Hi all and here's Chapter 6 of our Bessie adventures. I'm now posting them as single-spaced rather than double the same as they'll be when eventually between two covers. The single spacing makes this stuff more readable I hope and also easier to fit into your e-mail space, I also hope. Enjoy.

Chapter 6; Rob’s Prototype VI Headset Still Has a Problem

          Rob Howard and partner Marsh Perry originally started their company Virtual-Scope in answer to a fast-growing public demand for virtual reality systems. From the onset there was plenty of competition with developing units even more advanced than what other companies were already marketing. Fortunately, Rob’s excellent managing skills with sales and production combined with Marsh’s inventive genius with researching and developing computer gadgetry to make their business a highly profitable success from the very start.

          So much so, that by now both men wanted to expand their facility to twice its size. They had not so far, because it meant shutting down a very good money-making operation for too long. Additionally, the rapidly evolving market with producing increasingly advanced VI accessories had Virtual - Scope hard pressed just to keep up. As a result Rob and Marsh along with all their employees had worked many extra hours for as long as any of them could remember.

In the middle of saying something to partner Marsh, Rob heard his desk’s intercom phone start buzzing. Nearing the end of another long day and pretty worn out as usual, he pressed the answer button and growled, “Yeah Kathy, now what!?” Seconds later he was grinning like he’d just seen his beloved Green Bay Packers score the winning touchdown. “They’re ready? Great Kathy, so bring one up OK? No, better make that two. My two cyber-monsters will fight over it if I bring home just one of ‘em.”

Seated before his desktop PC and taking this in, Rob’s partner Marsh Perry simply smiled and nodded, “Very good!” Quite reserved compared to Rob, a smile from Marsh could mean he was anything from mildly amused to wildly jubilant.    

Clicking off and turning to Marsh, Rob threw off the many months of frustration with a rebel yell - “Yee-ah - hoo! Well good buddy, you heard the gist of it and she’s on her way up! Kathy says your upgraded sensors are the slickest thing since sliced bread!”

Peering up owlishly back at Rob through his wide frame reading glasses, Marsh nodded again, “So I gathered. Of course we’ll still have to do more…”

All a-grin Rob cut him off. “More testing? Sure we do but not today! No, we’ll close shop and get out of here early for once! In fact, this Sunday I can even take Connie and the kids to Green Bay for the first Packer’s game I’ve been to this year! You and Louise could come too you know!”

          Marsh shook his head. “I can’t, Rob. I’ve got to come in over the weekend and work on the response time. You see, I think we can speed it up even more.” Ever the perfectionist, he was never entirely satisfied with their product.

          “Marsh, these new ones of yours react to the user faster than any others on the market. I’m telling you, this newest one is a world beater. Besides, your Louise told me the other day she’s ready move your bed over here. We won’t turn these over to production anyway until Kathy’s added her finishing touches. Meantime, both of my kids are geniuses with these VI’s. While we’re waiting on Kathy, my two will test them out better than we can!”

          Before Marsh could answer, Kathy Chen rushed into the office. Still in her lab coat she beamed proudly while handing the two new units to Rob. “Here they are, bosses! By now in our trials the visual clarity, response time, and sensory capabilities are fantastic! Along with the additional apps our clients will love ‘em!”

She being one of the best cybernetics-electronics technicians there was, Rob could well believe it. Taking them, he returned a wide grin. “We’ve got to give you another raise! You say you’ll still be awhile fine-tuning them?”

          She nodded, “I accept the raise and yes, sorry to say, I will be. But not for long, Rob. By a process of elimination we have only two kinds to fool with. Our light-weight VI sunglasses won’t be ready until we do more miniaturizing but these headbands are ready to go.” Kathy hurried on to explain, “The eyeglasses have the apps coded within the lenses and these headband visors do too. Naturally, you summon them up from both types by voice command, so long as you…” She exaggeratedly mouthed the words. “…e-nun-ci-ate…clearly!”

          Leaning toward her, Marsh frowned, “Katherine, that’s all well and good, I suppose. But unfortunately, my neural sensors still cannot pick up mental commands very well. Eventually I’ll have them greatly improved, but for now the users must simply do the best they can.”

