"Can we have a demonstration of it Spike?" asked Roger.

"Uh... sure. Let me get this going... I'm using a conservative businessman image model, 40 years old, slightly graying hair. Here we go. What do you think?"

The SGI's monitor displayed a new open window. In it was a photographic quality image that was being repainted eight times per second. Spike showed off the three dimensional effects by rotating the image horizontally.

"As you can see, my speech is tied into the model image generation," Spike said. As I generate the voice sounds, the mouth and face are roughly matched to the required human action. It's actually being driven off a library of correlated phonetics and speech mechanics. I just do a series of small area morphs from one approximated shape to the next and display the current values of the image at the desired frame rate. The point is that the model manipulation program doesn't need to model true action for speech emulation, it just has to hit the big change points and let the morphing subroutines do the blending from one to the next. You wouldn't want to try to learn lipreading this way, but it should work for video calls. I also have a few hand gestures built into the modeler. Some nose scratching and chin rubbing, that kind of stuff. I can even drop in a background and a foreground from a small set of images. The backgrounds just sit there and the foregrounds are just overlays to the rest of the animated image generation so they don't take any effort at all. See, I can be at a desk, a podium, a conference table, or a picnic table. I can have Manhattan, San Francisco, or an ocean coastline out the windows behind me. What do you think?"

"Spike, it looks great. I'm sure it'll fool Lexicon," said Roger. "Can you use anyone for the model?"

"All I need is a set of photographic image files that give me the basics of the subject from each direction and a few more that give the range of movement data for facial and head motions. I can add those in myself for limbs and digits since in those cases range of movement is really just a matter of geometry determined by lengths."

"Very impressive Spike," added Nancy. "Now Roger you're going to try with Brooks, right? Have you thought about your plan there?"

"Yeah, I'm going to tail him after work today and see where he might stop that I can 'accidentally' meet him. A bar, a restaurant, anyplace like that. I'll have a few different sets of clothes with me so that I can blend in wherever he goes. I'm going to ask him for a job. I'll tell him how hard things have been for me lately. See if he goes for it. I'm going to head down there now. I've got some stuff to buy and then I'm just going to park myself outside Lexicon Industries and wait for him. I'll have my cellular with me so you can call if you need me."

"We will Roger. We'll let you know how Spike's video call goes. You keep us updated on where you follow Hank to just in case you get in trouble and need help."

"I'll call every hour or so," he said as he left Nancy's office.



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