With Lucas at work, Taylor faced a stretch of several hours alone in the house. All of the day's essential chores were done – yes she’d woken up early to get them done while Unovr installed, shut up – and she’d promptly settled down launched the new (to her) game. It’d been out for a while now, but it had taken some time to convince Lucas that the expense was worth it. Thankfully, he had no idea that the VR game was essentially an MMO. Had he known she’d be able to communicate with other people through it, he almost certainly wouldn’t have caved.

Still, she’d managed to keep that little piece of information quiet, and as she moved through the process of making and naming her avatar, Taylor couldn’t help a little happy wriggle. It was quite disconcerting to find the movement translating into the game, and she had a beat of cognitive dissonance, before laughing at herself and moving on.

NOW LOADING: STARTER LAB
Welcome to the virtual world of Unovr!

A grin split the young woman’s face as the words scrolled across her view, and before long she found herself blinking around at a stunningly rendered open plains area. Her mouth formed a small “o” of fascination as her mind automatically started trying to pick apart the technology. Turning in a circle, the large tent that apparently served as a lab finally caught her attention and she snapped her focus to it, desperate not to miss anything.

And none too soon, it would seem, as she was teleported into the tent itself, coming face-to-face with a familiar character. Professor Ash was widely featured on the promotional material for Unovr, and Taylor barely refrained from clapping her hands in excitement. She forced herself into stillness as the professor spoke.

An enthusiastic nod was given in response to the question, and she hopped to following the instructions eagerly. “Sounds good, Prof!” Taylor grinned, taking a seat as directed and quite literally sitting on her hands to keep them still. Another nod bounced the woman’s dark hair in agreement. “Got it! Fire away, ma’am!”

Taylor wasn’t sure what form she’d been expecting the questions to take, but she was definitely surprised by the answer! Her head canted to the side curiously as she took a moment to consider them. It wasn’t so much that she needed time to come up with her answers, but rather that she couldn’t help wondering how on Earth the AI would extrapolate a good match for her from them! If they’d been multiple choice then sure, but with such open-ended questions? She burned to ask the Professor, but shook her head hard – surely such data would be proprietary and besides, she was itching to get into the game!

"Do you know your Zodiac sign?"

The first of the three questions pulled a more normal shake of the head from the young woman. “’Fraid not,” she answered. “I’m a scientist and can’t say I’ve ever seen any evidence that astrology is in any way rooted in fact, so it’s never appealed.” She had been told her star sign a few times by over-enthusiastic friends and co-workers, but had never made any attempt to actually remember, much to their apparent chagrin.

"How do you feel when someone criticizes you?"

The next question had the young woman’s shoulders stiffening, her posture becoming abruptly rigid in her seat.

“Um, I guess it depends on who it is?” She stared warily at the professor for a moment, before taking a deep breath and forcing herself to relax. “Most people, it doesn’t bother me too much – if it’s something reasonable I try to take it on board and adjust accordingly.” She considered leaving it there for a moment, before giving a mental shrug; it wasn’t like she was answering a real person. “Uh, if it’s someone I care about… guilty, hurt and uncomfortable, I guess.” It came out with a questioning inflection; it wouldn’t be hard to read that she was uneasy with the question. "I still try to change, but it hurts more?" Thankfully there was one final question to answer, so with a shaky breath, she moved swiftly on to that.

"If you were trapped on a desert island what inanimate object would you talk to to keep from going insane?"

This one made her laugh, and she felt the tension bleed from her shoulders as she considered it. “You know what, I think I’d make a makeshift scarecrow. Give him a coconut for a head and dress him in palm leaves! Hell, if nothing else it’d pass the time, right?” She grinned as she really got into the idea. “I think I’d call him…” she trailed off for a moment, contemplatively, before grinning triumphantly. “Edgar Allan Crowe!”

Taylor watched in fascination as the Professor continued making notes on her clipboard, and she only barely managed to restrain herself from leaning over to get a peek at what was being written. It wouldn’t do to make a poor first impression, but she desperately wanted to see what was being recorded! Fortunately, just as her self-control was reaching its limit, Professor Ash seemed to finish up, the words snapping the new player out of it.

She hadn’t even seen the little mite yet and still, just the species name on the front of the labelled pokeball pulled an “aww!” from the young woman. “I love Piplup!” Piplup? Piplups? She never could remember how to form plurals of pokemon names! “They’re such little cuties!” Realising she was still cooing over the as-yet-unseen pokemon rather than minding her manners, Taylor’s gaze jumped back to the NPC. “Thank you very much, Professor! I’ll take good care of ‘em!”