Agent Johnson is bored.
One might think that her accidental attack on a police officer in the early hours of the morning was a clear sign that she was having "one of those days" in jail. Since then, however, nothing has happened. Well, except for being told that Class Three took a nap before lunch. It was indeed strange and unexpected, but it didn't require her attention or involvement. In fact, she was asked to stay out of the matter at all, which she was tempted to do. This gave her a free afternoon since Maraslak was not around to give her any more boring tasks.
That's the problem. AJ has no idea what to do with his free time. If she's with her squad, they could arrange a friendly card game or some light sparring to pass the time, and maybe line up to watch a boring movie. Unfortunately, her teammates were not allowed into the observer's quarters unless there was an emergency. Therefore, watching some mindless movies was her only recourse, but she soon discovered that it was no fun at all without a companion.
When all her usual options are exhausted, this woman looks for other ways to entertain herself. She considered doing more physical and mental training, but quickly abandoned the idea. She had already had an intense training session that morning and overexerting her body and mind was doing her more harm than good. She then tried to catch up on some paperwork and compile reports on her activities and observations from the past week. The whole process lasted 15 minutes. Johnson is quite diligent when it comes to these responsibilities and has handled most of them in a timely manner.
That's how the agent ended up in the living room having a cup of tea. She is listless, making one think she has just lost her purpose in life, although that may be the case. Johnson would never admit it, but she was a workaholic. Fulfilling her duties gave her a sense of purpose and accomplishment that nothing else could evoke. That's the problem. Her current task is to follow the requirements of Class Three, but after she handed in that ridiculous poem, Class Three did not assign her a new task. Technically, it's part of her job to do nothing, which is why she can't relax. And she sees no difference between this damn apartment and enemy territory.
"Maybe Joe is right," she thought to herself. "Maybe I'm too nervous."
The guy had mentioned it several times that she should relax and not be too nervous. So far she'd dismissed him as a naive nosy, but it suddenly occurred to her that there might be something to what he was saying. She was always nervous around the third-level class just because she was a third-level class, which didn't help anyone. Does it really matter if she learns to relax a little? For a cosmic entity she can't understand, it's doing remarkably well, and all of her superiors seem to believe it will stay that way. Weirdly, even Lieutenant Baker seemed okay with the surgical brain blast he received for disobeying orders, as the outcome could have been much worse. He even received medical clearance and received an early pension instead of being court-martialed for insubordination, which the psionicist attributed to the Major.
Agent Johnson was skeptical at first, but after a week living with the third-class students, she began to change her mind. It eats, it laughs, it chats, it works, it plays - all of which a normal well-adjusted adult would engage in. It might even go to sleep, for Queenie's sake. In fact, she wasn't so sure about the last one. Joe had said that the third shift had gone to bed, but was that really the case? Feeling a bit adventurous and extremely bored, Agent Johnson decided to take the plunge himself. She stood up from the sofa and quietly walked to the master bedroom. She opened the door gently and looked out through the small gap. She immediately confirmed that Class Three must have fallen asleep, although she was caught off guard when she saw it.
This may have been the first time AJ saw Maggie, and she saw a human being rather than a Level 3 cosmic threat. She found it difficult to see this perfectly normal, perfectly calm, perfectly vulnerable person as anything more than a normal girl. This makes the agent feel a little ashamed. Although she'd spent a lot of time monitoring Maggie's every move since her arrival, Johnson hadn't realized she was invading someone else's privacy until now. Deciding she needed some time to process this strange influx of emotions, she quietly closed the door and walked around the eerily silent apartment.
Ultimately, she decided to accept the Level 3 students' actions as their genuine efforts to gain humanity. That means she won't suddenly become friends with that girl. Cosmic origins aside, Maggie is still a self-righteous, know-it-all, domineering person who has yet to earn AJ's respect. Not to mention those "experiments" of hers are just extra steps to bully people. It really felt like her actual owner was intentionally trying to piss her off, and it worked. However, AJ tried his best to keep his dissatisfaction inside and remained silent as much as possible. Suffice it to say, it's important to avoid feeding the trolls.
