Janelle and Molly had become close friends in college although they had rather different life paths. Janelle had become an artist although her degree was in history. She was lucky in that her family was well off and able to help her while she worked her way up in the very chancy world of fine art. Now, eight years after graduation her painting were selling for several thousand dollars.
Molly, on the other hand had become an engineer working in the field of cybernetics, the practical science of the human machine interface. Her most well known accomplishment since she obtained her masters were some of the first baby steps toward being able to make artificial limbs that responded directly to the brain of the wearer.
Even after college and with their busy lives, the two had remained close friends and made time to spend with one another on a regular basis having girls nights with other friends at least once a month and daily contact in social media. When they were out together they received a good amount of male attention, both being quite attractive.
Janelle was the taller of the two, curvy with reddish blond hair that she wore long, well past her shoulders and striking blue eyes. Many who met her would allow their eyes to linger a trifle too long on her generous bosom. It never bothered her if it wasn't too long. She kept in good shape at the gym and her efforts showed in her long, firmly muscled legs. She enjoyed wearing short skirts when the occasion arose and enjoyed equally the consequent attention. Although she had a quiet, thoughtful nature, she laughed easily. It was far from a light girlish sound, but rather a raucous cackle that turned heads in the room and when those heads turned, many would pause to admire.
Molly was shorter by several inches with dark brown hair and lighter brown eyes, a snub nose and generous lips. Her figure, while more slender than Janelle's, was quite pleasing. Small, very firm breasts of which she was justly proud never required the support of a bra. Her somewhat larger than average bottom, which she herself was a bit insecure about never seemed to bother any of the men who had passed through her life, quite the contrary in fact. When the two were together at a bar or a club sooner or later the male eyes in the room would drift their way.
Molly had married straight out of college, a union that lasted only two years. Recently she had been in a relationship with a doctor named Jeff that had moved neither forward nor backward in almost a year. Janelle remained single and had been very sexually active while in school, but since graduating had become more serious and focused on her art. She had a few boyfriends along the way, but she wasn't really seeking a life partner.
These two women had lives that were both comfortable and accomplished and their friendship ran deep. It was speculated by some, particularly male acquaintances, that they had "experimented" while in college, but that was not true. The physicality of their relationship had never gone beyond the occasional hug or peck on the cheek. Both women were quite thoroughly heterosexual.
One day in early Spring, the girls night was just the two of them dining together at Molly's place. Neither were especially good cooks so they had ordered out for Chinese. After dinner over wine they were discussing various things in their lives. Janelle noticed that Molly hadn't said much about her work in a few months. "How goes the research and development?" she asked.
Molly looked briefly downward. "Um, I guess I can tell you, but you have to keep it to yourself."
"This sounds like it must be pretty interesting. Tell, tell!"
"Ok, so as you know I work with prosthetics. Lately The team has been trying to work out a full active body suit for quadriplegics. We want to get people who are paralyzed from the neck down to be able to move through the world normally and even restore some of their sense of touch. A large part of that involves identifying pathways in the brain related to the senses. Six weeks ago I found something in the data that we had been taking from the brains of various volunteers, some paralyzed, some not. It was all numeric data, nothing that you would find exciting, mostly useful is assigning feedback values between devices and users, right? Anyway I was working with a few of these files, applying various experimental algorithms and with one the data stream looked really different. So we use these electrode arrays to feed information back to the brain of a user. Eventually when we have it all worked out, they will become permanent brain implants, but during R & D, we use skin contact electrodes. I decided to put on a headset and see what the data stream felt like. I have done it before, tried out moving an artificial arm. It usually feels like tiny electric shocks, little buzzy sensations really, in your muscles. Nothing really spectacular. To say the least, this was really different. It was a stream from my assistant, Jeet."
Janelle had met Jeet Gupta several times. He was short but very handsome with, jet black hair, brown skin a charming accent and a winning smile. It was frankly a mystery to her how Molly kept her hands off of him. She guessed that she was faithful to Jeff.
Molly continued. "I was shocked to find myself seeing through his eyes, hearing through his ears. I felt it when he picked up various objects. I saw myself through his eyes as I directed him to perform various motions. I could feel everything he felt, a slight itch in his lower back, his tongue as he licked his lips, the lingering taste of his coffee, everything!"
"Wow! How could that happen?"
"It is right there in the data we have been collecting all along, we just had not been interpreting it in a way that could be fed back to the brain before. We had no idea that there even was a way to do it!"
"That's amazing! How will it apply to your work?"
"There is no obvious direct application to prosthetics. Um, look, I haven't spoken to anyone about this except Jeet because I needed him to run a few experiments. I'm thinking that I may try to take this away on my own. It's big, maybe Nobel prize big, maybe billion dollar big!"
Janelle was riveted. "What was the experiment?"
"I would rather show you than tell you."
Molly's home office was jammed with computers, mostly older, but tweaked to high efficiency. Janelle had been in there before, but now there was something new. It was like a dentist's chair. Above it hung a plastic sort of cap with many wires attached to it. Molly placed a towel in the seat, then she turned to Janelle. "You're going to want to get naked for this."
Janelle blushed. "Seriously? Why?"
"Just trust me."
Janelle removed her clothing neatly folding everything over the back of Molly's office chair. She sat down and Molly affixed the electrode array to her head. "It will work better if you close your eyes." She said and Janelle obediently closed them. She heard a few taps on a keyboard and then...
