Vegis took a 10 minute break before getting up and followed the new set of arrows. It was a short walk that just took him to a staircase and had him go 2 floors down. When he opened the door, the only objects he saw were just a chair in the middle with wires connected to 5 different androids. Each of them was doing a different task like running, stretch, and fighting. Tulip was standing next to the chair and seemingly doing some final checks on the equipment.
“Hi Tulip. Do I need to wait a little longer or are we ready to go?”(Vegis) “Oh, we’re ready for you to do this test. Do be warned, this is the most … overwhelming test. As you can see, you will need to sit down and be connected to these androids one by one to see how much you can handle right now. Right now, you will be capped at 7 clones if you handle all of these at once.”(Tulip) “Okay. Do I take a seat now.”(Vegis) “Yes”(Tulip)
Vegis walked to the chair and sat down. Waiting for something to happen, a stabbing pain came to the back of his head and torso, causing him to wince and let out a small groan. A couple of minutes passed and soon, information started to ooze into his head. Vegis was both running on a treadmill in front of the chair and in the chair at the same time. It felt confusing and strange. He could feel the movement of his legs and arms, but he wasn’t moving.
“Are you feeling any sharp headaches yet? And are you properly feeling the movements of the running android?”(Tulip) “Yeah. I am feeling it. No headaches just yet but it is a bit strange.”(Vegis) “That is a normal response. Tell me as soon as a painful headache sets in so I can pull you out before it gets dangerous.” Vegis gave a thumbs up and waited for the next connection to come. It took 10 minutes for this to happen, sending a jolt throughout Vegis’s body.
The senses he felt coming in was one of the 2 androids. These 2 seemed to be outfitted with pain receptors. Vegis could feel the punch to the jaw he just received, his hand striking true against the shoulder of his opponent. Pain splashed into him but the android pushed through and continued to fight. Vegis let out a groan but said, “Man, getting punched hurts a lot more than I remembered from the games.” Tulip responded with, “That is because most VR programs made for civilian use have sensory dampeners set to around 20% ppt (pain pass through) most of the time. Only specialty games with permissions from their local GRO (Game Regulation Organization) can get higher than 50% ppt and those are very rare and under constant scrutiny.”
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“I can see why. Jezz, this is very distracting.” Vegis said whilst scrunting his face from the pain. 10 more minutes passed before the 3rd connection happened. The android he had connected to this time was the one jumping to and from multiple high poles. This gave Vegis a sense of both balance and unbalance, like he was both going to fall and stay in place at once. 4 minutes passed before he got a splitting headache and told Tulip to take him out. Even when he was disconnected, Vegis could still feel the remnants of the unimaginable headache.
“Describe how the headache felt like to you Vegis.”(Tulip) “It felt as though my mind was being sand blasted by red hot iron filings. And there is now a strange pain that isn’t coming from my body. Like my very essence just got burned.”(Vegis) “That would be your soul being split too much for it to handle. The best analogy I got to explain it to you is that it is like a ball of nanobots you command to spread as much as possible, eventually, it will run out of extra bots but will still try to spread out and this will damage some of them.”(Tulip) Vegis nodded in understanding.
He then asked, “So, when do I get my results back so that I know what I am getting paid for?” to which Tulip responded with, “You will get your comprehensive results in 2 days, but I can give you my rough understanding of your results.” This caused Vegis to perk up and say, “Go on, I am interested.” Tulip then looked down at their clipboard and cleared their throats before speaking. “From the raw information and my understanding, you will likely receive 3 clones with mild augmentation based on the current ones you have plus an explosive device in their torso in case you need to sacrifice one of them. In addition to this, you will receive 4 back ups on hand for the area you will be sent to.”
It took Vegis some time to digest this. This was 4 times his last salary and more than 9 times the average salary in the city. The thought of this caused him to grin ear to ear. Tulip then opened their mouth to tell Vegis some rules involved with clones.“There will be some restraints to the use of the clones in civilian areas. When you go out of the work place, they can’t follow you. You will need to do proper maintenance on them since the others who can fix them up will be needed for the more important projects and will only be allowed to help you if it's a major issue that you are incapable of fixing.”
Vegis nodded at this and got out of the chair. A new set of arrows appeared and showed him the way to the entrance so he could leave this building.
