As usual, Val and Fynn had sat near the back of the crowd. Unfortunately, this strategy backfired today. Instead of beating the crowd out of the arena, their proximity to the exit meant that Val was one of the first finalists to reach the waiting congregation of assistants.

Val’s heart raced as the first assistant – a small woman in a white lab coat – gave a quick nod and started walking out into the concourse, beckoning behind her for Val to follow. Val caught up in a few rapid steps and they took a short walk down the hall in silence to the nearest medical office.

The assistant opened the door to the office. “After you,” she said softly, stepping to the side to let Val through.

“Thanks,” muttered Val in response as she entered the room. She could see all the usual medical equipment that was used to treat the variety of injuries sustained by the athletes, fighters, and various entertainers that usually took the spotlight in the arena.

But all that equipment was pushed to the side to make room for a massive reclining chair. It looked like it would be very comfortable. If Val could ignore the series of metal needles built into the headrest. Or the two thick bundles of wires snaking from the chair into a large electrical socket in the wall and a complicated looking computing station.

Despite her best efforts, Val found that she could not ignore these things. As a result, the setup did nothing to calm her down. Val’s hesitation was clearly not lost on the assistant, either. She gave a small smile and started speaking in her soft voice again.

“My name is Kira, and I’ll be with you every step of the way here. I know the appearance of the testing apparatus can be daunting, but the complexity of the equipment is actually here to make things easier for you. Hopefully that assuages some of your trepidation.”

The onslaught of big words caught Val by surprise, who blinked and looked at Kira. The small woman gave another quick smile back and started buzzing around the machine, checking various components and starting some sort of boot procedure. Ahh, got it. One of THOSE Technician types. Kira fit into one of the majority groups Val had found among Technicians and Engineers: pedantic, precise, slightly socially awkward, and hyper-focused on their work.

Val much preferred applied work like improving her combat subroutines to the basic research Kira probably did, but she was morbidly curious about the chair and could use a distraction. Val stepped up alongside Kira and cleared her throat nervously.

“Hey, uhh, can you take me through what you are doing? I think I’d be more comfortable if I knew a little better what was going on.”

Val’s words seemed to have a transformative effect on Kira, who suddenly became much more bubbly. An excited gleam came over her eyes as Kira started into a non-stop description of each component she was testing. Oh Gaia, what have I done, thought Val. Note to self: Add ‘extremely excited to talk about topics of interest’ to my description of THOSE Technicians.

Minutes later, Val found herself laying down in the chair as Kira tapped away on the computer at some last-minute diagnostics. Despite Val’s initial misgivings when Kira had launched into full enthusiasm mode, the Technician’s lack of worry about the day’s procedure actually did help calm her.

From what Val had managed to piece together from Kira’s explanations, the whole setup was designed to break the process down in stages. Eventually, she would have to provide the interface and power for the Daemon all internally. But for today, the chair and the external power would handle those things for her. All she had to do was focus first on establishing a mental link with the Daemon.

“Ok, I think we’re all set to go on my end. Are you feeling ready?” Kira asked.

Val took a few deep breaths, but then gave Kira a thumbs up. “As ready as I’ll ever be.”

“Ok, we’ll start with the neural interface. Hold still for a few moments.”

Neural interface? If I remember right, that’s… Val’s thoughts were cut off as multiple pinpricks of pain lit up across the back of her head. The sensation faded quickly, but Val still hissed with discomfort as a dull headache started forming. Right, needles.

“Ok, the needles have made it through your skull without any issues. We’ve established a solid neural link. Nice job!” Kira’s hands alternated between using the old-school keyboard inputs for the monitoring station and making gestures in the air, clearly interacting with some additional displays that were only visible to her.

“Next stage is probably the most critical. You have to initiate and maintain a link to a Daemon. For today, the Daemon you’ll be working with is codenamed Rez. Rez is a full-time analysis Daemon so they should be much gentler than most combat-oriented Daemons you’ll work with as a User. They help out with User Selection every year, so just try to relax and let Rez in.”

