In the virtual staging area, Neville stared at his mecha's control panel and felt his heart sink as he recalled.
If he used the neural sync interface that he was familiar with, he would be under suspicion since no one should be able to use neural sync solo at this point.
This mecha used standard manual controls. An array of buttons and switches that required actual physical manipulation.
He could almost hear Shelly laughing at him from wherever she was lurking in his system space.
[Host, is there a problem?] Shelly spoke just in time, like an innocent as a fox in a henhouse.
'You know exactly what the problem is,' Neville thought back furiously. 'I can't use neural sync here. I don't know how to use these control panels!'
[Then don't pilot smoothly. Problem solved!]
'That's not—' He cut himself off, aware that his game avatar had been standing motionless for too long. 'Fine. Just... tell me what buttons to press when I said the move. I'm confident with my reaction time.'
