As he sat there trying to calm down, he realized he might have a problem. Was he now going to have flashbacks anytime he tried to enter or leave a gas station convenience store? To give themselves more real-world time, he had stopped continuous memory sync so he could run the simulation at the maximum 10:1 time ratio. So, he could just disable parallel self, thus deleting himself. But then his physical self would be left wondering what happened. He could leave a note on his laptop for his next soul space manifestation, but that felt unsatisfactory. He really didn't like the way he had handled that situation.
Instead of deleting himself, and thus the memory, he could try again. He could go through it without getting shot. Maybe, if he did that, he could learn to handle that type of situation without getting spastic. He got up and put his hand on the simulation sphere. Then he rolled it back to when he had just exited the convenience store and restarted the simulation.
He found himself back in front of the convenience store, serenaded by the sound of growling cruisers. He steeled himself and pre-planed his actions. Again, the cops roared into the parking lot, jumped out of their cruisers, pulled their weapons and began their cacophony of conflicting commands.
With violently trembling hands, he slowly raised his hands over his head, and waved the lottery ticket in his right hand back and forth, then yelled, 'I'M UNARMED. IT'S JUST A LOTTER TICKET."
The confusing mix of commands changed to be dominated by, "DROP THE WEAPON!".
"IT'S JUST A LOTTER TICKET!" he yelled back.
"DROP THE WEAPON!" many angry, stressed voices replied.
Suddenly overcome with anger and, as if getting the ticket a few feet closer to them would somehow make it easier for them to see it, he lowered his arm and shook the ticket side to side, screaming, "IT'S JUST A FUCKING LOTTERY-"
A bright flash of light, and he found himself back in his soul space. Seriously! Did his brain just stop working or something? What was that? Why didn't he just drop the fucking ticket? It wasn't like it would break or something. It was like every stressful social situation he'd ever been in, but a million times worse. Only after the whole thing was over would he be able to think of the right response.
Body still shaking from adrenaline, he put his hand on the simulation sphere, rolled it back, and restarted it again.
Back in front of the convenience store, still trembling violently, he focused on what he was going to do. Raise his hands, drop the ticket, keep his mouth shut.
The cops arrived, deployed, and began their verbal barrage. He raised his hands over his head and forced himself to open his right hand. As the ticket fluttered to the ground, the barrage of commands continued, still no consensus on what they wanted him to do.
Well, he thought, at least they didn't shoot me, yet.
After what felt like forever, but was probably less than a minute, the litany of commands died down and one cop stepped forward and commanded, "On the ground, hands on your head!"
Jack slowly got down on his knees, then lay down and put his hands behind his head. The grit of the pavement dug into his left cheek and the smell of dust and oil filled his nose. Then someone's knee dropped like a boulder right between his shoulder blades, knocking the breath out of him. His left cheek scrapped against the pavement while a cop roughly cuffed his hands behind his back. He felt hands grabbing him all over pawing at his ass, digging into his upper outer thighs, grabbing between his legs, roughly sliding down his sides, then he felt himself being rolled over to rest painfully on his hands, squashed between his lower back and the ground.
An angry face loomed over him. "Do you have any weapons? Needles?"
Jack just stared at the man. Why would he have any needles?
"Answer the question!" the man yelled.
Jack shook his head, unable to speak.
The cop stood up and stepped back, then another cop leaned over him and asked angrily, "What are you doing here?"
Something snapped inside him. He drew a deep breath and screamed, "BUYING A GOD DAMN LOTTERY TICKET!" Then not quite yelling, but still very loud, "It's on the ground right over there", then nodded his head toward where he thought the ticket had landed.
At that moment, he heard the convenience store door open, and all the cops' heads snapped around to look in that direction. One cop said, "Sir, you need to get back inside."
"He's not the one," the cashier said. "That's not the robber."
While Jack was sort of curious to learn what would happen next, he figured it would mostly be a lot of annoying questions before they release him, and he didn't see the benefit of going through that personally. So, he exited the simulation.
Back in his soul space, spent a few minutes just deep breathing, waiting for his hands to stop shaking. Lookin at his interface and checked the elapsed time clocks. He had some time, so he decided to repeat the experience a few more times. He wanted to get through the whole thing calmly, without trembling. So, he rolled back the simulation and re-entered. He lost count of how many times he repeated the experience, but eventually, he could face the insane cop posse calmly, no trembling, no racing heart.
He only had enough EP to run the simulation for two hours, and since ticket sales closed an hour before the drawing, he had less than an hour to find a convenience store that wasn't swarming with cops, and didn't have a chatty, or overly suspicious, clerk. So, he rolled back the simulation to the beginning and re-entered. Then he picked a different convenience store to try.