Have you ever had a moment where you opened a door and thought...nope don’t want to do it. This is a mistake. ...Okay. Okay. It wasn’t that bad, but it did remind me of an operating room crossed with a mechanics garage and a medieval torture dungeon.

I stopped took a moment, took a breath as I took in the room. There were several bays littered around the room. For what looks like, I imagine are different procedures. A speaker chirps up and a familiar voice begins broadcasting.

Erin begins pleasantly if a bit monotone, clearly distracted by what she is typing in. “Okay. I know this is probably a little bit of a shock, but we just need to go through bays 2-7. Bay one is just a measuring unit that determines aptitude and strength of internal Aether. Since we took the reading earlier and you are already equipped with a Military grade VALENT unit, that won’t be necessary.”

“Well, that’s great news. Here I had assumed I just walked onto the set of an American horror movie.”

“Oh, come on!” She clearly snapped out of her distracted state, to argue the merits of this...room. “Only bay seven looks remotely scary. Anyway, that bay is just for suit adjustment. None of the scaaaaary looking things are even going to touch you.” I guess I heaved a visible sigh of relief, the tirade began again. “You big baby. You felt your arm split open, but some probes and adjustment devices scare you.”

“Oh, come on! I was blindsided by that! I am pretty sure I would have had some reasonable apprehension if you told me what you were going to do in advance.” Indignant outrage smoldering in my demeanor. “Here let me split your arm open, then let’s compare reactions.”

A cheery...saccharin voice replies back, “No, Thanks.” I can hear the smile in her voice.

“I swear to god I will get you back for that!” A good performance, but we both know it’s just a farce.

“Okay, Step into bay 2 we need to take measurements for your balance, and get you measured for your best-tailored suit.” completely disregarding my outburst.

“Alright! I’m going.” I feign grumpiness. “So… I just stand on the roughly foot shaped silver plates?” I ask warily. She just gives me an ‘uh huh’ of affirmation. I step on the two silver plates.

“Turn around.”

“No.”

“You have to. You are facing backwards.”

“Don’t want to. I saw the camera. I know you are watching. Something bad is going to happen. I can feel it.”

A little screen pops out of the bay walls.“There you can see me in the booth. Ya happy you big baby.”

“Why aren’t you here…I see the control station at the far end.”

“I have to be here for the other procedures.”

“You have an awful bedside manner.” I begrudgingly turn around. I just know something is about to happen, judging by the pod’s looks. Betrayal! The thing I thought safe was the dangerous part. The plates feel like they are skewering my feet. “You! Monster!” I see her giggling at me.

“Oh yeah!” She feigns forgetting something. “This part might be a little uncomfortable. Make sure you remain on the silver plates.” She smirks. “Here let me help you”

If you spot this tale on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.

An ominous series of clicks sound from the wall. A mechanical version of a straight jacket for my feet installs itself up to my knees. “Well. I see how this is going to go. So she’s an early 21st-century Anime villain.” I mutter to myself through gritted teeth.

“What was that?”

“Hey... so do you like...Anime? Perhaps early 21st century Anime?”

“Oh YES!” you could really hear the all caps in her voice. “In my opinion, it’s the only thing that has any right to be called Anime. After that period we had a huge diversification of the animated art form. After that, the traditional Anime feel was lost. Also, it was just a few short years later we lost most of Tokyo. That forever changed the landscape of the Japanese style of animation.” She regained that manic glint in her eye again. “It is why I will forever only ever refer to Anime as Anime. Everything that came after was just iterative work that attempted to capture the grandeur of the real thing. Even 20th Century Anime is far superior to what came after the collapse of Tokyo.”

“Oh, God. What have I done.” I mutter.

“What was that?”

“Are we almost done? My legs are starting to feel numb.”

“Oh! That means we are finished.”

“Really? There isn’t a timer that could have told you sooner?” Pretty sure if I manage to handle 8x compression, this is going to be a long week.

“Okay, those stabs of pain in your feet were probing your current sense of balance and reactions so that we can tune the Aether circuits to accommodate for that. That way when you put it on it feels like you’re just wearing a perfectly fitted skintight suit that doesn’t impede you at all.” She was looking pretty pleased with herself. Clearly, a pat on the back kind of moment. “In the next station, you need to use your engraph unit/units to either grip or stand on one of the contact points. Since I believe all you are missing is the arm, just step forward and grab on to the device so it can deactivate your engraph. Aaaalsoooo, since you are using military hardware, we have to use the military specced suits. This is going to be way more work for me.” I grunt in understanding as she continues on.

I walk over to the next bay. I hesitantly slide my hand into the brace and grab onto the handle. I feel the sensation of a device docking to my hand inputs again. Just as I am wincing in anticipation for some unseen horror to befall me. A soft click sound comes from the base of my engraph unit. “Why are you removing my engraph?” I try to look towards the screen, but find that I’m off balance as my unit is already fully dislocated. I nearly lose my balance. “Whoooa. Hey, I thought this suit just goes over me. Why would I need to remove my engraph unit?”

“Well, we found out we can use a sort of amplified signal loop by connecting directly to an engraph port and the VALENT unit. The engraph unit is already an Aether output device. So if we hook your suit and Rig up through the port we get much better results. It allows for an incredible mind-body connection that makes using a Rig as easy as going about your daily life. All things considered, this is probably your biggest boon. I would have requested twice as much time if you hadn’t had an engraph unit.”

“So. You're telling me. That having an arm missing makes this next step easier? Why wouldn’t there be a brochure on that? Why wouldn’t you want to advertise this?”

“Well typically this isn’t as big as a benefit, and in the long run you might have to work around this, but your engraph is a constant drain on your normal Aether stores. It usually requires us to include additional Aether collectors on the Rigs to compensate for the extra drain. Meaning you lose hardpoints. Losing hardpoints is not usually something Rig operators want as it means they lose out on the use of additional focuses. ...It can limit customization for your Rig. Buuuuut. Due to some fortunate/unfortunate circumstances, you have an out. Since widling exposure pretunes your body to aether circuits...so to speak, and your longtime use of original military hardware, we should be able to skip the collectors. It certainly doesn’t hurt that you start at a higher VALENT rating as well.”

“Ooooooh. deus ex machina. I mean other than the torture, isn’t this a little too convenient?”

“Well what this means is that you will/should be faster to get going, but you may have to figure out how to compensate later. Although some of that will be determined by your loadout and perks.

“Perks? Like in a video game or like a job.”

“More like a video game. I mean you pilot a rig, there’s a safety system to keep you from dying, and you get magical powers. Kinda. I mean that’s way more like a video game then I am comfortable denying. Some people call it the Demon Souls of VR experiences.” She looked a little bored by fielding some of these queries. This might be something she gets asked frequently.