Read Interface for Free Online

single-typed command copied the files on to Ogle's hard drive.
    In the meantime, Ogle had already figured out what to do with the cable: he ran it from the back of the IMIPREM into the corresponding port on the laptop.
    "Okay. Ready to roll," Aaron said.
    Aaron unbuttoned his shirt cuff. He fished the plastic cuff out of the case and snapped it snugly around his exposed wrist.
    A ten-foot cable dangled from the cuff. Most of it was coiled up and held together by a plastic wire tie. Aaron plugged it into the back of the IMIPREM.
    A new window materialized on the screen of Ogle's computer. It was a moving, animated bar graph. Half a dozen colored bars, of different lengths, fluctuated up and down. At the base of each bar was a label:
     
    BP         RESP         TEMP         PERSP       PULS
    GSR         NEUR
    "It's monitoring my body right now. See, the bars stand for blood pressure, respiration, body temp, and a few other things. Of course, this is its most basic level of functioning, beyond this it's capable of an incredible number of different-"
    Ogle's hand slammed down on Aaron's shoulder and gripped him like a pair of barbecue tongs.
    "I'm an undercover agent for the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms," Cy Ogle said, "You're under arrest for conspiracy
    to commit terrorist acts on board an airliner. Don't move or you'll be shot!"
    "What!?" Aaron screamed.
    "Just kidding," Ogle said, "Haw, haw!"
    "He's right, look at the bars," the guard said.
    Blood pressure and just about everything else had suddenly shot way up. As they watched, and as Aaron calmed down, the bars subsided.
    "Thanks for the demonstration, sir, it was very interesting," the guard said. "Have a nice flight."
    Then Bristol turned to look down the concourse. Aaron and Ogle were both looking that way too; some kind of generalized disturbance seemed to have broken out. But it wasn't hooligans or terrorists. It was businessmen in suits, stampeding out of the bars and restaurants where they had been watching the President on TV. They ran down the concourse, knocking travelers and sky caps aside, and began to scuffle over the few available pay telephones.
    Ogle chuckled indulgently. "Looks like the President made a corker of a speech," he said. "Maybe we should hook you machine up to them."
    As it turned out, they were on the same flight, sitting across the aisle from each other in the first row of first class. Coach was full of shuffling grannies and beefy sailors; first class was mostly empty. Ogle worked on his computer for the first hour or so, whacking the keys so rapidly that it sounded like a hailstorm on the tray table, occasionally mumbling a good-natured "shit!" and doing it again.
    Aaron pulled a blank tablet of graph paper out of his briefcase, uncapped a pen, and stared at it until they were somewhere over Pittsburgh. Then it was dinnertime and he put it away. He was trying to organize his thoughts. But he didn't have any.
    After dinner, Ogle moved from the window to the aisle seat, right across from Aaron, and then startled Aaron a little by ordering them both drinks.
    "Big presentation," Ogle said.
    Aaron heaved a sigh and nodded.
    "You got some kind of small high-tech company."
    "Yeah."
    "You developed this thing, spent all your venture capital, prob ably maxed out your credit cars to boot, and now you got to make some money off it or your investors will cash you in."
    "Yeah, that's about right."
    "And the cash flow is killing you because all the parts that go into these things cost money, but you don't actually get paid for them until, what, thirty or sixty days after you ship 'em. If you're lucky."
    "Yeah, it's a problem all right," Aaron said. His face was getting red. This had started out interesting, gotten uncanny, and now it was starting to annoy him.
    "So, let's see. You're going to L.A. The big industry in L.A. is entertainment. You got a device that measures people's reactions to things. A people