Images began appearing … if you could call them that. Swirls of color like on the surface of a bubble, but more saturated and variable and vibrant. They escalated in complexity, from simple food coloring in milk to dramatic sweeping loops and twists in three dimensions. Of course, I couldn’t really see them that well because I was staring at the crosshairs, trying hard not to look away and follow the shapes.

And then, suddenly, the shapes disappeared and I was in an empty field of perfect white nothingness, but it wasn’t VR anymore.

I couldn’t hear anything, or feel anything, or sense anything. The pressure of my back against the chair had vanished. The feeling of wearing the VR rig was gone. My tongue in my mouth, the air on my skin, the breath in my lungs—nothing. My mind was there, though, and it was starting to panic. There was nothing to latch onto. Mind without body. Mind without body!

“You’re now in the Altus Space.” Dr. Claire Rhode’s voice suddenly existed, and it rang clear and true without the reverb of the room.

“Many people find this very disorienting or even upsetting. You may feel like you are going to be stuck here. Rest assured, you are not.” Her tone was strong and calm, like a meditation app. “Your bodies are right here with me. I can see them. No one has ever gotten stuck in the Altus Space. It is impossible to get stuck in the Altus Space. If you want to leave the Space, all you have to do is say ‘Exit.’

“We are now going to introduce objects to the Space.”

Ahead of me, a table appeared. It did not look like a VR table. It looked like a table.

“OK, everything has gone according to plan,” Dr. Rhode’s voice said. “Now we will give you a body. If you experience any negative sensation, remember, all you have to do is say ‘Exit.’ ”

Suddenly, weight returned to my limbs. I looked down and saw myself. Nude. “Can I have some clothes?” I asked, but she did not respond.

“Please remain calm. If you are experiencing a negative sensation, please just say ‘Exit.’ ” Her voice sounded less calm. I was not experiencing what I would call a negative sensation. I just felt slightly cold and very naked.

“OK. Well.” She was definitely less calm now. “We’re going to have to take a break. I’m bringing you out of the Space now.”

With the softest blink, I was back in the chair with my black-target-on-white-background VR headset on. I have absolutely nothing I can compare this sensation to. Teleportation, I guess, though that is also not something you’ve experienced.

As my mind realized it was back in the real world, it identified a noise—a kind of gasping weeping. I tore off my headset and blood pressure cuff and ran over to Paxton, who was sitting with his legs hanging over the chair, looking down at a pile of vomit.

Dr. Rhode held me back as she knelt down to Paxton, talking to him softly: “Sometimes the body still does not mesh correctly with the consciousness’s position, and it is extremely unsettling. It is rare, but it does happen.”

“What do you mean, ‘it’s unsettling’?” I asked, wanting more data.

She ignored me.

“Paxton, what you saw and felt was not real. You’ll be fine. You still have a job here. It’s no reflection on you. You have seen how powerful Altus is, and that is all the demo space is for.”

I came up and took his arm, but he ripped it away from me. “Paxton, it’s OK. God, I’m so sorry. There’s nothing to be ashamed of.”

I turned back to look at Sid, who was green. I was too, probably. Sid whispered to me, “It’s not just what happened, we were talking to some guys last night. Anyone who has this happen never gets in. It will happen every time he tries again. People here have names for people who can’t go in.”

Of course they did.

“I’m so sorry to the two of you as well,” Dr. Rhode said. “It’s usually a magical experience. I keep telling them that we need to do this one at a time, but there just isn’t enough staff time to run single sessions. Nonetheless, you all know now what—”

“Can you not tell them?” Peanut said, still shaking with the rush of the experience.

“What?” Sid asked.

“Can we just make out like it went fine for us all, like we had an amazing time. It was amazing. It was so amazing …” And then a wave of shaking hit him and he closed his eyes tight.

“I have to log it, but those reports are confidential, only for senior and medical staff,” Dr. Rhode said.

“Yeah,” I said. “Of course. We all had a great first experience in the Altus Space. Let’s take a little more time. We can just hang in our recliners for a while, yeah, Dr. Rhode?”

“Sure, we were scheduled in this room for another fifteen minutes.”

When our fifteen minutes were up and Peanut was looking a little more solid, Dr. Rhode opened the door and we all left, trying to look as happy and inspired as possible. I’d expected to go back to performing for Har and Marigold, but instead, my day got even weirder.

Sippy and Peanut froze in their tracks, and I suppose I did too because Peter Petrawicki was sitting in the hall looking up at us.

Oh fuck, I thought. I’d snuck in, and he’d found out. But too late. I’d seen it. He couldn’t take that away from me now.

“Mr. Petrawicki,” Sippy enthused. “This is amazing. I mean, it’s earth-shattering.” Petrawicki nodded. Sippy continued, “I need to know more right now. Who is going to tell us more!”

Peanut’s eyes shifted. He was smiling like he was excited, but his eyes kept creeping back to the floor.

“You two are going to continue your orientation. Miranda here, or should I say Diggles”—he smiled—“is going to come with me.”

I tried to control my breathing as I walked behind Peter toward a staircase. I was thinking, How possible is it that these people, who are doing something so gigantic that taking any risks with the knowledge of it is an existential threat, are going to actually literally murder me right now?

I decided, very firmly, that I needed to say absolutely nothing. We went into Peter’s big corner office. He sat on a couch and gestured me to the plush red chair next to it.

“I’m sorry about your friend.”

“How did you hear about that?” I blurted.

“I didn’t hear, it’s easy to spot. We call it body dislocation. It is uncommon, but seems to be completely random. I’m sure Dr. Rhode will have a full report for me. I have heard it is a truly unpleasant experience.”

“What causes it?”

He looked down at the table for a while, thinking.

“It’s complicated. I don’t think anyone really understands it completely, but the only reason Altus’s software works is that our minds fill in a tremendous amount of detail, even in normal IRL environments. We don’t have to physically model your entire body, we have to tell your brain that your conscious mind inhabits your body. If we do it correctly, the consciousness snaps straight into the body and you get to exist in your body in the Altus Space. When it feels as real as the Space, the mind provides the detail in much the way it would in a dream.”

I wanted so badly to ask him how any of this was working at all, but I also didn’t want to do anything he would see as threatening, so I just let him keep talking.