Aiden looked around at the laboratory, which was an extremely large hallway shaped room, about the size of a high school gymnasium. He looked around and saw many scientists male and female, most of them wearing white lab coats, but others wearing casual clothing. The room was white, and had a shiny black tile floor, which Aiden guessed had to be made out of a thin layer of polished obsidian. White arches separated sections of the lab, but there were no walls; it looked sort of like a hanger of some sort, but Aiden saw no aircraft, just tables covered in electronic equipment.
Aiden noticed that at the very end of the room there was a large television screen, on top of the screen there was a large, dark eye, upon first glance, Aiden thought it was simply a statue, but upon closer inspection he realized that the eye had a lens in the center. "Some sort of camera..." He muttered to himself. He turned around and Rudolph walked in through the lab door along with the Irish security guard.
"Did you get a good look at the place Aiden?" He asked. Aiden crossed felt the bruises on his face and said "Yeah, that's a nice TV you've got there... kind of creepy camera on top though." Upon hearing this, Rudolph raised an eyebrow "Camera?" Aiden looked confused at Rudolph and said "That eye on the top." Rudolph then glanced over and laughed "Oh that? That's not simply a camera Aiden, that my friend is a highly innovative sensor, The Formula uses it to observe the player, and study their behavior, come here, I shall explain."
Rudolph and Aiden walked towards the television and Aiden noticed a silver box on the ground plugged into the TV.
"Is that The Formula?" he asked, pointing at it.
Rudolph nodded.
Aiden looked carefully at it, he understood the basic function of The Formula, but he had expected it to be bigger. Aiden observed that The Formula had no disc reader, just a place to plug in controllers, and a power button. He looked up at the eye on the TV and said "Okay, so let me get this straight, this thing analyzes me, in order to figure out exactly what I want, and then it gives me that."
Rudolph nodded, this time grinning. Aiden glanced at Rudolph, not looking at him in the eye, and noticed both the eye, and the grin.
Aiden looked back at the formula and said "Also, it knows how to constantly improve itself, and reprogram itself, how does it get the necessary materials?"
Rudolph shook his head, "It has spare materials stored within it, enough to allow itself to improve upon itself for about a hundred years. Inside The Formula, there are thousands of microscopic robots that feed off of the main power source, they hardly take any power, and hibernate when the console is not plugged in. The robots constantly work to improve and evolve The Formula; we've given them enough raw materials stored inside a tiny container in there, to allow them to slowly make graphical improvements for year after year. The only time they make an improvement, is when standards are raised; when standards are raised, they are programed to make the console work at double that standard."
Aiden sighed and felt his chin with his hand "Yeah and given how slowly gaming consoles progress in quality... it won't have much trouble keeping up. Where did you get the robots though?"
Rudolph looked at Aiden and whispered "They were part of the black box we got."
Aiden looked into Rudolph's ear and whispered "I thought you said that was a brain..."
Rudolph started shaking nervously and whispered "Yes, but it also had little robots, I'm sorry, I should have explained this earlier now shh... "
Aiden backed away from Rudolph and asked "So how does it analyze what I want?"
Rudolph chuckled and said "It can either tell by your body movements through that," he pointed at the eye, "Or you can simply talk to it, and it will figure out what's best for you."
Aiden scratched the back of his head, he accidentally scratched a bruise and a little bit of blood sank under his finger nails, he looked at his finger nails and wiped them on his pants, and then he asked "Okay... so there's no plugging in stuff to my brain?" Rudolph laughed and said "Of course not! We will wrap a sphygmomanometer around your arm to keep track of your blood pressure, but aside from that, no wires will be attached to you."
Suddenly the radios of all the security guards in the rooms started beeping and making noise, and the Irishman approached Rudolph "Ay, it's from the security room, they say there be a man downstairs with a gun sticking up the front desk shouting a bunch of nonsense."
Rudolph put his hand over his eyes and sighed deeply. He lifted his head up and stretched his arms, then he said in a tired voice "Shit... tell Carlson that he can do whatever is necessary."
The Irishman spoke into the radio, a static voice replied. The Irishman said "Copy that, rodger I'll tell him." The Irishman then turned to Rudolph "He says that the wackjob wants to talk to you, says he wants you to tell him the truth about The Formula."
Rudolph's forehead wrinkled and his nose turned slightly red and shook with agitation "Tell Carlson to tell the psychopath that I'll be right there to talk to him. Also, tell Carlson that he can do WHATEVER is necessary."
