“Now we need to test for focus compatibility. With your high scores on the Generalist assessment, I don’t foresee you having issues with any of them.”

“Alright. Am I done with this bay?”

“Yes move on to Bay 4. You will be interfacing with some focuses through the engraph port. We can get a better idea on whether or not you have any perks available.”

“Okay. Is this an optic plug or is it an Aether sync plug.”

“We will be using the sync plug. Your base unit will give us better results than if we just simulate it through the optical cable. Plus I’m certain your VALENT unit will handle the sync just fine.”

“Okay. That actually, sounds reasonable. Should I be expecting any discomfort? Any pain? This time?”

“Nope. I have heard people describe it as feeling weird, but I haven’t seen anything that might warrant concern.” She smiled pleasantly. It didn’t seem like a trap this time. My spider sense wasn’t tingling. Didn’t even seem like a trap for her own amusement. “So we are just going to be feeding some of the pure Aether into the focuses and we should get a fairly telling response.” Since I assume you have no experience folding raw Aether flow, imagine trying to push water. Since we use a haptic feed it should feel like your pushing against something if you are doing it correctly.”

I step up to bay 4 and look over the apparatuses. I quickly locate the sync cable and port. “Okay. Here goes nothing.” I say more to myself than to Erin. Click. It easily and snuggly clicks into place. I find myself not sure of what to expect. Wait... Yup. That’s totally weird. I feel like I’m underwater. I feel the sudden urge to try and swim.

“I wouldn’t try that if I were you.” Sounding like a mother who hasn’t even bothered to look, but knowing all too well what is going on. “You might actually end up having the ability to fly, but you’re more likely to just hit the wall. We have the haptic feedback turned way up. So, yeeees, what your feeling is the Aether you have access to around you, buuuuut it is registering as far denser than it actually is.”

“Yeah. This is weird. I keep having to remind myself I can breathe.”

“Well at least your not actually hyperventilating like some people do.”

“Okay, so I can feel it. What now?”

“We hook you up to the first focus module. This first one will be the lovingly monikered AoE or FFE. It allows you to use your Aether to color the flows around you, and it specializes in reactive area type zone usage. Attempt to move the “water” around you as if you are sweeping it away.”

“Well, this feels strange. Are all directions gesture-based?”

“No. This is how we teach the noobs how to use Aether focuses. Eventually, you should be able to replicate utilizing focuses with just hand gestures or even thought.”

“Thanks. You know, I am old enough to know what that means... nerd.”

“Trying to get you to focus grandpa. Let’s get a move on.”

I sweep my hands forward attempting to create a conal wave away from me. I see the FFE focus unit light up. A screen showing a room via relay shows how the Aether is reacting. It ends up being more of a crashing wave then a directed cone, but it seems to work well enough. It bowls over the targets with a crash. “Oops?”

“Wow, Grandpa! She lets out a whistle. “Impressive showing. Real lack of control, but good force. Those aren’t supposed to fall over. That’s a little excessive don’t cha think?”

“I just did what you told me to!”

“Okay moving on to the dart unit. These will be small units of energy that primarily are used for harassment. They home in and are light and fast. Think of throwing a harpoon through the water. Focus on one of the targets on the screen and hopefully, we will see how well this works.”

I try to visualize the throwing of a spear or dart through the water. I focus on the target the furthest to my left. ....Nothing happens. No light activating on the board. No movement or light indicating a hit on the target. I even try pantomiming a knife throw. “Uh, nothing is happening this time.”

“Try it again. This time think of a Torpedo or something. Something that self-propels and guides itself to the target. Maybe even just a homing missile.”

“Take 2,” I mutter to myself. “Here goes nothing.” I feel like I have the mental image really dialed in. I go to push it out into the Aether, and again...nothing happens. “I feel like I have the sensation right, but nothing is happening.”

“Hmm. You may have bad connectivity with dart or homing focuses. We can test that again on the hybrid linkages.” She is clearly confused by this. “This is really weird though. Darts are usually one of the most consistent things people can use. Nevermind!” She shouts abruptly. “Mooooving right along. We will try the blast/burst unit. This can either be a single shot, a blast if you will, but it should be just a single target. Either that or a burst. Something designed to suppress a large group, or do serious close range damage. Switching focus now.” I see her hit a couple of buttons.

“Okay. Can I imagine like a Hadouken? A fireball. Like from a fighting game?”

“No” She looks clearly unamused. “Streetfighter is for suckers. There hasn’t been a good one in a couple of decades. Clearly. You. Are. Old. I bet you main Ryu. Scrublord.”

“I did not. I just thought it might be an easy way to attempt to activate it.”

“Do whatever. I take no responsibility for how badly you suck then.”

I take a very iconic stance. One that would make one think of a wave firing Anime Icon. “KA-ME--HA-ME--HA”

“No!!! That meme is over 9000!” She shouts in mock horror. The room on the monitor… A perfect brilliant beam of pure Aether blasts across the room. Decimating everything in its path. “Oh. What. The. Hell.” She responds with a certain amount of shock and disbelief.

To both of our surprise, It was overkill. Here I thought it was just a bad joke, to poke fun at her. The thing I didn’t take into account was a very vivid mental image. With so much internalized imagery. It sucked in the Aether and decimated a swath of targets. “Oops? I think the joke went a bit far...like way too far.”

“I’m having a hard time being mad that you wrecked half of this lab. That. Was. Amazing! That was SOOOOO ANIME!” She clearly lost it. So. Very. Chuunibyou.

“Well, that one seems to work” Clearly looking relieved that the disaster was less problematic than my original concerns. “Shall we move on?”

