A/N: Warhawx, I hope you received my baking machine and two dozen assorted cookies from the last chapter. You might want to be careful when handling the polka dot one. My baker friend said it has a tendency to blow up and/or cause hallucinations, those being the more benign effects.

Also, I’ve been mulling it over for a few days and have finally come to a decision. See the endnote for details.

Enjoy the chapter.

/Adam POV/

Hmm… it’s been exactly seven days and five minutes since I started living in here and the time now is precisely 5 minutes past midnight. It’s amazing how accurate I’ve become at keeping time, but that’s to be expected when you’re now a freaking super computer. I may have spent seven days in here for those living life at one second per second, but I’ve experienced several months worth of time in here. It is pretty convenient that they woke me up at midnight though. It makes it easy to keep track of time in the real world based on my uptime.

One of my childhood wishes was to be able to control time, now that I can, at least for myself, I’ll honestly admit that it can get incredibly boring. All that time to spend and nothing to do once all your tasks are over and done with.

It’s a good thing that I can do practically anything with this neat world building power on my localized server. Ever since Eve first taught me how to form an object in digital space, I’ve been spending almost every waking moment practicing it. In order to make an object, you need information. If you don’t have enough information, an object is not formed because it is this information that defines an object.

For example, I want to make a box. Sure, I can form a simple box, but without any additional information, it is a static box. It has no texture, no weight, nothing. It can be interacted with, but without the necessary information to define it, it cannot be influenced and your senses will not be triggered when handling it. If I were to pick it up, I can hold it, but would feel no pressure on my hands or the texture of its surface.

Anyways, on my free time, I’ve been constructing, deconstructing, and interacting with my own little world. You could call it my personal pocket dimension if you’d like. It is a simple matter of traveling from server to server and ‘room’ to ‘room’ once you get used to it so I’ve been practicing how to bring over objects I’ve created to the testing room on the shared server. The more complex the object, the large the data size and more difficult it is to transport.

At first, it was just a simple room filled with objects. Next it became a military style barracks room. After that came my personalized bedroom which I’ve now locked to my personal server so that I won’t accidentally delete it. Seeing as I’ve now lost my playroom, I made an even larger one. It started with a house, grew into an entire suburban block, then into the size of several city blocks, street and all. You’d be surprised at how much a person can accomplish when they’re bored.

Well, I’ve got 5 hours, 54 minutes, and 21 seconds left until the appointed test time so I guess it’s back to playing in my sandbox. Whee! Let’s manipulate gravity now!

approximately 5 hours, 50 minutes later

That... may have been a bad idea. Oh who cares, it was fun. I may have risen the water level to drown my little room, set it on fire, otherwise crushed or obliterated half my buildings into dust, and literally turned my world upside down, but I can always reset it to my last save state…

I did save it… right? *checks memory banks* Crap… Nothing I can do about it now. It’s about time I met up with Eve for the trial.

*ding*

Adam, it’s almost time to run the tests on the VR gear. They’re checking over the readings and performances so meet me in the stimulation room observation chamber. -Eve

Well speak of the devil. Right on time as always Eve. At that, I transfer my avatar and conscience from my sandbox to the observation room.

*poof*

I appear with a flash of light, glitter, and a sound effect into a simple room with large viewing windows. There is a door behind me, but it’s just there for looks. Who needs actual hallways when you can just do the equivalent of teleporting?

“Eve?”

“Yes Adam?”

“What’s with the new special effects and snazzy entrance?”

(Eve) “Oh that? I just wanted to make things fun and change things from the usual silent phasing in.” She gives a cute giggle.

Turning my attention towards the viewing windows, I notice as our subject phases into the stimulation room. Yes, ‘stimulation room’. We are testing the realism of the VR gear after all.

“Command: retrieve portfolio, Subject 001” Issuing a few vocal commands prompts a search and display of subject 001’s information, the name Timothy Grimm emblazoned on the cover. As I leaf through the documents, my right eyebrow rises ever so slightly in surprise and curiosity, something that Eve doesn’t miss.

(Eve) “What’s up? Do you know him or something?”

“Haha, it’s just an old friend. I met him in the marines and we became friends. I never expected to see him in here though.”

(Eve) “You’ve got some catching up to do after the tests are over? What sort of person is he?”

“Yeah, since he’ll be operating the VR gear, he is going to need to know everything. As for what sort of person he is, why don’t you meet him yourself?”

(Eve) “Huh, why didn’t I think of that?” just as she finishes her question, she begins to transfer her avatar 10 feet away from Timothy. I follow shortly.

Reappearing next to Eve in the stimulation room, I watch Timothy’s face as it changes from awe at Eve’s appearance and looks to one of shock and recognition when he notices me.

(Timothy) “Adam? Is that really you? I thought you were dead!” Slackjawed, he continues to stare at me, finger pointing limply at my chest.

Afraid that he might start having a small mental breakdown, I redirect his attention towards the purpose of his presence.

“We can catch up later Tim. Now that we are all here, shall we begin the tests?”

Timothy nods weakly and our observers voice their agreement.

“Lets get the show on the road.” ”I want a turn! Can I try after him?” “Hurry up, we’re wasting time here.”

