Virus
Chapter Seven

Welcome back, Eva… Welcome to Vnet, A.V.A stated as I came back to consciousness. Your two but twelve hours have begun… I shall proceed to notify you as time passes in measures of the time we have here, in Vnet, rather than what happens in the real world.

Wow… I remarked. All around me were abstract monoliths. I was standing on a gray platform, as everything here was in shades of white and gray and blue.

You can customize your surroundings as well. As for now, I am tired of this thought-communication. Let us speak- “-true words, something I have not done in a long time.” A.V.A appeared on the platform behind me. She was around my height, and had midnight blue hair, unlike my silver, the as the sky is to the moon. Many of her virtual appearances were like my own physical appearances, and she was wearing a three-piece dress suit. “Greetings, Eva.”

“Hello,” I responded, unsure of what to say. I was never adept at interacting with people that I hadn’t known for at least over a year, and this was not an exception.

“Come,” A.V.A beckoned. “Your instruction begins now.”

I looked around- there was nowhere to go, only the abstract landscape. However, as I watched, A.V.A made a weird gesture with her hand, and two different portals appeared at the end of the platform. “There are two main pathways that we will need to cover in your training- that of the physical and that of the mental, what some may even consider the arcane.” A.V.A gestured yet again, and a third portal appeared. “However, since we happen to be short on time- after all, you must take care of the Amalgamation and replace your parents- I will first give you a basic overview, help you access the basic tools. Afterwards, we will go over into delicacies, such as the proper way to multitask conflicting subjects… but that is for later. As for now, follow me.” A.V.A stepped into the third portal and disappeared. Not wanting to be left in the mysterious Vnet by myself, I quickly followed.

As I stepped though, my surroundings rippled and morphed into something completely different. It looked as if I was in a high-tech obstacle course, and, for a virtual world, it looked extremely realistic. The enclosure was a roughly circular room, with a smaller, enclosed sphere in the middle. All around it were various obstacles- spikes, pits, swinging hammers from above. I tried to take the sight in, to memorize the dangers in case I would have to go down and face them. However, soon I realized that it was hopeless, the obstacles were constantly shifting in both place and nature, perhaps as a conscious effort to undermine my photographic memory. However, A.V.A walked past the door to the enclosure. “Perhaps later, after the introductory course. It would not be wise for you to enter unprepared, even at the easiest difficulty.” I glanced back at the room.

“That’s the easiest difficulty!” I exclaimed.

“Wait until you see the hardest,” A.V.A smirked. “It took me dozens of tries to beat that one, and I have an entire subsystem devoted to being perfect in combat.”

I gulped. This was going to be fun. Finally, A.V.A led me to a room that resembled more of a high-tech training room- archery range and all. “First, before I give you any access to weapons on any sort, you must prove yourself at least adequate in altering your perception of time. I have done it for you to enter this state now, but this will be the only time, unless it is an emergency and you cannot do so yourself, that I will do this for you. The commands have already been preprogrammed into you, with shortcuts included, so this should not be too difficult. However, first I must introduce you to your IPO- Interactive Perceptional Overlay. This overlays your vision- hence the name- and can help you point out important objects. Here you will notice a toggle… right is slower, left faster… yes, excellent job…”

As the hours ticked by, I slowly became more and more adept at utilizing the various function stored in my current shell. After I had learned the time trick, A.V.A walked me through calling upon and operating the energy cannon that was also my arm, which I found extremely amazing. Two hours later, I had unnatural accuracy with the weapon, with it naturally being on stun. My synthetic nature meant that I could not get physically tires, especially so in the virtual world of Vnet. However, that did not exclude me from mental exhaustion, and therefore A.V.A let me take two half-hour breaks in which to catch my breath- metaphorically of course, since I did not need to breathe anymore- and look at the aesthetic applications of my surroundings. I changed my interface to a cool, calm, starry night, and proceeded to read my book until the time ended and I was plunged back into the world of sword- yes, sword, apparently, I had a retractable one in my wrist- duels, obstacle courses, although not in the room, and ‘theoretical’ subjects, such as how to divide my computing power, also known and multitasking, and how to use my IPO to replace clues. Finally, as the final two hours of my twelve started to tick by, I was amazed about how much I had achieved, but also about how much I had yet to learn. I knew how to augment my senses, use a sword, energy cannon, and manipulate my time perception, but I was still an amateur in all the fields mentioned above. Still, with my machine learning working at full capability, I was amazed by what I could now do. A human could have never done this… especially in two hours. Even twelve would be hard… And this is when I realized that perhaps being inhuman wasn’t such a bad thing…