IEEE Spectrum June, 2014 - 84

Until I stopped cold, feeling my own
mouth open into an O. After checking on
Becky one last time, I brought the small,
dedicated computer into the living room
and connected it to my wall system.

t r e vor h a d m a d e h i s f or t U n e
with Holo-Shop. He invented it, patented
it, and sold it for an exorbitant sum plus
royalties to Microsoft.
There had been other holographic conversion programs on the market, but they
were quirky, experimental, difficult to use.
Holo-Shop was none of those, and the results were sharper than anything before it.
You brought up a flat image on a screen, set
the parameters you wanted, and touched
the H-S icon. The image sprang from the
screen in holographic three dimensions.
It could be small or large, although the
larger you made it, and the farther away
the hologram from the screen, the lower
the resolution. A three-inch rose was a
miracle of dense perfection; a room-sized
puppy was insubstantial vapor.
Holo-Shop could not evoke moving
images, not yet, although Microsoft was
reportedly working on it. Meanwhile,
advertisers and artists and retail outlets
manipulated holograms to sometimes
powerful effect, sometimes laughable
kitsch. Ditto the millions of users who
wanted the pyramids to decorate their
trendy Egyptian-themed living room but
to disappear when they needed to set up
a card table for poker.
I ran the camera images of Jake as Becky
saw him until I found a good one: Jake
crouching on the floor, smiling, green
eyes alight, arms extended for the baby
to crawl into them. I froze the image, projected it with H-S, and fooled with it for a
while. When it was done, Jake sat life-size
on my bedroom floor, ghostly enough to
see the dresser behind him, arms outstretched. The dresser didn't matter. I got
down on the floor and moved to sit in the
circle of his arms.
84

jun 2014

north american

"i am not
sane, i
thought,
which
was my
last sane
thought"
t h e secon d w eek en d t h at Ja k e
had Becky, Pam was there all weekend. I
watched them every minute that Becky
was awake. They kissed in the kitchen,
took Becky to the park, watched something
on TV while she crawled around the floor.
Pam wore Carson Davies boots in calfskin,
$800. When Trevor called with tickets to
the hottest play in town, I told him I had
the flu. By Sunday afternoon, when Linda
handed Becky back to me, I was groggy
from sleeplessness, reeking from not bathing. I didn't look at Linda looking at me.

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I once saw a show about
toxoplasmosis, a parasitic
disease. When mice contract it, they lose their natural fear of cats, making it
easier for cats to eat them
and the parasite to get into
the cat. There was some evidence from brain scans that
the mice realized this lack
of fear was stupid, but they
couldn't help themselves.
They were compelled to let
the cats see them.
At work I accomplished
nothing. I'd set the retransmitter to send the images
of Jake and Pam to my wrister; the hell with what Trevor
said. Whenever I could, I
ducked into the ladies' room
and brought up images to
study. Felicity went from
warmly supportive ("You
don't feel well? Oh, I can
finish that copy, Amanda")
to faintly resentful ("You
haven't even started on the
McMahon account stuff? But
we got it over a week ago").
On Thursday night, Trevor
called. I told him I had the
flu. On Friday night, he let
himself into my apartment
with his emergency key. I
barely had time to dart out
of the bedroom and close the door.
"Trevor! I told you I'm sick!"
"It's not flu season, Mandy." His handsome face looked strange without its habitual smile.
"If I say I have the flu, then I have the flu!"
"I don't think you do. You're doing it
again, aren't you? Two restraining orders
and a court fine weren't enough?"
"I'm not. I'm not stalking Jake."
"Swear on pussy willows' pussies?" Our
childhood oath; at ten years old it had
seemed hilarious.

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Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of IEEE Spectrum June, 2014