ARC Testing

[Miss Blonde]

"So you're sure this won't burn my eyes off?" Patricia said to one of her egg head Scientists who worked at the Stargo Defense Enterprises factory on Antecedent.

"Yes, quite sure ma'am. We spent a good amount of money developing it so we no one could sue our balls to the wall." The egghead scientist replied to her.

"There's a hydrogel polymer coating the backside of the electronics. It's more than thick enough to withstand any small sparks. Besides the parts are too small to even spark up in the first place." The scientist added with a smug smile.

Patricia sighed in somewhat relief and knew this was going to be an interesting experience. She had always loved using HUDs but generally hated using armor. Now she could enjoy that without the need of wearing it.

So she looked down at the small box that contained two pairs of the technological, contacts and shrugged. If the egg heads said they were safe then she wouldn't mind being the first Red Raven to test the lenses.

"Just put them on and I will walk you through the process ma'am." The scientist said and Patricia took a deep breath. This was it.

 

[Miss Blonde]

Grabbing the box Patricia opened it and looked down to see the eye pieces. They looked like normal contact lenses but with some metal attached to them. Hell they looked like a Halloween prop if anything.

"This is it? Really? Five thousand credits for these?" Patricia said scoffing as she was unimpressed with what was presented to her.

"Just put them on ma'am." The scientist said and sighed afterwards in almost an annoying tone. He really had better things to be doing on the weekend.

"Alright fine!" Patricia exclaimed then gently picked up tbd first lens with the tip of her finger.

Stretching her eyelid she gently placed the first one down over her eye then blinked a few times to settle it. She looked through it and it just seemed like a bunch of shadows were obscuring her vision in blotches.

"Damn thing doesn't work!" She shouted and looked to the scientist who had a very straight and annoyed look on his face.

"One, it isn't on. Two, you should have both in." The man said in a deadpan voice.

"Oh yeah." Patricia said then repeated the process of putting on the second contact.

"Their on." She said to the egghead

 

[Miss Blonde]

Once both contacts were in Patricia saw dark blotches through her vision that were hazy and hard to see through. She batted her eyes a bit then shook her head to try and see clearly.

"Stay calm, just wait till we turn them on." The scientist said with a amused smile. It was like watching a puppy trying to fight it's way out of a sock.

"How do they feel?" The man asked in his professional voice that sounded genuinely curious.

Patricia paused and took a good feel, and well. She could barely feel anything. The contacts felt like they were barely even there, they were comfortable and they didn't have the weight she was expecting. She could tell they were there but she knew in a few minutes her mind would just process them out and completely forget about the weight.

"They feel good, I don't really feel much of anything. Nice and comfy" she said and looked around.

"Are you ready to turn them on?" The man asked kindly.

Patricia took a deep breath then nodded her head, might as well right? She came this far with it might as well go the whole way.

"Im ready." She said softly

 

[Miss Blonde]

The scientist nodded and looked over to the blonde woman. It was about time to get started, he thought hopefully the woman freak out at the sight of the future.

"Alright, all you need to do is say. ARC on." The man said quietly and stepped over to the right a bit.

Patricia nodded and followed the man's directions, taking one last breath she scratched her head hoped this wasn't going to fry her eyeballs.

"ARC, On." Patricia said and soon there was a flickering light and those hazy patches simply vanished and everything was clear.

After a moment a logo of SDE went up in her vision and it began to boot up. The woman took a quick step back and rattled a table slightly. That was weird.

"Okay it's booting up, so far so good." Patricia said softly and put her hand on the table behind her.

"Alright, you're going to hit a set up screen now where you can choose three settings. Military, Civilian, or custom. You are going to say civilian. Military basically just gives you more access to maps and data and let's you sync to your armor." Patricia nodded at the instructions the man gave.

And as he said a menu popped up and had the three choices. She assumed civilian was the standard default setting.

"Civilian." She said softly

 

[Miss Blonde]

Once selecting civilian it went into a mode where you basically had to set up an account, yadda yadda yadda, provide a holonet address. Patricia vocally imputed each step and soon she was signed up to handle what came next.

"Alright, don't be alarmed but basically what's going to happen is you will have to start setting up things like your social media, but It should be streaming information about what you see. Here look at me." The scientist said with a smile.

Patricia looked at the man and the camera went to work, it looked up and down at him and it highlighted his pair of ARCs. Her vision showed that he too was wearing a pair.

"Okay you see the send contact request to my pair? Just go ahead and send it and the lenses will scan my face so even if I don't have my ARCs on they will recognize me." The scientist said and smiled.

And as he said Patricia saw the contact request button and another option showed up to activate a keypad. She decided to ignore that.

"Send contact request." Patricia said and soon a zooming sound was heard through her earpiece and the man had accepted the contact.

