By @scifiannemarie

VAR*- virtual and augmented reality