‘He knelt and opened the case. The interior was padded with blocks of foam. He extracted something that she at first mistook for a welder’s protective mask. “Put this on.” He handed it to her.

A padded headband, with a sort of visor. “Virtual reality?” She hadn’t heard the term spoken aloud in years, she thought, as she pronounced it.

“The hardware lags behind,” he said. “At least the kind I can afford.” He took a laptop from the case and opened it, powering it up.’

— William Gibson, 2007, Spook Country (London: Penguin Books), p. 7.