Val closed her eyes and started a series of breathing exercises to manage her nerves. Val had never been particularly good at meditation, but she had tried it a handful of times since hearing that it was an effective mental refocusing tool for many Users. She turned her attention inwards, slowly filtering out all the external stimuli as she focused on what her body was feeling.

The sensation of the chair pressing into her body from below, supporting her weight. The humming and droning of the various machines, creating an omnipresent blanket of white noise. The occasional click and tap from Kira as she monitored Val’s status.

And this Gaia-damned throbbing in the back of my head. Val grimaced briefly and tried to ignore the slowly pounding headache forming. Except Val soon realized it probably had nothing to do with the slivers of metal embedded in her skull. That pain had been localized to points, whereas this sensation felt more… all-encompassing. A mental pressure squeezing in on her brain from all sides.

“You’re doing great, just let Rez in,” came the quiet murmur of encouragement from Kira. Val’s brows furrowed for a moment. Willing giving over control like this seemed to go against all of Val’s self-preservation instincts. But the User-Daemon relationship was built on mutual trust, and someone had to take the first step.

Taking another deep breath, Val focused on the increasing pressure. She realized that it wasn’t surrounding her completely. It was almost like there was a source of the pressure off to the side, just out of sight. Val distantly felt her hands tightening on the chair’s armrests as she struggled to understand this new feeling.

It felt like she had been floating in a completely dark space, and suddenly there was a light shining somewhere that she could only see in her peripheral vision. Every time she tried to look directly at the light, it would shift away, always just out of reach.

Val consciously tried to relax, her grip on the armrests loosening slowly. Blindly chasing this sensation wasn’t helping. As soon as she slowed down, something seemed to click in place. The pressure suddenly swelled, threatening to overwhelm her. Val froze with apprehension, but the sensation receded just as quickly as it had come.

In fact, the mental pressure seemed to leave entirely, leaving Val feeling the same as before. A kernel of frustration and worry bloomed in her chest. Have I failed? She had no idea how she was supposed to just “let a Daemon in”, let alone –

Hello, Valriya. Please stay calm, you have not failed.

Val’s train of thought came crashing to a stop as the voice reverberated through her mind. Taking a quick mental catalog, she realized everything was not the same as before after all. In one corner of her mind, she could feel another presence. Rez? She tentatively reached out to the presence, but it seemed further away than she originally thought.

A burst of information flowed into her brain. The sensation felt totally alien at first, but her subconscious instinctively converted it into something else. An emotion? The longer Val spent analyzing the feeling, the more she was able to discern. Is that… amusement? Another burst of information followed which her brain decoded as words this time.

Indeed it is, young Valriya. I must say, I’m quite impressed. Your mental defenses are quite strong given your lack of training. You must have an incredibly strong sense of identity. And most User candidates tend to stick to this more… conversational form of communication first. Although more advanced forms, such as sharing abstract concepts like emotion, are also possible.

So, what, I just think sentences at you?

Another mental chuckle followed. That’s right. Although you seem to be inherently processing some additional subtext. In a sense, my… personality is coming through to you. Amazing. I’ve not seen such initial talent for many years.

A burst of laughter escaped her lips as relief flooded through Val. She hadn’t failed after all. The most critical step of being a User, interfacing with a Daemon… she had succeeded! Tears of joy sprang to her eyes as a swarm of emotions flooded over her. Val just now realized how important this moment was to her. It was a complete validation of years of hard work and effort.

Opening her eyes, Val saw Kira looking at her with slight concern. “Everything OK?” she asked.

“Yea, yea, everything’s fine. I managed to connect with Rez, it seems. They’re a bit of a joker, aren’t they?”

Kira’s brows furrowed even further, her gaze bouncing back and forth between her screens and Val. The smile slowly slipped from Val’s face. “What’s wrong, Kira?”

“No, no, it’s nothing bad. It’s just… I thought that maybe my measurements were miscalibrated because these numbers are so far out of the normal range I usually expect. But if you think that Rez is funny, then maybe these numbers are correct after all.”

“What sort of numbers are we talking about here?”

