Page 5 of Control

“Not too long,” I said. “Some of us have a knack for these kinds of things. I managed to learn it in about a week. Some people can pick it up in a month or 2 and some never do.”

“I wanna learn that!” Clover said, a smile breaking out across her face. “That’s so cool!” I laughed a little and smiled.

“Yeah it kind of is, isn’t it?” I brushed aside some stray strands of hair that had managed to stick to Clover’s cheek.

"So you can just spawn anything you want?” she asked. “At any time?”

“Sort of,” I said, remembering all the limitations the game had in place to protect the players. “You can spawn stuff like food items, clothing, benign things like that. Nothing dangerous.”

“I knew this place would be amazing,” she said, “but I didn’t think it would feel so….”

“Real?” I said as her voice trailed off again. “The reason it feels real is because your mind perceives it as it would perceive the real world. That’s why everyone wants in. It’s kind of like winning a ticket into a world that feels just like the real thing, but you can become whomever you want.” Clover nodded and smiled. “Is that why you wanted in? To be someone else?”

“Yes,” she said in a much calmer voice than before. She looked out past me and around the club for a moment. “I hate my stupid life so much and I just wanted to go somewhere else so I could try and be somebody. Anybody!”

“That’s why a lot of people are here,” I said, tossing the sweat-soaked napkin onto the table where it instantly despawned. "“Everyone here is trying to get away from something.”

“Even you?” she asked, looking back at me. “Your life sucks like mine?” I thought about my answer for a moment before finally deciding to redirect.

“Let’s say we get you looking better,” I said, hoping to lead her away from her pointed question. Knowing we were still being watched, I began to feel somewhat uncomfortable in Vicious D and felt it was best if I take her somewhere else where we could have more privacy. “If you’re alright with it, how about you come with me and we’ll get you all fixed up. I’ll take you to my wardrobe and we can get you into something a little more…appropriate.”

Clover nodded her head in approval and offered me a warm and inviting smile. Still paired with her, I set aside her HUD and brought my own back up and set my wardrobe to invite only. I looked back at her a moment before finally turning off my Escort app after seeing that her vitals had returned to normal.

“Ok,” I said. “This might feel a little jarring since you’re still new. Just like when you spawned in here, you’re going to feel a little woozy.” Clover nodded once more as I took her hand back in mine. I thought out several commands and within a split second, Clover and I had exited the club and were back at my place and inside my rather large wardrobe.

CHAPTER 4 - DRESSING ROOM

I KEPT CLOVER’S hand in mine as we spawned in to make sure she was alright as I fully expected her to still be somewhat disoriented from her ordeal. She did lose her balance, but was mostly fine. I placed my free hand firmly onto her shoulder to make sure she didn’t fall over as some jumps or teleports tend to be rougher than others, although I’m not exactly sure why.

“You’ll get used to the jumps,” I said, taking her arm in mine and leading her to a violet chair with black stitching that I often used when coming up with new makeup designs. “It took me a couple of days before I was able to do them without getting dizzy.”

“I hope so,” she said as she dropped down into the chair. “Maybe things are getting too real for me.”

“You’ll be fine,” I said as I pulled up another violet chair in front of her and sat down while placing my hands on her lap. “Just gotta learn to take things slow. Jumping into a game like this is unlike anything you’ve ever done before. You may be asleep in your bed, but your brain is reacting the same way it would if this were really happening. This isn’t like playing a VR game where you put on the goggles and let yourself be fooled into thinking things are a certain way. As far as your brain is concerned, you’re awake.” I moved my chair closer to her, taking a look at her makeup and realizing more and more that she really was in a rush to get started. “Don’t take this the wrong way dear, but…your avatar. You, in this case…you look like you just chose a preset makeup option and went with that.” Clover grinned, but was clearly embarrassed.

“Yeah,” she said through her clenched teeth. “I guess I just wanted to get in and see what it was like. You know how it is, right? You get that shiny new toy for Christmas and you just wanna play!”

“I understand,” I said as I took her chin in my hand and looked over her bone structure, trying to figure out how I could help her improve her appearance. “This body and face that you chose…are you married to it? Is it something you want to keep or are you open to ideas?”

“Is it bad?” she asked with doubt in her voice. “I didn’t even give it a second though. I just picked one of the options thats there when you first start.”

“Another preset,” I said. “They’re not bad, but there is so much more we could do with your look. You see, the thing about this place is if you pick all presets, you’re not gonna stand out. You’re gonna look like 50% of the population here. You don’t look bad per se, but you also don’t differentiate yourself from anyone else. Now if you want to mix in with the group, that’s fine. There’s nothing wrong with that. But things may be more exciting for you if you make yourself stand out, get yourself noticed.”

“I want to stand out!” Clover exclaimed, a huge smile coming across her face. “I want to…I want…to be someone I’m not in real life. Like really be something different.” A giddiness seemed to overtake Clover, perhaps sensing for the first time that I had a sincere interest in helping her.

“Well,” I said as I leaned forward and put my hands on her shoulders, “the first thing we need to do is nail down your look.” Still being paired to her, I brought up her HUD and projected it onto a white wall I had in my wardrobe so she could get a clean and precise image of what we were gonna do. I brought up her character data and focused in on her appearance. “This right here is how all of Aurora sees you. Your face, your makeup, body, clothing and all in extreme detail.”

“This is still so incredible to me,” she said while looking over her own avatar. “It still amazes me how real this all is.” After a moment of looking herself over, Clover added “Jesus…do I really look that unkempt?” I popped up out of my chair and moved beside her, nodding my head while offering a reassuring smile.

“I could tell you were in a hurry to see Aurora,” I said as I zoomed in to her avatar, focusing on her face. “Whenever a new player comes along, you can tell they’re new. Lots of rushed decisions and defaults applied. Everyone hears so much about how incredible the world here looks and feels that they just want in and don’t think twice about how they themselves appear to others.” I looked over her face a bit more and I could tell that there were virtually no changes made to it. I asked Clover how she wanted to appear to the world, how she wanted everyone to see her. While I had always chosen to appear very much as myself with a few enhancements, other players liked to look like someone completely different.

After a few moments of her thinking things over, Clover decided she wanted to look somewhat like herself, but different enough that she could live out her fantasies without things feeling overly realistic. I brought up user profile where all of her real life data was kept and had her enter her password to reveal the details, making sure to secure her permission to see more about her. She was surprisingly open, naively perhaps, making my choice to help her all the more justified. I know in my heart I would never take advantage of another player, but there are those out there that would do so in a heartbeat. I was so happy that I’d managed to see her first before the trolls did.

A detailed photo of Clover appeared before us and once again using her HUD, I had the game import all of the photo data. I then worked with her to make fine adjustments to her facial features, removing those she wasn’t crazy about in real life, but leaving enough there so she could still feel like herself. After finalizing the changes, I locked them in, and her facial features were set.

“You can always change these later,” I said to her. “What I’m gonna do here is save this face for you.” I created a save file for her avatar and named it simply Clover 1. After the save completed, I applied the changes for her. I pulled a small hand mirror from my ridiculously large and extravagant vanity and put it up to her so she could see her new self-image.

“Oh my God,” she said, putting her hands to her face. “This is…this is me now! Holy shit! It’s me now!” I smiled and nodded to her as she looked over to me, amazed and obviously pleased with the results.

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