The Virtual Nakedness
Remember when Virtual Reality (VR) was a big deal in the mid 90's? Being a twelve year old video game junky at the time when it became accessible to the masses, I certainly remember it quite well. My Pops dug it too, and one day he decided to take me and one of my former friends to a giant technology retail outlet to play VR games. I had played VR before and had shared stories of my virtual triumphs to all my chums, and now it was time for one such friend to join me in digital heroics.
Before we arrived at the store my buddy posited an unusual idea in my ignorant brain. He wanted to know what virtual nakedness looked like. Frankly, now that he mentioned it, I did too. How did it all work anyhow?
Let me explain.
VR was new, we were young, and I have never claimed to be a genie, er genius. The VR we played required the player to don a simple suit of wires and sensors, a helmet that obscured the real world with a bright internal video display, and hold a toy gun with buttons on it. The player then stood upon, and played within, a big dais with railings to keep them from falling out and looking even more ridiculous. We didn't know how it worked at all. We just knew it rocked!
This was my bud's plan: at some point during our match he would open his pants and behold his (thankfully) low resolution male anatomy...in front of the throngs of people watching us play. Yeah, we specialized in flawed logic.
So, we two wronged our way right into those VR suits and got ready to play.
The game was called "H.E.R.O." The two competing players, my friend and I, had to scour through four small virtual universes (levels) and find the four hidden letters that spell "hero." One letter per level and the first to find them all wins. There was a ten minute time limit and whoever had the most when time ran out won if the game hadn't finished yet. We had guns and could shoot each other if we came across one another during the course of the game.
Virtual Reality: where man becomes rodent.
Hundreds looked on as we stepped blindly into the great virtual unknown. What they saw before them were two frothing youths eager to kill, win, and discover what a virtual "pee-pee" looks like. My dad watched from the crowd.
When the game began, I found myself standing alone on a cross shaped platform floating in space. At the end of each arm of the cross was a numbered wooden door. I chose door one and charged full speed through it, determined to win the game and attain virtual godhood. On the other side of the door was a vast jungle, replete with shiny golden sunlight, monkeys in trees, and a meandering river. Noticing several wooden rafts flowing down the river I ran towards it.
The river ran over a cliff, which I peered over. I noticed that the raft acted as a physics defying elevator which lead to a valley in which I could see a sparkling letter "H" nestled in a tree among the bananas and monkeys. In a crowd pleasing display of virtual prowess I leapt from the cliff to a raft, plummeting hundreds of feet down to the valley below. I climbed from the river bank and snagged the "H" to a chorus of real world applause.
Suddenly, with a George Lucas transitional wipe, I was back in space staring at the three remaining doors. I plowed through the second door into a world of pastel blues and yellows. Before I could gather myself a giant shoe nearly crushed me. The shoe was attached to a giant human and the world I was in was that of a giant kitchen. Across the room I could see, in a mouse trap large enough to kill me, a golden "E."
I was a mouse. Not just any mouse. I was ninja mouse.
I bobbed. I weaved. I dodged giant feet, giant brooms, and finally the giant guillotine like swing of the mouse trap to attain my gilded prize.
Back in space two doors remained and the crowd was on fire. I knew my time for greatness was nigh upon us.
Into world three I trod. A world so grand and breathtaking, so sublime and utterly mind-blowing, I can't for the life of me recall what it was like. It’s not important. Know this: I emerged once again, amid the cheers of the people watching, an unstoppable demon with another letter on my belt.
One letter remained, and "O" what a letter it was. Time was ticking away so with alacrity I charged on!
I crashed through the final door into a catacomb. Deep dark tunnels stretched out before me and my VR handler person yelled to me that no one had managed to assemble all the letters before and no one had made it through world number four. I ran. Spikes, saws, snakes, and pits tried to stop me. Traps sprung under feet, above my head, and all around me. I avoided them all. I was going to do this. I would be the hero no matter what.
To my surprise the ground, without warning, gave way beneath me and I fell into a hallway below. The crowd held their breath, fearing that I was done for. My quick reflexes and determination saved my life and I avoided the dangers below me, finding safe footing. Even better, gleaming on a pedestal, not but twenty feet before me, sat the "O." This was it.
The crowd cheered me on. The VR handler person cheered me on. The people had elected me as their champion, nay, as their anointed king, and I would lead them into a future brighter than any Arthur could have possibly dreamed of!
Emerging from a doorway halfway between me and my prize stood my antithesis. My buddy stood before me, eyeing the "O" same as me, but he had a different goal in mind. I don't know why but I crouched down, perhaps recoiling from danger, and sure enough, my instincts were correct.
I was staring at his low-res, blocky back side from around ten feet away. He stood there with his head looking down, seemingly unaware that I was behind him. I saw his hands reach for his hips and then he too knelt. The crowd went silent. The only noises in the entire building were the seldom heard expletives coming from the mouth of my father. Then an electric chorus of laughter, jeering, and shock gripped the crowd.
I seized the moment, raised my gun, and shot my poor buddy in his back. His pixel bits splashed upon the walls of the virtual dungeon and I grabbed the "O" with not but three seconds remaining. I did it! I won!
Giant jumbotrons displayed my accomplishments, I was god sized and beaming before the masses of people who cheered me on. Their attention, I quickly realized, was transfixed on my friend who was being dragged away, half dressed. Silent and alone I made my way back into the crowd and left the building without any fanfare or accolades. Bummer, dude.
Yes, I shot my friend while he was trying to see his virtual "self." He never forgave me for that.
Doesn't matter. I know I am a H.E.R.O.
Love,
SG
:)
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