Metafire

Ferguson picked two and checked with their superiors. He knew both men and their superiors. It wasn't hard. He wanted well-conditioned men because he wanted to be sure that, if the Metafire personnel got physical, his people would stand a chance. You can't exactly carry guns into space. He figured that Jack would be useless in defending against a physical attack.

Chapter 22 Settling In

Jane had shown Erisa how to don a virtual reality outfit. It included gloves, lightweight shoes, and what appeared to be a large set of glasses with no lenses but with ear muffs attached. With it, she could enjoy a bit of sport. Because the quarters were so cramped, sports that required a lot of hard swinging about were out. She started up a series of wrestling matches. In this reality, everybody had pretty much infinite strength, since these devices didn't give any tactile or force feedback. The wrestling was sort of like Superman and Bizarro or the Power Rangers. If you got to somebody you could pretty much smash them up. But if you pressed too far, through somebody's arm for instance, you lost your virtual grip -- like a tilt in pinball. So you had to be careful and adept. The objective of wrestling was to toss or otherwise stuff the other person in a garbage can. Erisa liked this. Randy and Dave said they didn't, but they had a match with everybody watching in awe at their skill on the 3D monitor. They were able to hold on to each other and legitimately wrestle, even though they had no tactile feedback. It took real skill.