“Yeah. Let’s switch output rooms. I think a 2:1 output might be safer. Also, you destroyed my 1:1.” She gleefully hit a few buttons and the screen shifted, showing new targets and a not destroyed room.”

“How do these room things work?

“Well, we take your Aether pulse and put it into a trap room to contain the output. The output largely depends on the density of Aether in the space. The Sync port is outputting to a transmitter, much like what will be attached to your Rig. The Aether pulse triggers a chain reaction. An Aether pulse is like a set of instructions, or like coding in a program. When introduced to raw uncontrolled ambient Aether it propagates an outcome based on the variables. The strength of pulse, contesting/contested Aether, the simplicity of directives, ambient Aether availability, and so on and so forth. A simpler or optimized Aether pulse will almost always win out over a complex one. With complex Aether pulses, there are a lot of things that can go wrong or be sabotaged during the execution. That is where contesting Aether becomes important.”

“So... Thanks for the dissertation Doctor, on a separate note, I understand there are different types of Rigs now. I hear that, even though the Skeleton Crew has a bad track record for losing people, they have highly customized rigs. They always seem to cause a stir. How does that factor in with Hardpoints and all of that?”

“Well since Rig manufacture is largely all Gen 5 Printing, it is easy to customize. In fact, as long as you use one of the bases, most everything else can be resculpted. I do believe there is a spider mod in the Skeleton crew. She taught herself how to use four extra limbs! They are essentially 4 engraph units. Which was an insane task in and of itself. They limit her hardpoint capacity, but she is known for being very ...uh creative with the application of her armaments. That being said, after we finish testing we will start to consider some modifications to the base Rig, based on the outcomes here. As for the Skeleton Crew, their strange appearances seems to add to their notoriety. Although part of why they specialize so much is due to their unit not operating as a normally structured squad, platoon, regiment system that most of the other Rig companies use. They tend to operate on a 2 to 3 man group sortie system.”

“Do I get any say in it? My Rig Design I mean?”

“Yeah of course. Most people seem to op for the Warframe look though.”

“That… that’s still around to be relevant?”

“Yeah after they introduced the VR version they got a lot of crossover from Parkour enthusiasts. It really revived the game. I don’t know if they will ever be done making that game. Did you know it is being used as a test bed for the flight Rigs?

“Uh...no. That seems like taking it a bit too far right? It’s just a video game.”

“Well after the Last War they sunk a lot of tech and money into making it more realistic as a way to pre-train Rig runners.”

“Wow. Really?” Finding myself stupefied at how far one game company had gone to stay relevant. “That’s actually really impressive.”

“Let's retest the blast/burst unit. We didn’t try the burst function. I particularly like this focus as it is so very functional and flexible. This unit besides being a blast can also issue a burst...like a shotgun blast.”

“A shotgun?”

“Yeah. I mean it’s not a literal shotgun, more like spread shot in that Contra franchise.”

“Did they remake it again?”

“Yeah although this time was the ‘VR edition’ like so many others of these ‘remake the games’ companies, it’s pretty bad. They even used pixel art. I mean that hasn’t been in vogue since like 2029.”

“Really? I mean I still liked it for Rogue-likes and Rogue-lites up until 2037 or so.”

“Well, that’s different. That type of game thrives on simplicity. Remaking a game in VR with pixel art, now that’s just wrong.”

“So Spreadshot...any kind of limitations that I should be aware? I don’t want to use sub-par imagery. Is there things that might work better?” I asked hoping for some pointers.

“That’s the problem, most of these are highly dependant on personal imagery. Whatever you feel like you can visualize the clearest, whether it includes hand gestures, verbalizations, or whatever, just use that. The results may vary, but you can always adjust from there.”

“Okay. I think I got this.” I shuffle my feet a bit shake out my arm and loosen up. I get a little bravado in the spine and really picture a shotgun being attached to my stump of an arm. “Good. Bad. I’m the guy with the gun. Hail to the king.” I can feel the pulse recoil through my engraph port. Erin is clearly watching intently as after just the barest of moments, the light confirms the focus activation and then a double cone burst erupts into the room. It seems far less destructive than the blast but the coverage is great. Although it acts almost like a conflagration, instead of a red flame it's more like a belch of bluish white flame. It clearly looks impressive to me. “Wow, that seems pretty good. I can see this being useful.” I speak out loud, more to myself. I turn to look for Erin’s response and notice she seems a tiny aghast by the outcome. “Did something go wrong? Is that a good expression or a bad expression?” Starting to feel a little self-conscious at the result.

Her jaw kind of clacks together gently as she shakes out the disbelief. “I don’t even know where to start.” She is clearly sorting through some thoughts, her face scrunched in consideration. “Okay. The output was really high, like way higher than I was expecting. The range was unusually short, but there was an Aether conflagration. That shouldn’t happen. These aren’t tuned focuses, there shouldn’t be any elemental bias. But it’s like the mix of Aether you used was so volatile it just kinda....well blew out. It was incredibly uncontrolled.”

“Well, I hardly consider a sawed-off shotgun to have much control. I mean, it is half blast wave since it has so little time to propel the projectiles down the barrel.”

“What?”

“Well, I pictured a sawed-off shotgun. Like from that seminal classic “Army of Darkness” I mean he is missing an arm and affixes a shotgun to his stub. It was very vivid.”

“I think that is one of those, you might need to adjust that imagery. Or at least have more than one. That image while strong and fairly efficient was pretty much a textbook case of an overly specialized output. Although I think you really are getting the idea of the imagery down. Some of the jarheads I have to work with think everything needs to be solved with a crowbar application of Aether. This is promising though.”