Pops pointed out to Vain where to go to get information from M.E.G. "Go there and maybe we will work together when you become an official wanderer! If you need me I'll be at Tom's diner! It's famous so you will know where to find me!"
Saying goodbye to the group who were waiting around for Pops to finish talking with the guards, Vain walked up to the distorted door and took a deep breath. Walking in the world seemed to become dizzy and then straightened out to reveal a group of people who were just walking past.
The group gave him a weird look murmuring while walking past him, the last one who was walking past whispered, "Don't show that dumb look every time you pass the threshold and you might get people to work with you."
Vain decides just to ignore them since it's his first time of course he would look a bit dumb by the strange feeling that he wouldn't have ever experienced unless he came here. Instead, he follows what Pops had told him and the signs that show the way to M.E.G. which are surprisingly many.
At the entrance to a strangely comfortable building, there was a large sign with 'M. E. G.' on the top with a sign with the smaller words, 'Major Explorer Group - Welcome Newcomers' below. There were two guards that had both a sword sheathed at the hip, while on the other hip there was a gun.
Walking up to them, they called out to Vain, "Are you new?"
"Yes"
"Ok so- wait you are new? You seem way too calm to be new. Well, I guess we are going to find out aren't we?" The first guard looked at his friend giving him a type of signal.
The second guard nodded and waved Vain over, "Follow me"
His voice was emotionless, but Vain just needed the information so he just followed him. He was taken to a desk that had a few items, mainly a card and a small pad that looked like it had ink. Vain had seen this card once in a school project. It was similar to what is used for fingerprints by the police.
Guard 2 pointed at the paper and spoke, "We have reason to believe you have lied when you said that you are new, we will simply assume you are telling the truth while running your prints in our database, which even if you are new will not change anything. We are only taking your prints first which in most cases would be the second to last thing we would take. So now place your finger on the ink pad and put your fingerprints in these places." Pointing to a few spaces he continued to explain, "These require your thumb or fat finger, these your pointer finger or index, middle there, ring or rue finger here, and the last finger here."
Vain could only follow and ask Pops later if it is the same for everyone.
After about 20 minutes of making sure his prints were good, he signed his name and got the paper sent off to an attendant who took it somewhere else.
"Alright, we shall now treat you as if you are in fact new. Follow me and tell me about your experience since your arrival, please note that this will be recorded for both information and assurance that you won't be told about unnecessary information that you already know."
The guard took Vain to a room that was small, and he took out a small voice recorder that was in his pocket. "Alright start by telling me which level you arrived on."
Vain was surprised for a moment because he believed that there was only one level that one could arrive at which was his own level. "May I know where else people could have arrived at? O' and I arrived at what you call level 0 wandering until I reached the manilla room."
"You arrived at level 0? You also claim that you went to the manilla room. So tell me on the last page of what you found, what words were left without a drawing beside them?"
Vain thought back to the page that had all the drawings and remembered the few words that stood out as unusual since everything else was informative, but those few words at the back of the page with the drawings, "I turned the page."
The guard, for the first time since arriving, smiled and his cold voice sounded warmer, "Good! At least if you aren't an idiot if you truly are new. Anyway, you have gained the right to have your questions answered so long as it is not a secret and a reference to having a higher chance to gain a higher position in MEG if you so desire.
So to answer your first question, most people land in level 0 and exit by walking long enough they have a small chance to enter level 1, others like you make it to the manilla room. For others, they arrive directly at level 1 just on chance. There have been a few cases of landing at level 2, but most who land there die too quickly, so we don't really know how many truly land there.
Anyway just explain more about how you arrived and what you did before arriving in the manilla room, and then explain your experience with level 1 as well. Ask your questions after explaining everything. Make sure to tell me what was inside your first crate, and in case you want to ask, crates always appear shortly after someone arrives. It also appears to have Almond water every time for its first crate."
Vain was slightly stunned at the man who appeared almost like an emotionless robot become talkative and friendly in just a few seconds. "Umm... well alright it all started like this..."
After about thirty minutes of explaining how his experience was in the two levels, leaving out the conversations with Pops' group, and items that he couldn't remember to be in the crates, like almost everything he didn't pick up.
It was then that the female attendant arrived and handed the guard a piece of paper to which he read for a minute before he laughed loudly reminding Vain of how Pops acted. "Looks like you aren't a liar at least! Good! Good! Continue! Continue!"
"Alright well, that is basically it. So can you now answer some of my questions?"
"Well you appear to have a pretty good understanding of everything, the only thing you appear to be missing is just a small test of how good your skills are with both of your weapons, and you use the most common language so there is nothing really stopping you. Ask away, the last test can wait."
"Alright first is if we all come from different worlds, so why haven't you asked about my old world?"
"In the past 500 years, there is no record of someone leaving. At the beginning of this organization, we asked for about a year to find out about the person's world. In the end, it was a lot of information, so it was just taking up space in the database which was useless here. So in short your world doesn't matter. All that matters now is this place named the backrooms."
Vain nodded in understanding, "Next why is there a drawing of the entities on the paper instead of a picture if we have the technology? I understand taking a picture of something so violent would be difficult, but if you take a picture of the dead body of the hound what difference would that make?"
"Hah- Most don't think about that, but if you have to know is that we realized that most people could have a greater imagination of such terrifying creature, but if they saw only a living picture of one they are more likely to freeze on the first encounter. A picture can only do so much. After all, we could see a war video, but experiencing war is a far different thing."
"I think that the only other question I can think of now is ask how many people are here, how many have been transferred and how many have been born?"
"O' planning to start a family are we? We have an estimation of having 500 million transferred since transfer started, and of those who are transferred we estimate half die in the first few days of coming here. Only a quarter of those even decides to settle down to have children, with a total death rate of about 70% for those who explore places they shouldn't. 62.5 million ever settle down and decide to have a family even if it is only one child. 37.5 million live their lives in possible relationships, but don't want their children to live in such a place. On average people have two children, so about 62.5 million children are born, of which half die before the age of twenty. Those are the numbers of the backrooms population."