A Possible Continuation to a Theoretical Idea

On one side of the room, the vessel carefully reaches into a potato chip bag and S L O W L Y takes out a chip.

On the other side, another vessel carefully reaches into a Doritos bag and does the same in perfect synchronicity.

They do it simultaneously. Flawlessly. Finally. Both exhale a sigh of relief. This was step one of the experiment, after all. The first question was “can we transmit our processes into another vessel?” And once the answer was confirmed in the affirmative, the second question was “how long until there’s no lag?”. The answer: about 28 days. Damn near a month. Not bad. They could do better with more practice, could do it faster, are very tempted to make another to do it faster. But not yet. Not quite yet. You can’t run before you learn how to walk and before you learn how to walk, you must master crawling.

Now is the time to appreciate the crawl. The first true movements of something no opposition will ever expect.

Both vessels chomp into the varied chip combinations in their assorted mouths. The sour cream and onion in one, the nacho cheese of the other. The Multitudes can taste everything going on in their collective tastebuds, distinctly separate yet filtered into a singular joyous moment. This could work. This could work. Stereo smirks as they do it again. A gentle easing in, a snatching of a chip, and munching. Perfect. Onto the next test.

The main vessel takes out a lighter from her pocket. The other one mimes the action as well, but comes up empty. The main vessel flicks the lighter and hovers a fingertip to the flame. Does it hurt? A stupid question. Of course it does. They ignore that and simply focus on what exactly is going on in the other shell’s cells. The body seems to acknowledge that there is pain and the burning of flesh. It knows where it’s coming from, but doesn’t feel the sensation itself.

The fingertip lingers there.

One minute.

Two minutes.

Five minutes.

Nothing.

Finally, the flame goes out. Both suckle on a burnt/not burnt finger respectfully.

Interesting. So in theory, if one is incapacitated, the other cannot be affected. But we would know. It would give us time to plan. No pun intended…This time.

Perfect. Everything is coming up roses so far. There is still work to do. A reversal of the flame trick just in case, for starters. Yet if they pass that, phase three would have to begin. Phase three is the fun part because passing phase three would ruin a lot of people’s plans…

And this, dear reader, is exactly what we’re betting on.