“Well, the most important one is synchronization, which is a catch-all statistic that describes the quality of the interface between you and Rez. New User candidates usually barely register, with a 1% or 2% sync. We usually do a few exercises to get candidates up to 5% sync before we can move on to the next step. But you are sitting around 12% right now.”

I agree with Kira’s assessment. Our sync is much higher than expected. This connection feels more like a User after several months of training than a brand new User.

Val was startled by Rez’s sudden interjection. But I guess that’s something I’ll have to get used to as a User, right?

That’s right.

Shaking her head, Val turned back to Kira. “It seems like Rez agrees with you. Are we ready for the next phase, then? If we are already above the 5% sync threshold?”

Kira shook her head. “No. It’s true that you are above the sync threshold, but it’s probably a good idea to take a little more time to acclimate yourself to the Daemon connection before we proceed.”

Val felt an affirmative pulse from Rez. Val was excited to move on to the next stage, but recognized the wisdom in taking her time now to get ready. “Alright, sounds good. What’s the first exercise?”

Kira had Val and Rez run through a sequence of mostly mental exercises for the next half an hour. Despite her initial disappointment in pausing at this stage, she quickly fell into the training with gusto. Every few minutes, Val would remember that she was doing her first training session as a prospective User and be nearly overcome with giddy excitement. Rez tried to keep her focused on the task at hand, but their sync had grown to almost 18% and she was catching more snippets of amusement and interest from the Daemon.

Val had learned a couple important things during the training session. First, Daemons were old. It made sense in hindsight that they didn’t age in the same way as humans, but there was something about sharing a mental connection with an entity that had gone through 112 User Selections that slammed the longevity point home for Val in a more visceral way.

Second, Daemons were fast. User-Daemon pairs were so effective because they complement each other’s strengths. One of those strengths for Daemons was raw processing speed. Kira ran several exercises where Val was supposed to “offload” certain sensory or prediction tasks to Rez.

For example, predicting where a dart would land on a dartboard once it had been launched. Val could usually predict the quadrant, but Rez could not only predict the correct box, but the angle of the dart when it struck the board, the exact location of the impact, and even the flight time.

Predicting darts was a completely artificial and useless task, but the implications were immediately obvious to Val. Keeping track of projectiles was the first step to dodging projectiles, and that had clear combat applications. It still feels like a conscious effort now, but I bet experienced Users do this sort of thing without thinking about it.

Correct again, Valriya. There’s a reason the relevant metric is called “synchronization” for User-Daemon interfacing. At high synchronization levels, it becomes less like two independent intellects, and more like one extremely powerful individual. After a brief pause, Rez continued. This reason is actually why the AIs in the Daemon collective were open to an alliance with humanity after the disastrous Singularity events. Despite some misgivings on both sides, we are stronger together than we are apart.

Surprised, Val mulled over Rez’s statements for several seconds. Is that a universal stance? It seems like there is a bit more tension between humans and Daemons than you just portrayed.

Indeed, I fall on the human-friendly side of the collective. As one might expect from a Daemon that interacts with humans on a daily basis, and integrates with at least one new User every year.

Val nodded to herself at Rez’s revelations. Well, I’m glad I got to interact with a Daemon like you first, Rez.

Likewise, young Valriya. I look forward to seeing what sort of User you’ll develop into. Now, as much as I’ve enjoyed guiding you through this initial training, it seems from Kira’s microexpressions that she deems us ready for the next steps.

Val’s eyes widened slightly and looked over at the Technician. Now that she was paying attention, she could see some of the indications that Rez had noted. Kira’s earlier concern had been almost entirely replaced by a satisfaction that she understood the readouts on her screens.

Handy trick, Rez. An affirmative pulse in the back of her mind caused Val to grin. I could really get used to this.

“Alright Kira, thanks for taking us through those exercises. Do you think it’s time for the next stage now?”

The girl finished typing out another note before turning to Val. “Yes I’d say so. So far, you’ve been interacting with Rez in a ‘tethered’ mode, where the chair is providing the neural link. The next stage is to remove that crutch and see if you can host Rez by yourself.”