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away—no, not walking. Gliding? Yes, gliding. Now turning to smile at the camera. Suddenly, the image became sharp. It was a young girl, a child maybe six or seven with long blonde hair. She was smiling at the camera while waving and talking, although there was no sound. Ben thought she looked familiar, but then again, all cute little blonde children looked alike to him.
    Suddenly the camera veered to the right, and in a flash, the scene cleared, and focus and clarity popped in great detail. It was a roller skating rink with people skating in circles. Only the people now were fuzzy and stick-like. The shiny pine-colored rink, the bright blue and red waist-high wall that encircled the rink, and the rotating disco ball flashing different colors and casting them about the room in a circling array—those colors were vivid, in amazing clarity and detail.
    The scene seemed limited by the resolution of the monitor. Ben could practically hear “YMCA” playing in the background. It looked identical to the roller skating rink his parents took him to as a boy. The colors coalesced with such force, the room so realistic and nearly three-dimensional, that a spike of pleasure—a sudden release of endorphins and adrenaline—went off in Ben’s brain, trailing down his spine in a shiver. The hairs on his skin stood on end.
    The camera swung back to the blonde child, skating away on small uncertain legs, her arms stretched out from her body like a tightrope walker. The hand of the camera operator waved to the little girl. She turned again to face the camera, only her face had become blurred, the features no longer crisp.
    “What is this?” Ben asked.
    Dr. Wulfric paused stroking his beard. “Just keep watching.”
    The scene disintegrated into a swirl of pixelated color. It reminded Ben of one of his aura migraines. Images resembling buildings and people appeared among the swirling sea of pixilation, only to drown back down in the tide of colored noise.
    “Just a moment,” Dr. Wulfric said, using a swivel knob on the keyboard to fast-forward the scene. He stopped as the images cleared to what looked like mountains; only they were very blurry. Then the image again snapped into unimaginable clarity, the brightness of which startled and entranced Ben. His brain let loose a sense of euphoria that swept through his body. The camera was high in the air—in an airplane or helicopter—flying above a colorful mountain range or deep valley, perhaps the Grand Canyon. Ben didn’t know.
    “It’s beautiful,” Ben said. “Is that the Grand Canyon?”
    “I’m not sure.”
    Patches of brush in the far distance appeared in such detail that Ben doubted that he’d be able to see it any clearer if he were there himself.
    Suddenly the camera dropped, diving straight into a massive gorge. The plane barreled down, and then quickly leveled itself, going faster and faster—like a jet. Ben felt his stomach lurch as the camera swung straight up, hugging the wall of the canyon. It was so close to the rocky edge that whatever aircraft was taking these pictures was in serious danger of crashing into the wall. Flashes of dark brown, yellow, and orange whizzed past the screen at amazing speed, yet the image was never blurred; only his eyes couldn’t process the speed in which they were passing. When Ben blinked and held his eyes shut, the exact image of whatever was flashing by on the screen stayed in his mind like a photograph—no streaking or blurring whatsoever. It was so fast—too fast. The scene swooped down and back up through the valleys and gorges, in unbelievable detail.
    Ben’s mind whirled. Dr. Wulfric hit a button and the screen went black. Ben shuttered his eyes, letting his brain rest.
    “So, what did you think of my video?” Dr. Wulfric asked.
    “I don’t know. Those colors … I’ve never seen colors that vivid on a TV screen. What is this, some new high-def system you’re testing?”
    “Not exactly.” He chuckled. “The