          She answered, “Using mental commands with the eyeglasses still needs work and also with beefing up the power source. But Marsh, a user wearing this headband can do it…if they really, really concentrate!” Kathy looked over at Rob. “You said your Bessie did, right? With our older helmet model?”

He nodded, “Yeah, sort of. But she said it was a lot easier using vocals, so she’s mostly dropped trying to use the thought commands. Anyway, you say Bess will be able to do that a lot better with these headbands?”

“Knowing her she will. And she’ll find another advantage over the glasses.”

“Like what?”

Kathy laughed, “Well, you know how your daughter is! Long as she’s not falling out of a tree or something, they won’t slip around or fall off. These headbands are bulkier of course with the neural sensors and the power pack stitched into the liner. And yes, the visor makes it a bit clunky compared to the glasses. But our new type of visor never fogs up. And personally I like these headbands better myself.”

“Why is that, Katherine?” Marsh asked.

Quite athletic in her own right, she said, “Because they stay on while you’re jogging, or bicycling, or even doing summersaults. Even with flex bands the sunglasses still slide around or fall off.”

          Rob said, “When I showed both types to one of our client reps, he said the same thing. He goes jogging every day by the way.”

          Kathy said, “The only thing left with the headbands is to spruce up the cosmetics with different types of fabrics and their colors. They’re wire-less too, of course, except when re-charging.  Speaking of which…” She pulled two coils from her pockets and set them on his desk. “…they’ll still need these. Anyway, Rob, your kids will have a real eye opener with these upgraded sensors.”

          “Those two will definitely give these babies a good workout.”

          Marsh added, “Rob, would you mind asking your daughter to take some notes I can look at? I’d be interested in anything she might jot down.” He was quick to add, “Nothing against Ben, of course.”

          Rob had to laugh. “Marsh, as a world-class gamer Ben’s no dummy when it comes to VI headsets. But even if he did take notes, which I doubt, you wouldn’t be able to read his scribbles. One thing he’s not is a writer.”          

          Kathy asked, “Does Bessie do much gaming? My Lulu’s not much into it.”

          “No, but she’s a lot better than Ben overall with VI’s. I’m telling you, she’s always had an ability you would not believe with using ‘em. You’ve both seen her do this at our place.”

          Kathy nodded, “You and Connie do have a very special girl there.”

          Marsh agreed, “She does have a rather uncanny ability to integrate her-self into the computer while wearing our units.” The other two smiled at Marsh’s precise way of stating practically anything.

          Rob said, “She’s been showing us that ever since I started bringing them home five years ago. Even back then in whatever grade it was, she claimed they took her to places where she had been…” He held the tips of his forefinger and thumb barely shy of touching. “…this close to actually being there.”

Thinking about what else she did, he added dryly, “There’s also her whatever you call it, her magic Harry Potter thing.”

          Marsh frowned. “Her what?” Childless and unfamiliar with the Harry Potter tales, he neither knew nor cared about any of that.

          Rob guffawed, “Haw-haw! Yeah, Bess keeps her wizard’s staff right there with her when hooked up to a VI head piece. She claims that old stick helps her to focus better on whatever people, places, and things that show up in the programmed environment. She says this makes them seem even more real.”

          Marsh arched a skeptical eyebrow. “Oh come on, Rob. I know your daughter pretty well. I don’t think she really believes in all that sorcery nonsense, not for a minute. Does she?”

          “Actually, even she laughs it off as kid-stuff. And yeah, all of her friends still rag her about this staff thing. But guys, our Bess couldn’t care less. She stays pat with it because of the fantastic results she gets. Naturally, this is just another of those go-figure things you get with all of these kids.”

In the same frame of mind as Marsh for once, Kathy had no patience with it either. Sticking to business, she said, “Whatever, but soon as your two and my Lulu try these, they’ll flip over them the same as we did downstairs. When my testers returned from their VI trip to Paris they were practically speaking French! No kidding, they swore up and down they came that close to actually feeling the handrail atop the Eiffel Tower!”