Once he had information flooded the screen on the right hand side with his name Nick Walker, his birthdate, general things that he made available for his contacts to see.

"Alright we've exchanged info. Now I'm going to walk you through setting up your HUD." Nick said in a calm voice

 

[Miss Blonde]

The next few minutes were spent with Nick walking Patricia through setting up her dashboard, basic things like that. From weather to social media. She arranged all her business and personal numbers and contacts, her HUD had a pretty basic set up and she was ready to today her Spacebook at the drop of a dime.

"Alright, now let's walk you through the keyboard feature. Open up your social media." Nick said in a firm voice.

"Spacebook open." Patricia said and soon the program opened up to her homepage where she could type up a status update.

"Now say keyboard activate." The man said and stepped around him.

"Keyboard activate." Patricia said and soon an option came up where it said visible or non visible.

"Select visible, non visible will just be an image your contact let's you see." Nick said and Patricia nodded

"Visible." And with that a holographic keyboard entered reality through a tiny projector and she scrolled up and down the page using her hand as a mouse.

Tapping on the type box Patricia reached down and began to type a status update. Something about screwing Tuesdays. She was a classy lady.

"That wraps up the keyboard section. Now let's do some cool stuff." Nick said with a smile

 

[Miss Blonde]

Patricia looked up and saw the man was holding a few things on a tray. Placing it down she cocked her head and felt pretty curious about what was going to happen next.

"Alright this will be cool, just look at what you see." Patricia was tossed an apple and she quickly caught it.

Looking at it soon information began to show up. How many calories were in the fruit traditionally, what health benefits it had. Best locally grown apples. It was a stream of information that was pretty cool.

"That's pretty cool." Patricia said then looked over at the man taking a bite out of the apple then set it to the side.

"Alright now let's try this." The man reached behind him and grabbed snigger object.

It was a basic phrik fighting knife from Czerka. She grabbed it from him and the stream of information again popped up and showed her the make and model of the knife. Pretty much anything that she needed to know along with a few basic stabs and thrusts to the side.

"So it provides info on the weapon I'm holding? What about what my opponent is holding?" Patricia asked curiously

"Yes, the piece automatically scans what's in your hand. If you want to scan another object, just say ARC, scan so and so. And it will drag up whatever information the holonet has to offer." Patricia nodded and took that info in. It was pretty cool.

 

[Miss Blonde]

"What if I want to turn off all the streaming info?" The blonde asked and was starting to get a headache from all the info and data.

"Just say ARC standby." The egghead Nick said in a matter o fact tone.

"ARC standby." Patricia said softly and soon her vision just became normal. There was no streaming Info or social media. Just every day life.

Taking a sigh of relief she looked to the man Nick and smiled.

"These are pretty cool." She said in a happy and satisfied voice.

"Go for a walk, you can map out routes with it as well." Nick said and sat down in a swivel office chair.

"Alright, I think I will do that." Patricia said with a smile then walked towards the doors.

She quickly walked through them and soon hit the fresh air of the outside streets of antecedent. She took a deep breath of dirty city air then decided it was time to get this thing started.

"ARC activate." She said softly and soon the lenses flicked on once again

 

[Miss Blonde]

The eye pieces activated once more but she was not hit with a flood of information like she was expecting. She simply had her normal dashboard up and it would seem that the lenses wouldn't just scan anything unless her eyes were intently focusing on that object. This was good, Patricia really didn't feel like fighting off a migraine. Those were usually reserved for when Jarven brought home a stray cat for the fiftieth time.

So she stepped forward and proceeded down the street with a smile on her face, it was a good day and she had an awesome pair of lenses that totally weren't burning out her retinas.

As she shifted her head towards a nearby boutique window she looked at a dress firmly and soon the lenses went to work showing what that dress was made of what other shops sold it, how much it sold for. It was pretty great.

"Not today." She said then turned the information fading away with it.

Checking the weather it would rain soon so it was wise to get back home. The lenses were of course water proof and could handle it. She just didn't like the rain while wearing a short dress.

 

[Miss Blonde]

Patricia sighed and turned the corner, this was a good day. Looking ahead she could see a taxi was coming up, and since she didn't want to be caught in the rain she flagged down the cabbie. Once the man stopped she got into the back and told the man where to go.

"Thank you." She said in a kind voice. Thunder cracked and soon rain began to fall down on the speeder.

Looking around the speeder Patricia and them took off. The lenses put up a speedometer in the right hand corner of her vision to clock how fast they were going. Patricia giggled and snorted once.

"Man these things are great!" She said to which the canine made a few muffled sounds of intrigue before deciding to drop it.

The rest of the way home Patricia just surfed the holonet and smiled with a big grin of triumph on her face.