Duplication

Chapter 5

-5

Everybody was given a headphone each from Karen, and separately, we worked on our slate assignments. There was little difficulty; I literally had to do everything according to the instructions.

  As soon as I touched the black screen, it switched to a white background with big bold letters printed: Self Directed Brain training program

  “Welcome to Self Directed Brain Training program, Nathan,” a cool voice said, too mechanic that I could not define whether it was a male or a female voice- but definitely giving me less creeps compared to the smoother and more feminine voice of android Karen. “I’m honored to introduce you to the first step of your brain training test to see where you stand.”

  The black letters slowly faded to a grey shade, till it blended into the white background. Fidgeting slightly, I waited for it the program to load fully.

 “Please take out your pen from the right side of the slate.”

As soon as the sentence was done, a slender black object sprung out halfway from the right side of the slate. I slipped it out.

“The pen can be used for giving manual or verbal instructions and throughout the entire program of brain training.”

  On the white background materialized a circle, not filled with any color inside, just an empty circle drawn perfectly in thick black.

 “Please draw a circle as identical as the circle you see on the screen. You are given exactly ten seconds.”

  It took me a second to recover from the fresh shock I’d been thrown into. I’d mentally prepared myself for a challenging test that I would have to tear at my hair, grit my teeth and use all my brain juice for it. Drawing a circle?

  “…Nine.”

Snapping out of my reverie, I took the pen, and lifted it up to the blank space provided next to the drawn circle. When the tip of the pen was just above the screen, something stopped me. Palmer was no fool- nor was his friend. I could not deem this as a meager test; if I did not try my best and my brain was defined to be in lower ability than it actually was, the training I would get would be useless.

  With my eyes, I roughly calculated the circle’s breadth, and the length, drawing invisible curved lines with my eyes. The breadth and length were approximately the same.

  The thickness of the circle was important as well.

I compared the thickness of the circle with the breadth and the length, and making sure that the tip of the pen was thick enough, I held my breath sub-consciously and drew the circle, staring at the circle already drawn and my own circle through peripheral vision.

  “…Two…One.”

At once, both the circles drawn disappeared from view, and a straight line with arrowheads appeared on the white background.

 “Please draw a line identical to the line you see on the screen without the two arrowheads. You are given exactly five seconds.”

  So went on about ten questions, all about drawing different shapes and lines as told, none of them as challenging as I’d thought, and rather mundane.

 “You have completed Stage one of the brain tests. Please wait for your results to be analyzed.”

  A jazz music started to flow out as the screen blackened. I leaned back, rubbing my temples, still doubtful. This series of child-like tests were so important on equipping me with a grand mission of saving ourselves? As much as I was hoping that the malformed clones out there weren’t so fatally dangerous, I knew enough that they were worth more than drawing shapes and lines to train to fight them.