THE FEDS HAD put Evelyn up in a swanky Magnificent Mile hotel with floor-to-ceiling windows and a stunning view of the surrounding skyscrapers. Lights winked on as the sun lowered, and my own ghostly reflection in the glass overlaid the scene.
As for any other transparent occupants…there were none.
When I turned back to the room, Evelyn gave me a shy smile. The downtown wind had knocked her hair clip askew and a few white locks poked out at odd angles. Hardly threatening…aside from the plain black case in her hands. “Full disclosure—this is the first time I’ve shown the tech to anyone outside R&D. I didn’t think you would give me a chance.”
“Why not?” I wondered.
She laughed uneasily. “Bethany said you’d rather be set on fire than participate in another lab study.”
Jacob cut in before I could answer. “He’s got good reason to be touchy about lab work. He’s been through things most psych departments wouldn’t believe. Let’s not be so fast to sign him up.”
Evelyn held up her hands. “Of course. I wouldn’t dream of running anything without consent.” She turned to me witha softer tone. “I was thinking more…you might find them interesting. That’s all.”
Evelyn popped the case, and inside was a pair of glasses. Plain, black-framed glasses. Maybe the arms were a bit thicker than usual. But if I hadn’t known they came out of a top-secret FPMP lab, I would’ve just figured their design for a fashion statement.
Jacob frowned in thought.
“They look harmless enough.” I gestured toward the case. “May I?”
Evelyn held it out.
I picked up the glasses. They felt heavy. Then again, compared to the cheap dollar store pairs I usually wore, that was no big surprise.
“They’re called SPECs,” Evelyn said. “Signal Processing and Extrasensory Calibration.” I raised an eyebrow, and she shrugged. “I may be guilty of overthinking the acronym. But it’s got a good ring to it.”
“How do they work?”
“The binaural pulses are carried through the temples, where they can vibrate the cochlea without involving the eardrum.”
“So I could get the same effect as Mood Blaster without—”
“Without blocking your hearing, exactly!”
Immediately, I saw the advantage. I didn’t always have the luxury of abandoning all my physical senses to tune in on a ghost. And if it was possible to have my binaural beats without the distracting whub-whub-whub, I could still track what wasgoing on around me—from simple conversations to a potential assailant.
“Can I try them on?” I asked.
Jacob said, “Shouldn’t we have someone from the lab walk you through safety protocols first?”
“There really are none,” Evelyn said. “You just…put them on. As for safety, it’s the same principal as Mood Blaster. If anything, the mechanism is gentler, since it uses bone conduction at the temples instead of piping sound through the ear canal.”
“Safer than earbuds,” I told Jacob as I slipped them on. Don’t get me wrong, I was glad he was looking out for me. But I’m perfectly capable of standing up for myself.
I slid them on.
They felt like…glasses.
“Once we’re in production,” Evelyn said, “we can fit them with tinted lenses, or prescription, or even smart glass that would allow things like navigation or translation. At this stage, all the tech is limited to the arms of the prototype. Eventually, the user will be able to control this via Bluetooth on their phone, but for now you just tap it on. The button is a pre-programmed ramp from beta to low alpha.”
The details of Mood Blaster, pre-update, were frankly a bit hazy…but this “ramp” of hers sounded familiar. “You mean…the big red asteroid?”
Evelyn nodded. “The big red asteroid.”
I was already tapping the button when Jacob said, “But how can you tell if it’s working?”
“It’s just a dry run,” I told him. “Like shooting paper targets at the firing range.”
“Maybe,” Evelyn said, “maybe not. Just last month, someone in this room suffered a fatal heart attack.” She didn’t need to be empathic to note the look on my face. Flustered, she said, “Sorry—I guess I should’ve led with that. But I didn’t want you to have any preconceptions.”