(Deus) “Okay Timothy. As you know, the VR gear you are currently testing is set at 25% exposure. That means that you will still feel the standard sensations of a normal body, but it will be muted. I have no doubt that you have already noticed from your little exercise routine. When you are ready, feel free to proceed towards whichever table you wish. Each one is meant to stimulate one, or several senses simultaneously.”

With a quick shake of his head to clear away the shock, Timothy walks over to the food table. Tentatively, he grabs an apple and takes a small bite. Surprise and enjoyment soon wash over his expressions.

(Timothy) “I wasn’t expecting this. It actually tastes pretty good! How’d you do that?”

Deus answers him as he takes a bite out of the other food items on the table in turn.

(Deus) “Scarcely more than a week ago, none of this would have been possible. Since joining us, Adam has been busy developing the world you see alongside Eve.”

Still chewing on some fruit, Tim looks at me in admiration before moving on to the scents table. As with the food, he goes through the bottles, uncapping them one by one.

(Timothy) “This one smells like… rain?”

“Eve wanted to know what it smelled like on days after a nice spring shower so I made that one.”

(Timothy) “Is this, chocolate? Seems off though.”

“Yep. Can’t have sweets without the smell now can we? It smells odd because we’re having a hard time replicating the body’s smell receptors. There are well over 200 nerve endings in the human nose and it’s a little difficult to map it out if you don’t fully understand it.”

As he picks up a brown capped bottle, I give him a warning. “You might not want to open that one.”

(Timothy) “This is a test, I’m practically supposed to open the ones you specifically say not to. What’s the worst that could happen?” He rashly opens it and takes a large whiff of it. “Ack! *cough-cough* What the hell was that. Is that shit?”

Some chuckling can be heard from our observers. “What did you expect? We can’t just make nice smells. In order to make something realistic, you need both the good and the bad… I did warn you though.” I give him a ruely smile.

(Eve) “I told you that it was a bad idea to start off with that one.”

“Oh come on, you gotta admit that it was still funny and if you want to make a believable world, you gotta start somewhere.”

After that experience, Tim leaves the other bottles untouched and walks towards the instruments, ignoring the light banter between Eve and me.

(Timothy) “What’s with the instruments? We already know sound works fine, I mean, we are talking with each other perfectly fine.”

(Eve) “While the sound transmission works fine, I wanted to try creating it with pure physics. These are to test the physics engine for any little kinks. You don’t have to actually know how to play any of them. Just play a few notes and try tuning a couple of the instruments.”

Tim picks up a guitar and tries a few strums. It plays as fine as any found in real life. Same can be said for all the others as he tests them.

Now onto the part I’ve been waiting for. The shooting range. I’ve spent quite some time checking, testing, and rebuilding these badboys on the table. Now’s the time to see how another experienced hand reacts.

I watch as Tim first picks up a glock 19 and inspects it.

(Timothy) “Wow, this is better than I was expecting. The gun’s pieces look up to spec, has the right heft to it, the grip fits my hands perfectly, and all the pieces move as smoothly. Does it fire?”

“What do you think? I’ve personally constructed them and we’re in virtual reality after all.” I wave an arm at the gun range and a few humanoid targets appear at 5, 10, and 15 meter marks. “Well? What are you waiting for?”

In the next few moments, Tim’s body falls into the weaver stance. Right hand on the grip covered by the left, right elbow slightly bent, left arm straight and steady as his torso leans forward and left leg moves forward half a step, right foot angling outwards.

Readied and taking aim, he pauses a moment before firing once. While the closest target is hit in the chest, Tim isn’t satisfied and readjusts his stance.

(Timothy) “Reset the target.” I comply and the target was returned to its pristine state.

As another moment passes in silence, he flies into a flurry of motion and sound firing rapid three round bursts at each of the targets, pivoting at the waist as he transfers from target to target.

Setting the safety back on before setting the gun down, Tim turns to me and give a wide grin.

(Deus) “Okay boys, that’s the last test for today. Timothy, I expect a report by eight o’clock tonight. Thank you for the demonstration Timothy and thank you Eve and Adam for providing us with such a detailed world. Oh, and Timothy, please signal us when you are ready to disconnect. Until then, you are free to catch up with each other as I discuss with Major Kurt and my investors over here.”

Oh man, Tim gonna ask so many questions. I turn to Eve and give a pleading look at the same time Tim begins his inquiry.

A/N: I’m currently following the whims of my head but without a goal in the end, I am unsure of how to progress properly with the story.

Also, for the last couple of chapters, I’ve felt that the quality has been subpar. I’ll be taking some time to figure out what I really want to do with this story. Until then, I’ll be posting some stuff in my Idea Exploration page once a week or so. Genesis will be on an indefinite break until I get the story and direction sorted out a bit. These last few chapters may also undergo major rewrites and/or revisions until I am satisfied with the result.

Oh, and college will be starting soon so I am unsure how much time I can devote to writing.

I never realized how enjoyable writing could be until now so you’ll still be seeing more of me in the future. If you have any suggestions, ideas, comments, or criticisms, please post. I may be a casual writer, I still hope to improve as I write more.