The Outsider (Outsider #1) ✔️

Chapter 34 : VR Improvement

After the Military Exercise, Dusk felt her trainers had started to have expectations of performance from her. It was as if, earlier they had no hopes from her, because she was a civilian. But since she finished the exercise and shot a few opponents, worked out the strategy to down the Duo-pax, suddenly they considered her as "Military Material."

Her training had intensified further. By the time she reached back to the Academic Cluster, she was ready to pass out. Almost all week, she was drinking extra helpings of the orange drink to get back her energies so she could sit through class.

Tech classes were going on as planned. She was learning pretty fast. Even though she was from a disadvantaged background, she was not behind others. In fact, in some of the classes, she was ahead of the others.

On 6th day of that week, she got called to Professor Elton's office. She was naturally worried as to why he would send for her.

"Come in Dusk," he greeted her. "I was talking to Princess Rosemary Grant. She told me of the project you have proposed for her company. I am proud of you. We need more students like you in our country."

"I didn't propose it, she did. I don't know why she is giving me the credit." Dusk muttered.

Professor Elton didn't understand what she said or chose to ignore it. He continued, "She was also explaining how the scope of the project has changed and therefore the actual work you need to do is delayed. Therefore, she asked me to purchase the 3-D version of the book that Cecil is using and give it to you. We cannot wait for you to make your own 3-D rendering. She feels that your excellence in my subject is critical to your work and I fully agree. We cannot have your course scores suffer for lack of tools. I told her I expect you to come among the first 3 in the class this year."

Dusk groaned. First the Military expects her to excel just because she shot a few people. Now everyone is going to expect her to top the class in hardware. She found the subject fascinating, but there were better students in class.

"You see, the projects that you are going to do needs a very strong base in Hardware. People make the mistake of seeing VR as a pure software code. But a software code needs to be optimised. How will that be without knowing what the hardware can do, without knowing the restrictions and how to circumvent them? Thus, you need to be good in my class. Come... let us install the software for you... And incidentally, if you are stuck in our project any time, come to me, I will help you out."

They spent the next 15 minutes acquiring the image set and then setting up the same in the university computers so that Dusk could access it. Then Elton spent the next half hour taking her through the basic chip design parameters, so she knew all that she needed.

"I have been asked by Minister Grant to fly down to Regis over the week-end to testify before the committee on how lack of 3-D rendering tools is affecting the progress of the students and the future of Tech."

Dusk was sure that it was the act of Rosemary that resulted in this strange order. Dusk realised that the girl was always up to something, making a mash of things, creating god knows what ideas out of nowhere...

Rest of the day went in all the classes that were packed into her schedule. In the evening, she went to the Military Computer Lab after her Gym session. She found her friends Rowdon and Mellow were still there, working with some others. They greeted her enthusiastically, as did the Military Team.

"Come, come! What perfect time. We are introducing new vehicles into the Program. It has taken us so long to get full depth scans and schematics of battle tanks, armoured cars and mobile howitzers. Those are such fascinating things. I went and saw it physically. We managed to get a basic rendering of a fighter jet today! We are trying to integrate them with HRT."