          Something just now occurred to her. Abruptly dead serious, Kathy went on, “But there’s one problem I need to mention and it’s really important.”

“Like what?” Rob asked.

 “This VI trip to France resulted with one of my testers having a problem that users need to be warned about. We’ll fix it as soon as possible. But if you market them before we do, it has to be red-lettered in our instruction manual.”

          Perry gave her a worried look. “Katherine, can you be more specific?”

          “We have to caution buyers not to simply yank off these headbands the minute they leave their VI environments. The same applies to just flipping up the visor when they’re done.”

          Rob growled, “Months and months of working on this thing and I swear! So then what happened?”

          She said, “One of our technicians, Susan, did exactly that after returning from her Paris trip. We know now that she should’ve left her visor down while taking the time to reorient to her surroundings. But no, she just flipped it up and then, oh my god!”

“Oh my god what!?” Rob asked.

Kathy shook her head. “Well, the poor girl went totally bonkers!”

          “Jeez, Kath, is she okay?”

          “She is now but for a few minutes Susan just sat there babbling whatever it was, old nursery rhymes she learned as a kid. Afterward she said it was like she’d lost her mind or something.”

          Marsh was already typing this down on his PC. Looking up at Kathy, he frowned, “Sorry, I should have said something to you. During my own preliminary testing I made the same mistake and wound up highly disoriented. I hadn’t realized how deeply my new unit entwines users with their virtual reality environments.”

          She waved dismissively, “They’ll be perfectly okay as long as they leave the visor down and first look around to get their bearings. But we need to be doubly sure to include cautionary remarks with the packaging. And bosses, these have to be worded so people can understand them. Of course, it’s the same with any of the units we’ve sold so far. So long as the users follow the instructions, they’re fine!”

          Before long Rob was carrying the two headsets through the lobby and bound for home. Seated at her desk, their receptionist hailed him. “Rob, Carmen Ricci just called from the Center! She wants to know if our new headsets are ready yet!”

          Halting, he slapped the side of his head. “Sorry Marilyn, I forgot. Get back to Carmen and tell her we’ll deliver a couple tomorrow first thing. They’ve been after us about these new ones all month!” Remembering Kathy’s warning about yanking them off, he told Marilyn about that also. “And whatever you do, make absolutely sure their people understand this, OK?”

          “I will! Is Marsh staying awhile?”

          “He might camp out up there all night for all I know! Of course, I’ll be back here tomorrow myself. And sorry, Marilyn, but so will you. Can you, I hope?”

“Sure! For how long?”

“Just until you notify our other clients about these new headsets. Then we can all say adios to this place for what’s left of our weekend. For now though, we do need to clue in the Center.”

          Already keying her phone, she nodded, “I’m on it!”

          Moments later Rob was headed for home in outlying Covington. Normally leaving his office at a later time, he was unused to the heavy rush hour traffic on the beltway circling Madison. But having to slowly wind through it gave him a chance for once to calmly reflect on the current doings with the business.

Speaking of which, Rob could not recall the last time he’d had any time away from it. Nothing was more satisfying to a business owner than offering a product, and a high-quality one at that, which the buying market was beating down the doors to get to. But after so many months of going at it 24/7? For two cents he would chuck it all and fly the whole family down to the Gulf coast for a few relaxing sunny days on the beach. The new headsets would not be ready to market for at least another month, maybe more. With parent-teacher conferences starting next Wednesday, both of his kids were free for a long weekend. Plus, if Connie took some vacation time to skip her own conferences at the middle school?

He shook his head – Nah, she’d never do that. Besides, in case they did sell some headsets ahead of time to preferred clients, like the UW Center and several other research places, he now had to re-word the instruction manual to include Kathy’s warning before passing it on to the printer. Plus, if she got the headset’s cosmetics ready sooner than expected, he would have to jump-start them into production. No, any vacations had to wait for December’s holiday season. If even then, for Pete’s sake.

          But after he was off work tomorrow they could at least all go to Green Bay, spend the night, and catch Sunday’s game with the hated Minnesota Vikings. What would tell the tale with this was how well his two teenagers did tonight with these new headsets. Hopefully the only surprises would be good ones.