POV. Chris Brosnahan

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СКАЧАТЬ touch units on your watch, which are configured directly to your personal IDRoPS and allow you to navigate through any options.

      The system used to be two-way, and could send information as well as receive, but this was deemed to be inordinately dangerous and we were obliged to fit certain breakpoints into the software in order to make them receive-only. We had to track down the earlier converts – this was not fun.

      The most popular aspect of the technology, though, is real time information mapping and visual transformation. This is called Personal Reality and was the single biggest selling point that brought people on board.

      The IDRoPS act as a filter, using object recognition technology to remap information. So, you can use your visual display to, say, change the colour of a car from blue to red in your own personal viewpoint. But it isn’t clumsy – it’s fine-tuned enough to recognise face and body features.

      This means that you can look at somebody and change your perception of them so that they look different. The most popular use of this is actually personal. Most people change the way they look at themselves in any reflective surface or pictures and videos, allowing them to see themselves as thinner or better looking than they are. It remaps the information across the recognition points, allowing you to look in the mirror and lose that spare tyre around your waist, or that second chin, or give yourself more perfect breasts, or a different shade of skin colour, hair … you can be who you want to be.

      According to research, thirty-seven per cent of people who use the technology in this way become more confident.

      You can also map the software across people who you see regularly and recognise.

      This means that you can make your partner more youthful, better looking, or even look like someone else entirely.

      And you only have to be as open as you wish to be. They never have to know. You can screw a movie star every night if you wish and when you look into their eyes and see your reflection, you can look as handsome or as beautiful as you want to imagine that you can.

      Of course it’s popular.

      Rachel and I don’t often use that aspect of it. We discussed it, but we prefer remembering what each other actually looks like. We don’t want to get away from the reality of each other and replace it with an illusion of who we want. We’re comfortable with each other and we want to share ourselves as we actually are.

      For us, we don’t want to turn into an idealised version of ourselves, otherwise we feel we’ll lose track of who we are. Keeping your feet on the ground is important.

      I don’t think it’s particularly healthy to replace yourself in such a way that you start completely believing in this new version of you and forgetting the reality underneath. Partially, even if you’re unaware of it, and even if you don’t care, you can end up looking ridiculous to other people.

      Think of the most ludicrous person you know. The most ridiculous looking, or the most contemptible, or the ugliest. Whatever. Now, take the element of them that thinks that they’re better than everyone else and you start filling their world with constant reinforcement of that ideal. You get people swanning around like they’re a movie star, when they’re more of a freak show.

      And that’s fine if you’re in the middle of it. That’s fine if it’s you. It’s just that neither of us want to get carried away to the point where we start believing in it. That said, I do shave a few pounds off myself in my own point of view and make myself just that little bit more chiselled if we’re going out to a party or something. Everyone does.

      The earlier version of the software, before we had to fit in the blockers that stopped it from being able to send information, would allow you to transmit information about what you looked like to other people. As long as both people were fitted with the software, you would have been able to make yourself look like anyone you wanted to – or even invisible. However, the criminal implications created by this were obvious and beyond control, so we effectively had to cut off that functionality. So unless a criminal was willing to slice into their eye and had the technological ability to reset those connections, the functionality was useless.

      As it is, you can only control what you see, not what others see. Rachel and I have used the software on each other at times – of course we have. Every now and then during sex, we’ll agree to make each other into someone we want to have sex with, and it always gets that extra bit wild. A movie star, a celebrity, or (even more thrilling) a friend. It lets us experience our fantasies but still keep it with each other.

      But again, we don’t want to forget what it’s actually like to love each other physically as well as emotionally. It’s always been better with Rachel than with anyone else. More intense, more relaxed and more trusting. But every now and then, it’s fun to spice things up and get the visual thrill of playing away without actually doing it.

      We take each other on trust. She could, of course, be replacing me every time she looks at me. But I don’t with her and I don’t believe that she does with me. We trust each other and we love each other.

      And I’ll always be grateful to her for the new turn my life has taken, because before then …

      Before then, I would have swapped myself for anyone. I would have looked in the mirror and replaced myself with nothing if I could have done.

      That was before the alcohol. Before the breakdown. Before the suicide attempts. Before the testing. Before I was tested.

      Well, before we were tested.

       Chapter Four

      ‘Mr. MacFarlane?’ The man at the door looked like he never smiled. He looked like he spent his entire time getting annoyed and angry at people. He wasn’t wearing a uniform, but he didn’t need to flash his badge for me to know that he was with the police.

      ‘Yes?’ I replied.

      ‘I’m Michael Byrne. I’m with the New York Police Department. May I come in and ask you some questions?’

      I stood to the side to allow him access to the surgery room. ‘Come on in,’ I said to him.

      He walked through the door. I followed him as he looked around the surgery, taking in as much as he could before he focused on the chair with the restraints on.

      While it was white and medical, it suddenly felt to me like it had a medieval aspect to it. A cruel aspect to it. The kind of aspect where you could imagine Goneril commanding her husband to pluck out Gloucester’s eyes.

      The line ‘Out, vile jelly’ crept unbidden into my consciousness. The image made me want to panic, so I went back to one of my old relaxation tricks that I learned during my time in therapy. Breathing in time to a tune in my head, and keeping it steady.

       Round and round the Mulberry Bush (breathe in)

       The monkey chased the weasel (breathe out)

       The monkey stopped to pull up his socks (breathe in)

       Pop goes the weasel! (breathe out and —

      ‘How can I help, Detective?’ I asked, gesturing him towards one of the СКАЧАТЬ