Arabella forced herself to examine Mrs. Constantino’s bloodshot eyes and indeed, a thin silver line traced the iris. Where did this woman get her money? “I didn’t need them for medical reasons,” she admitted. “I have 20/10 vision now.”
Mrs. Constantino winked. “You don’t have to tell me these are more than fancy glasses.”
As she drew in a burbling breath to elaborate, Arabella pushed the door open and slipped inside. “I’m supposed to rest,” she called in weak apology as she slammed the door behind her.
In the bathroom, she stared at the silver ring of her iris with distaste. The irony was that Hugh hadn’t wanted the lenses either. He treated his body like a rare sports car, too precious to drive. When his company insisted that all senior management get the permanent implants – a bleeding-edge technology not yet legal in the EU – he actually considered quitting.
Arabella rarely put her foot down but in this case she did so with force. Her husband’s last promotion was contingent on a move to this decrepit city – one of the last outposts of cheap labor. She’d had to leave her friends, her favorite sushi restaurant, and the hairdresser she’d finally trained to give her a proper cut. Hugh would damn well get some plastic in his eye after all the sacrifices she’d made.
She’d grown to regret her insistence. Hugh had become increasingly distant in the months since he’d gotten the implants. He came home from work earlier, but shushed her when she tried to speak to him.
“I’m in a meeting,” he’d say, exasperated, waving his hand to indicate a conference table she couldn’t see. He moved through the apartment in strange patterns, avoiding things that weren’t there and clipping the edges of furniture that was.
He wouldn’t watch streams with her on the wall anymore, declaring the resolution inferior to what his eye screens displayed. In theory, they could view the same content simultaneously and Hugh made a show of synching his glasses with the wall, but when he sat next to her, head tilted to the ceiling, giggling during the tense parts of dramas, she knew he was seeing something else.
They’d had plenty of bumps on the road of marriage before, but at least they’d been looking out the same windshield. She would fix this.
Arabella ran icy cold water over her face until the pain in her eyes subsided. She had to hurry. Hugh would be home from work soon. He didn’t know she was getting lenses, so hadn’t bothered to lock the settings he’d spent months perfecting.
She approached the strange contraption in his office hesitantly. The black goggles, mounted on a thick silver pole, resembled a grotesque Venetian carnevale mask, wires instead of ribbons trailing from both edges. The technician had explained that the tiny screens needed to be recharged once a day and that was a good time to adjust settings as well. Contrast, brightness, automatic data overlays – Arabella had only half-listened to the detailed instructions. She’d use Hugh’s settings; that was the point of getting these, after all.
She leaned in. Tiny white words appeared in the darkness. Recharge? in the center, Yes and No, on the far left and right respectively, appeared beneath.
Arabella gazed steadily at Yes.
A green circle appeared. Watch the dot for the next 15 seconds. Please do not blink, the text directed.
So far, so good. After the elapsed time, another menu appeared. Update settings? And beneath, Home, Work, and New.
She selected Home and held still as information was transferred to the tiny processors.
Your update is complete.
Arabella straightened, blinking rapidly in the suddenly too-bright light. What was this? The view from the upper-floor window was no longer of polluted Lake Tanganyika but of a busy, beachfront promenade. Bikini-clad teen girls, pale, sweaty tourists, and overly-tanned men in linen suits paraded past a backdrop of white sand and turquoise sea.
It took her a moment to recognize this was Ocean Drive in Miami. She’d accompanied Hugh to a conference in South Beach last year. They’d both found the city incredibly gauche and the newly-passed ordinance allowing nude sunbathing was ridiculous and unsanitary.
Yet, here she was. The resolution was incredible. A teen girl, modestly clad in a thong bikini, retrieved a volleyball from the footpath and raced back to her game. Sunlight glinted off the rhinestones of a passing woman’s purse and cast rainbows on the ceiling of the room. Arabella reached to remove her glasses – her usual method of consuming virtual reality – before remembering she wasn’t wearing any.
Turning her back on the glare of the window, she was confronted by a Fauvist interpretation of the muted impressionist color palette she’d used to decorate Hugh’s office. One wall was acid yellow, the others, bright orange.
The living room was even worse. The elegant Louis XIV furniture she’d spent a fortune to ship from London was now a collection of blocky, modernist eyesores. A simple, square light fixture replaced the beautiful cut crystal chandelier she’d won at auction. Had Hugh lost his mind?
Eyes aching from this onslaught, she returned to the bathroom to again splash her face, but, where was it? Not the bathroom – thankfully Hugh hadn’t changed anything there – but her face? This was a real mirror, not a screen, and she stared straight through herself to the spectrum of beige towels on the wall behind her. She held up her hands – nothing.
Oh god, she’d gotten a bad pair of lenses. This was why the EU hadn’t approved them yet. Was it too late to get them removed? The nanobots needed 24 hours to bond with her eye tissue.
Back in the office, she tried to find the troubleshooting guide on the charging station but the menus cascaded into infinity. She needed help.
Mrs. Constantino answered the door so quickly she must have been standing beside it.
“I’m so sorry,” Arabella began, but Mrs. Constantino needed no explanation.
“Come in, dear.”
She ushered Arabella into a large, clean living room. Framed photographs of buildings covered the six-meter high walls.
Arabella gaped. “I didn’t know any of the apartments had such high ceilings.”
Mrs. Constantino smiled. “My husband was a builder. The builder, in this case. He gave us the best unit. Would you like a tour?”
Arabella contemplated her invisible feet. “Maybe later. Right now I need help resetting my lenses. Something is wrong.”
Mrs. Constantino crooked a finger. “Come to my room. We’ll fix you up.”
Her bedroom was as neat and tasteful as the living room. Arabella couldn’t reconcile this walking pile of rags with the upscale furniture that surrounded her, and the cats she was sure infested the place had yet to make an appearance.
Mrs. Constantino gestured to a rig similar to Hugh’s. “Lean in and I’ll talk you through it.”
A few minutes later, Arabella hurried to a large white and gold mirror and looked with relief into her own red-veined eyes. “Thank you so much. I downloaded my husband’s settings and…”
Mrs. Constantino shushed her and took her arm. “Let’s have a drink.”
“Oh no, I–”
“I insist.”
