Chapter Three

Susan

“Alright Susan you can take a seat. Today we will be taking you through some more functionality of the Lens.” Susan was eager to learn more about the lenses and found her training fascinating. She had arrived extra early to start todays session. She was realising that the relationship between the civilian and the lenses they were mandated to implant in their eyes was completely not as advertised and was struggling with the ethical side of things a little. The Oculus program heads had quickly engaged mission creep behind the scenes as soon as they got mass uptake, steadily turning the Sea of Eyes into a vehicle of total societal control. It made her uneasy but not so much that the allure of being an Operator couldn’t quench. Her trainer today was a woman called Anna. Anna was one of the founding members of Oculus and knew the tech inside and out. She was androgynous, Germanic and embodied the very essence of a Silicon Valley technocrat. Susan was nervous of her but her meticulous explanation and presentations were impressive. Anna gestured to the whiteboard and ran her presentation directly from Oculus. “Only you and I can see this presentation. This in itself is an impressive feature as an eavesdropper or let’s say, a student who misses their tuition fee payment, cannot see the content. The applications of this alone are limitless. We can show a different presentation to everyone in the room. With individual listening devices in the ear, you could fill a cinema theatre room and show a different film to everyone in the audience for instance, or indeed like we already have seen in the last patch to go public, Dynamic Targeted Digital Advertisements.” Anna’s expression suddenly changed. She paused and looked to the corner of the room behind Susan. Susan turned around to see what she was looking at. Another Operator was sitting there, one she had not been acquainted with yet. “Sorry to interrupt but I need to leave Anna, there is an emergency”. Anna opened the door and held it as the Operator left the room.