![magic lines around the world magic lines around the world](https://www.magiclinesjd.org/img/21/slider_ML_21v2_es.jpg)
This, of course, is one of the great promises of artificial reality-either you get teleported to magical places or magical things get teleported to you. If I reposition my head just so, I can get the virtual drone to line up in front of a bright office lamp and perceive that it is faintly transparent, but that hint does not impede the strong sense of it being present.
![magic lines around the world magic lines around the world](https://ae01.alicdn.com/kf/Ha0ead28469264587a933cc992fb686f0P/The-Magic-of-Lines-Black-and-White-Line-Drawing-Technique-Book-Ancient-Beauty-Line-Pencil-Sketch.jpg)
It is a virtual object, but there is no evidence of pixels or digital artifacts in its three-dimensional fullness. Intellectually, I know this drone is an elaborate simulation, but as far as my eyes are concerned it’s really there, in that ordinary office. I’m seeing all this through a synthetic-reality headset. It looks as real as the lamps and computer monitors around it. All the while it hums and slowly rotates above a desk. I step back across the room to view it from afar. I can see polishing swirls where the metallic surface was “milled.” When I raise a hand, it approaches and extends a glowing appendage to touch my fingertip.
![magic lines around the world magic lines around the world](https://hips.hearstapps.com/hmg-prod.s3.amazonaws.com/images/santaquotes11-1575478652.jpg)
Bending closer, I bring my face to within inches of it to inspect its tiny pipes and protruding armatures. I can squat to look at its ornate underside. I can walk around it and examine it from any angle. Inside, amid the low gray cubicles, clustered desks, and empty swivel chairs, an impossible 8-inch robot drone from an alien planet hovers chest-high in front of a row of potted plants. There is something special happening in a generic office park in an uninspiring suburb near Fort Lauderdale, Florida.