THE MOMENT
"It was red," Witness A reported the answer and Aurelio nodded, then looked at Witness B.
"It felt cold and icy...," she said. Aurelio nodded and turned to Witness C.
"I noticed a sense of confidence..., like super charismatic maybe," she said. Finally, Aurelio nodded at the fourth person in his group, the coordinator.
"You chose the Void," the coordinator confirmed the actual choice Aurelio made.
"Well, that's gonna be fun...," Aurelio sighed as he considered the next attempts. The four strangers were seated in his garage around a smooth white work table. A clear jar filled with rainbow liquid sat in the middle of the table as the focus of all their attention. It was late in the evening with fading light still visible. The garage door was up so Aurelio could enjoy the cool breeze while he worked.
He had a translucent red visor with a HUD over his eyes while the strangers were only using their natural eyes. He was standing at a console nearby and after a flurry of typing, he nodded at the coordinator again. He'd changed several settings, just a scattershot approach to see what, if anything, might be different.
"Let's try it like this," he said. The coordinator and three witnesses signaled their readiness. Aurelio typed again in a burst of keystrokes and white dust began to coalesce around the jar of rainbow liquid. It formed the shape of a hexagonal prism, then Aurelio attuned it to Wind magic. There was a burst of vivid green light, a gust of wind, and a sense of nimbleness washed over Aurelio; the release happened in a flash all at once. He recognized the empowered feeling as an Agility boost the same way he felt concealed from the Dexterity boost the Void gave him from the previous test. He looked over at the first Witness.
"It was black," she said.
"It felt ... windy...," Witness B gave her answer when Aurelio looked at her.
"Really? Huh...," he took note and looked at Witness C.
"I noticed a sense of ... nimbleness. I felt super agile," she said.
"Hey... alright..," he smirked at the apparent progress.
"You chose Water," the coordinator said.
"Crap," Aurelio sighed. The coordinator was supposed to be the Control, seeing his actual choice.
"Game night?" the voice startled Aurelio out of his thoughts and he whirled around to see Monday walking in through the open door.
"No, I'm studying the rainbow juice," he gestured at the jar. "This stuff is determined not to be categorized, which is making it harder to study."
"So.. why the quartet?" Monday asked about the four identical women sitting at the table. Not one of them had bothered to look up when she interrupted things.
"NPCs," Aury nodded. "I needed reliable witnesses to witness the same event and possess the same information. I have them each concentrate on a different aspect while I poke at it, oh, watch," he looked at the coordinator.
"Ready?" he asked and she nodded along with her 3 identical counterparts. Once more, Aurelio repeated the procedure with a flurry of typing. A cloud of white nanos gathered around the jar and formed a six-sided prism one more time. A bright flash of purple light filled the room.
"Lightning round," he said and pointed at Witness A.
"Blue," she said, and Aurelio pointed at Witness B, then C.
"Super hot," she said.
"Super strong," Witness C replied.
"You picked Sun," the coordinator said.
"Weird," Monday giggled. "None of them saw it was black, but it felt like an Intelligence buff, instead of Dexterity."
"That wasn't it either," Aurelio laughed. "I chose Stamina; but that's why I'm using identical NPCs," he added.
"Huh?" Monday wasn't sure what to make of that. "Why?"
"I told you, it's important they all possess the same information," he shrugged. "No two humans are going to have that ever, just by virtue of life experience. Here, they all have the exact same life experience, and they witness the exact same event taking in the exact same information as a whole. The only difference is their focus."
"Oh, wow, I wouldn't have thought of that," Monday replied.
"Yeah, I'm pretty genius," Aurelio chuckled. "So... what'd you actually want?"
"Just to see if you made any progress," Monday said. "Starla's kind of hit a wall and Dara's keeping Melody distracted from this whole thing, so we don't have her magical expertise either."
"No progress really, I've just kind of confirmed what we already know. It's raw magic, so different effects for different people. And, so far I can't get any nanos to interface with it at all, it's like they don't even recognize its existence."
"Okay...," Monday nodded with a slight sigh. There was a mystery eating her up, and she had so few people to confide in. She couldn't even talk to her mom about it and needed her sister to run interference. "... I guess, keep me posted." She left through a portal because it was closer than the door, and in seconds Aurelio was alone again with the 4 NPCs.
"Ehhhh," he sighed, and decided he needed to recreate them. "She might've done something." Monday was half unicorn and she had a powerful affinity for magic, so her presence was a valid concern. It was easier to delete the NPCs and he spoke the default verbal command he'd implemented. He had no idea where the phrase came from, but he liked the sound of it, and it gave him warm feelings. He said the password on his way to the table to collect the rainbow sample. He preferred to create the NPCs first before bringing it out to them.
"Jenny Rocks," he said. The women dissolved into white powder as they were supposed to, but something unexpected happened as well. The jar exploded in a multicolored burst of frigid flames knocking an unwitting Aurelio backward onto his behind.
"What the hell...," he got up and dusted himself off. The top of the table was covered with white floating dust, waiting nanos, as rainbow light pulsed from within the dense cloud. He knew better than to stick his hand into incomplete nanos and used the keyboard to manually reset the table. The cloud collapsed as the surface became smooth white again. Except, instead of the jar of rainbow liquid, there was a clear flat node in the center of the table. It was etched with three letters pulsing in rainbow light as he picked it up.
"Damnit, Jenny,...," he sighed and shook his head. There was obviously something more now. It had just been a name he thought he liked, but this was too much of a coincidence. "Who are you..?" he asked as he ran his thumb over the glowing letters. [JNY]