Free Extinction by Mark Alpert Page A

himself. A huge projection of Arvin’s face appeared on the video screen behind him. He pulled the camcorder closer and one of his eyes filled the screen. “I designed the system to be inconspicuous, so you wouldn’t normally notice this. But take a close look at the pupil of my eye as I increase the ambient lighting.”
    The spotlights on the stage intensified. On the screen, Arvin’s pupil constricted, and Jim saw a tiny flash of silver on the inside edge of his hazel iris. Then Arvin aimed the camcorder at his other eye and Jim saw a second, barely noticeable flash. A murmur rose from the crowd as they realized what they were seeing. Arvin had removed his natural corneas, irises, and lenses. He’d replaced them with miniature cameras.
    Jim was appalled. As far as he knew, there was nothing wrong with Arvin’s eyesight.
    “Putting the video cameras directly in the eyes has many advantages over wearing them in the glasses,” Arvin said. “With the glasses, you have to turn your head to focus on what you want to see. But the ocular camera moves along with the eye, turning effortlessly in its socket, thanks to the wonderful ocular muscles.”
    The crowd fell into an uneasy silence. Jim guessed that the other people in the audience were just as shocked as he was. Arvin had thrown away his natural eyesight to make this demonstration.
    “I know what you’re thinking,” Arvin said, still grinning. “Old man Conway is off his rocker, right? What kind of loon would blind himself just to get the attention of a few potential investors?” He chuckled, but no one else joined in. “My decision, though, was quite logical. In the past, the vision provided by our cameras and retinal implants was, at best, roughly equivalent to natural eyesight. But now, thanks to improvements in both the hardware and software, it’s far superior. Let me show you.”
    Stepping to the left side of the stage, he pulled a remote control from his pocket. A moment later, a short, squat robot on caterpillar treads rolled onstage from the right. It looked like a mobile end table. Resting on the robot’s flat top was a bottle of Chivas Regal, and extending from its side was a mechanical arm. This appendage, Jim noticed, had the same design as his Terminator prosthesis.
    “This is my delivery boy,” Arvin said. “His name is Robbie. He rolls into my lab every evening at six and brings me a scotch and soda. He also delivers my reading materials. Robbie, show the audience my favorite book.”
    The robot’s arm stretched toward its flat top and picked up a rectangular object lying next to the bottle of scotch. It was a thin, gray e-book reader. One of the mechanical fingers pressed the e-reader’s power button, and a book title appeared in big letters on the screen: I, ROBOT.
    Arvin smiled. “Can someone in the audience please call out a random number? Nothing higher than 3,493, please. The electronic book is divided into 3,493 locations.”
    Someone called out the number 2,583. The e-reader’s screen automatically turned to that page.
    “Now, can anyone read the words at the top of the page? Perhaps someone in front?”
    Jim was on the right side of the front row, less than fifteen feet from the e-reader, but even so, the text on the screen was much too small for him to read. Some of the people in his row leaned forward and squinted, but they couldn’t read it either.
    “No? Well, I’ll read it then.” Arvin paused for dramatic effect. He was all the way on the other side of the stage, at least twenty-five feet from the robot. He cleared his throat and began to read. “‘There’s just one more thing. You must make a special effort to answer simply. Have you been entirely clear about the interstellar jump?’”
    The crowd murmured in disbelief. Arvin smiled again. Then he shouted, “Robbie, throw!” and the mechanical arm hurled the e-reader across the stage. The thing pinwheeled straight at Arvin’s head, but the old man raised his