After temporarily resolving her inner debate, it wasn't long before Johnson was back to being so bored that she wanted to bang her skull against the living room wall.
"Jeeves!" she shouted. "Come in!"
The hovering machine appeared within seconds.
"Do you need anything, Agent Johnson?"
"Tell me a joke."
She must be at the end of her rope if she turns to household appliances for entertainment, but at least this machine seems to be doing what she wants.
"What did a goldfish say to another goldfish in the tank?"
"I don't know, what's wrong?"
"Do you know how to drive this thing?"
"Uh," she scoffed. "Try something a little more... refined."
Jeeves stood silently for a few seconds, presumably retrieving something from the database.
"A Brit, an American and an Italian go on an interstellar cruise together. After their ship makes a wormhole jump, the Brit announces, "We're in Imperial space now!" The others look at him and say, "How did you know? ?" He replied with a smile: "I can see the light of Big Ben!" Some time passed, and their ship jumped again. This time the Americans said loudly: "We are in America now, brother!" Others! When asked how he knew, the man pointed to the stars and said, "That's the Star-Spangled Banner Nebula!" The third wormhole jump occurred. As expected, the Italian smiled and said, "We are now passing through the vastness of Sicily. Sea!" Others asked: "How do you know?" The Italian raised his hand proudly and said: "Because someone stole my watch!"'"
"Hit the ball! Hahaha!" Johnson couldn't help laughing. "Oh, that's terrible! Ahahah!"
"I'm sorry my comedy subroutine wasn't to your liking."
"Ah... well, then there's no chance." She was deflated. "Good job, Buckethead."
Being told that its jokes were both "bad" and "good" sent Jeeves into yet another logical loop. Thankfully, AJ was used to reboots, so she did it right away. The brief distraction wasn't enough, though. It was still afternoon, which meant she had at least a few hours before anything noteworthy happened. Unless she dared to disturb Maggie's sleep, but AJ didn't think that was a good idea. Apart from anything else, she really didn't want that girl in her life anymore. She then briefly considers letting Joe leave his pod, which has its own problems. She really didn't want to touch that macho machine unless she had to.
Then, Agent Johnson had an idea. There are several perfectly normal VR pods in the game room, next to a giant VR pod. Of course, she could use this to keep herself busy. However, aside from working on various combat simulations with her team, it's been years since her last foray into virtual reality. She had a feeling that if she just had a whim now, she would get lost in a sea of media and she would eventually get bored four times as fast. This woman thought she could approach Joe in the digital world and ask him to show her something that even a newbie like herself would find interesting. Hey, if he can do that for a level three student, then he certainly won't mind helping AJ.
Determined, the woman climbed into her cabin and logged into V-Life for the first time in ten years. Her incarnation reflects the passage of time as it is a younger version of herself. She never really liked these virtual toys, so she didn't do much to dress herself up. This is still largely true, it's just that she feels embarrassed to appear ten years younger, which would send the wrong message if Joe thought it was intentional. After a few surprisingly intuitive clicks, AJ told the character customization system to match her virtual appearance to her real self.
After doing this, she went to find Joe. This was simple as she already knew his only virtual username was "JoeMulliga
356", which means that he is the 356th Joe Mulligan on the planet who decided to use only his real name. And she herself was a little embarrassed, because her younger self had already decided to choose "the imaginative power princess Sarah" "Pull". She could replace it, but that would cost a £50 service fee and she decided it wasn't worth spending half an afternoon. At least it was more respectable than Maggie's virtual ID, which had been viewed by 42 people. A seemingly random sequence of letters and numbers. There might be some deeper meaning that only she could decipher, but to AJ it was like she was throwing her keyboard down the stairs over and over again.
"Hey Joe. I'm AJ," she texted him. "Do you mind if I stay with you for a while?"
It took a worrying 15 minutes before she got a reply.
"Hey! Sorry, I'm not good at replying to private messages. Sure, you can watch my game and we can chat. Sound good?"
