Thorn asked. Cooper flipped through the papers in front of him. “Fifteen,” he replied. “Decent figures.” “Acceptable numbers,” Cooper agreed, “considering the complexity of the exercise. The first three times it was a total wipe, killing all forty people.” “Avatars,” Thorn corrected him. “When you call them people it makes their deaths sound more… tragic.” “Yeah, well they are tragic, Doc,” Cooper said. “I’ve died twice in here, and although I haven’t experienced the real thing, Sim death is extremely painful and traumatic.” “Yes, it is,” Thorn said. Cooper looked at him seriously for a moment. “Why?” he asked. “Couldn’t you have made the process a bit less… realistic?” Thorn grinned. “Everything has a price, Cooper. If it cost you nothing to be ejected from the Sim, then individuals would play an entirely different way, wouldn’t they?”
