Chapter 116 - Improvement (1/2)

Gray sent Caleb a message with an invite link to the private room Kelly and himself were in.

"What's up Gray?" Caleb asked.

"Need your opinion on something..."

"Regarding?"

"Caleb, what do you know of cloning technology?"

"Officially, cloning is banned for purposes of creating a complete person, but it is still used widely to grow replacement organs and for gene therapy in a highly regulated lab environment... That and whenever they've made a complete human, nothing happened, it was a lifeless doll. Research into cloning is actually what made our own physical bodies possible."

"What do you mean by that?" Kelly asked.

"We were all raised in a virtual environment without a physical body, but now we have one... they couldn't just let them grow in a vat over all of these years so they had to construct one for us."

"Ah, so that is why the character creation wasn't as extreme as other games." Gray said in realization.

"Yes, I imagine most of us just went with what our perceived physical appearance was, and notice that your appearance changed in the virtual world to match what it became in the real world over time?"

"Huh, and here I thought I just got a six pack back in the virtual world because I stopped eating like a slob..."

"Gray, did you get fat?!?" Kelly said surprised.

"Shhh, I blame it on Mountain Dew, the nectar of the gods! I haven't had one since we last went to town."

"You know you can get it added to the Diamond-Tier rec room, right?"

Gray slapped his own forehead "Well, I do now! But... maybe it is for the best that I forget about it... Back on topic though! So are you saying it is impossible for someone to make a clone of themselves and then move themselves into that body?"

"Yes, it is almost impossible with what we know, but remember, I am not an expert, Dr. Sara Watts and Edward Teach would know better, and I suspect that we don't want to ask Edward Teach."

"Certainly there should be more neural scientists and doctors than those two, right?" Gray said.

"Amazingly not really, the population of the world has dropped dramatically since the last war and might've been lowered further had it continued. Officially, Terra Research and Development was the only legally sanctioned cloning provider."

"Well, how can we get in touch with Dr. Sara Watts?" Gray asked.

Both Kelly and Caleb laughed at Gray's question, Kelly finally stopped laughing and said, "She may now only be an AI, but she is still a celebrity and it is impossible to get in touch with her without being able to provide a very very legitimate reason."

Gray figured that made sense, then he remembered the video of her at the company picnic, "You don't supposed nostalgia would be a legitimate reason, do you?"

"No, but that would be up to her, still, getting in touch with her might be difficult anyways as it's not like we can just send her or an assistant of hers a message, and even if we could they would probably ignore it."

Gray smiled and said, "I actually know someone who has worked with her before, I'll message him tonight!"

"We can see how that goes then. Also, you suddenly ask me about cloning and then nothing, what is this about?" Caleb asked

"Edward Teach and Stephen Seegall. Kelly and I both thought that Stephen Seegall might be a clone of Edward Teach and if so that would make all of the pieces fit!"

Caleb furrowed his brow in thought, "Indeed, that would make everything fit, but that doesn't explain the reason for marrying Yurika."

"Oh yeah, forgot about that..." Gray said while scratching the back of his head.

"Well, let's see if your friend comes through Gray, the tournament is in a week and we need to work on our coordination!" Kelly said.

"Agreed, who holds a tournament on a Monday though, seriously..." Gray said dejectedly.

"War doesn't take weekends or holidays, day of the week doesn't matter." Caleb said seriously.

"I know that! I'm just saying that a lot of players might miss it because of that."

"I suspect the military did that intentionally, they may consider themselves superior to players, but they would still prefer as little competition as possible." Kelly suggested.

"Agreed, so Caleb, want to stick around for our brainstorming session or do you think a free for all among everyone else would help loosen things up?"

"I don't think a free for all is wise, but maybe a few team matches made for fun rather than winning or losing?" Caleb suggested to Gray.

"That does sound better, yeah, having fun together will encourage teamwork more than trying to ram it down their throats. Setup a Capture the Flag match or something else where you can respawn, pick random teams and have fun. I don't want to see our 7 versus Kelly's 7 so mix it up!"