Jim’s POV

Jim was filling his trusty box with all the things at his desk. He silently chuckled to himself. He had been canned. It was an oddly liberating experience. The major breakthroughs were made because of him, yet it was he who was heading out the door. Tending to be a bit of a lone wolf he usually kept his ideas to himself until he worked out all of the bugs and kinks. And because of that tendency he had a few more tricks up his sleeve. With his box full of all the stuff that really mattered he started heading out of the office whistling on the way. It was going to be a good day.

Passing through Jim saw through the large window in the hall where the showroom lab was set up. Right now he could see Charlotte schmoozing with the investor while the demonstration was being worked on by her subordinates. The observatory that overlooked the lab was slightly elevated. Charlotte loved that damn place, let her look down her nose at everyone. Jim was a little surprised he wasn't being ushered out by some big goons. They had plenty of security personnel but it might have slipped her mind when she got ambushed with this demonstration request. Technically it was a request but when it came from the people supplying the money, it was actually a demand. With box in hand he figured he might as well see the fruits of his work in action. He gazed through the hallway window as everything was being set up. Well, at least the old version. That made him mentally chuckle, if only they knew what he had been working on.

Charlotte called down "How is everything? Is it ready?"

Terry the stooge, at least in Jim's opinion, called up "Yes! Everything is good to go!"

Jim really hated the guy. Not an original bone in the guy's body. Might as well have been a parrot, he just repeated what others said. Annoying fellow.

A blindfolded man was sitting in a comfortable chair and had on what he dubbed “The helmet”.

Other people referred to it annoyingly as a Neural Interface Signaling and Receiving device but his insistence on calling it a helmet seemed to have won out. Some people tried calling it a”NISARD” but it sounded ridiculous and was laughed at. Whenever it was said Jim would coughed and under his breath say “is a tard” quickly. That seemed to quash the term. Score one for Jim. Signals could be sent and received through the device and currently the wires were connected to a computer which had its image transposed on a large screen in the back.

The man sitting in the chair was a younger man in an expensive suit, so that obviously made him an assistant to the investors. He would be the neutral test subject to ensure the demonstration wasn't staged. Jim thought it was incredibly dumb to send an assistant and not do it yourself. Seemed really sloppy, but the investor probably saw putting on a weird helmet beneath his dignity. Utter nonsense in Jim's opinion. How can you accurately judge the worth of something from a secondhand account?

On the massive display was a still picture of a tiny bunny in a cup. It was so cute. Jim had a weakness towards cute things. It was his kryptonite. Especially baby animals. Distractedly Jim looked at the picture instead of the people running the demonstration.

The investors in the elevated room seemed to be a little confused and that caused Charlotte it clear her throat while glaring down at Terry. He finally got the point and started the presentation.

Terry said “This is what the team likes to call a “NISARD”. It stands for Neural Interface Signaling and Receiving Device. Currently we can send and receive pictures directly to the brain. Soon we expect we can do much, much more! As you can see the subject is blindfolded and facing away from any of the monitors. It is impossible for him to see anything right now.”

The athletic man in the tailored suit interrupted and said “My name is not subject. It's Donald.”

Terry took a second and corrected himself “The subject Donald can not”

Donald interrupted again and said “It's Donald. Not subject Donald. Just Donald”

Charlotte got on the microphone that was connected to the upper room and said “Can the subject please stop interrupting. You are wasting important people's time.”

Terry said a bit smugly this time “The subject will be given images passed through our device and directly into his mind. We are about to send the first picture over.”

Jim hated to see that. It was one of the reasons he really disliked the man. Terry addressed anyone less important by job title and not their names. A few people told him stories about working with the man for years yet were always addressed as “lab technician” or “assistant”.

And even worse is that the guy is still calling the helmet a “NISARD”. Literally no one else called it that. Maybe if it takes off someone could dub it “The Terry Tard Device”. It only represented a shadow of what he could do with the device. He had a lot of time on his hands now, he could make it happen.

Terry gestured to a person manning the computer that caused the tech to do a couple mouse clicks followed by a thumbs up.

The man in the chair gasped and said “I can see a baby bunny in a cup!”

Terry said smugly “Very good subject. As you can see there is no possible way for the subject to see this image. Not only is the subject not a member of our team but he is blindfolded. Even if he was not he would not be able to see the image from where he is. To remove all doubt we will continue, next image!”