After some back and forth, AJ found himself wandering in the orbit of an unknown planet, surrounded by a large number of girders, panels and machinery. She is just a person who does not own "Ast
al E
gi
ee
s" title, so her appearance defaults to that of a ghostly astronaut, unable to interact with the game world. Joe looks similar, but more tangible.
"Yo," he waved to her. "I'm a little surprised you're here. I don't think VR is your cup of tea."
"It wasn't, but I found it so boring that I thought I might as well give it a try."
"Ah. I hope you don't mind, but I'm in the groove right now and I really don't want to waste my time. Otherwise I'd show you something more interesting."
"No, no, it's okay. I just wanted someone to talk to. I even tried to get Jeeves to tell me a joke."
"Wait, he can tell jokes?"
"Really? Most voice devices do, but they usually don't work. At least Jeeves' book was from an online library."
"Is there anything good?"
"only one."
She then repeated the interstellar cruise anecdote. Her comedic timing wasn't as good as that of a robot, and Joe had heard this before, but he still laughed.
"That's a good idea. It reminds me of a story I heard about a British lord and a UAE sheikh."
"Oh? You must tell me."
AJ was really curious what kind of story would involve two planetary rulers from opposite ends of the galaxy.
"So, a lord and a chief meet in a silly luxury hotel on some resort planet, and they discover they have a lot in common, right? Mainly too much money, but also an appreciation for skilled servants. They quickly became friends and at some point decided to have a friendly match with 500,000 points on the line. "
"Same as them," AJ rolled his eyes and smirked.
Joe then launches into a lengthy story, portraying the British Governor as a very punctual and polite man, while the foreigner proves to be a ridiculously disorganized man. This stupid remark annoyed both parties, although in the end the foreigner became the butt of the joke. The woman giggled almost the entire time, laughing herself to tears when she heard the punchline. She had to admit that Joe was very talented in this area. Equally impressive is his ability to keep working on his own little projects.
"Oh my God," she exclaimed after she calmed down. "That's great. I'll definitely tell Sparks this next time."
"Excuse me, Sparks?"
"Just a colleague of mine."
"how does he look like?"
"Oh, he was a total geek, but a good geek. He once connected a light bulb to a potato and made a flashlight."
"……can you do it?"
"Obviously," she shrugged.
"Where did you get the potatoes?"
"We were trapped in this farmer's shed during a night operation. It's a long story."
"I have time," Joe casually urged her to share.
"I... really shouldn't say anything more. Secret missions or something."
"Oh. It's okay, I understand."
AJ was kind of glad she wasn't allowed to talk about that mission. Aside from the potato incident, it was actually a depressing and terrible thing and really not worth remembering. In fact, most of her past missions have been like this. No wonder she, like Major Archer, always thinks of the worst-case scenario when dealing with cosmic entities. This was also the main reason why she couldn't let down her guard around Maggie. Not to mention, as Sparks himself likes to point out, a healthy dose of paranoia is necessary in their line of work. Yet, strangely, even he seems to have received this third-level education.
After completely killing the fun mood, AJ decided to ask something she'd been thinking about for a while.
"So...what made you join that cult?"
"Huh? What do you worship?"
He replied nonchalantly, without taking his eyes off the holographic 3D blueprint in front of him, which showed that his ignorance was not feigned.
"You know. Worship of the Gazing Star? Those who want to sacrifice you?"
"Oh, so? Well, I always forget that they're an actual cult."
"Seriously? It's only been a month and a half since then."
"First of all, from my perspective, it's actually closer to half a year."
"……Um?"
“Virtual reality runs four times faster than the outside world, remember?”
"Oh. Right."
"Secondly, I'm not the type to think negatively. Plus, I got to meet Maggie, which was more important than anything else that happened that day."
"That makes sense, but that doesn't answer my question. Why did you join?"
"It was a little embarrassing, actually. I thought I was on an elaborate blind date and I didn't really realize the cult aspect until Maggie pointed it out."
AJ was already aware of this impressive ignorance, but what she was really curious about was the reason behind it.
