knockdovvn:
✦
though he attempted his best to listen to jess and look attentive when doing so, eric’s focus had shifted elsewhere. she had a point: if they were lucky, they would be able to close off this level with far more virtual money than what was currently in their inventories, but none of it would translate into the real world. it served him some consolation that he’d managed to get parveen and danny to pay him extra in exchange for his participation, and solely because only bribery had succeeded at stamping out his initial relentless refusal. at least he wouldn’t walk away empty-handed after all the effort and psychological anguish.
“making history… so that’s what’s in it for you?” the brunet echoed, pensive. “what if it’s all bogus, jess? i mean… what’s the point of movie deals and biographies if none of this makes a difference and we’ve just wasted our time on something that never worked?” each one of eric’s words was clad in frustration, and by now he wasn’t even sure who they were meant for anymore.
“look, i read the damn–” eric turned away in exasperation, shutting his eyes and letting out an annoyed exhale at the same time his hands subconsciously curled into fists at his sides– “i read the same consent forms as you did. ’m just saying, i expected danny and parveen out of all people to be more gracious about building this whole thing.” if neither of them could be trusted to be ethical in their approach, then who could?
great. so their minds would be misleadingly allowed to ‘rest’ for the remainder of this level only to be flooded by a sequence of the most bizarre recollections as soon as they woke up. “fair enough, ’t makes sense-” pffft, no it didn’t, but he’d taken an extensive amount of punches to the face during his life yet none of them to date made him feel as resigned as these prospects did. “so our best bet now is just… do a decent job at being cowpokes, i guess.”
“if it’s bogus then it’s bogus that we learn from. that’s how all science works, eric. even the stuff that doesn’t work or doesn’t do what is intended makes progress. now you know what not to do. if this fails and goes up in flames, it’s still game-changing, no pun intended. even now, we’re doing something that’s never been done before: traversing a digital landscape that was custom tailored to our brains. this may not be the next step in psychology, but it could be a revolutionary step for gaming. it’s a custom game-” again, she cut herself off, beginning to ramble excitedly about all the things she considered late at night.
jess scowls at the names of the scientists, “danny and parveen are just as power and fame hungry as anyone else. this experiment wasn’t made with altruistic intentions, so i wouldn’t trust them to be looking out for your best interest. they’re like me, what they want is the praise. trust that.” she didn’t elaborate any further. she didn’t know if the scientists could listen in on their conversations while in the game, and she didn’t want to antagonize the experiment leaders any more than she already had. just convincing them to let her therapy group be a part of this was hard enough.
“exactly, all we have to do is act like we’re in an old clint eastwood film and make sure the good guys get the money and the bad guys get dead,” she confirmed, “still don’t feel great about having a gun. maybe my character knows how to use this lasso. that would be wild. anyway, you go with artie. i’m sure y’all will have a great time playing poker and throwing down with the locals. just don’t die yet, i feel like it’s going to take all of us to open this safe.”