The next picture was a group of ducklings following their mother. The man promptly said that he saw the ducks following their mother. This continued for a few more pictures and then Terry said “We can also pull images from the mind with this device. Subject, please think of a picture and we will tell you what we see.”

Soon the monitor was filled with a scantily clad beautiful woman. Oblivious Terry asked “Are you thinking of a small brunet woman in lingerie?”

Jim could see in the image there was a diamond ring on the woman's left ring finger. He could also see that the man being tested also had a wedding band. Oh boy this was going to be fun! Donald tore off his blindfold and stood up to see the picture being displayed behind him. From the anger glowing off the man he was obviously looking at his wife. His wife which was now being displayed to an entire room technicians and his work colleagues. He slowly turned back and was looking daggers at Terry. Soon the image on the large screen changed and was displaying Donald choking Terry with his hands around his neck. The next image that flashed on the large display was Terry’s crumpled dead body on the lab floor. The image looked cartoonishly proportioned with his completely crushed neck. Terry looked up at the large screen and went pale. A few people rushed in and restrained Donald while Terry ran away. Someone must have hit something because soon a conversation could now be heard over the speaker.

The investor’s voice could be heard asking “So far it has only been pictures. What else can it do?”

Charlotte responded a bit nervously and said "Just pictures right now, but soon hopefully we can get full streams of video and full sensation soon".

The investor looked at Charlotte and with a blank stare and asked "Why would people buy this when I can get pictures just find on my damn iPhone. Do you have any idea what this costs? We have spent a lot of money on this and we need to know how we will get a return on our investment. So far all I have seen is a neat party trick. An impressive party trick, but that won't pay the bills. You have one week to produce a satisfactory report on how we can market this in its current state or satisfactory progress on something that can be marketable. We can not continue spending this much with no plan on how to recoup the losses. You have my number. Good day.”

The look of stunned disbelief on Charlotte’s face was priceless! Jim couldn't help it, he burst out laughing. Charlotte saw him with his box and gave him a furious glare. That only made it more funny. Man things were looking up! Chuckling with a huge grin on his face he exited the 3D Tech building with a little bit more than he should have.

Jim got home with his trusty box and laid out the contents on his floor. One helmet, one PC and finally his new toy. He actually made a number of breakthroughs but he could see what way the wind was blowing and kept them to himself. Instead of just still images he could see full streams of video, not only that but he located all the sectors of the brain for sound, touch, smell and even taste. In addition he made the discovery of a lifetime. He figured out how to install software inside of his own head. That was what his final toy did that he “borrowed” from the company. Of course they had no idea what it did. The possibilities were limitless! But he already had a possibility he wanted to explore, and it should be a hell of a lot of fun!

One of his favorite games when he was a kid was Final Fantastic 3. It was an old style 16 bit top down RPG. Your characters were all pixelated messes and you navigated through the 2D world and leveled up and found weapons and fought monsters. Entire cities were represented by small little tiles you could walk on and then it would expand to a full town. His young mind was so impressed at this pixelated world that was all interconnected together. It had heroes and villains and everything in between. And if everything worked out how he expected, he would be playing a massively updated version of it! He had all the elements to make it happen, he just had to put them together.

The hardest part was creating the software that would convert 2D pixel objects into real life looking things. One thing that he found interesting about the human mind was the massive processing power. He ran a couple tests and all of them indicated the potential processing power was literally off the charts. So instead rebuilding the world by hand which would have taken years he just created a little program. The program would interact with the game’s original files and try to create an accurate representation of the world. He uploaded a number of databases including a ton of pictures of architecture and people for his program to fill in the blanks from. In theory the program should draw from the database and look for images that seem to match the best. Then it would construct them in a 3D space. Jim wanted it to be as lifelike as possible so he also included many scientific databases as well as databases from other games just to spice it up.

Jim put the helmet on and connected everything up. With his new toy he uploaded the databases as well as the little program that would create a modern replica of the FF3 world in his mind. Hitting the start button on his little program he sat back and hoped for the best. Ether he would be playing a kick ass version of FF3 or else he was about to become a vegetable man.

He anxiously waited as his program worked. There were no progress bars to tell him how long it would take to install. There was just an icon that would show it was still working. Jim didn’t think he would look at the term “Blue Screen of Death” the same way anymore. What the hell would happen to him if he blue screened his brain? It took a little over an hour but finally a prompt popped up!

Successful Installation of FF3! Would you like to play? Y/N

He grinned maniacally as he hit the yes button. Soon all his five senses faded away as they were connected into the game.