"But, that's it. You give a few months' pocket money to a bad guy you barely know, strip naked, and let yourself be tied to a stone altar just because someone promised you to meet someone. That's not... …normal."
"I mean, it's a little extreme to say that, but a lot of guys will do stupid things to get a girl. Especially at my age. I think anyone would go through what I did if it meant they would end up with To someone as wonderful as Maggie.”
"That's exactly what I'm saying. You're all so desperate. You know what I think? It's because you're letting this VR technology rot your brain into clay."
"You're being stupid. If it makes people's brains leak out of their ears, the government is certainly not going to institutionalize it."
"For example, Joe. Like, your every need is being met, so it makes you crave something you don't have even more. To a ridiculous degree. In your case, it's a relationship, but other people want It’s power or money or influence. This disproportionate desire warps their sense of reality and makes them susceptible to manipulation, so they’re attracted to these cults, and it’s like – are you listening to me?!”
The way Joe fiddled with the settings on the automatic assembly machine suggested that his attention was elsewhere.
"I hear! He doesn't think so.
His self-assigned tasks required little of his limited brain power. Astral Engineers is more of a game than a simulation, so all he has to do is conjure bits and pieces of equipment out of thin air and place them in the right places. Furthermore, he had already designed the industrial rail device he wanted to build and was just following his blueprints. In a way, he was just going through the motions, and most of his attention was indeed on AJ, but she didn't know it and thought he was treating her like background noise.
"That's it, I'm trying to configure this thing to make plastic from biofuel instead of crude oil, but I can't remember how."
Unfortunately, his explanation did not convince her.
"Uh, forget it. Why should I bother you?"
"Maybe because you care," he said, pointing to the other console. "Seriously, it's not that I don't understand what you mean. You said that virtual reality creates lazy losers, which is a psychological and social problem. I have seen this argument countless times online, but I don't believe it. It’s so bloody regressive. I mean, if virtual reality is so disruptive, why are you still in it now?”
AJ felt like she was being ignored and then had her views belittled, which made her a little upset, but not to the point of refusing to continue the conversation.
"Because I'm bored."
"That's exactly why I spend so much time here. Let's face it, without Maggie, I'd be just another faceless fool in the crowd. Not even a cog in the machine, just a cog in the box A mouse. I stay in virtual life all day because I really have nothing better to do than the other way around. Without this platform to keep me busy, I would probably start doing some weird stuff within a month Ritual, just to keep things interesting.”
"But if you spend your whole life distracted, you'll never get anything done!"
"I mean, yeah, I'm not going to be a badass soldier like you or an unparalleled genius like Maggie, but guess what? I can brighten people's day with a joke every now and then. , honestly, that’s enough for me. I say let the super geniuses who know what they’re doing worry about the important stuff.”
"You're just saying that because the government meets your needs, so you lack a sense of agency. You don't have to worry about your life, worry about your next meal, or endure anything more than screwing up a pointless game because of technical issues Serious adversity.”
"So...that's a bad thing?"
"Yes!"
"I don't know, AJ. I gotta say, living in a box is better than getting shot all the time."
"...Well, no, that's not what I meant."
"No, I'm pretty sure it was you. That's good, though. I think I understand now. You're the kind of person who thinks that anyone can do what you can if you work hard enough, right? ?”
"Well, actually, I think I am."
While Agent Johnson has been drafted into the army, any citizen of the Empire can voluntarily join Her Majesty's Armed Forces. As long as they stick with it, a complex physical and mental training regime will keep them in good shape no matter what. In her opinion, this is a very simple thing. The only exception is that if a person is not born with psionic powers, no amount of effort will allow him or her to develop them, but that's not the point.
"That's not how people work, though," Joe pointed out. "I mean, look at me. I came out of school with terrible scores on all the aptitude tests and now I have a big chunk of 'unemployable' on my record. It's not because I didn't work hard. Trust me, I really did. It turned out that I was simply not cut out to do anything important or impactful. Guess what? That's okay with me. I wasn't born strong or agile or smart or anything, really. And yet, I lived Get a life without worries and stress. In my opinion, it’s a good deal. VR gives me an easy way to interact with people and have fun, which is just the icing on the cake.”
