Nerves of glass — Part 1

“So, how are we doing, Steven?” said the guy in a lab coat as he took out something from his front pocket. I heard a click and a point of light appeared in his hand. My eyes strained a little as he pointed it towards me.

“I, … I’m okay.” I said as I tried to make sense of my surroundings. I sat in a pod opening up into a cavernous room, lit dimly in red. At the far end of the room spheres of light stood against the wall, painting a bright blue color on their surroundings.

“You have spent 4 hours in the pod so a little bit of weariness is perfectly natural” said the doctor as the light stinging my eyes disappeared to reveal the word “Johnson” written on his lab coat. “You have a brilliant brain, Champ. I think it’s great that you decided to use it for something good” said the doctor as he typed something on the tablet in his hand.

“So, I fit the requirement?” I said.

“Oh, you broke all records for sim control. Your mind took to the platform as if it were your own body.”

I sat there for a moment as I tried to remember what the sim test had looked like. All I remembered was getting into the spherical pod as it filled with liquid, a minute or two later falling asleep, and after that … nothing. Only, if I had been sleeping I wouldn’t be so tired right now.

“You can take that off now and make your way to the next room.” said Dr. Johnson as he pointed to my head. I raised an arm and felt my head to see what he meant and remembered that I still had my neural link on. A gentle tug was enough to take it off sending a tingle down my spine. I shook my head to get rid of it. 
I hung the neural link from a small protrusion in the pod wall, it had black wires coming out ending in small white spheres that made it look like a wig, only with inhumanly thick hair. 
My movements were slow and unusually imprecise. Everything felt distant, like I was watching some scene in a movie unfolding in slow motion and I was willing it to change, only to my surprise have it actually change as I had willed.

“Just follow the yellow lights on the floor to get to your next test.” he said, smiling. Probably amused by my dazed demeanor. I smiled back and obliged.

My first few steps after getting out of the pod had been unsteady. Like a child relearning to walk in dad’s shoes, unfamiliar with the profoundly different weight, under and over compensating for each movement. It became easier by the time I reached the next room. I could keep walking a straight line now. This room unlike the other was smaller, though still large enough to have a dozen treadmills in the center of the room and other exercise equipment by the outer walls. Several people occupied the treadmills, running. Despite apparent differences in their heights and weights, their steps seemed to follow the same rhythm though they weren’t synchronized. It looked like a school play mimicking the workings of an old engine with it’s pistons bobbing up and down.

They all had visibly similar earphones shining under the bright white lights of the room. Must have been standard issue for the tests then. Which would also mean they are listening to the same soundtracks, “so that’s why they are on the same rhythm” I whispered to myself.

“Hi” said the woman by the door when she noticed me.
“Could you please log your card here” she said as she raised her tablet for me. I brought my card up to it until the orange screen turned green and had my picture on it. 
“Please follow me to the treadmill number 5” she said heading towards the center of the room.
“Please put on these accessories. They help us mediate the test and track your vitals. If you feel uneasy or nauseous stop immediately and take a few minutes to rest.” she said as she handed me a small plastic bag.

I nodded and proceeded to open the bag. She returned back to the front of the room where her station had been.

Just as I had thought, the bag contained a pair of white wireless ear phones. Additionally it had an arm bracelet and a glove with sensory equipment in them. I put them all on and stepped on the treadmill. The screen just had a large button showing with “Begin Test” written on it. I touched it and it disappeared.

A few seconds passed and I heard a voice saying “Welcome to post-simulation physical analysis. This test is designed to estimate long term effects of sim pods on your locomotion and response time. Our first task would be a slow paced walk. Please press the button on the screen to begin”. The begin button appeared again on the screen. Two small lights appeared below it when I pressed it and the tread mill started moving under me.

As the speed and difficulty of the test ramped up so did my control over my body. At the end of the day I had ran two kilometers on the treadmill, then a break followed by some more physical tests.

Once all the tests were done I was handed a paper saying that based on my performance in the sim as well as on the physical tests my neural synchronization came out to be 94%. I wouldn’t become paraplegic as I spent time in the pod, that’s good news. At the end of the paper, in bold green words, was written “Strongly recommended for duty”. This was the final decision. After all the psychological, mental and physical tests they had found it acceptable that I was to become the training wheels for the world’s first sentient artificial intelligence. If there was anything I was ever going to do in life that truly made a difference in the world, this would be it.