To See Yourself

It was the first thing she laid eyes on when the doors to her room slid open that evening. The box that had arrived this morning, with that thing inside, that was all the rage right now… When she heard the door shut behind her, she instead looked up and further back, towards her one big window, showing just black, as space was, and lacking stars out here. Their station was cruising from one system of planets to the next, and they still had weeks to go. Now that was something exciting. As well as her job. Way more so than this new tech everyone was so intoxicated with. Everyone but her, it seemed. She looked back at the box and walked towards it. “Looking glasses” they were called; like a “looking glass” but “glasses” instead. They were supposed to reveal your future or simulate it in some way… She hadn’t really followed along. It was true enough that HealTHech Corp. (pronounced as the word “health”, followed by a quick and odd sounding “thech” instead of “tech”, as explained in each of their ads) had released some ground breaking technology in the medical field before. But this? Now they wanted to see into the future to prevent future diseases? Or something like that…

With a big sigh she grabbed the metal package and unlocked it by swiping her wrist ID over its small, digital reader. It even had an AI voice installed, repeating her name and confirming her access, before the lid swung open. The looking glasses looked nothing special, not unlike a VR gaming set, but with an extra head part; several, thin, metallic, arms reached from both sides of the glasses up towards the middle of one’s head, and with small round points at their end, probably meant to touch the head to… read it? Was that how they claimed to predict the future? Did her head know what was going to happen tomorrow? Or further on? Yeah, right… She sighed again.

Her whole station was to test it. The “lucky winners”. It was so brand-new, only the richest of the rich could even order one right now. But there wasn’t truly any winning involved. HealTHech was a big sponsor of this station, and it also carried some of their doctors and scientists. It didn’t take a genius to put two and two together that they wanted their device publicly tested by those, who had positive feelings towards them. Not that anything was wrong with HealTHech Corp. But still. She disliked these kinds of review tricks and the lie about her station “winning”. She had said as much to her boss and he had chuckled and had bobbed his head in agreement. But then he had looked at her seriously.

“You’ll still have to participate.”

He didn’t even have to tell her that the looking glasses probably sent the data back to HealTHech, and if any device stayed unused, they’d know. But why did everyone have to do it? The station housed about two hundred people, why couldn’t they just ask for volunteers?

She grimaced when the memory of her boss’ answer to exactly that hit her: “Because haters could claim that these ‘volunteers’ are rigged and they wouldn’t believe the test results. This is about future-telling tech after all. ‘Healthy’ has to do this stuff carefully.”

She had to smile when he used the word “Healthy”, a nickname for the company, for anyone who got sick of pronouncing the THECH so oddly. It was fun. Or was… Now this new thing was actually here, and she would have to use it. Maybe it didn’t work at all. A sliver of hope seeped in…

After one long exhale, she grabbed the looking glasses carefully and put ’em on. Her room vanished for a quick darkness when the glasses covered her eyes, sitting perfectly attached around them and not letting any light in; and then a digital menu appeared in front of her eyes. Yes, just like VR-gaming. In fact it felt like wearing a helm and a VR headset at the same time. The little circles touching her head felt kinda nice even. She wondered if they were sitting on acupuncture points or something. The menu in front of her simply stated “Speak when you are ready to begin.”

Everything had to be voice activated these days. Yes, it could be nice for music and lights and doors, but not for “everything”. She preferred working on a pad through touch or pens… Presently she shook her head. Concentrate. Another big breath in and out.

“I’m ready.”

The text vanished for a smiling face, the same used in HealTHech ads, and then everything turned kinda dark. In the lower corner of her right eye she could see a small, blinking text in red saying “reading”. That forced a soft snort out of her. Yeah, they couldn’t well say “loading” the future…

Slowly things shifted in front of her eyes. Though she hadn’t had much interest in this thing—and never imagined she would be one to use it—she thankfully knew that the images were not precise and could be better on some days than others. She thought she even remembered there being an “interpretation helpline” by the Corp. That was one of the things that had made her a doubter. She was an engineer. Logical, methodical. And so “flimsy images” could never have grabbed her.

Finally she could make out a shape; human and female, sitting. She assumed that must be her, even though she could not recognise herself. As that thought occurred, her hair took form, and yes, seemed to be hers. But the head of the figure was tilted downwards, hiding the face. She walked around in the simulation, trying to see a different angle. But the whole body that had taken form seemed kinda blurry. As if the figure was too lazy to load. She squatted down and tried to peer towards the face in that way, trying to see herself, in her supposed future…

That’s when she heard the beeping. Without hesitation she took off the looking glasses, needing to force shut and open her eyes a couple of times, to adjust back to reality. Somewhat relieved she put the glasses back into their box for safe storing—till tomorrow. Her curiosity still wasn’t peeked, and so she refrained from staying any longer in the simulation than she had to. And because of the possibility that someone at HealTHech was actually watching this, for “quality or test control”, and so she’d prefer to give as little as possible. She wasn’t sure why. But it was an odd thought, to consider that someone you didn’t know, could know your future.