"Okay. Wow," AJ was startled. "I don't know how you do it, but that's the best and worst excuse I've ever heard. I don't really know how to respond."
The problem wasn't just what Joe said, it was how he said it. There was no hostility or derision in his voice, but one of confusion and surprise. She could almost hear him smirking beneath the opaque visor of his virtual suit. He can't seem to believe that he has to explain something that should be obvious to someone much smarter than him. This was the tone he often used towards Maggie, and as the receiving end, AJ somewhat understood why Class 3 wanted to keep this person around. It's hard to explain, but his incredibly humble and relaxed attitude had a way of putting others at ease.
"Hey, I bought it," he shrugged. "What I'm saying is, don't criticize mediocrity until you try it."
"If you don't mind, I won't go. By the way, is the fuel line leaking?"
"Oh my God!"
AJ watched in mild confusion as Joe hurriedly tinkered with his dummy device. After this serious topic was over, they continued talking about insignificant things while the guy worked on his space station. They discuss topics ranging from local restaurants to foreign movies to intergalactic sporting events. They didn't have much in common and had a lot of little quarrels, but AJ and Joe had a lot of fun talking together. He also recommended several entry-level shooters to her, and she excelled at slaughtering legions of aliens, demons, robots, and alien demon robots. The man himself didn't join her because he was minding his own business, but they kept voice chatting. Hearing AJ's excited reaction to his first real foray into virtual gaming was interesting in itself.
By the time Jeeves called them both out for dinner, the soldier's view of Joe's lifestyle had changed significantly. She no longer sees this as less than her own situation, just different. She still personally disapproves of it, preferring to find excitement in the real world rather than the digital one, but she won't look down on those who don't have the opportunity anymore. With this subconscious obsession removed, she could talk to Joe more freely and candidly while munching on beef, carrots and mashed potatoes prepared by Jeeves.
The conversation ended abruptly and the hostess walked into the dining room, closing the door harder than usual behind her.
"Oh! Hey, Maggie," Joe greeted her immediately. "How was your first sleep?"
“It was hugely rejuvenating, but also a little disturbing.”
"Really? What's the problem?"
"Maybe. I'm almost sure I had a dream, but I can't remember anything except a vague feeling like I was dreaming about a giant noodle." She sounded quite worried.
"Oh, that's normal. Many people forget their dreams as soon as they wake up."
"I won't forget it, Joe."
She may not have all of her vast knowledge at the forefront of her consciousness, but she can perfectly recall anything she has seen, heard, or learned.
"You guys don't usually sleep either," AJ pointed out. "Whatever you dreamed about was probably a product of the human brain and therefore affected by its neurochemical properties. I don't think it's anything to worry about."
"That's right, Maggie." The man shrugged. "That must be the case, since Princess Big Brain Melon said so."
"Oy! I told you not to tell anyone about this!"
"You said it, but I chose not to listen. It's more fun that way."
"I swear, if you start spreading it around, I'm going to pop your head off like a bottle cap!"
"I wouldn't do that if I were you. You're going to make my girlfriend angry, and we both know how horrible she can be when she's angry."
"Don't hide behind Class 3, you coward!"
“I like the idea of myself, so I’m definitely going to do it.”
"Hey. I'm starting to understand why no woman in the world can stand you. I should change your profile from "Unhirable" to "Insufferable Bastard."
"Can you...can you do it? Is this a thing?"
“If it’s not, it should be.”
Maggie watched the two men bickering back and forth. She was a little surprised and a little angry with Agent Johnson. This reaction had nothing to do with the woman's lackadaisical demeanor and inappropriate informality. Her current behavior was very different from the rude and nervous manner she usually displayed around Maggie, but it wasn't unexpected. Just like Joe reassured his girlfriend, their roommate was bound to relax eventually too. It didn't matter that it happened while the girl was napping. What bothered her was something else entirely.
When did Joe and Agent Johnson start getting along so well?
