Trafika Europe 14 - Italian Piazza

The Man at One Kelvin Degrees “Why don’t you get down on the dance floor?” “Take it easy, captain,” he replied, “I have to see what this lady has in mind, or we’ll make a mess of things.” Athos wasn’t the only bystander. Many other avatars had distributed themselves around the edge of the dance floor, as if merely to observe. In an oddly symmetrical arrangement, the veiled dame stood in the middle, simply accompanying the music with rhythmic movements of her head; all around her, some thirty avatars danced in a circle, surrounded by the crowd of onlookers. Occasionally, one of the dancers would withdraw to the edge, and be quickly replaced by another. This routine was slowly defining the scene. To begin with, the dance had been entirely anarchic, but within a fewminutes movements became synchronous, as if avatars leaving the dance floor had obeyed some hidden command. I appreciated Silver ’s sagacity: it was better to try and make sense of all this. Meanwhile, we might as well have a good look round. I must admit that I found the onlookers much more interesting than the dancers. Several couples, like Athos and myself, were standing on the side. Not that this meant anything: with this technology, avatar couples could communicate regardless of distance or of background noise. Yet 3DWeb psychologists had noticed that, in situations of this sort, people tended to stay near someone they wanted to talk to

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