Jack dropped the last back of second-hand clothes on the kitchen table. They had stopped at two second-hand stores after leaving the mall and had managed to find enough clothes for Madison to put together a fat-suit. It, plus the platform shoes they found, would hopefully be a sufficient disguise for Jack when he went to buy the lottery ticket.
"Do you need any help with this?" he asked as he waved his hand at the pile of clothes sitting on the kitchen table.
"No, I think I'm good for now. I'll let you know if I need to try it on."
"Okay, I'll be in my bedroom if you need me. I'm going to do some more linked template tests."
"Okay, have fun."
He turned and walked towards his bedroom. He could tell that the only reason she wasn't complaining about not being involved in the tests was because her parallel self in his soul space could still be involved while her physical self wrangled second-hand clothes.
Entering his bedroom, he sat at his deck and pulled out some notepaper and a pen. He wanted to know when happened if you combined two linked items. Would the exported changes remain separate, or would they combine in the physical world as well?
He templatized one piece of notepaper and the pen, then in his soul space, he enabled Linked Templates for both. When he enabled linked Template for the second item, he felt a mental prompt asking him if he wanted to synchronize the linked items. When he probed the prompt, he learned that doing this would force the two linked items to be treated as a single object for the purposes of update and export. Since this was what he wanted, he synchronized the two linked templates. Then he instantiated each and then drew a quick sketch of Madison, topless. He was no Escher, but he could at least draw a passable pair of tits. Once the sketch was complete, he updated the notepaper and pen templates from instantiations. Then he pushed the template changes out to their physical originals using the linked template ability.
As soon as he triggered the export, the piece of notepaper sitting on his desk changed to show the sketch of Madison. It happened instantly, silently, with no special effects. One moment the paper was blank, the next, the sketch appeared.
Nice! He thought, having hoped this was possible. He still needed to test combining chemicals, but this looked promising. He had some ideas for how this would be useful, but didn't want to get his hopes up just yet.
Next, he deleted the note paper template, and then created a new template using a new blank piece of notepaper. Then he repeated his previous sketch, but instead of exporting both pen and paper, he only exported the paper changes. He wanted to know if it would still export the ink in the sketch.
When he triggered the export, nothing happened. The note paper remained blank. But, when he picked it up to examine it in the light of his desk lamp, he saw faint indentations in the paper that matched the lines he had drawn. The paper changes had been exported, but without the pen ink.
Damn. He'd been thinking about what would happen if he used Linked Self, ate food while in his soul space, then tried to export physical changes. Parallel Self didn't work like Linked Template, so maybe Linked Self was more advanced and he wouldn't have to worry about the conservation of mass and energy. But if it wasn't, then he would have to be careful. The last thing he wanted was to find out firsthand what happened when digested food suddenly diapered from his body.
For his final pen and paper test, he decided to see what happened if he exported both pen and paper but not synchronized. He templatized a new piece of blank note paper, enable Linked Template for both, but chose to not synchronize the two templates. After making his sketch, he was just about to export the two templates when he had a thought.
If he exported just the pen changes, what would happen to the ink that was deposited on the paper? Where would the ink appear? It was possible the ink would appear next to the pen, and not on the paper, so he pulled out several more pieces of notepaper and set them down on his desk in an overlapping grid. Then he set the pen down in the middle. This way, if the ink appeared next to the pen, it would land on the paper instead of his desktop.
First, he exported the paper, and like last time, the paper remained blank. Then he exported the pen. When he did, a faint blur appeared surrounding his pen that quickly transformed into blurred ink links on the pieces of paper he had laid under the pen. The ink had appeared centered on his pen. And, since the pen was about 8 millimeters in diameter, the ink appeared four millimeters above the paper. And when it dropped onto the paper, it dispersed slightly, producing blurred lines of ink on the paper.
Not wanting to risk potential injury testing Linked Self, he activated Jeeves and described the three tests he has just performed.
Then he asked, "Is Linked Self just like Linked template? Or is it more advanced like Parallel Self, able to operate at a higher meta level? for example, if I enable Linked Self, eat food exercise, digest the food, then export changes, what will happen? Do I have to use Linked Template on the food?"
Jeeves replied, "Linked Self provides more options than Linked Template because it allows you to select which physical changes you wish to export. However, if those changes were constructed from matter not present in your body at the time of manifestation, you will not be allowed to export those changes unless you also used linked template on the source material."
"So, if the physical change I want to export depends on food that came from a template, then I would have to use Linked Template on that food, prior to eating it, or I could not export the physical change?"
"Yes, sir, that is correct."
Jack worked through the implications and realized he was going to have to buy an RV. Then he would need to use Linked Template on the RV and any food he intended to eat. This was the only way he could think of that would avoid, digested, but unabsorbed food, from appearing in inconvenient places, like in his refrigerator or on his lap.
"If I place several food items inside a box, can I create a template that includes both the box and the food items inside?" He was thinking of trying to simplify things by just stocking the R.V. with food, thus only needing to have one Linked Template.
"Yes, that is possible."
Jack had been thinking about what he could do with his soul space. Besides being able to get eight hours of sleep in less than one real-time hour, he also thought about being able to exercise or practice martial arts while in his soul space. At the very least, he could complete a two-hour workout in twelve real-time minutes. A real time saver. Though, he'd still have to deal with fatigue and DOMS. But if taking advantage of a full day excursive plus sleep, would require that Linked Self and Parallel Self worked together, otherwise he'd be stuck in zombie mode in the physical world for several hours.
"Jeeves," he asked, "What happens if I try to use Linked Self and Parallel Self at the same time?"
"They are mutually exclusive," came the disappointing reply.
Damn. Oh, well. He could still cram ten hours of sleep into an hour and two hours of exercise into twelve minutes. And that was still an amazing ability.
"Boobs? Seriously?" Madison had come into his bedroom and was standing behind him, looking over his shoulder.
"Sure. Why not?" he said nonchalantly. "I needed to draw something on the paper for my Linked Template tests. The memory was fresh, and I felt like practicing."
"Oh, that makes sense." He could tell that she was pleased it was her tits he had been trying to draw.
"Um, are you done?" she asked. "I need you to try on your fat-suit."
"Okay, go get it and I'll try it on."
She left, then returned a minute later carrying a large bundle of something.
"Here," she said, handing him the bundle.
He took it, then looked at her.
She looked back at him expectantly.
He just stared at her.
"Okay, fine," she said, then tuned and left his bedroom, closing the door behind him.
If he'd let her stay, he was fairly certain she would have tried something. But he had not forgiven her yet, so he didn't want her to get any kind of "rewarding experience," not yet anyway.