Free Set This House in Order by Matt Ruff

but they can still be a bit claustrophobic at first, before the power is switched on—like heavy blindfolds with cables attached. As Irwin adjusted the strap on the back of my headset, I could hear Julie crooning, “Relax, Mouse. It’ll only be dark for a second.”
    Irwin plugged my headset into the network and turned it on. A 3-D test pattern appeared in front of my eyes. Dennis ran a sound check: an invisible locomotive rumbled past my left ear, then past my right ear, then past both ears at once. I gave Dennis a thumbs-up.
    â€œAll right,” said Dennis. “Here we go…” As he tapped out a last sequence on his keyboard, I crooked my index and middle fingers in the data glove, bending them like the legs of a sitting man.
    The test pattern dissolved into a first-person view of the Eidolon universe, which in this demo consisted of a giant ballroom with a white-and-black checkerboard floor, ringed by blue marble pillars. The ballroom had no walls or ceiling; the checkerboard floated in a void that started out dull red but would grow brighter, shifting color like a sunrise, as the demo progressed.
    I panned my head down and examined my “self”: not my real self but my Eidolon self, a mannequin figure in a cartoon wheelchair. The illusion was surprisingly convincing, and would have been even more so if I hadn’t felt my real legs to be in a slightly different position than those of the mannequin. I made a flicking motion with my index finger; while my real leg stayed put, Eidolon Andrew swung his left foot forward, proving that he wasn’t such a cripple after all.
    I looked up and saw Eidolon Penny facing me across the dance floor. Eidolon Penny was taller than real-world Penny: she had thicker arms and legs, a larger frame, and much bigger breasts; her face was a texture-map of some swimsuit model’s face that Dennis had scanned into the computer, with an expression that never changed. But while she might not look like the real Penny, she moved like her: shifting uncomfortably from foot to foot, crossing and uncrossing her arms, glancing back over her shoulder as if she expected a monster to materialize behind her at any moment.
    The music started. The song was Lyle Lovett’s “The Waltzing Fool,” a slow piano-and-guitar ballad that I really liked even if it was a little sad. Asthe first strains sounded, I straightened out my index and middle fingers; in the real world I remained seated in the wheelchair, but in the Eidolon universe, Eidolon Andrew stood tall on two good legs. I twisted my hand counterclockwise and swung my index finger to the side; Eidolon Andrew turned halfway around and kicked out at his wheelchair, which shattered, morphing into a flock of doves that flew up into the air and began circling the ballroom, weaving between the marble pillars. I twisted my hand clockwise, curled my thumb in front of my index finger, and dipped my hand forward; Eidolon Andrew turned back towards Eidolon Penny, crossed his left arm in front of his waist, and bowed.
    Eidolon Andrew was careful to keep his distance from Eidolon Penny. If I had approached her, there was a subroutine in the demo that would have allowed our two eidolons to actually join hands and dance together, but unless we simultaneously touched in the real world, we wouldn’t have felt any contact—and embracing someone you can see but not feel is a very disorienting experience, one that I thought would probably freak Penny out completely. So I stayed back, and just air-danced with her: Eidolon Andrew stretched his right arm out to the side, kept his left arm curled in front of him, and swayed in time to the music. Eidolon Penny swayed too, but she wouldn’t raise her arms, and she kept looking up nervously to see what the doves were doing.
    Then Dennis’s voice cut in over the headset speakers, saying, “This song is bo-o-oring!” and Lyle Lovett’s soft ballad was